More Than 40 Percent of World Coal Plants Are Unprofitable, Says Report (reuters.com) 281
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: More than 40 percent of the world's coal plants are operating at a loss due to high fuel costs and that proportion could to rise to nearly 75 percent by 2040, a report by environmental think-tank Carbon Tracker showed on Friday. London-based Carbon Tracker analyzed the profitability of 6,685 coal plants around the world, representing 95 percent of operating capacity and 90 percent of capacity under construction. It found that 42 percent of global coal capacity is already unprofitable. From 2019 onwards, it expects falling renewable energy costs, air pollution regulations and carbon pricing to result in further cost pressures and make around 72 percent of the fleet cashflow negative by 2040. In addition, by 2030, new wind and solar will be cheaper than continuing to operate 96 percent of today's existing and planned coal plants, the report said.
Nat Gas (Score:5, Informative)
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Brushing the coal to make "clean coal" sounds like a homeopathic idea.
Otto Frisch, the nuclear scientist wrote a parody scientific paper back in 1955 set in the distant future when nuclear fuels had become scarce, entitled "On the Feasibility of Coal-Driven Power Stations". It suggested that coal be machined into similar-sized spheres for optimum packing within the furnace among other things. Its energy density was derisory of course compared to safe clean uranium. The gaseous emissions would be dealt wit
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Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully this will lead to increased adoption of cleaner power production - that is not so bad for the environment.
I am not saying that all clean power is cheaper but the more of it that gets used the cheaper that it will become.
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully this will lead to increased adoption of cleaner power production - that is not so bad for the environment.
I agree. When I was younger I spent lots of time outdoors. Preserving the natural beauty of the world should be something humanity strives to do.
I am not saying that all clean power is cheaper but the more of it that gets used the cheaper that it will become.
I think what was happened is that we have reached the "tipping point" where clean energy is actually competitive in the marketplace. Interestingly, all the various governments around the world that have pushed for clean energy production have varying economic and regulatory philosophies (as evidenced by the various approaches to regulation of dirty power and economic incentives/penalties for varies participants in the energy market), but the end result has been the same: for the longest time it just looked like a money pit, and now we start to see some large scale benefit.
I think that a solution based on market forces (i.e, people doing what benefits them economically) will always be stronger, healthier, and more effective than one based on regulatory forces. Granted, sometimes regulatory forces are required (e.g., to maintain clean air and water in the era of industrial production and dirty power), but those are never as good as market forces because regulations mean people do what they are required to do (and people will try to find ways to avoid meeting the requirements) while market forces mean people act in their own best interests.
Missing data point (Score:5, Insightful)
Utilities are one of the most regulated and subsidized industries in the world. Additionally, in some places, generating capacity is government-owned, and public enterprises frequently operate at a loss. So the real question is: how much of all generating capacity is unprofitable?
Coal will die, but saying that plants are currently unprofitable isn't necessarily an indication of anything. It needs to be compared on a relative basis to alternatives.
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So the real question is: how much of all generating capacity is unprofitable?
Precisely. I get political fliers in the mail all the time asking me to vote for politicians that support wind subsidies, asking me to call my congresscritters to support wind subsidies, or even from my utility asking me to pay extra for electricity produced from wind.
If wind power is in fact cheaper than coal then I should not be seeing these fliers in my mail.
Wind is not cheaper than coal. This is especially true when taking into account the over capacity needed to compensate for the poor capacity facto
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On-shore wind in the UK is profitable without subsidy now. Off-shore will take a few more years.
But a better question is how much of the subsidy is necessary to keep the lights on and how much is enabling unnecessary environmental damage.
In America this doesn't matter (Score:2)
What we really need is a federal jobs guarantee like they did in the 30s. But nobody wants to pay for that. So expect more political distortions.
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Maybe they just need to switch to different fuel (Score:2)
Re: 40% of coal plants are unprofitable (Score:2)
We need to be off them altogether, right around, oh, let's see, now.
