Green Energy Revolution Megathread

[Monoriu]

Plans for coal-fired power in Asia are 'disaster for planet' warns World Bank

Experts have offered stark warnings that proposed power plants in India, China, Vietnam and Indonesia would blow Paris climate deal if they move ahead

            World Bank president Jim Yong Kim said that new coal-fired power plants 'would spell disaster for us and our planet'.     
The World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, said that new coal-fired power plants 'would spell disaster for us and our planet'. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent
 
Thursday 5 May 2016 19.02 BST  Last modified on Thursday 5 May 2016 19.30 BST 

Plans to build more coal-fired power plants in Asia would be a "disaster for the planet" and overwhelm the deal forged at Paris to fight climate change, the president of the World Bank said on Thursday.

In an unusually stark warning, the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, noted that countries in south and south-east Asia were on track to build hundreds more coal-fired power plants in the next 20 years – despite promises made at Paris to cut greenhouse gas emissions and pivot to a clean energy future.

In the US, coal use is in sharp decline – and the country's biggest companies are in bankruptcy. But there is still strong demand for coal in south Asia and east Asia, where tens of millions still have no access to electricity.

Donald Trump's election would derail Paris climate deal, warns its architect
 
On their own, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam account for three-quarters of new coal-fired power plants expected to be built around the world in the next five years. In India alone about 300 million people live without access to electricity.

"If Vietnam goes forward with 40GW of coal, if the entire region implements the coal-based plans right now, I think we are finished," Kim told a two-day gathering of government and corporate leaders in Washington, in a departure from his prepared remarks.

"That would spell disaster for us and our planet."

Putting coal-fired plants on hold – permanently – and making it affordable and practical for countries to replace fossil fuels with clean sources of energy such as wind and solar was the prime focus of the two-day meeting, and the bank's new mission.

The bank said last month it would devote 28% of its spending to climate change projects.

The gathering, which came just two weeks after 175 governments reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris agreement in a symbolic signing ceremony at the United Nations, was part of a packed calendar of climate events in 2016.

Government and business leaders involved in brokering the milestone agreement to fight climate change at Paris are desperate to avoid inertia now a deal has been done.

The months until the next annual climate meeting, scheduled for Morocco in November, are studded with conferences intended to turn the promises made at Paris into concrete actions.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, is pushing hard for governments to formally join the agreement and bring it into force before Barack Obama leaves office in January 2017.

That would help protect the agreement from a future president – such as the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump – who denies or doubts that climate change is even occurring.

Mayors and business leaders at the gathering in Washington said governments also needed to move swiftly to remove barriers to investment in clean energy, especially in developing countries.

Paris agreement is a strong signal that 'we will solve climate crisis', Al Gore says
 
"We have to keep people's trust in us after Paris," Hakima El Haite, Morocco's environment minister, told the gathering. "People are not going to say: 'let's wait for 2020 to find different solutions ... They are not going to wait for a committee on finance to come up with a new statement. They would like a solution."

One of their biggest challenges is the projected new investment in coal-fired power plants in Asia.

According to figures from Platts Energy, China is planning 150GW of new coal plants by 2020, down from 270GW in the last five years. India, although it has declared ambitious plans for solar power, is increasing its share of coal by 125GW. Indonesia is planning to build twice as many new coal plants, or about 25GW.

According to John Roome, the Bank's senior climate change official, if all of those plants are built it will blow the world's efforts, enshrined at Paris, to hold warming to 2C.

"If all of the business-as-usual coal-fired power plants in India, China, Vietnam and Indonesia all came online that would take up a very significant part – in fact almost all – of the carbon budget," Roome said. "It would make it highly unlikely that we would be able to get to 2C."

Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute, was even more blunt.

He told the meeting: "Just don't build more coal-fired power plants, please, because then we blow the carbon budget."

[jimmy olsen]

That's just not true. Coal companies are going bankrupt all over the world because a combination of natural gas, solar and wind are able to consistently undersell them.

