Peak coal

[desy]

WSJ

So, for those who hope coal will keep NA afloat on any liquid fuels crisis
Gasification is technologically possible but evironmentaly and economically unviable
Clean coal consumes 30% more energy to get the same output of regular coal.
Finally there isn't nearly as much coal as previously calculated.

 

[bbdub333]

Originally posted by: desy

Gasification is technologically possible but evironmentaly and economically unviable

Gee, just like everything else.

Clean coal consumes 30% more energy to get the same output of regular coal.

What a disingenuous, misleading statement. You're leading the reader to infer that it takes 30% more coal to produce the same amount of energy. The actual quote: "A new book by Harvard University?s Belfer Center estimates that clean coal plants use 30% more energy than traditional plants?that is, clean coal plants require more coal to produce the same amount of energy as dirty coal plants."

So the operating power costs go up 30% (an estimate for an unknown technology being discussed), that does't mean it takes 30% more coal. These plants produce far more power than they consume to operate.

ie... a dirty plant uses 10MW of power to make 100MW (arbitrary numbers), and a clean plant uses 13MW of power to make 100MW, it doesn't take 30% more coal to make up the 3MW difference.

There are different types of clean coal technologies, and everything I have read about different technologies being pursued/implemented is that they are more efficient than traditional burning... hence it would take LESS clean-coal to produce the same amount of power as a dirty-coal plant.

Finally there isn't nearly as much coal as previously calculated.

No... there is... just costs more to get some of it (in the one area they focused on)


Try again.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: bbdub333

Originally posted by: desy

Gasification is technologically possible but evironmentaly and economically unviable

Gee, just like everything else.

Clean coal consumes 30% more energy to get the same output of regular coal.

What a disingenuous, misleading statement. You're leading the reader to infer that it takes 30% more coal to produce the same amount of energy. The actual quote: "A new book by Harvard University?s Belfer Center estimates that clean coal plants use 30% more energy than traditional plants?that is, clean coal plants require more coal to produce the same amount of energy as dirty coal plants."

So the operating power costs go up 30% (an estimate for an unknown technology being discussed), that does't mean it takes 30% more coal. There are different types of clean coal technologies, and everything I have read about different technologies being pursued/implemented is that they are more efficient than traditional burning... hence it would take LESS clean-coal to produce the same amount of power as a dirty-coal plant.

Finally there isn't nearly as much coal as previously calculated.

No... there is... just costs more to get some of it (in the one area they focused on)


Try again.

What a disingenuous, misleading statement.

Since Rupert Murdoch took over the WSJ it has gone so far downhill its barely above FoxNews in credibility anymore.

 

[bbdub333]

Originally posted by: techs
What a disingenuous, misleading statement.

Since Rupert Murdoch took over the WSJ it has gone so far downhill its barely above FoxNews in credibility anymore.

The linked article is a blog. The original article is messed up (cut off after the first couple paragraphs), so you can't see exactly what the article itself said. Even so, the blog's quote was misleading, the OP made it worse.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: bbdub333


No... there is... just costs more to get some of it (in the one area they focused on)


Try again.

Which would then make it might as well not be there. If it costs so much to get TO the coal you want to use to generate electricity, its going to cost that much more to receive the electricity generated from it. Thus, negating the purpose of coal, it being cheap.

You'd shift the eonomics of electrical generation towards something else.

So, when he said that there isn't as much coal as we thought, it means there isn't as much usuable coal as we though. And that's accurate.

 

[bbdub333]

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Which would then make it might as well not be there. If it costs so much to get TO the coal you want to use to generate electricity, its going to cost that much more to receive the electricity generated from it. Thus, negating the purpose of coal, it being cheap.

You'd shift the eonomics of electrical generation towards something else.

So, when he said that there isn't as much coal as we thought, it means there isn't as much usuable coal as we though. And that's accurate.

So if coal went down to 10 cents a ton, I could accurately say that there is no coal left?

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: desy
Title: Peak coal

I'll one up you, try peak humans. Finite resources to be consumed by an indefinitely increasing population. One day there will be a reckoning where peak numbers are reduced to sustainable numbers.