Did they calculate the cost of peanut butter (Score:2)
sandwiches? Because that all Americans need to fuel the miners who are returning to the mines in droves to aid our exalted leader's plan to Make America Great Again.
40% ? ! That's 40% more profitable than (Score:2)
Trump casinos!
Nothing New (Score:2)
Long before fracking and renewables, huge numbers of coal mines were operating at a loss for political reasons.
The same reason that motor vehicle factories and agriculture in so many countries (including US and EU) are surviving only with government subsidies.
The question is not "why are they losing money?" - all mines have a limited lifetime before becoming unviable.
The question should be "Why are they still operating?"
Re:No source (Score:4, Insightful)
They wouldnt/couldnt continue operating at a loss...that premise is ridiculous.
Not if there's a government propping them up, because, "jobs".
Source "environmental think-tank Carbon Tracker" (Score:4, Insightful)
The stated source is "a report by environmental think-tank Carbon Tracker". So people whose full-time job is literally energy propaganda.
In other news, Coke tastes bad, according to a report by Pepsi. Linux sucks, according to Microsoft
The only thing suprising here is how many Slahdotters let BeauHD get away with posting this crap.
Isn't that just a reverse argument from Authority? (Score:5, Insightful)
Put another way, here's the left wing bastion of Forbes [forbes.com] discussion the same thing.
Posting this particular study on
"We're going to put a lot of coal miners out of w" (Score:2)
Trump's opponent said "we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of work". OF COURSE he capitalized on that when speaking in coal country.
Things don't have to already be really bad for you to dislike a politician who says she's going to try to make you unemployed.
If a politician said "I'm going to put a lot of security experts out of work", and was actually trying to do exactly that, Bruce and I are going to vote for their opponent - even though we both have good jobs at the moment.
True, but it's clean air and water (Score:2)
Hillary's problem wasn't the message, it was how she said it and more importantly her complete lack of leadership when it came to finding real solutions for out of work coal miners.
Bernie has the solution, which is a federal jobs guarantee. Put those coal miners to work but building solar panels.
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Yeah. They did. For three months, Lieberman included. Which was a red herring anyway, as Obomneycare had to be passed via reconciliation anyway, which bypasses the 60 vote canard.
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It is propaganda. Notice how they mention "regulations and carbon pricing," and you must also be aware that "renewable" energies are often heavily subsidized. You can make anything unprofitable with enough government interference in the free market.
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Solar and wind were already cost effective a decade ago on every island on the planet, the problem was sourcing quality materials and labor to install them. This problem has been solved, and the price of solar and wind continue to fall, as does grid scale battery technologies. There is no reason to not forecast solar and wind destroying coal in the long term. Public utilities like them because it improves their image with their customers, plus maintenance and fuel costs are rock solid stable to forecast for
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There's no logical contradiction here. Nobody is saying that 40% of plants being unprofitable is a *sustainable* situation; in business you are sometimes stuck covering losses for a time; it'd be a hell of a lot easier if that never happened.
The plant owners may be regulated utilities that can't pass their increased costs from individual plants onto consumers until the next rate setting. Even then they may not be able to make the unprofitable plants profitable; they just have to cover the losses with surpl
Re: Temporary (Score:2)
Usually the price is regulated and regulators won't jack prices because of the direct consumer impact. Additionally when the operating costs of these plants were considered, they didn't think about all these current and new regulations that jacked up the cost of operations and overhauls.
But the analysts basically say to divest out of coal because the trajectories of many long term factors are against it. Ie: more regulations, other energy options becoming cheaper, and increasing fuel costs.
Thou, I think in
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But the analysts basically say to divest out of coal because the trajectories of many long term factors are against it. Ie: more regulations, other energy options becoming cheaper, and increasing fuel costs.
Thou, I think in our globally connected world, thinking out 20+ years is a bit difficult. You are almost guessing. 20 years ago, I don't think anyone was predicting our current situation.
Another big factor against coal - it's a finite resource, and getting harder to get. Hard to imagine putting all that work into something that is going away.