You mean these companies, right? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SunEdison

Following years of major expansion and the announcement of the intent – which eventually fell through – to acquire the residential-rooftop solar company Vivint Solar in 2015, SunEdison's stock plummeted and its more than $11 billion in debt caused it to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on April 21, 2016

Yes, their failure to aquire the solar power company doomed them.

[Monoriu]

Asia won't abandon coal


Anthony Fensom

Reports of coal's death appear to have been greatly exaggerated, at least judging by major Asian importers' continued commitment to the black gold.

Despite reviving nuclear energy, Japan has given the green light to more coal-fired power plants, after importing a record amount of thermal coal in 2015. Meanwhile, coal demand is set to hit a new record high in neighbouring South Korea, while Taiwan's new government could back increased coal imports to replace ageing nuclear reactors.

Added to the emerging demand from ASEAN and India, and suddenly coal bulls have reason for optimism after a year to forget for the global industry, including a drop in demand by China.

Moves by miners to reduce metallurgical coal oversupply could even see prices start rising again, with analysts predicting a rise in the benchmark price in 2Q16 as China curbs output.

The world's biggest coal consumer, producer and importer has flagged plans to cut 1.8 million workers from its coal and steel workforce, with Chinese firms reportedly pushing Beijing to set a price floor to protect against mass bankruptcies and layoffs.

China accounted for 50% of global coal consumption in 2014, but now plans to cut around 500 million t of production over the next 3 – 5 yr. This would be achieved by closing more than 5000 coal mines, retraining and relocating workers and not approving any new mines for the next three years.

BB&T Capital Markets coal analyst Mark Levin points to a shrinking number of coal ships at Newcastle Ports and Consol Energy's sale of a US coal mine for US$420 million as signs of a coal revival.

According to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2015, while global coal consumption stopped growing in 2014 for the first time since the 1990s, the main driver was a drop in Chinese demand, with India overtaking the US as the second-largest coal consumer.

However, declining demand and oversupply forced prices of both thermal and metallurgical coal lower in 2015, with import prices for thermal coal in Europe and Asia dropping below US$60/t, while prices for Australian metallurgical coal slipped below US$100/t.

According to the Australian government's Department of Industry, both metallurgical and thermal coal markets are expected to remain well supplied through 2016, placing further downward pressure on prices. It expects metallurgical coal prices to drop by 16% in 2016 to average US$86/t, with thermal prices to decline by 12% to around US$60/t for the Japanese 2016 fiscal year.

Nevertheless, the IEA said it expected worldwide coal consumption to continue growing at a rate of 0.8% a year through to 2020, with the strongest growth seen in ASEAN (up 7.8% a year) and India (up 4.1% per annum). India is seen as replacing China as the world's largest coal importer, with Australia deposing Indonesia as the largest exporter.

With key Asian economies turning to coal for affordable and abundant energy, some 400 GW of power generation capacity – roughly equal to the combined installed capacity of Japan and South Korea – is expected to be added across the region through to 2040, of which 40% will be coal-fired, the World Coal Association noted.

Japan: it's hip to be square

Japan's revival of its shuttered nuclear power industry is set to continue in 2016, but coal's status appears far from threatened despite the nation's commitment to curbing emissions.

In January, Kansai Electric Power Co. resumed operations at the No. 3 unit of its Takahama plant, the third such plant to restart after the Sendai units of Kyushu Electric Power Co. recommenced operations in August 2015. This followed a complete shutdown of the nation's nuclear power industry, comprising 43 plants, in the wake of the March 2011 disasters.

Another three nuclear plants may come online in 2016, with as many as 33 reactors needed to be switched back on to meet the government's target for nuclear to contribute 22% of the nation's energy needs by 2030, according to analysts.

Japan's nuclear shutdown helped thermal coal imports grow to a record 114 million t in 2015, up almost 5%, even while liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports dropped by nearly 4% to 85 million t for their first decline since the disasters.

"The figures are consistent with the government's 2030 basic energy plan, which aims to reduce LNG usage and maintain coal," Tom O'Sullivan of energy consultancy Mathyos Japan told Reuters. "This would seem to contradict the aims of the COP21 conference in December that sought to reduce global carbon emissions."

