I don't know if this article is factual, but I found it interesting. It is from last August and it kind of outlines what has led us to where we are today. Of course the weather outages aren't caused by one single thing, but it sure shows how the focus on climate change has people taking their eye off the ball and others putting their finger on the scales. What do y'all think? Is it a coincidence that coal power generation started plummeting in 2008?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-08-17/coal-is-in-spectacular-u-s-decline-despite-trump-orders

Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

I don't know, but you can imagine if natural gas prices plummeting from frac'ing led to coal being uncompetitive, then rising natural gas prices could allow coal to re-enter the discussion.

bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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It certainly SHOULD, based on its merits, but I doubt it will with the communists back in charge. They'll re-regulate coal to death.

Jeez, why can't they just learn to code

Old plants that couldn't implement the ridiculous requirements made coal unprofitable. Additional rising prices in rail costs made coal less competitive too. Plants that are mine to mouth, and newer didn't have issues.

I worked at an operation and we were consistently under the price of gas. New coal plants are extremely clean and dependable.

Buck Turgidson said:

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bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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It certainly SHOULD, based on its merits, but I doubt it will with the communists back in charge. They'll re-regulate coal to death.

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Communist China has coal, their air is nasty.

They have dirty plants and no standards. If they implemented modern standards they'd be clean, but they won't.

The issue is that the hard left is determined to make it expensive/risky to build/use coal of any variety, down to demonizing anyone who advocates/invests otherwise. As such, for a 50 year investment (new plants etc), it's been disfavored by the private industry/investors.

This is not surprising/news.

Ukraine Gas Expert said:

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They have dirty plants and no standards. If they implemented modern standards they'd be clean, but they won't.

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Standards? sounds like communism. Regulation is good, too much is bad, finding the fight amount is what is tricky.

2 of the coal plants in east Texas are shutting down in 2023, still no clue where they are going to make up the power.

bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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not with Biden in charge

bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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Should it? Texas produces lots of Nat Gas its already clean and its been cheap. Why dont we work with that?

I guess mostly because cutting frac'ing is going to result in higher natural gas prices and higher electricity costs. If clean coal can produce electricity for a lower price, then why not?

bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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I suspect that no matter how clean you get it, it won't be long before they demand it be cleaner.

eric76 said:

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bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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I suspect that no matter how clean you get it, it won't be long before they demand it be cleaner.

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Carbon free is not enough. You need to be anti-carbon!

Ukraine Gas Expert said:

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They have dirty plants and no standards. If they implemented modern standards they'd be clean, but they won't.

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On the contrary, they do have standards - on paper only - to show the world that they are environmentally concerned. The world buys it. In reality, The Party and its minions ignore them and smoke on. If by some chance something goes wrong and they get caught, some local commissar gets popped (after following instructions from above) and made an example of. Another takes his place, and they smoke on again.

Natural gas is the right fuel. We shouldn't expect it to go from wellbore to fuel for a power plant in minutes. There should a robust storage network between the two.

Very true, that's what I was trying to communicate.

It's hard to read that article without their deranged bias and backhandedness aimed at Trump, even if the article is true.

Magic City Wings said:

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Buck Turgidson said:

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bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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It certainly SHOULD, based on its merits, but I doubt it will with the communists back in charge. They'll re-regulate coal to death.

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Communist China has coal, their air is nasty.

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Holy **** this is the perfect ignorant leftist post. Wow.

bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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What about clean asbestos?

AggieDub14 said:

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bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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What about clean asbestos?

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Still being used.

Natural gas reserve like the petroleum reserve might be good to have.

Magic City Wings said:

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Buck Turgidson said:

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bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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It certainly SHOULD, based on its merits, but I doubt it will with the communists back in charge. They'll re-regulate coal to death.

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Communist China has coal, their air is nasty.

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They are moving to cleaner tech.
There is enough technology out there to burn coal cleanly and likely still cheaper and more reliable than wind and solar.

Me thinks they will focus on the mining of the coal at that point.

bmks270 said:

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Magic City Wings said:

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Buck Turgidson said:

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bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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It certainly SHOULD, based on its merits, but I doubt it will with the communists back in charge. They'll re-regulate coal to death.

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Communist China has coal, their air is nasty.

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They are moving to cleaner tech.
There is enough technology out there to burn coal cleanly and likely still cheaper and more reliable than wind and solar.

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They don't tend to use the latest technology or really work to hit US style emissions goals though, in their older plants (I've read that their newer ones are pretty good, not sure I believe it though since our press is largely a propaganda arm of the CCP). That's why Beijing is essentially unlivable most days by our standards.

But, yes, they are building vast amounts of coal power supplies;

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Remember how we're told that China is now on board with the Paris Climate Accord? Well, somebody forgot to tell China:

Quote:

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China's new coal power plant capacity in 2020 more than three times rest of world's: study
China put 38.4 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-fired power capacity into operation in 2020, according to new international research, more than three times the amount built elsewhere around the world and potentially undermining its short-term climate goals.

