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I viscerally hate this title, because the top 5% of power plants probably also account for >50% of electrical generation, and the entire exercise is dominated b

I viscerally hate this title, because the top 5% of power plants probably also account for >50% of electrical generation, and the entire exercise is dominated by how small of a plant counts for the statistics. If all the portable generators sitting unused in people's garages counted, I bet that 0.1% of "power plants" would be responsible for 99% of emissions, which would make a great headline but still wouldn't tell you anything meaningful about the world. I would love to know about how efficiency varies with plant size (are bigger plants more efficient?) but this study is _mostly_ just stating that bigger power plants produce more emissions in absolute terms, which should be obvious to pretty much anyone.

xcskier56 5y ago
Please read the article. Near the end they delve into details that may interest you. Quote: “If the top 5 percent of polluters lowered their emission intensity to the global average for fossil fuel plants, the world’s CO2 emissions could drop by 25 percent, the study found.” So while these plants emit a lot due to their size, they are also much worse (28%-75% per the article) on a co2/kw generated basis as well. (At least according to this article)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- credit_guy 5y ago
  > the world’s CO2 emissions could drop by 25 percent That's impossible, as the total power-generation related emissions count for less than 25 % of the total emissions [1]. [1] https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-05/global_emissions_sector_2015.png https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-05/global_emiss...
  - jlengrand 5y ago
    That is possible, because the article uses 'global emissions' to talk about 'global emissions from electricity generation'. It's repeated several times through the article, though it may not be super clear. I think they just wanted to avoid repeating themselves all the time
zamalek 5y ago
You're absolutely right, and they probably are a significant proportion of generation. However, a key part of optimization is identifying low hanging fruit - replacing (or augmenting) these plants could help reach climate change goals in really short order. Fission is known for being slower to deploy than other green energy sources, but if we could eradicate this carbon source in 5-8 years, then... damn... that's really impressive. Sadly, I doubt that will happen.
- dgfitz 5y ago
  Taken with a grain of salt, this seems to be most of the low-hanging fruit: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3140808/chinese-cities-among-25-big-producers-greenhouse-gases-study https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3140808/chin...
  - prawn 5y ago
    Can you clarify what you are indicating are the low-hanging fruit? Major cities around the world? Or particularly, Chinese cities?
  - komali2 5y ago
    Doing what, though? Because: > “Another major reason is that many high-carbon production chains were outsourced from developed nations to Chinese cities, thus increasing the export-related emissions of the latter.” The solution possibly is something more radical than what you're thinking, because the PRC forcing emissions reductions and driving up manufacturing costs could just cause these industries to jump to the next exploitable developing region. I'm thinking more along the lines of strategies to reduce consumerism in general, or match global product prices to their "true" cost considering environmental damage - ideas most pro-infinite-growth capitalists find untenable.
- amluto 5y ago
  If some country decided that the operation of these power plants was a sufficiently offensive attack, they could bomb them. This would probably be a disaster for quite a few reasons, but it would strongly discourage the plants from operating. A gentler approach would be a well designed cross border emission tax. This could make operation of these plants economically impractical.
nerderloo 5y ago
The metric used was emission intensities: emissions per unit of generated electricity "If coal and oil plants in the top 5 percent of polluters switched to natural gas, global emissions would drop by 29.5 percent." So, if top 5% just switch to natural gas of the same electrical generation capacity, the global emission still drops by ~30%.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- runnerup 5y ago
  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/... Reading the actual study, it does seem their rank for "top 5% polluting" is total emissions. They do calculate relative intensity, as you say. But the ranking for plants with greatest emissions was done without regard for capacity. Also, the "73%" reduction would only be for GHG's from electricity-generation, not all sources. I mean, obviously coal is a pretty awful fuel from an environmental standpoint and it's good to quantify these things. Just reading these are hard when the authors didn't necessarily make 100% clear the last few tables.
  - nerderloo 5y ago
    Ah, you're right. Both top 5% and top 10 plants are selected based on absolute emission amount.
floatingatoll 5y ago
The Accepted Manuscript's original title is: > Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world’s hyper-polluting power plants https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/...
discordance 5y ago
Your assumption is wrong. Reading the linked paper [0], it measures the CO2 output vs energy output (kg CO2 per MWh), and these are indeed hyper emitting plants compared to other similar sized plants. The paper also discusses the capacity of these plants, which is not even close to > 50% of the total electricity generation, as you suggest. 0: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/...
mikedilger 5y ago
Whenever I hear that China is the biggest polluter, I think that all they need to do is divide themselves into twelve countries, then none of them would be the biggest polluters anymore.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- helloguillecl 5y ago
  I think that we should be looking at emissions per capita more, but it is still useful to know what countries could have the bigger impact.
  - partiallypro 5y ago
    Per capita stats are kind of misleading though because China is still an impoverished nation in many parts that can't emit much but still have a massive population. If you just focused on the per capita of the cities (actual developed areas) vs per capita of cities in the US, Europe etc, the story would flip on its head and revert back to it simply being the biggest polluter.
- thg 5y ago
  Or they can just stop producing all that junk for the western world.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fy20 5y ago
The Bełchatów Power Station in Poland has a capacity of 5102 MW, that doesn't even put it in the top 20 largest power stations worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations
- knownjorbist 5y ago
  The top 20 list here is almost entirely renewables, among coal plants specifically it is the 5th largest in the world.
dang 5y ago
A reader emailed to suggest a better title, and we've used their suggestion above.
WhompingWindows 5y ago
Where are you coming up with this number: >50% of electrical generation of the entire world from top 5% of power plants -- ?? I went to the link and to the linked article, I didn't see anything about >50% generation, or even what is the actual Wh produced by these plants? Kind of insane the article and the linked discussion don't include HOW MUCH POWER these places make. I've been reading through those two and I can't find that simple fact.