Under the 2030 plan, coal is expected to account for 26% of total energy, down from 30% in 2015, with LNG dropping to 27% from 43% as part of a decline in fossil fuels to 56% from 88%. The push to restart nuclear power follows a doubling in fuel costs, causing the trade deficit to blow out and electricity rates to surge by nearly 40%.

However, Japan's commitment to lowering greenhouse gas emissions by 26% from 2013 levels by 2030 has put pressure on the power industry, including coal, to curb emissions. The government is expected to set tighter standards for coal-fired plants and 'encourage' inefficient facilities to be scrapped under even tougher targets for emissions to be reduced by 80% by 2050 from current levels.

Yet after blocking a reported five new coal projects since June 2015, the Environment Ministry decided in February 2016 to approve the construction of new coal-fired power plants in exchange for tougher standards on emissions. Two coal plants in Ibaraki Prefecture and two in Fukushima Prefecture were expected to be approved under the new guidelines, according to Japan's Nikkei business daily.

Japan could build as many as 41 new coal-fired power plants over the next decade, with some 23 GW of new coal capacity under development as of 2015 compared to total capacity of 41 GW in 2014.

The Japanese industry has sought to curb emissions by investing in new technologies, including the Osaki CoolGen project in Hiroshima, which uses integrated gasification fuel cell combined cycle to curb emissions by as much as 30%.

Japan has also continued to invest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology, including a pilot project to inject carbon dioxide into deep saline aquifers off the coast of the northern island of Hokkaido. The Japanese government has invested a reported US$300 million in the project, with a goal of making CCS a viable technology by 2020.

"It is difficult at this point to estimate how much CO2 emissions will be cut in Japan and how much of that should be achieved through CCS in the future," Takeshi Nagasawa, Director of the Global Environment Partnership Office at Japan's Trade Ministry, told Bloomberg News. "But it is still important to build technologies so that we will be ready when it is needed."

Nevertheless, power use declined in 2015 to its lowest level since 1998 on the back of higher prices, a shrinking manufacturing sector and declining population. The complete liberalisation of the power sector in April 2016 is expected to add to the pressure on utilities, with total revenue of the nation's three largest power generators expected to shrink by 5.5% in fiscal 2016.

According to the Australian government, Japan's metallurgical coal imports are set to remain steady at around 50 million t in 2016 compared to 51 million t in the previous two years. Thermal coal imports are expected to drop from an estimated 144 million t in 2015 to 135 million t as nuclear plants restart and "relieve some of the pressure on coal-fired plants operating at capacity."

Despite weaker resource earnings, Japan's major trading houses are also reportedly on the prowl for new investments. Mitsubishi Corp., estimated as the world's fourth-largest mining business by value of its mining and energy assets, has stated its ambition to double production volumes in metallurgical coal and copper by 2020, requiring an estimated US$12 billion in new investments.

Being the 'odd one out' among the G7 in not curbing coal power does not appear to trouble energy-hungry Japan, which plans on further exports of its ultra-supercritical, low-emission plants, even while it builds more capacity at home.

South Korea: no stopping King Coal

Record coal demand is forecast for South Korea in 2016, following an increase in the number of coal-fired power plants starting operations and despite Seoul's COP21 pledge to curb emissions.

Coal accounted for around 40% of the nation's electricity supply in 2015, despite the government's move to hike the tax on imported coal for power generation. Based on data from Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), the nation's current coal-fired power plants are operating at around 80% of capacity, but even more plants are planned.

According to the Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEI), South Korean coal demand will increase by over 6% to more than 140 million t in 2016, following the startup of nine new plants with a combined capacity of 7.7 GW.

Asia's fourth-largest economy expects to build 19 new coal-fired power plants by 2022, despite scrapping plans for four new plants as part of its COP21 pledge to curb emissions by 37% by 2030.

"It takes about four to five years to build new power plants and start operations. We just can't cancel the operation of new plants that are already built and ready," an anonymous energy ministry official told Reuters.

