The Decline of Coal

Toshi

10 kW
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[cross-posted from my Google+ stream: https://plus.google.com/115479414905422234350/posts/E6gV6pGkYJh ]

The Decline of Coal

One of the frequent, snide criticisms of electric vehicles is that they're "coal-powered cars." This refers to the historically high usage of coal to generate electricity in many regions throughout the US, especially in Appalachia. What does "historically high" imply in the recent past? A 1996 MIT Energy Lab paper that I've previously cited describes the national energy generation makeup in that era as "52% coal, 28% natural gas", and other, minor players.

Well, that era is ending, at least on the national scale. (On the state level power generation has always had large regional differences. Take the extreme examples of Idaho and West Virginia, for instance, with Idaho boasting 79% hydroelectric power and <1% coal use as compared to West Virginia's 98% reliance on coal.)

Fig25.png


Above is the US Energy Information Administration's Short Term Energy Outlook that illustrates the the decline of coal. Note that coal, as a percentage of total, nationwide electricity generation, has fallen from 50% to 36% over the past 8 years alone. Although there's expected to be a small rebound in 2013 due to coal prices bottoming out and natural gas prices rising, the trend can be expected to continue in future years. This is both due to economic factors (including power utility consumers deciding they don't want coal power, especially if so-called "clean coal" is significantly more expensive) and due to the behind-the-scenes influence of groups including the Sierra Club, which in turn are financed by individuals including the billionaire mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg.

The NY Times published an article about this phenomenon just yesterday, in fact, focusing on the associated and inevitable decline of coal-mining-centric towns in Appalachia, and the efforts of the coal industry to lobby and coerce its way back to the boom days, days in which the public could be showered with soot and mercury without a second thought.

What are the implications of this move away from coal?

The major repercussion is that assumptions based on earlier, higher-percentage-of-coal-generated-power estimates need to be revised. These revisions will result in lower absolute well-to-wheels GHG and smog-forming pollutant emissions for BEVs, REEVs, and PHEVs (with no change for non-electric vehicles, of course). One such example of a report whose conclusions need revising is the much-publicized Union of Concerned Scientists State of Charge report from April 2012. In it the assumption of 45% coal and 20% natural gas electricity generation is made (page 5), something that's clearly not true in 2012 per the above figure. Even though they already concluded that with 45% coal it still makes environmental sense to shift to BEVs, their conclusion would be that much stronger were it to reflect the more recent data I describe above.

The other implication that I draw from this is that global GHG and smog-forming pollutant emissions are probably not going to go down at all. Say what? Wasn't this whole post on the declining use of coal? True, but only within the United States electricity generation market. As the NY Times states, "Pressured on the domestic front, some giant American coal producers ... are shifting their attention to markets overseas, where coal-fired power plants are being built faster than they are being abandoned in the United States."

The most I can ask for, I suppose, is that my own country improve its policies and choose more wisely in its power generation sources, and precisely that is happening. The citizens in China and India will need to speak up for themselves if they don't want their children's lungs coated with black, 100% made in America, Appalachian-sourced soot.
 
What I mostly see there is coal being replaced by gas. Is there's a glut of gas in the U.S. at the moment thanks to fracking?

Coal usage in the UK is increasing. People reckon there could be a coal renaissance here.
 
Hi,

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/201252614334480622.html
The biggest climate victory you never heard of
The fight against coal in the US has achieved great success due to activists' passion and commitment.
Last Modified: 27 May 2012 12:42

As long as coal plants are still being built, it doesn't matter how many wind farms there are, argues author [EPA]

San Francisco, CA - Coal is going down in the United States, and that's good news for the Earth's climate. The US Energy Information Administration has announced that coal, the dirtiest and most carbon-intensive conventional fossil fuel, generated only 36 per cent of US electricity in the first quarter of 2012. That amounts to a staggering 20 per cent decline from one year earlier. And the EIA anticipates additional decline by year's end, suggesting a historic setback for coal, which has provided the majority of the US' electricity for many decades.

Even more encouraging, however, is the largely unknown story behind coal's retreat. Mainstream media coverage has credited low prices for natural gas - coal's chief competitor - and the Obama administration's March 27 announcement of stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions from US power plants. And certainly both of those developments played a role.

But a third factor - a persistent grassroots citizens' rebellion that has blocked the construction of 166 (and counting) proposed coal-fired power plants - has been at least as important. At the very time when President Obama's "cap-and-trade" climate legislation was going down in flames in Washington, local activists across the United States were helping to impose "a de facto moratorium on new coal", in the words of Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, one of the first analysts to note the trend.

"If the activists hadn't been there talking to the government regulators and newspaper editorial boards and making the case that coal was a bad bet, the plants would have gone forward."

- Thomas Sanzillo, former deputy comptroller for the New York state government
Another surprise: most of these coal plants were defeated in the politically red states of the South and Midwest. Victories were coming "in places like Oklahoma and South Dakota, not the usual liberal bastions where you'd expect environmental victories", recalls Mary Anne Hitt, the director of the Beyond Coal campaign, which provided national coordination for the local efforts. The victories in Oklahoma were particularly sweet, coming in the home state of Capitol Hill's leading climate denier, Senator James Inhofe.....
 
lester12483 said:
They need to develop clean coal. We can enjoy lower electricity rates and export it to china and make a fortune.
Clean coal power will be much more expensive than the current, dirty variety...
 
You cannot make it cost effective. It requires expensive catalysts and disposal of the waste product has to go somewhere. You get lower efficiency per unit of coal inserted into the plant as well.

Renewables and lowering our grossly high level of power consumption ( stop riding in v8 SUVs to work every day, for one ) is the true way forward.
 
