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If it’s cheaper than coal then why are we still building so many coal power plants? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/26/too-many-new-coal-fired

If it’s cheaper than coal then why are we still building so many coal power plants? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/26/too-many-new-coal-fired-plants-planned-for-15c-climate-goal-report-concludes https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/26/too-many... Coal is at record levels. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/wireStory/report-worlds-coal-creeps-new-high-2022-95419546 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/wireStory/report-worlds-... Removing coal power plants would have made a noticeable difference.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
We're adding a lot more renewable than anything else. 80% of power plant capacity added in 2020 was renewable. https://www.irena.org/news/pressreleases/2021/Apr/World-Adds-Record-New-Renewable-Energy-Capacity-in-2020 https://www.irena.org/news/pressreleases/2021/Apr/World-Adds...
- melling 4y ago
  if we only have 8500 coal power plants globally and this is the single largest source of emissions, shouldn’t we be trying to eliminate 20% of global emissions? Furthermore, if renewables are cheaper shouldn’t we immediately stop adding to the coal problem? We need to replace a billion gasoline powered cars, etc. Coal power generation seems like an easy thing to do.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Electric cars are betweeb 2x and 4x more efficient than gasoline powered cars. Take a look at the MPGe. https://insideevs.com/news/597460/tesla-efficiency-depends-on-driver/ https://insideevs.com/news/597460/tesla-efficiency-depends-o... Of course that varies with temperature and driving style. My question is- What is better for the environment, A gas powered car or an electric car where the electricity comes exclusively from coal? Short and long term.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      > What is better for the environment, A gas powered car or an electric car where the electricity comes exclusively from coal? Rhetorical question, I assume. A coal powered EV is still something like 15-20% less polluting than a gas powered car. And the EV gets instantly more efficient when the coal plant inevitably gets replaced with something cleaner.
- evilos 4y ago
  Sounds great until you remember you're not get even half of that nameplate capacity. Capacity factors of solar/wind is between 10% and 30%. Offshore wind can be as high as 45% but your link says it's only 5% of wind capacity (in 2020). Intermittents like solar/wind aren't suitable for grids without a backing firm energy source. Today that is fossil fuels. We don't have a proven viable replacement right now. Most people think that we'll use batteries instead but that's a pipe dream with today's battery tech. We literally don't have enough minerals. See this report: https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf Lots of people are trying to address this storage problem but there's nothing that is proven and manufacturable at scale today.
  - fulafel 4y ago
    Lithium batteries (as focused by the paper) are attractive for mobile applications, for grid storage the energy density is not very important and li-ion batteries have disadvantages like going up in flames frequently. There are lots of overlapping options for running the grid with renewables from other battery chemistries to hydrogen, pumped hydro storage, long distance hvdc, hourly pricing to cut demand peaks, etc.
    - evilos 4y ago
      Yes there are many competing battery technologies in the works right now and I sincerely hope that one of them turns out to be manufacturable/scalable. Or any kind of energy storage becomes cheap at Terra-watt hour capacities. But right now, it's just a bunch of 'maybes'. The fact that we don't have a solid plan RIGHT NOW for something so important is alarming. Everyone is just hoping it will work out. Maybe we'll find a good cheap battery. Maybe we can unify our grid and build thousands of miles of HVDC interconnects. Maybe we can find more pumped hydro sites. In the absence of a buildable storage solution for renewables today, we should be building the only other scalable clean energy technology we have: Nuclear energy. No energy storage. No brand new grid. No massive expansion in mining. Thankfully, more people are coming around to this. No it won't cover 100% of our energy. But it is an incredibly underutilized tool. We should at a minimum, replace all coal power plants with nuclear.
Aunche 4y ago
The expensive part of coal power is the coal itself. The upfront costs for the power plant are quite low. This is the opposite of solar. It has an very high upfront cost, but for the next couple decades, you only need to pay a little for maintenance, so the amortized costs are cheaper. However, poorer areas of China can't afford this large upfront cost, but they still have a lot of demand for energy, so they build new coal plants.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  Also this is always how transitions look. Incandescent bulbs were still sold next to LEDs, CRTs were still manufactured during the LCD transition, platter drives are still for sale during the SSD revolution, people still buy gas cars. There is a time before commodity prices are hit at scale but when it happens, the price floor of the new technology will be below the price floor of the old technology (for instance the cost of a big screen TV) and that's when the old technology finally exits. Solar still has a long way to fall. We're in a transition and they always look like this.
- FooBarWidget 4y ago
  China doesn't build coal plants because areas cannot afford nuclear. They do so because need they need stop gap solutions. Their new coal plants use supercritical CO2, and phase out older, less efficient and more polluting coal plants. Check out this thread by Chinese energy sector consultant David Fishman which states that the new Chinese plants are amongst the most efficient in the world: https://twitter.com/pretentiouswhat/status/1600425624291905538 https://twitter.com/pretentiouswhat/status/16004256242919055... He explains that these more efficient coal plants are not only motivated by climate targets, but also by market prices. Even these new plants aren't going to be around forever. They're going to be phased out eventually as China moves towards their 2060 net zero goal.
ljf 4y ago
Coal plants are also digging coal to directly use in steal processing.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