In January 2016, the nation imported nearly 10 million t of coal, up 5% from a year earlier. Imports of thermal coal used for power generation were up by nearly 6% y/y, mainly from Australia, Indonesia and Russia.

An OECD report ranked South Korea last among its members in use of renewables, with such power sources accounting for only 1.1% of total energy, compared to its large share from crude oil and coal, which accounted for around two-thirds of primary energy supply.

The Australian government's forecaster expects South Korea's demand for metallurgical coal imports to stay flat in 2016 at some 34 million t, although thermal coal imports are seen rising by around 4% to 106 million t as the new plants come online.

Taiwan: new government's energy dilemma

Taiwan is also set to buck the trend set by the West by actually boosting coal imports in 2016. According to the Australian government's forecaster, the world's fifth-largest coal importer may increase thermal coal imports by over 2% in 2016 to 62 million t.

In 2014, per capita coal consumption amounted to 2.51 t of coal equivalent, behind only Australia (2.66 t) and Kazakhstan (3.15 t). Coal accounted for around 40% of the island's power generation that year, compared to 30% for natural gas and 18% for nuclear, but the nation's three operating nuclear plants are scheduled for decommissioning from 2018.

Construction of a fourth nuclear power plant was halted in 2014 and appears unlikely to restart, given the longstanding opposition to nuclear power from the newly elected Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government.

Nevertheless, Taipei has pledged to curb greenhouse gas emissions by 50% compared to 2005 levels by 2050, along with introducing a cap-and-trade carbon trading scheme.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is seen favouring gas to meet the nation's emission reduction targets, while gradually phasing out nuclear power from 2018. An expanded role for coal is seen as unlikely, given the DPP's aim of reducing the nation's economic reliance on China, its leading supplier.

Conclusion

For Asian coal watchers, the Year of the Monkey may be mischievous, but with demand rising and supply apparently starting to decline there are still plenty of reasons to smile.

Note: This article first appeared in the April 2016 issue of World Coal.

[jimmy olsen]

We can post counter-articles all day long if you want, but in the end people are cheap bastards Mono, governments even more so. If the price of solar keeps plunging as it is, and there's no sign that it won't, then all those governments will start switching over in the next few years.

[Monoriu]

We can post counter-articles all day long if you want, but in the end people are cheap bastards Mono, governments even more so. If the price of solar keeps plunging as it is, and there's no sign that it won't, then all those governments will start switching over in the next few years.

I think there are many reasons why governments choose coal over renewables.  The price of the solar panels is but one factor.  Other barriers still exist, for example the lack of space.  You live in this part of the world with high population densities and limited space.  You should know how difficult it is to build a solar farm near Seoul for example.   

Besides, the problem with solar and wind isn't just the price.  There are problems of availability and reliability.  Anybody can build a coal fired power station.  Not every country can build enough solar or wind farms.  Hong Kong for example cannot do either.  Those aren't even on the table.  By their very nature, solar and wind power is weather-dependent.  You are going to need either fossil fuels or nuclear power for reliability. 

I have heard people say "they will switch to solar and wind eventually" for decades.  Hasn't happened yet

[Valmy]

I think there are many reasons why governments choose coal over renewables.  The price of the solar panels is but one factor.  Other barriers still exist, for example the lack of space.  You live in this part of the world with high population densities and limited space.  You should know how difficult it is to build a solar farm near Seoul for example.

Coal mines and coal plants do not require space? Fascinating. Please tell me more about these miniaturized mines and plants you have in Asia.

Besides, the problem with solar and wind isn't just the price.  There are problems of availability and reliability.  Anybody can build a coal fired power station.  Not every country can build enough solar or wind farms.  Hong Kong for example cannot do either.  Those aren't even on the table.  By their very nature, solar and wind power is weather-dependent.  You are going to need either fossil fuels or nuclear power for reliability. 

I have heard people say "they will switch to solar and wind eventually" for decades.  Hasn't happened yet

I haven't heard people say that. What I have heard them say is 'the technology still has a ways to go until it is viable'. Now it is viable. And no not just anybody can build a coal fired power station they are very expensive and complicated engineering enterprises. Availability and reliability are no longer serious issues.

