There are still some kinks to be worked out. The process to generate hydrogen from coal produces a monstrous amount of CO2 – far more CO2 per unit of useful energy than simply burning the coal would produce. But with hydrogen production, unlike hydrocarbon combustion, all the CO2 is produced in one place. This creates an opportunity for carbon sequestration, when technologies to sequester carbon on such an impressive scale are developed.
(Bloomberg) — For all the buzz around wind, solar and electric cars, energy company executives had plenty to say Tuesday about the continuing role of fossil fuels and nuclear power at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Future of Energy Summit.
Mining mogul Bob Murray offered a passionate defense of coal, asserting that we’d all “die in the dark” without it. Ethan Zindler, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst, supplied the counter argument, saying U.S. coal-plant economics simply don’t work anymore. Here’s what executives from BP Plc to Tellurian Inc. said about the future of fossil fuels in a world pushing to fight climate change.
by P. Homewood, April 3, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
A joint report by Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and CoalSwarm indicates that Southeast Asia will be the new epicentre of coal production. Asia accounts for 85 per cent of new coal power development in the world’s top 20 coal producing countries, with China as the leader of the pack. However, while tighter restrictions on domestic coal plants have been imposed by the central government to curb pollution, Beijing has pushed the development of high-efficiency, low-emission coal plants across Southeast Asia as part of the “Belt and Road Initiative”.
As China is expanding its influence, Beijing’s foremost strategic competitor in Asia, Japan, is being forced to step up efforts to combat its shrinking influence in the region. The booming energy sector of Southeast Asia, especially coal, is proving to be the new front line in the geopolitical rivalry between Asia’s two industrial giants.
Greens who celebrated China’s switch to gas are now worried the plans seem to be in disarray, as rushed conversions trigger a gas supply crisis. But behind the scenes, China is pursuing a gas production plan so carbon intensive, even Chinese greens are openly criticising central government policy.
Germany’s utopian dream of transforming itself into the world’s green powerhouse is collapsing as its political and media establishment is mugged by reality. The country’s climate obsession has turned into one of the country’s biggest political and economic handicaps, making Germany almost ungovernable.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that about 100 GW of new coal-fired power generation capacity is expected to come online in Southeast Asia by 2040, more than doubling the region’s current coal power capacity. Global coal-fired generation capacity to grow by nearly 50% over today’s levels.
Les gisements sont des zones généralement profondes où l’on trouve de grandes quantités de charbon. Il faut forer des puits pour y accéder et extraire le minerai. Lorsque les réserves de charbon sont relativement proches de la surface de la terre, une exploitation à ciel ouvert peut être mise en place. Il existe également des gisements de charbon sous les océans, pour le moment inexploités.
by Sebastien Laye, September 18, 2017 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
Those voices are the impetus behind what Subramanian calls a “green and clean coal coalition” spanning both the developed and developing worlds. Emerging markets in Asia and Africa will continue to build new coal-fired power stations for at least the next two decades. In that timeframe, coal-fired solutions are indispensable to meeting their demands for electrification and growth. As clean coal solutions emerge, new plants in the developing world can and should be far cleaner than previous generations of coal-fired plants in Europe and America.
by Robin Mills, August 20, 207 UAE Ed The National
The Middle Eastern countries that are looking at coal are trying to diversify their fuel mix, and to reduce vulnerability to economic or supply shocks. Gas is cheap at the moment but its price is volatile, and states such as Dubai, Egypt and Turkey do not want to be too import-dependent. For Dubai, which attracted a very competitive bid from Acwa and Harbin, coal is a key part of strengthening its negotiating position with other suppliers. Iran and Turkey are trying to maximise the use of their domestic coal, and for Turkey, reliance on rivals Iran and Russia for two-thirds of its gas is dangerous.
Despite gas prices being low at the moment, coal is cheaper still — at least once the required import facilities are constructed. Chinese power and engineering companies, looking for other markets, are offering their expertise and low-cost financing.
However, China, the new climate-change champion, is leading the charge in a global building splurge that will see 1,600 of those dirty, villainous coal-fired power plants all across our planet. Even the New York Times, one of the most fervent voices of catastrophic global-warming alarmism — and one of the most vociferous critics of Trump’s decision to dump Obama’s Paris climate deal — has admitted that China’s coal plans make it “virtually impossible” to meet the Paris accord goals.
The level of renewable use is now so high in Germany that serious electric grid reliability and stability issues now exist which require both fossil power plant emergency backup for failed renewable production and dictate rejecting renewable energy to ensure operation of fossil plants required for electric grid reliability and stability.