The coal shills in here and other places have a real bit of cognitive dissonance. I can only guess at the cause, but it would seem that there is some sort of story line that either coal is in infinite supply, or that even if we run out one day, just like that, we'll switch over to something else. Or more likely, not eve thinking about that.
And goo
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Coal getting harder to get? No - other than due to NIMBY problems. Harder to ship because environmental wing nuts don't want coal trains to cross their land or coal to be shipped out their ports - yes, but harder find and extract? No.
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Coal getting harder to get? No - other than due to NIMBY problems.
You don't say? NIMBY isn't the right word You don't have a back yard when they strip the coal out. Or if you are in the valley they dumped the top of the mountain they stripped to get at the coal.
Harder to ship because environmental wing nuts don't want coal trains to cross their land or coal to be shipped out their ports - yes, but harder find and extract? No.
First, Far right wing Environmentalists? Or don't you know what a wing nut is?
Second, I have know idea how you figure that a railroad's right of way can be pre-empted by these right wing environmentalists. Our local railroads carry whatever is legal to carry. We have plenty of cars that carry coal every day.
Yo
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Eastern coal mining != Western coal mining.
Check Portland, Oregon's efforts to block shipments of western coal through their port for sale to China. For news articles search portland coal shipments in google.
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I guess you wouldn't pick up a $20 bill on the ground because it's a finite resource, unlike a job which is renewable. Imagine putting all that work to pick up something that is going away the moment you pick it up!
What a weird reply. I had a guy like you that worked for me at one time. He'd latch onto a sentence, then contradict me. When the whole time he wasn't paying attention, because if he had, he would knove known what I was talking about. One of the few people I enjoyed firing.
The point is my dense friend, that if nothing is around when coal isn't economically available any more, the resulting economic upheaval will have people killing each other over that stupid 20 you tried to use as an argument.
Now ta
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The $20 bill example isn't latching onto a sentence, it is summarizing your entire point. Coal gives us more time to prepare for the next step, just like the $20 bill gives you more time to look for a job. You're arguing that buying some time is pointless if that time is finite, which just isn't true.
I had a guy like you who would think in absolutes and reach erroneous conclusions. Wait I didn't, you're the first one.
You can't tell me what my argument is - sorry, AC but you cannot.
Now, stop being an anonymous coward, and I'll discuss it with you, I've wasted as much time on AC's as they deserve. for the month.
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It was discussed in the past on slashdot. The price an energy provider can charge depends on two prices. When supply exceeds demand, it's the cheapest provider who dictates the price. Everyone will trying undercutting each other to their minimum profit margin. When demand exceeds supply is the most expensive provider who dictates the price. Everyone else can charge up to that price. The costs depend on spin up time to heat up the systems: renewable > gas > nuclear > coal
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You use the surplus energy generated from your renewal systems to push water uphill (potential energy), or to charge up batteries (electrical energy), spin up flywheels (kinetic energy), compress gas (kinetic energy), charge up hydrogen fuel cells (chemical energy). Then you release energy from these sources when you need it.
Re:Cheaper solar and wind (Score:5, Informative)
Ah, the first random brainfart that entered the tiny mind of an internet dweeb. Yes, I'm sure it does.
What's needed is a thing called "storage". Tesla has been busy providing solutions to that:
https://electrek.co/2018/01/23... [electrek.co]
Of course now you're going to say "what if there's no wind or sun for a whole month?"
Haters gonna hate.
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What's needed is a thing called "storage".
That is part of the solution. But there are two other solutions: 1) Wider grids. 2) Differential pricing.
Charge more when power is scarce, and less when it is plentiful. "Smart meters" are already installed in many areas, and people quickly find a way to change their usage patterns.
Of course now you're going to say "what if there's no wind or sun for a whole month?"
The total amount of wind / clouds is nearly constant. So if the wind isn't blowing in Nebraska, there is extra wind in Oklahoma. This is actually a benefit since wind power goes up as the cube of the wind speed. So double
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That's fine for large nations like the USA, what about Japan?
Oh, I know the answer. Japan is restarting many of their shuttered nuclear power plants, and has plans to build more.
