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6 Major Countries Have Recently Announced Plans To Phase-Out All Coal-Fired Power Plants (electrek.co) 275

Posted by BeauHD from the out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new dept.
At least 6 major countries, including Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Finland, have all recently -- several within the past few weeks -- announced the imminent phase-out of all coal-fired power plants. Electrek reports: Earlier this week, Canada, which has already significantly reduced its use of coal to about 7% of its energy generation, announced a phase of the resource by 2030. The country's strong hydropower should keep dominating its energy generation, but the country has also been investing in wind and solar to make up the difference. A week before Canada's announcement, France announced a more aggressive timeline of 2023 for its own phase-out of coal, but it should be more easily achievable since they have already reduced the use of coal to 3% of their electricity generation -- thanks to a strong local nuclear industry. Finland is the latest country to join the group, but it also announced a more aggressive solution of simply banning entirely the use of coal to produce energy by 2030. The country gets about 12% of its electricity from coal, which it has to import. Peter Lund, a researcher at Aalto University and chair of the energy program at the European Academies' Science Advisory Council, told New Scientist: "These moves are important forerunners to enforce the recent positive signals in coal use. The more countries join the coal phase-out club, the better for the climate as this would force the others to follow." As for the U.S., it gets about 33% of its total electricity generation from coal and will likely grow the coal industry rather than phase it out under President-elect Donald Trump.
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6 Major Countries Have Recently Announced Plans To Phase-Out All Coal-Fired Power Plants More

6 Major Countries Have Recently Announced Plans To Phase-Out All Coal-Fired Power Plants

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  • If coal isn't readily available what will we put into the christmas stocking of the little shits all over the land?

  • How can it "force the others to follow"? Won't it just drive the cost of coal down? Lots of supply & little demand = lower coal prices.

    Soon they won't be advertising clean coal anymore they will be advertising cheap coal. Cheaper than any other fuel by far.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jzanu ( 668651 )
      Heavy industry like manufacturing and mining can't operate when prices for products are too low. In that situation the LAC = price so there is no profit.

  • Coal to grow in the USA?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zobeid ( 314469 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @10:50PM (#53363191)

    quote: "As for the U.S., it gets about 33% of its total electricity generation from coal and will likely grow the coal industry rather than phase it out under President-elect Donald Trump."

    I don't believe it.

    The coal business is dying from natural causes in the USA, and I don't think there's anything Trump can possibly do to turn that around. Thanks to the fracking revolution, cheap natural gas is rapidly undercutting and replacing coal, and some existing coal plants are even being converted to gas. Wind turbines have been going up in large numbers -- including here in Texas, where the wholesale price of electricity (dynamically auctioned via computer) has sometimes been pushed to zero. At the same time, the cost of solar panels has plummeted. How is coal going to compete with all that? It just can't.

    • The coal business is dying from natural causes in the USA, and I don't think there's anything Trump can possibly do to turn that around.

      Part of the reason coal is dying is because of clean air regulations. Trump and the GOP could kill those. In addition, power companies have asked for subsidies to keep their coal plants open. No takers, today, but Trump might hand them some cash to "create jobs" or similar farce.

      Wind turbines have been going up in large numbers -- including here in Texas, where the whole

    • The coal business is dying from natural causes in the USA, and I don't think there's anything Trump can possibly do to turn that around

      Natural causes ?

      Well if you call EPA regulations meant to kill coal https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com] natural causes sure.

      • They are additional and incidental. Even without the EPA it's getting tougher and tougher to justify building a coal plant purely on cost.

    • Re:Coal to grow in the USA?? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Xyrus ( 755017 ) on Saturday November 26, 2016 @01:53AM (#53363837) Journal

      quote: "As for the U.S., it gets about 33% of its total electricity generation from coal and will likely grow the coal industry rather than phase it out under President-elect Donald Trump."

      I don't believe it.

      The coal business is dying from natural causes in the USA, and I don't think there's anything Trump can possibly do to turn that around...

      There's plenty he could do. Look at corn based ethanol as an example. It's not cost effective. It's barely energy positive (if at all). Yet thanks to the mighty corn lobby, that's where our ethanol comes from even though there are plenty of better sources.

      With a big enough lobby with deep enough pockets just about anything is possible.

    • Yes, but some idiot that does not understand Economics NOR America, wrote the above BS. Hell, he even got our numbers wrong. Coal is now around 27% of our electricity and for 2017, it should be around 20-24%. Of course, from that point on, it will SLOWLY be shut down. All of the shutdown until end of 2016 has been due to nat gas prices combined with the requirement that all plants have ZERO mercury emissions. Many plants simply shut down and went to either nat gas or wind.
      Starting in 2017, it wil be pure

  • ...but, clean coal.

    #MAGA

  • FAKE NEWS (Score:5, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Friday November 25, 2016 @11:34PM (#53363405) Journal

    Nobody's planning to phase out coal. In fact, they've discovered that coal dust sprinkled on breakfast cereals helps build growing children's bodies 12 ways.

    But you won't hear about that in your mainstream media. No sir.

  • Yeah, those coal minors in West Virginia that lost their jobs, the jobs Trump keeps promising to bring back. They obviously don't stand the real problem: coal mining isn't down because of environmental activism, it's down because of lack of demand. Fact is, natural gas power production is both cheaper and much more damaging to the environment.

    • Yeah, those coal minors in West Virginia that lost their jobs

      That just breaks my heart. It's bad enough for adults to be working under those conditions...

  • Fusion will both eliminate the need for dirty energy and relieve the world's helium shortage... any day, real soon now!
  • minor? What kind of fifth-grade copy-editing is this?

  • An idiot wrote this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Saturday November 26, 2016 @06:10AM (#53364351) Journal
    America has been shutting down coal plants since Obama came to office. However, it NOTHING to do with regulations from him. It had to do with the fact that Nat Gas and wind are MUCH CHEAPER than coal is here. Combine that with all coal plants having to have ZERO mercury emissions.
    Coal WAS 33% in 2015. Coal is now down to 27% of America's electricity. and for 2017, should be around 20-24%. [eia.gov]

    In addition, only idiots will think that trump can bring back coal (yes, he promised, but again, only idiots believe that). WHy is this so? Because coal is TOO EXPENSIVE compared to nat gas and wind. IN addition, with the new nukes that will be on-line and tested in the next 4 years, these will replace MORE of our coal plants.

    The real question is less about Western nations, and more about CHina.
    China currently gets either 75 or 88% of their electricity from fossil fuel (depends on which chinese gov group gives you information).
    They currently have around 1.2TW of coal capabilities, and are building out 35-50 GW of new coal plants EACH YEAR. Even this year, they will do 35 GW.
    Around the year, 2030. they will have 1.9-2 TW of coal plant capabilities and only then will they quit building new coal plants.
    Even if the ENTIRE west, including Japan and South Korea, shuts down 100% of our coal plants, that is actually less than 1TW. So, China will build out ~3/4 of what the west has. Unless that stops, nothing we do will matter.
    The far left has to quit ignoring science and numbers and start hammering on CHina FOR REAL. In addition, so does the entire western gov.

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