“End-Coal” Global Coal Tracker does a magnificent job of showing how essential coal is around the world, and which countries are pathetically backwards in developing new coal plants. It’s probably not what the “CoalSwarm” team was hoping to achieve, but this map is a real asset to those of us who want to show how tiny Australia’s coal fired assets are compared to the rest of the world
When China halted plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants this year, even as President Trump vowed to “bring back coal” in America, the contrast seemed to confirm Beijing’s new role as a leader in the fight against climate change.
But new data on the world’s biggest developers of coal-fired power plants paints a very different picture: China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade.
These Chinese corporations are building or planning to build more than 700 new coal plants at home and around the world (…)
The United States has a broader array of energy options than China does. However, China is innovating and investing heavily in what it has, and some of the transformations it is achieving already are truly impressive.
China’s leaders have made a strategic choice about the direction of the country: They are aiming to shift from an economy based on heavy, polluting industries to one driven by technology and innovation. The political will for this upgrade has roots in both international geostrategic ambitions and domestic popular grievances about lagging standards of living—and it is beginning to bear fruit. In the process, however, vested interests and technical stumbling blocks have wasted resources and acted as a ballast against Chinese progress. China has the potential to do much more, and the international community should push it to achieve that potential.
Anyone with doubts about China’s demand for energy including for thermal coal needed to sustain its gigantic economy should cast their eyes over the latest statistics for power generation from Beijing’s National Statistics Bureau.
These data are a treasure trove in terms of revealing trends in China’s energy production and appetite for thermal coal sourced from both inside China and from imports shipped from countries including, Australia, Indonesia and Russia.
A l’origine de la révolution industrielle, le charbon demeure au XXIe siècle une énergie privilégiée dans le monde. Il permet d’assurer les besoins énergétiques de l’équivalent de presque un homme sur trois (le charbon satisfait 29% de la consommation d’énergie finale en 2012 selon l’AIE). Il est la première source d’énergie utilisée pour produire de l’électricité (environ 40% de l’électricité mondiale est produite à partir de charbon).
China’s natural gas production surged to a record last month and coal output rebounded as economic growth accelerated power use in the world’s largest energy user.
Natural gas production in March rose 8.2 percent from the average of the first two months of the year to a record 13.6 billion cubic meters, according to data Monday from the National Bureau of Statistics. Coal output rose almost 13 percent over the same period to average 9.67 million tons a day, the highest daily level since December, according to Bloomberg calculations based on the data.
The resurgence is due to the industry making itself more competitive, in much the same manner that the shale oil & gas players made themselves more competitive in response to a collapse in commodities prices.
Chinese engineer and inventor Feng Weizhong has an easy answer to how China plans to keep slashing coal use and power-station emissions while relying on coal to provide at least 55 per cent of its massive energy demand for decades to come. The effervescent Professor Feng, who is also general manager of a large Shanghai power plant, explained to The Australian how the country can contrive to do both at the same time. “Simple! It’s clean coal!”
Des chercheurs allemands étudient la possibilité de transformer dans la région de la Ruhr une mine de charbon en un site de stockage hydroélectrique. En Rhénanie-du-Nord-Westphalie (ouest de l’Allemagne), l’extraction au sein de la mine de charbon de Prosper-Haniel a débuté en 1863. Une procédure de fermeture de cette mine, qui fournit encore près de 2,5 millions de tonnes de charbon par an(1), devrait être engagée fin 2018. Mais l’activité ne devrait pas s’arrêter sur le site : il est prévu que la mine soit transformée en une station de transfert d’énergie par pompage (STEP).
Just a few short years ago, few would have dared to predict that coal could have a future in the energy policies of emerging and developed countries alike. Yet the fossil fuel is undergoing an unexpected renaissance in Asia, buoyed by technical breakthroughs and looming questions about squaring development with energy security.
Après cinq ans de baisse continue, les prix du charbon « vapeur » (type de charbon principalement utilisé dans les centrales thermiques et dans certaines industries, notamment pour fabriquer du ciment) ont doublé entre le début et la fin de l’année 2016, tant en Europe qu’en Asie. La demande mondiale de charbon, qui provient toujours pour moitié de la Chine, a pourtant baissé en 2016.
Tom O’Sullivan, a Tokyo based energy consultant with Mathyos Global Advisory, said in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, Japan started importing more liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Australia.
But he said the move to more coal fired power was because coal was cheaper than LNG, and the energy security was priority for the government.