Then think of all the other inhabited islands spread around the world. They can't spread out their electrical grid like you propose. This is especially true in places that are subject to hurricanes and such. A nuclear power plant in Florida kept running during a hurricane because under that large concrete dome they don't much ca
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There are plenty of roofs in Japan to put solar panels. There are plenty of mountains for wind turbines. I visited Japan recently and saw none of either.
Japan is really dragging their feet on renewables. There is plenty of wind capacity in Hokkaido (firmly in the "roaring forties") and northern Honshu. With electricity prices of 20 cents (22 yen) / kwh, wind turbines would easily be profitable. All they need to do is lay down some transmission infrastructure and remove the bureaucratic red tape.
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All of the FUD around wind and solar power can be addressed with infrastructure that has been used to back up nuclear power, like pumped storage. [wikipedia.org]
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"Smart meters" are already installed in many areas, and people quickly find a way to change their usage patterns..
Sure. I'm going to wear a sweater in my house in the winter. And I'll turn off the AC and be uncomfortable with just a fan in the summer.
Fuck that. I actually like living in the First World.
Your thinking skills are mirrored in your quoting ones.
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Of course now you're going to say "what if there's no wind or sun for a whole month?"
Like a _decade_ ago I read a report from an engineer in the UK about renewable energy vs "standard" energy. He was just a guy doing his own research (I don't believe he was astroturfing or Funded by Big Whatever).
This was a decade ago before the BatteryWall. But he was looking at solar (50% utilization because: night), wind, hydro, coal, gas, etc. One of the surprising things HE came up with was that like you said, wind stops sometimes. Guessing here, I think that in the UK / Europe every decade or so
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No, it does not ... there is no scalable TWh storage technology to carry any significant power across a Dunkelflaute. The German's way to deal with the problem for instance as they were turning off coal and nuclear has been to just borrow power from their neighbours when there's shortage. except everyone is doing the same thing and excess generating capacity is disappearing fast.
http://notrickszone.com/2018/0... [notrickszone.com]
As long as solar and wind are not cheaper than fueling the backup plants, or we get cheap scalabl
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Second, a centralized large-scale hydrogen storage facility with fuel cells is indeed a scalable energy storage solution.
It can only be made with 40% round-trip energy efficiency, but just compensate for that by doubling or so the amount of wind and solar, which is relatively cheap and feasible.
Remember that right now, a lot of wind farms are being paid to not generate during times of surplus win
Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:5, Insightful)
Coal isn't being "sabotaged" by regulations. The environmental costs are being incorporated into its usage. And coal does get a lot of subsidies, from mining, usage, and disposal.
And coal plant designs are of a long gone era. Even the latest approved nuclear plants are 2-3 core design versions past current operations. This isn't true for coal. Of course renewables are all new. The only thing as old as coal is hydro.
Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:4, Insightful)
"Coal isn't being "sabotaged" by regulations. A tiny portion of the environmental costs are being incorporated into its usage."
There, FTFY. Coal would have been gone long since if it had to pay anything like its full costs... which are arguably infinite, since we literally can't clean up after it.
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Both heavy metal emissions and SO2/NOx (substances that cause acid rain) problems have been solved in coal burning in larger plants quite a while ago. The problem that we cannot solve is CO2 emissions per power generated. It's too high.
Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:2)
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That is a story of improper disposal of coal ash. How is it in any way relevant to my statement of:
>Both heavy metal emissions and SO2/NOx (substances that cause acid rain) problems have been solved in coal burning in larger plants quite a while ago. The problem that we cannot solve is CO2 emissions per power generated. It's too high.
Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:2)
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Both heavy metal emissions and SO2/NOx (substances that cause acid rain) problems have been solved in coal burning in larger plants quite a while ago.
We can literally find power plants and other industrial polluters emitting in excess of their permit as rapidly as we can pay people to climb smokestacks. Source: a guy who used to actually do that for the government. And this was before Trump, you can bet your ass it's worse now.
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Of course there are. But the problem has been solved for those who are willing to buy the tech. So it is in fact solved.