We're adding a lot more renewable than anything else. 80% of power plant capacity added in 2020 was renewable. https://www.irena.org/news/pressreleases/2021/Apr/World-Adds-Record-New-Renewable-Energy-Capacity-in-2020 https://www.irena.org/news/pressreleases/2021/Apr/World-Adds...

melling 4y ago
if we only have 8500 coal power plants globally and this is the single largest source of emissions, shouldn’t we be trying to eliminate 20% of global emissions? Furthermore, if renewables are cheaper shouldn’t we immediately stop adding to the coal problem? We need to replace a billion gasoline powered cars, etc. Coal power generation seems like an easy thing to do.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Electric cars are betweeb 2x and 4x more efficient than gasoline powered cars. Take a look at the MPGe. https://insideevs.com/news/597460/tesla-efficiency-depends-on-driver/ https://insideevs.com/news/597460/tesla-efficiency-depends-o... Of course that varies with temperature and driving style. My question is- What is better for the environment, A gas powered car or an electric car where the electricity comes exclusively from coal? Short and long term.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > What is better for the environment, A gas powered car or an electric car where the electricity comes exclusively from coal? Rhetorical question, I assume. A coal powered EV is still something like 15-20% less polluting than a gas powered car. And the EV gets instantly more efficient when the coal plant inevitably gets replaced with something cleaner.
evilos 4y ago
Sounds great until you remember you're not get even half of that nameplate capacity. Capacity factors of solar/wind is between 10% and 30%. Offshore wind can be as high as 45% but your link says it's only 5% of wind capacity (in 2020). Intermittents like solar/wind aren't suitable for grids without a backing firm energy source. Today that is fossil fuels. We don't have a proven viable replacement right now. Most people think that we'll use batteries instead but that's a pipe dream with today's battery tech. We literally don't have enough minerals. See this report: https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/42_2021.pdf Lots of people are trying to address this storage problem but there's nothing that is proven and manufacturable at scale today.
- fulafel 4y ago
  Lithium batteries (as focused by the paper) are attractive for mobile applications, for grid storage the energy density is not very important and li-ion batteries have disadvantages like going up in flames frequently. There are lots of overlapping options for running the grid with renewables from other battery chemistries to hydrogen, pumped hydro storage, long distance hvdc, hourly pricing to cut demand peaks, etc.
  - evilos 4y ago
    Yes there are many competing battery technologies in the works right now and I sincerely hope that one of them turns out to be manufacturable/scalable. Or any kind of energy storage becomes cheap at Terra-watt hour capacities. But right now, it's just a bunch of 'maybes'. The fact that we don't have a solid plan RIGHT NOW for something so important is alarming. Everyone is just hoping it will work out. Maybe we'll find a good cheap battery. Maybe we can unify our grid and build thousands of miles of HVDC interconnects. Maybe we can find more pumped hydro sites. In the absence of a buildable storage solution for renewables today, we should be building the only other scalable clean energy technology we have: Nuclear energy. No energy storage. No brand new grid. No massive expansion in mining. Thankfully, more people are coming around to this. No it won't cover 100% of our energy. But it is an incredibly underutilized tool. We should at a minimum, replace all coal power plants with nuclear.

Aunche 4y ago

The expensive part of coal power is the coal itself. The upfront costs for the power plant are quite low. This is the opposite of solar. It has an very high upfront cost, but for the next couple decades, you only need to pay a little for maintenance, so the amortized costs are cheaper. However, poorer areas of China can't afford this large upfront cost, but they still have a lot of demand for energy, so they build new coal plants.

kristopolous 4y ago
Also this is always how transitions look. Incandescent bulbs were still sold next to LEDs, CRTs were still manufactured during the LCD transition, platter drives are still for sale during the SSD revolution, people still buy gas cars. There is a time before commodity prices are hit at scale but when it happens, the price floor of the new technology will be below the price floor of the old technology (for instance the cost of a big screen TV) and that's when the old technology finally exits. Solar still has a long way to fall. We're in a transition and they always look like this.
FooBarWidget 4y ago
China doesn't build coal plants because areas cannot afford nuclear. They do so because need they need stop gap solutions. Their new coal plants use supercritical CO2, and phase out older, less efficient and more polluting coal plants. Check out this thread by Chinese energy sector consultant David Fishman which states that the new Chinese plants are amongst the most efficient in the world: https://twitter.com/pretentiouswhat/status/1600425624291905538 https://twitter.com/pretentiouswhat/status/16004256242919055... He explains that these more efficient coal plants are not only motivated by climate targets, but also by market prices. Even these new plants aren't going to be around forever. They're going to be phased out eventually as China moves towards their 2060 net zero goal.

ljf 4y ago

Coal plants are also digging coal to directly use in steal processing.