The country won praise last year after President Xi Jinping pledged to make the country "carbon neutral" by 2060. But regulators have since come under fire for failing to properly control the coal power sector, a major source of climate-warming greenhouse gas.

Including decommissions, China's coal-fired fleet capacity rose by a net 29.8 GW in 2020, even as the rest of the world made cuts of 17.2 GW, according to research released on Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM), a U.S. think tank, and the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). . .

China approved the construction of a further 36.9 GW of coal-fired capacity last year, three times more than a year earlier, bringing the total under construction to 88.1 GW. It now has 247 GW of coal power under development, enough to supply the whole of Germany.

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ttu_85 said:

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bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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Should it? Texas produces lots of Nat Gas its already clean and its been cheap. Why dont we work with that?

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If natural gas is too cheap, then producers can't make money from drilling for it. US NG is very susceptible to boom-bust cycles.

BigOil said:

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ttu_85 said:

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bmks270 said:

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Clean coal technology will make a comeback.

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Should it? Texas produces lots of Nat Gas its already clean and its been cheap. Why dont we work with that?

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If natural gas is too cheap, then producers can't make money from drilling for it. US NG is very susceptible to boom-bust cycles.

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For the last ten years, the price of natural gas has been essentially flat. During that time period, very few people were drilling for it. The money was in liquids, not gas. Most of what has been produced since about 2012 has been associated gas, a by product. Barring some government intervention, there will be no more "boom-bust" cycles for natural gas for a long time as it will just be a continual bust.

There are plenty of dry gas plays out there that could be exploited, but you need $4/MMBTU gas to make most of them work, so the rigs aren't there. Ten years ago, I told my FIL that we wouldn't see $4 gas for a decade, and that prediction has held true. I would say the same today based on economics.

The biggest variable is whether the government will regulate US O&G out of existence. The only way that natural gas becomes expensive is if we hamstring oil production. And even then, I don't think we will see $12/MMBTU gas in our lifetime (again, based on economics and not government action).

Cassius said:

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India and China are using it like gangbusters. India buys a whole lot of coal from us.

The US was never going to fall from the outside. We are remote from most external enemies with the sea in between and we've built too great an army and manufacturing/farming production capability.

America has fallen because of liberals, from the inside. Moving to fantasy power is simply one aspect of their plan to kill it. China and India are laughing at us and licking their chops.

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h

None of the major power companies are making coal plants any more. GE, Siemens, etc. have announced no new-build.

Renewables and gas turbines have a symbiotic relationship that targets coal. The cyclic nature of renewables matches well with the fast-start / fast-ramp capability of gas turbines to create and then shave ramp peak price events away from coal. Advanced combined cycle gas turbines are cheaper to build and operate than coal in the US.

Given the state of the market today, and the foreseeable future - regulatory, fuel price, technology, etc - coal is dead and not coming back.

Worth reading.
https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020

Zobel said:

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None of the major power companies are making coal plants any more. GE, Siemens, etc. have announced no new-build.

Renewables and gas turbines have a symbiotic relationship that targets coal. The cyclic nature of renewables matches well with the fast-start / fast-ramp capability of gas turbines to create and then shave ramp peak price events away from coal. Advanced combined cycle gas turbines are cheaper to build and operate than coal in the US.

Given the state of the market today, and the foreseeable future - regulatory, fuel price, technology, etc - coal is dead and not coming back.

Worth reading.
https://www.iea.org/reports/projected-costs-of-generating-electricity-2020

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Combined cycle is a key differentiator for gas. Natural gas already has a lower CO2 level per BTU as compared to coal, but combined cycle effectively doubles the efficiency of the plant, reducing it further. Throw in how easy it is to remove mercury and sulfur from natural gas before combustion, natural gas combined cycle is attractive on both an economic and environmental level.

If you look at EIA's Annual Energy Outlook, they're projecting almost all new thermal builds to be natural gas combined cycle for the next 30 years.

panhandlefarmer said:

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I don't know if this article is factual, but I found it interesting. It is from last August and it kind of outlines what has led us to where we are today. Of course the weather outages aren't caused by one single thing, but it sure shows how the focus on climate change has people taking their eye off the ball and others putting their finger on the scales. What do y'all think? Is it a coincidence that coal power generation started plummeting in 2008?

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-08-17/coal-is-in-spectacular-u-s-decline-despite-trump-orders

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No coincidence. 2008 saw the ushering in of the most anti-sense Congress followed by the most anti-American admin till this year's present one.

If China has 300 GW under development, it's not going to go away soon. I know you have an axe to grind against coal but it's a fact that it is a reliable, affordable source.

Diversity is our strength, not relying on wind/gas alone as a pair.