P.S. In your desperate anti-science dogma, you keep conflating microplastics with plastic garbage. Reminder: we are quite full of microplastics, and we don't eat them. We drink them. And as far as we know, and as people who found them kept reminding us in their study, they are in fact biologically inert and too small to cause mechanical damage. So I'll be fine.
You on the other hand really
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Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:2)
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We aren't building wind mills today. Wind mills are used to grind small things into a powder, known as milling. We're putting up wind turbines which generate electricity. The technology in those ranges from thousands of years ago to today as the turbine itself and the blades are always being updated.
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From: https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
windmill noun
windÂâmill | \Ëwin(d)-ËOEmil \
Definition of windmill
(Entry 1 of 2)
1a : a mill or machine operated by the wind usually acting on oblique vanes or sails that radiate from a horizontal shaft especially : a wind-driven water pump or electric generator
b : the wind-driven wheel of a windmill
2 : something that resembles or suggests a windmill especially : a calisthenic exercise that involves alternately lowering each outstretched hand to touch the toes of the opposite foot
3 [ from the episode in Don Quixote by Cervantes in which the hero attacks windmills under the illusion that they are giants ] : an imaginary wrong, evil, or opponent â"usually used in the phrase to tilt at windmills
It's a fucking windmill and so I'm going to call it a windmill.
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Are you, by chance, Don Quixote?
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Takes one to know one.
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I'm afraid that the updates are modest efficiency and cost improvements. Even if the hardware is free, yapping significant more wind energy, without significantly altering local ecologies and weather, sets physical limits on how much wind energy is available. Similar though not identical limitations exist for every energy resource. My concern for these renewable energy sources is that they have maximum limits within reach of our existing energy economy. Being natural, or "free" does not mean it's unlimited,
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They had vertical windmills - an S shaped sail that sat on top of a millstone. Using just wind power alone, the natives could ease themselves from the tedious task of milling grain by hand.
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Misleading: coal being killed by natural gas (Score:5, Informative)
Natural gas power plants also spin up and spin down more quickly than old coal plants, allowing them to track the short-term changes in the demand curve better.
Here's a graph. Notice that the drop in coal is mirrored by a rise in gas. https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl... [eia.gov]
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Re:Misleading: coal being killed by natural gas (Score:5, Interesting)
Even that is only half of the truth. The other half is how much of Western world started treating electric generation vs consumption. On many spot markets, wind and solar get "first dibs", in that no one else gets to sell their generation until all of wind and solar are sold. This is followed by various power generation systems that are ranked in order of CO2 emissions. That means coal lands on the bottom, and is legally forbidden from selling when others are producing enough to cover the consumption.
Hence the lack of profitability. When you plant takes many hours to spin up or spin down, and you can't sell much of what you produce because you're forbidden from doing so even if you can sell at prices lower than competition, you're going to go into red very quickly.
That's why CCGTs are popping up. They can spin up and take load much faster, so when wind drops out of the grid, they can pick up the load and get paid premium for peaking, and they can also economically produce during longer periods of higher consumption. Add to that the unique situation in North America where fracking is producing massive amounts of natgas that is essentially free as a byproduct of oil extraction, and you have a situation where in developed countries, coal is really struggling.
But go outside developed countries, without the rules for punishing coal and subsidizing wind and solar, and situation reverses completely. Unlike natgas, biomass and other coal replacements in developed countries coal is inherently very cheap to extract, transport and store. That means that in developing world, coal continues to be one of the most economical sources of power.
The only problem with coal we still can't solve is CO2 emissions per power generated. It's just too high. But developing countries overwhelmingly don't care about it. They just go with what is inherently cheap and efficient. Which is more often than not coal.
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Like I said, in many countries, the spot exchanges literally mandate this, because laws and regulations require it.
Which in turn require it because wind and solar are intermittent generators who's generation capacity cannot be predicted reliably and is controlled by environmental factors largely outside human control. So to function in anything that even remotely resembles economical fashion, they must be given priority over generators who's output is human controlled and highly predictable.