Hi,

lester12483 said:
They need to develop clean coal. We can enjoy lower electricity rates and export it to china and make a fortune.
Clean coal is an propaganda campaign by the coal industry. Like the tooth fairy or clean dirt it doesn't exist. If it did exist it would be prohibitively expensive.

In addition to carbon it's not mined cleanly or burned cleanly.

http://www.coal-is-dirty.com/coal-effects-on-family-health
How do mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants affect my baby’s health?
Mercury contamination is so widespread that one out of every six pregnant women have mercury levels in their blood high enough for levels in the fetus to reach or surpass the EPA's safety threshold for mercury.

According to the latest government data, this means that 630,000 children are born each year with a strong chance of developing serious mercury-related health effects.
How do emissions from coal-fired power plants impact air quality and respiratory health?

According to the American Lung Association, 24,000 people a year die prematurely because of pollution from coal-fired power plants. And every year 38,000 heart attacks, 12,000 hospital admissions and an additional 550,000 asthma attacks result from power plant pollution.

Asthma is the leading chronic illness among children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), asthma accounts for 14 million lost days of school missed annually, and asthma is the third-ranking cause of hospitalization among children younger than 15 years of age.
What kinds of pollution do coal-fired power plants create?

Smokestack emissions from coal-fired power plants are the primary source of mercury pollution in the U.S.

Every year, coal-fired power plants release 48 tons of mercury nationwide.

Coal plants are also the largest contributor of toxic air pollutants, and release about 50% of particle pollution. Particle pollution puts millions of Americans each year at increased risk for heart attacks and strokes, respiratory illness, and asthma, according to the American Lung Association.

Coal-fired power plants emit 59% of total U.S. sulfur dioxide pollution and 18% of total nitrogen oxides every year.

Power plants also release over 40% of total U.S. C02 emissions, a key contributor to global warming.
How widespread is fish contamination as a result of mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants and other sources?

Mercury pollution has made fish caught from many of our lakes, rivers and streams unsafe to eat, especially for women who are pregnant or plan to have kids some day.

According to the American Geological Institute, 49 U.S. states have issued fish consumption advisories due to high mercury concentrations in freshwater bodies throughout the country.

The coal industry downplays the serious threat of mercury in our food chain (particularly in predatory ocean fish like swordfish and tuna), by saying that there’s more “naturally-occurring” mercury in our oceans and rivers so their mercury emissions couldn’t possibly be harming Americans.

I live near a coal mine, is my health risk elevated?

Residents of coal mining communities have increased risk of developing chronic heart, lung and kidney diseases.

A recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health found that in the 14 counties where the biggest coal mining operations are located residents reported higher rates of cardiopulmonary disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, diabetes, and lung and kidney disease.
 
Hi,

lester12483 said:
I agree. It will take time for it to be cost effective. Gotta start somewhere though.
Why use a filthy prohibitively expensive source of energy when cheaper and cleaner sources are available? Why not start by dumping coal and using the cleanest and least expensive sources of energy?
 
Replacing coal with CNG seems like trading a beating with a sharp stick to beating with a little more rounded one.

That energy/money dedicated towards sanding the tip on the sharp sticks should be instead applied to systems that don't involve beating. Solar, hydro, wind, wave, tidal, geotherm, and the grid-level energy storage systems to stabilize the day/night production/demand swings.
 
Hi,

Toshi said:
The most I can ask for, I suppose, is that my own country improve its policies and choose more wisely in its power generation sources, and precisely that is happening. The citizens in China and India will need to speak up for themselves if they don't want their children's lungs coated with black, 100% made in America, Appalachian-sourced soot.

Many of them are so poor that speaking up is difficult or impossible. Informative video here:
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2012/03/201232175729409698.html
India's coal rush
The country's dependence on coal is leaving a dirty trail of violence, landlessness and poverty.

This is accelerating an ongoing “coal rush” which has put our dirtiest fossil fuel at the heart of India’s breakneck growth, and could soon make a single state, Andhra Pradesh, one of the world’s top 20 carbon emitters.

Coal scavengers rushing to get coal from the leftover dirt, many lose hands and arms, feet and legs and their lives:
coal2.png
 
liveforphysics said:
Replacing coal with CNG seems like trading a beating with a sharp stick to beating with a little more rounded one.

That energy/money dedicated towards sanding the tip on the sharp sticks should be instead applied to systems that don't involve beating. Solar, hydro, wind, wave, tidal, geotherm, and the grid-level energy storage systems to stabilize the day/night production/demand swings.
+10 :wink:
Spot-on, KF
 
Somewhat related:

The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report, State of Charge (that I've mirrored on Google Docs for ease of downloading). They define a metric, MPGghg, where they figure out how much well-to-wheels greenhouse gases would be generated by driving an electric car charged from the region's electricity generating grid and then translate it into pump-to-wheels "MPG"-like figures. Higher MPGghg means lower GHG emissions per distance traveled, of course.

The UCS has also released a nice graphic summing up their report's findings:

znu26r.jpg


Note that I currently live in Long Island, which is a "Good" region (39 MPGghg from the paper's source data) in sharp contrast to the rest of NY state, which is between 74 MPGghg (NYC metro) and 86 MPGghg (upstate). This means that a Leaf driver here on Long Island creates a touch more CO2 per mile than my wife as she drives her 46 combined/overall MPG Prius…

It's of note, however, 39 MPGghg is much better than the current 24 MPG fleet average, and perhaps Long Island's natural gas-heavy power will get cleaner in the future.

Also note that the whole Pacific NW and then some is lumped together, with a 73 MPGghg rating. Opt for the $12/month Green Up program in Seattle, however, and the MPGghg of a BEV becomes essentially infinite.

I think that's pretty damn cool.

banana.gif
 
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