5 ms·

38% of the electricity globally is coal. We’ve got quite a long way to go.

whimsicalism 5y ago
Because of sunk costs (not in the fallacy sense). Doesn't mean it makes sense to build a new one. Agreed we have a long way to go :)
- melling 5y ago
  We are building lots of coal plants globally. https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-goes-on-a-coal-spree https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissi...
  - jes5199 5y ago
    I don’t understand why China is building so many coal plants - for several years it’s been reported that they run them way, way under capacity.
    - jdhn 5y ago
      Jobs program, perhaps?
      - philipkglass 5y ago
        I think that's one big reason. It's easier to build unneeded power plants than to figure out how to retrain people and move them into new jobs. It's something that other countries struggle with too. Fortunately (?) in the US there's less pressure to keep people employed with makework so unneeded coal plants shut down and former employees sink or swim on their own.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      I'd guess for baseload?
    - azernik 5y ago
      It's because the optimistic narrative about the reasons for coal's decline are misleading. Some of the competition is renewables. A lot of it is natural gas. Countries are usually building a mix of fossil fuel and renewable generation. If you're a great power, have little natural gas or oil accessible by land (either in your own territory or through friendly neighbors), and have peer rivals with enormous navies, coal becomes very attractive as the fossil part of your energy mix for security reasons.
    - foota 5y ago
      Energy Guarantees? Maybe they want to protect their baseload from a lack of natural gas.
newsclues 5y ago
Don’t we use coal for two main things? Energy and steel? Do we have a replacement for coal in the steel industry?
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  I don’t know if he is right, but Bill Gates has been saying that we should basically accept that certain kinds of steel will never be made with a net zero process. We need steel though, so we will have to offset those carbon costs.
- pengaru 5y ago
  Cement production is another big one.
  - tuatoru 5y ago
    It's relatively easy to capture the carbon dioxide produced by cement production, though. Relatively few, relatively large, point sources where the CO2 is in pipes already. Low-carbon alternatives to Portland cement are being researched and piloted, too. Just a matter of money and the learning curve, the same as with electric power production.
  - BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
    I wish we could engineer a way to use all the heat from nuclear reactors for this purpose.
    - jjk166 5y ago
      Unfortunately about 60% of CO2 emissions from cement production is simply the CO2 released from the conversion of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) to lime (CaO). You need carbon capture no matter what, so capturing emissions from the heat production as well is likely far more economical than modifying a plant to use a totally different process heat source. Further, nuclear is simply not a good option for this application. Cement kilns need to reach 1,450 C, while reactor temperatures are limited to about 950 C.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
You are correct, there's just a lot of plants and backwards thinking and political inertia, but fundamentally all that coal is being used at an economic loss. It is cheaper to replace an existing coal plant with new construction alternative energy even including the new procurement costs. That's without subsidies by the way. Oil will begin to be subject to this. When BEVs eat into oil demand sufficiently, financing and banking will evaporate for new projects, and the industry will undergo a reverse economies of scale in extraction, refining and shipping. Oil is already more vulnerable than coal to this, since the cost of extraction for oil is high compared to the old days of "stick pipe a couple feet in the ground and light sweet crude gushes out". The oil is coming out of deep water, fracking, tar sands, etc which all has a price floor which, if oil goes under that long enough (since banks won't float loans on this sector much longer), the entire extraction operation shutters, often permanently. Although we should absolutely be accelerating the rate of fossil fuel -> alternatives conversion with government subsidies.

Because of sunk costs (not in the fallacy sense). Doesn't mean it makes sense to build a new one. Agreed we have a long way to go :)

melling 5y ago
We are building lots of coal plants globally. https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissions-china-goes-on-a-coal-spree https://e360.yale.edu/features/despite-pledges-to-cut-emissi...
- jes5199 5y ago
  I don’t understand why China is building so many coal plants - for several years it’s been reported that they run them way, way under capacity.
  - jdhn 5y ago
    Jobs program, perhaps?
    - philipkglass 5y ago
      I think that's one big reason. It's easier to build unneeded power plants than to figure out how to retrain people and move them into new jobs. It's something that other countries struggle with too. Fortunately (?) in the US there's less pressure to keep people employed with makework so unneeded coal plants shut down and former employees sink or swim on their own.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    I'd guess for baseload?
  - azernik 5y ago
    It's because the optimistic narrative about the reasons for coal's decline are misleading. Some of the competition is renewables. A lot of it is natural gas. Countries are usually building a mix of fossil fuel and renewable generation. If you're a great power, have little natural gas or oil accessible by land (either in your own territory or through friendly neighbors), and have peer rivals with enormous navies, coal becomes very attractive as the fossil part of your energy mix for security reasons.
  - foota 5y ago
    Energy Guarantees? Maybe they want to protect their baseload from a lack of natural gas.

newsclues 5y ago

Don’t we use coal for two main things? Energy and steel? Do we have a replacement for coal in the steel industry?

germinalphrase 5y ago
I don’t know if he is right, but Bill Gates has been saying that we should basically accept that certain kinds of steel will never be made with a net zero process. We need steel though, so we will have to offset those carbon costs.
pengaru 5y ago
Cement production is another big one.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  It's relatively easy to capture the carbon dioxide produced by cement production, though. Relatively few, relatively large, point sources where the CO2 is in pipes already. Low-carbon alternatives to Portland cement are being researched and piloted, too. Just a matter of money and the learning curve, the same as with electric power production.
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y ago
  I wish we could engineer a way to use all the heat from nuclear reactors for this purpose.
  - jjk166 5y ago
    Unfortunately about 60% of CO2 emissions from cement production is simply the CO2 released from the conversion of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) to lime (CaO). You need carbon capture no matter what, so capturing emissions from the heat production as well is likely far more economical than modifying a plant to use a totally different process heat source. Further, nuclear is simply not a good option for this application. Cement kilns need to reach 1,450 C, while reactor temperatures are limited to about 950 C.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

You are correct, there's just a lot of plants and backwards thinking and political inertia, but fundamentally all that coal is being used at an economic loss. It is cheaper to replace an existing coal plant with new construction alternative energy even including the new procurement costs. That's without subsidies by the way. Oil will begin to be subject to this. When BEVs eat into oil demand sufficiently, financing and banking will evaporate for new projects, and the industry will undergo a reverse economies of scale in extraction, refining and shipping. Oil is already more vulnerable than coal to this, since the cost of extraction for oil is high compared to the old days of "stick pipe a couple feet in the ground and light sweet crude gushes out". The oil is coming out of deep water, fracking, tar sands, etc which all has a price floor which, if oil goes under that long enough (since banks won't float loans on this sector much longer), the entire extraction operation shutters, often permanently. Although we should absolutely be accelerating the rate of fossil fuel -> alternatives conversion with government subsidies.