This is not a wr
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Fracking doesn't exist on any meaningful scale outside North America. Renewables don't exist on a meaningful scale outside developed world.
Most of the world is not in these two categories, and cannot afford their power costs to go up further, nor do they have bureaucratic ability to enforce any meaningful environmental regulations.
Which is why you may potentially be correct for developing world, the rest of the world will keep up with consuming coal at ever increasing rates. It's just too cheap to extract,
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I have a smart meter and I pay different rates depending on the availability of electricity.
I also have a compressor cut off on my AC that automatically turns it off with a signal from the power company if there is a power shortage, in return for a discount on my power bill.
Re: Baloney, No. it's accounting slight of hand (Score:4, Informative)
In other words, you have lowered your standard of living
Not at all. PG&E pays me to conserve peak power, and I then have that money to spend on more important things, thus RAISING my standard of living.
Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:2)
Republicans had majority...
Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:2)
coal and nuclear stabilize inside inner cycle with a large roasting mass.
What?
Yes, coal is expensive when sabotaged and renewable cheaper when subsidized.
Except that today, coal is subsidized (by healthcare), whereas renewables stand on their own legs. And boy, will your brain vessels rupture when you learn about the carbon tax initiatives... :-p
You see any funds for decommissioning the suing wrong farms? Nuclear is fully funded and coal is over most of they production cycle.
Again, what?
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I guess facts and scientific studies are now counted as "trolling".
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Along with deaths from respiratory disease! Yay!
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Along with deaths from respiratory disease! Yay!
The original post says nothing about relaxing emissions of anything but CO2, so you are wrong nobody's lungs would be harmed by this. The original post was right, the problem with coal has been the artificial raising of their fuel costs, specifically tied to CO2 emissions.
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What's your magical CO2 emitting fuel that doesn't also release particulates and NOx? You should get a patent for it right away.
Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:5, Insightful)
Artificial? Since when does burning coal causes no CO2 emissions? Perhaps we should also start taxing those mountain hating coal mining companies for the toxic runoff from their mines that ruins the land of people down hill from their strip mining operation? ... and if you think that toxic runoff is some kind of 'artificial construct' like CO2 emissions I can introduce you to some very angry Appalachian Hillbillies who are ready willing and able to let you bathe in a pond of your choosing full of toxic coal mine runoff.
And how! Not too far away from me is land that was destroyed by coal mining, and before the companies had to restore the land.
I've thought of having tours of the area to show off what has been done. And as a twist, play down he obvious environmental impact, and play up the money lost.
Streams - once highly profitable tourist fishing destinations with almost no cost of doing business, and with high earning tourists who fish and stay in hotels and eat in restaurants. Millions lost every year (adjusted for inflation)
Deforestation. The trees - if any grow after the area is strip mined - are worthless. Usless for providing profit and jobs for logging. Untold millions lost.
Real Estate. The highwalls and tailing piles look like Mars, and are a profit opportunity lost. The modern trend of building communities 10 -15 miles out of town isn't going to work. The land is destroyed,
I reckon I'll have the human Ferengi bawling like babies in no time.
That's only slightly tongue in cheek. How we could ever allow one group - the mining interests, to permanently destroy land that could be useful for many purposes both profitable, providing entertainment, and ecologically sustaining is so short sighted.
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The highwalls and tailing piles look like Mars, and are a profit opportunity lost.
Uh, does Elon know about this?
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The highwalls and tailing piles look like Mars, and are a profit opportunity lost.
Uh, does Elon know about this?
Never thought of that! Could be a great place to train.
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How we could ever allow one group - the mining interests, to permanently destroy land that could be useful for many purposes both profitable, providing entertainment, and ecologically sustaining is so short sighted.