[jimmy olsen]

I see solar panels every day in Korea.

It's happening Mono. Entire countries are running on renewables. It's not just Portugal. Germany hit near 95% earlier this month. Germany has 80 million people, and while it might not be Hong Kong,  it sure ain't Australia. It's crowed and cloudy. If they can do it, any major country can do it.

[Monoriu]

I see solar panels every day in Korea.

It's happening Mono. Entire countries are running on renewables. It's not just Portugal. Germany hit near 95% earlier this month. Germany has 80 million people, and while it might not be Hong Kong,  it sure ain't Australia. It's crowed and cloudy. If they can do it, any major country can do it.

And I have seen wind turbines in Hong Kong too.  A single wind turbine.  Just to shut the environmentalists up.  Actually the real goal is to show why it doesn't work

Only time will tell.  All your examples happen in the West.  The fact remains, that Asian countries continue to build coal or natural gas power plants.  Hong Kong at least will go the natural gas route, and we won't consider renewables.  I think all the reductions in carbon emissions in the west will be more than undone by what happens in this corner of the world. 

[Valmy]

And I have seen wind turbines in Hong Kong too.  A single wind turbine.  Just to shut the environmentalists up.  Actually the real goal is to show why it doesn't work

You seem to be living in some magical dream world. In the real world these things do work and generally environmentalists do not like them, they kill birds. And solar panels are not the most environmentally friendly things to construct.

OHong Kong at least will go the natural gas route, and we won't consider renewables.

Because Asia loves using more expensive, less efficient technologies? Color me doubtful. Oh well we in the west will soon enjoy a great competitive advantage over our rivals then.

[Monoriu]

I think there are many reasons why governments choose coal over renewables.  The price of the solar panels is but one factor.  Other barriers still exist, for example the lack of space.  You live in this part of the world with high population densities and limited space.  You should know how difficult it is to build a solar farm near Seoul for example.

Coal mines and coal plants do not require space? Fascinating. Please tell me more about these miniaturized mines and plants you have in Asia.

Besides, the problem with solar and wind isn't just the price.  There are problems of availability and reliability.  Anybody can build a coal fired power station.  Not every country can build enough solar or wind farms.  Hong Kong for example cannot do either.  Those aren't even on the table.  By their very nature, solar and wind power is weather-dependent.  You are going to need either fossil fuels or nuclear power for reliability. 

I have heard people say "they will switch to solar and wind eventually" for decades.  Hasn't happened yet

I haven't heard people say that. What I have heard them say is 'the technology still has a ways to go until it is viable'. Now it is viable. And no not just anybody can build a coal fired power station they are very expensive and complicated engineering enterprises. Availability and reliability are no longer serious issues.

Think about it this way.  The coal-based electricity generation capacity in China is the largest in the world.  Probably several times the coal-based electricity generation capacity in the US.  That means, what China does will probably make or break the effort to stop global warming.  Who calls the shots on this?  The politburo of the Communist Party of China.  I think you will find that their concerns and calculations are somewhat different from yours

[jimmy olsen]

In 2014 China led the world in added solar capacity. Japan was number 2 and South Korea number 8. As of 2014 China's total capacity was 2nd in the world and Japn 3rd.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics#Top_10_ranking_of_worldwide_photovoltaic_installation

You're living in a fantasy world. It's not just Europe and North America leading the way. East Asia is a prime innovator and adapter.

[Monoriu]

In 2014 China led the world in added solar capacity. Japan was number 2 and South Korea number 8. As of 2014 China's total capacity was 2nd in the world and Japn 3rd.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics#Top_10_ranking_of_worldwide_photovoltaic_installation

You're living in a fantasy world. It's not just Europe and North America leading the way. East Asia is a prime innovator and adapter.

Excellent.  I see that you have bought the official figures that China wants you to believe

[Monoriu]

China has been praised recently for its investments in renewable energy. And the credit is well deserved as China's commitment to renewables dwarfs that of the U.S. and other industrialized countries. From 2010 to 2012 alone, China's renewable electricity growth was double that of the U.S., and it is continuing to grow.