xcskier56 5y ago

Please read the article. Near the end they delve into details that may interest you. Quote: “If the top 5 percent of polluters lowered their emission intensity to the global average for fossil fuel plants, the world’s CO2 emissions could drop by 25 percent, the study found.” So while these plants emit a lot due to their size, they are also much worse (28%-75% per the article) on a co2/kw generated basis as well. (At least according to this article)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
credit_guy 5y ago
> the world’s CO2 emissions could drop by 25 percent That's impossible, as the total power-generation related emissions count for less than 25 % of the total emissions [1]. [1] https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-05/global_emissions_sector_2015.png https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-05/global_emiss...
- jlengrand 5y ago
  That is possible, because the article uses 'global emissions' to talk about 'global emissions from electricity generation'. It's repeated several times through the article, though it may not be super clear. I think they just wanted to avoid repeating themselves all the time

zamalek 5y ago

You're absolutely right, and they probably are a significant proportion of generation. However, a key part of optimization is identifying low hanging fruit - replacing (or augmenting) these plants could help reach climate change goals in really short order. Fission is known for being slower to deploy than other green energy sources, but if we could eradicate this carbon source in 5-8 years, then... damn... that's really impressive. Sadly, I doubt that will happen.

dgfitz 5y ago
Taken with a grain of salt, this seems to be most of the low-hanging fruit: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3140808/chinese-cities-among-25-big-producers-greenhouse-gases-study https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3140808/chin...
- prawn 5y ago
  Can you clarify what you are indicating are the low-hanging fruit? Major cities around the world? Or particularly, Chinese cities?
- komali2 5y ago
  Doing what, though? Because: > “Another major reason is that many high-carbon production chains were outsourced from developed nations to Chinese cities, thus increasing the export-related emissions of the latter.” The solution possibly is something more radical than what you're thinking, because the PRC forcing emissions reductions and driving up manufacturing costs could just cause these industries to jump to the next exploitable developing region. I'm thinking more along the lines of strategies to reduce consumerism in general, or match global product prices to their "true" cost considering environmental damage - ideas most pro-infinite-growth capitalists find untenable.
amluto 5y ago
If some country decided that the operation of these power plants was a sufficiently offensive attack, they could bomb them. This would probably be a disaster for quite a few reasons, but it would strongly discourage the plants from operating. A gentler approach would be a well designed cross border emission tax. This could make operation of these plants economically impractical.

nerderloo 5y ago

The metric used was emission intensities: emissions per unit of generated electricity "If coal and oil plants in the top 5 percent of polluters switched to natural gas, global emissions would drop by 29.5 percent." So, if top 5% just switch to natural gas of the same electrical generation capacity, the global emission still drops by ~30%.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
runnerup 5y ago
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/... Reading the actual study, it does seem their rank for "top 5% polluting" is total emissions. They do calculate relative intensity, as you say. But the ranking for plants with greatest emissions was done without regard for capacity. Also, the "73%" reduction would only be for GHG's from electricity-generation, not all sources. I mean, obviously coal is a pretty awful fuel from an environmental standpoint and it's good to quantify these things. Just reading these are hard when the authors didn't necessarily make 100% clear the last few tables.
- nerderloo 5y ago
  Ah, you're right. Both top 5% and top 10 plants are selected based on absolute emission amount.

floatingatoll 5y ago

The Accepted Manuscript's original title is: > Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world’s hyper-polluting power plants https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/...

discordance 5y ago

Your assumption is wrong. Reading the linked paper [0], it measures the CO2 output vs energy output (kg CO2 per MWh), and these are indeed hyper emitting plants compared to other similar sized plants. The paper also discusses the capacity of these plants, which is not even close to > 50% of the total electricity generation, as you suggest. 0: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/pdf https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1/...

mikedilger 5y ago

Whenever I hear that China is the biggest polluter, I think that all they need to do is divide themselves into twelve countries, then none of them would be the biggest polluters anymore.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
helloguillecl 5y ago
I think that we should be looking at emissions per capita more, but it is still useful to know what countries could have the bigger impact.
- partiallypro 5y ago
  Per capita stats are kind of misleading though because China is still an impoverished nation in many parts that can't emit much but still have a massive population. If you just focused on the per capita of the cities (actual developed areas) vs per capita of cities in the US, Europe etc, the story would flip on its head and revert back to it simply being the biggest polluter.
thg 5y ago
Or they can just stop producing all that junk for the western world.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

fy20 5y ago

The Bełchatów Power Station in Poland has a capacity of 5102 MW, that doesn't even put it in the top 20 largest power stations worldwide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations

knownjorbist 5y ago
The top 20 list here is almost entirely renewables, among coal plants specifically it is the 5th largest in the world.

dang 5y ago

A reader emailed to suggest a better title, and we've used their suggestion above.

WhompingWindows 5y ago

Where are you coming up with this number: >50% of electrical generation of the entire world from top 5% of power plants -- ?? I went to the link and to the linked article, I didn't see anything about >50% generation, or even what is the actual Wh produced by these plants? Kind of insane the article and the linked discussion don't include HOW MUCH POWER these places make. I've been reading through those two and I can't find that simple fact.