Coal in a hard place.. expecte to produce < 30% of electricity by end of decade

It is a step in the right direction...IIRC the prior article you posted said coal use may go back closer to normal next year, so some of this may be effect of warm winter.

 

We should expect natural gas to rise in price in 2016, when lng facilities can be built. The US price for ng is much lower than the price in asia. The building of export facilities are needed to distribute the natural gas.

Coal price projections are much harder to estimate, because of regulatory uncertainty. Coal taxes, environmental clean up, or other things could raise the price of coal faster than natural gas, or lower demand could drop prices. One thing is for sure, the cost of new coal plants is much higher than new natural gas plants. Without a big spread in the cost of fuel, there is no reason to invest in new coal power generation. At today's prices, new coal electricity is more expensive than new natural gas electricity.

It is doubtful that the EPA makes retroactive rules that makes new coal plants non-compliant. They are much cleaner than old coal. What the EPA may do is lower caps, making plants pay more for emissions, or add new taxes such as ghg cap or tax. The epa is tightening regulations that is forcing the most polluting coal plants to shut down, or pay for much more expensive pollution control equipment. Environmental groups are also sueing grandfathered plants for their pollution. Congress should remove this grandfather protection, and allow the epa to regulate all the coal.

The big switch came in the 1990s when congress reversed regulations heavily favoring coal for power generation. On a level playing field, coal would have a much smaller percentage of the market, but there are many entrenched politicians that don't want to fully level the playing field. There is some risk management in not going down to 0% coal, as that would put a strain on ng, wind, etc, which implies a floor on coal electricity production. There are pilots in China, Germany, and the US for much cleaner coal with IGCC +CCS. One that will soon be producing in texas only moved forward with very heavy government subsidies as it is much more expensive than gas and wind generation. This can be justified as R&D for the future.

 

...this is consistent with my personal experience, in the early 1990's I was involved in New Jersey power policy debates. Even then private industry wanted to build nat gas cogen plants, with extra capacity to supply cheap power to the grid and make a handy profit. The state, utilities, and politicians wanted to block the nat gas trend. NJ adopted official policy that coal was the favored power plant fuel. NJ built a few until mid 1990's.
Finally after all these years, NJ may have swung over to my (pro nat gas) view.

Nat gas elec has a hard road, because there are strong political preferences for coal nukes wind solar. I too would like to see some investment in clean coal which is probably 4x cost of nat gas. Somehow we need diversity without over-charging the public too much for pork barrel preferences of the states/politicans/utilities. Pay as you go (extra fee on your bill) for more expensive power is one approach (eg; green power).

 

...flip side of argument in the news today:

 

The argument only holds in North America. The Chinese, Indians, Japanese, and Europeans - in other words ROW - as a whole are increasing coal use. Most of the world does not have the natural gas and wind resources that north america has. This is what makes me extremely pessimistic that anything the US does on its own will reduce ghg significantly.

 

...that same feeling came over me about 6 months ago You probably knew that way before me. But I do think we may be making a mistake if we focus too much on CO2. We may be over-emphasizing that problem, thus detracting from other progress. If the atmosphere evaporates into outter space, I will reflect that I am wrong of course.

 

there is currently a very big push to allow coal to be railed from Montana to the coast in order to be shipped to Asia. WA is resistant and i would assume OR to be the same. a great debate is raging simply because it will make a lot of money for someone but appears that only a small slice of that pie will filter down locally. but that little revenue would be in an area that is currently one of the most depressed areas of the state.

someone reported on FB that they were coming over the pass from E. WA and noticed the wind generators were idle despite more than enough wind available. have not heard any follow up but remember these were the same generators idled due to an over abundance of power created from solar and hydro. once again, a very poorly mismanaged situation poising as a good idea caused by archaic regulations held in place by the power of big oil, big coal, etc.

 

There is no such thing as "clean coal."

Those, who advocated "clean coal" are brainwashing the public to believe that it can be clean.

The only way that coal can be made clean is to convert it to "methanol," which costs less than a dollar a gallon to make.

Ethanol made from food stuffs costs about $4 a gallon to make.

 

But when you get lectured from those from the EU about america not joining in the standards, it is likely that the business as usual case for america may be a greater percentage reduction than the EUs cap and trade. The system has serious problems, when Germany decreased other companies increased. Now with the financial crisis, I expect europe per capita ghg to fall at a much smaller rate than in the US. China and India are increasing.

If you want to reduce ghg than exporting coal to plants without CCS is not a good thing. IMHO those predicting increases in coal were not looking at macro economics. The reduction of ghg would be even greater with congressional action, but simply favoring coal less than it was in the 1980s will cause a shift. We do need regulations by 2015, which is when it is reasonable to build LNG exporting facilities.

 

There is cleaner coal. This is needed because europe and asia are going to burn it even if we don't
Texas Clean Energy Project - A Coal Gasification Plant Based on IGCC
This project captures and sells the carbon dioxide, SO2, and NOx, but is not economical without government subsidies. Even a carbon tax would likely favor natural gas and wind, not cleaner coal at today's prices.

 

Some port will take it, even if they need to put it by rail to the gulf coast.

The grid needs to built out so that all the wind can be used. The grid operators set rules on idling wind, and power that is more expensive to turn off simply pays a fine when demand is too low.

 

problem with that is the energy content between Methanol and Ethanol. its pretty large

 

Methanol can be made in a renewable fashion, or usually from natural gas. We only need to make it out of coal if natural gas runs out. methanol can be shipped, which makes it easier to transport than natural gas, but it uses 1/3 the energy to convert.

I don't understand methanol versus ethanol energy content. Methanol has 75% of the energy of ethanol, but ethanol can be burned at higher compression. The main thing hurting ethanol is the ethanol lobby.

In cleaner coal technology IGCC is used, that means the first step is to gassify coal to methane, then use carbon capture.

 

The battery in the Prius, especially the PIP, takes up both more space and weighs more than the standard gasoline tank, but the savings pays for having it.

 

burning at a higher compression is pretty much required for transportation needs. expanding air is what gets us down the road. low compression means not a lot of air to expand which further aggravates the energy content differences. ethanol has an octane rating that is literally sky high which is good in that that allows higher compression.

either way, finding other ways to use coal is not really something i want to spend money on

 

The coal lobby is pretty strong Making gasoline from coal dumb idea. IGCC +CCS is a good idea.

Methanol blends instead of ethanol blends make a lot of sense. Methanol from ng or renewables. But the ethanol lobby is pretty strong.

 

In China, it is illegal to produce ethanol from foodstocks.

Methanol can be produced from methane (natural gas) from landfills. Natural gas transported by pipeline from long distances, can be converted easily at local conversion plants to methanol.

The "liquid" fuel infrastructure is already there and familiar to end users, who can use the same gas stations that are everywhere. With the adaptation of stations to use E10 gasoline, the conversion is already part there.

The oil companies will not tell you that the "Age of methanol" will follow the "Age of Petroleum."

The only reason that they are not selling methanol is because they have to get a return on their infrastructure made for petroleum fuels.