This is the sort of thing I'm referring to when I say "Capitalism gone bad" or "Out-of-control capitalism"; there was a time, dim in our memories now (and absent completely in the memories of some too young or too unaware of history to know it) when 'capitalism' operated differently, operated with more regard for the needs of society, i.e. capitalism that had more of a conscience. A good way for me to illustrate this, maybe, is it's like a certain yeast-like micro-organism that naturally exists in the human
Re: Cheaper solar and wind (Score:4, Insightful)
How we could ever allow one group - the mining interests, to permanently destroy land that could be useful for many purposes both profitable, providing entertainment, and ecologically sustaining is so short sighted.
This is the sort of thing I'm referring to when I say "Capitalism gone bad".
Capitalism without any sort or moral structure destroys itself.
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You mean the good old days like a couple hundred years ago, when you could buy and sell shares in companies that bought and sold human beings in the slave trade?
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1. Coal is heavily subsidized in the US
No, it's not. Not on a per kWh basis. https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
2. Coal is not made to bear external costs.
Nothing is going to change that. Carbon taxes won't fix that because the people that sell the carbon based fuels just pass that cost on to the people buying the fuel. The people buying the fuel bear this external cost in whatever form that takes, be it global warming or air pollution. The only way to fix that is to use an alternative that is cheaper and cleaner than coal, that's nuclear power. Nuclear power has it's own external c
Nuclear is stupid (Score:2)
Re: Yeah right (Score:2)
Only if their findings donâ(TM)t correspond with your preconceived position.
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Ok, what things did they say that were false?
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>Who knows?
Then I guess your posts can go right in the garbage.
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It is plausible though.
I was with you up until the part which said plants under construction might not be profitable. I find it hard to believe anyone would build a plant where they can see the numbers aren't going to work. At least, not in any sort of free market. That's why nuclear plants don't get built (in the US): investors see the high (and highly variable) costs and don't fund the plant.
If the plant is being built by a government, well, governments aren't all that big on profit and loss so this report won't matter to them.
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It might be plausible, but you never know with these "think tanks". They are being paid by someone.
Literally everyone is being paid by someone, with the possible exception of the homeless. Therefore, the only place to get reliable news is skid row?
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Maybe you are wrong and the people funding them know better. Do you think people like to lose money?
In the U.S. you are arguing over the properties of the empty set, everything is vacuously true! This is amusing, here for example we have a web page [power-eng.com] devoted to new coal plant construction in North America and there is nothing listed. Investors do not like to lose money and as a result there are no coal plants being build! The money has spoken.
Virtually all planned coal plant construction is in China or India, where they are more strongly influence by government policy than profit-and-loss.
By the same token,
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Two, actually. The third has already been finished.
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Maybe you are wrong and the people funding them know better. Do you think people like to lose money?
Maybe they assume they can just funnel some money to their buddies in power to make sure they make a profit.
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A broad mix is something nobody wants, but it's absolutely essential. Solar systems are going to be overtaxed if there's another really big volcanic eruption. Not that we won't have lots of other problems as well, but without power, it'll just be much worse. One volcanic eruption at a time is bad enough - Laki, Tambora, Krakatoa, to say nothing of the super volcanoes. Get several in a single year and it would be bad. Wildfires don't help either but are more localized. Solar is great - as long as the sunshin
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Nuclear doesn't ramp up and down when you need it, but battery storage systems are immediate.
You wrote that but didn't see the obvious (to me at least) implications. What if we mate a large battery with a nuclear power plant? That means we have a means to get power, rain or shine, day or night, and still be able to load follow.
Aren't your lips chapped from all the time you spend fellating nuclear power?
As oppose to your lips and wind power?
IMHO, batteries won't save wind and solar power. I suspect that in fact they will lead to their death. If we can charge a battery from coal or nuclear power, and let the battery handle the minute by minute shift in demand, then we don
Re: But wind/solar are indeterminate. (Score:2)
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Battery factories aren't the problem. The materials that go into them are the issue. Even battery recycling doesn't address the problems the huge battery load would require. People earlier have complained about the cost of mining for coal. Out in WY, nobody cares as the land is reclaimed nicely and the coal is better quality anyway. But the same issues of coal mining are true for mining for rare earths needed for battery production. You might not have fly ash retention ponds, but you do have waste. Much of
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