But all the accolades are distracting us from the reality that fossil fuels dominate China's energy landscape, as they do in virtually every other country. Today, fossil fuels account for 87 percent of all energy used in China. And the focus on renewables also hides the fact that China's reliance upon coal is predicted to keep growing.

Coal, the most carbon-intensive of the fossil fuels, accounts for 70 percent of energy used in China today and is responsible for about three quarters of electricity generation.

In just 5 years, from 2005 through 2009, China added the equivalent of the entire U.S. fleet of coal-fired power plants, or 510 new 600-megawatt coal plants.
 
From 2010 through 2013, it added half the coal generation of the entire U.S. again.
 
At the peak, from 2005 through 2011, China added roughly two 600-megawatt coal plants a week, for 7 straight years. 
 
And according to U.S. government projections, China will add yet another U.S. worth of coal plants over the next 10 years, or the equivalent of a new 600-megawatt plant every 10 days for 10 years.

Helping China cut its coal emissions should be a top priority for all nations, including improving energy efficiencies further, using even more renewable energy, and deploying CO2 capture and storage technologies. The U.S. could go a long way to encouraging this by pursuing more aggressive CO2 reduction efforts at home.

China burns more than 4 billion tons of coal each year in power plants, homes, and factories. By comparison, the U.S. burns less than 1 billion, and the entire European Union burns 600 million. China surpassed the U.S. to become the largest global CO2 emitter in 2007, and it is on track to double annual U.S. emissions by 2017. While projections for the U.S. and Europe are for steady or decreasing coal use in the coming decades, barring major policy shifts, China's coal use is expected to keep increasing.

Economists predict that by 2040, China's coal power fleet will be 50 percent larger than it is today. Once these coal-fired power plants are built, they typically run for 40 years, or longer, which means a commitment to decades of CO2 emissions. The climate impact of those emissions will be nearly impossible to reverse.

Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its estimate of the allowable total cumulative global CO2 emissions between 2012 and 2100 to prevent the global average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. Beyond 2C warming the impacts of climate change will be increasingly severe, including more and longer heat waves, damaging levels of sea level rise, increased heavy rains and flooding, more persistent and hotter droughts, and increasingly acidic oceans.

If China's coal use continues to increase as predicted, by 2040 China will have consumed more than a third of that global budget. Combined with the U.S. and the rest of the world, China's emissions have the planet on a path to surpass the global budget by 2040.

Some people say it is unfair to single out China, and that is not the intention here. Historically speaking, the U.S. is the largest CO2 emitter. And some of China's emissions come from manufacturing goods that get exported to the U.S. and other countries. It is also true that the U.S. and the European Union have far higher emissions per capita, even as their overall emissions are slowly declining. 

But the reality is that China, because of its sheer size, is in a position to do more than any other country to stop the world from going off the proverbial climate cliff. With the current coal trajectory of China, all the windmills in the world won't deliver our children a climate they can depend on.

Eric Larson is a senior scientist for Climate Central and a research engineer with the Energy Systems Analysis Group at the Princeton Environmental Institute.

http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/chinas-growing-coal-use-is-worlds-growing-problem-16999

China installing more solar panels doesn't mean that the enormous coal electricity generating capacity already built will simply go away.  The coal plants have been built.  Money has been invested.  Jobs have been offered and taken.  They are not going to close those plants easily.

[grumbler]

I've heard the climate change deniers for years, but Mono is the first renewable energy denier I have run across.  Change "renewable" to "climate change" in his posts and he sounds just like Siege.

I'm hoping he is trolling like Siege is.

[frunk]

I've heard the climate change deniers for years, but Mono is the first renewable energy denier I have run across.  Change "renewable" to "climate change" in his posts and he sounds just like Siege.

I'm hoping he is trolling like Siege is.

He understands renewables and why they would be good.  I think he's a free will denier, in that he is incapable of understanding that sometimes people will take a different course of action from past behavior.