 

[Slick5150]

Originally posted by: bbdub333

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Which would then make it might as well not be there. If it costs so much to get TO the coal you want to use to generate electricity, its going to cost that much more to receive the electricity generated from it. Thus, negating the purpose of coal, it being cheap.

You'd shift the eonomics of electrical generation towards something else.

So, when he said that there isn't as much coal as we thought, it means there isn't as much usuable coal as we though. And that's accurate.

So if coal went down to 10 cents a ton, I could accurately say that there is no coal left?

That would violate the idea of supply & demand. Price would only drop if there was an overabundance of supply, which is the exact opposite of what we're talking about here. If the coal supplies are becoming harder to get to, then the price of coal would naturally rise as the cost to mine it goes up. So I have no clue where you're even coming up with this hypothetical other than to bash the original article without any factual basis for doing so.

 

[ayabe]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: desy
Title: Peak coal

I'll one up you, try peak humans. Finite resources to be consumed by an indefinitely increasing population. One day there will be a reckoning where peak numbers are reduced to sustainable numbers.

Mass starvation is already becoming a reality in the third world, crop yields are not keeping up with population growth.

The whole clean coal thing is lunacy, especially when people start talking about capturing CO2 and burying it in the Idaho desert.

 

[bbdub333]

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Originally posted by: bbdub333

Originally posted by: Slick5150

Which would then make it might as well not be there. If it costs so much to get TO the coal you want to use to generate electricity, its going to cost that much more to receive the electricity generated from it. Thus, negating the purpose of coal, it being cheap.

You'd shift the eonomics of electrical generation towards something else.

So, when he said that there isn't as much coal as we thought, it means there isn't as much usuable coal as we though. And that's accurate.

So if coal went down to 10 cents a ton, I could accurately say that there is no coal left?

That would violate the idea of supply & demand. Price would only drop if there was an overabundance of supply, which is the exact opposite of what we're talking about here. If the coal supplies are becoming harder to get to, then the price of coal would naturally rise as the cost to mine it goes up. So I have no clue where you're even coming up with this hypothetical other than to bash the original article without any factual basis for doing so.

You're arguing ramifications of a hypothetical situation instead of trying to debate the point that the hypothetical is making.

The way he stated it is that there is not as much coal in existence as we once though. I said that it still exists, it is just more expensive to obtain. You said that if it costs more to obtain it than it is worth, it might as well not exist. My response to that was that if for some reason (doesn't matter) coal was only worth 10 cents a ton, you would say that there is no more coal in the United States. I would say that it is still there, it just costs more to get it.

This has nothing to do with supply and demand, it has to do with misleading statements made in the article and by the OP.

 

[bbdub333]

Originally posted by: ayabe
The whole clean coal thing is lunacy, especially when people start talking about capturing CO2 and burying it in the Idaho desert.

How is it lunacy again?

 

[desy]

Thats what the peak means in peak coal/oil etc is that the easy stuff is gone and expensive stuff is left.
Our economy runs on cheap, plentiful energy, maybe wind solar alternatives may reach cost parity with existing fossil fuels soon, but will it scale up quick enough to offset the declining energy from traditional sources?
Often coal is stated as the Ace in the hole, but I could dig up many articles as to why there isn't the coal reserves many advocate. I just chose this one cause it was current and to stir the pot in P&N.

As for emissions, just as pollution controls did the same to cars in the 70's, FE went down, you can expect cleaning up coal plants will have an impact on EROI
It isn't important to me to reduce CO2 but to many it is and will have impact on efficiency, my question is, which is more important, maximum efficiency or reduced emissions?

 

[QuantumPion]

The future of our energy supply (assuming society doesn't collapse in the meantime) will be fission and later fusion. This will happen over the next 100 years, by which point hydrocarbon fuels will be obsolete. We have PLENTY of coal, oil, and natural gas to last us in the mean time.

p.s. we might already have been at that point now, if it weren't for TMI and the hippies boycotting nuclear power in the 70's and 80's.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
The future of our energy supply (assuming society doesn't collapse in the meantime) will be fission and later fusion. This will happen over the next 100 years, by which point hydrocarbon fuels will be obsolete. We have PLENTY of coal, oil, and natural gas to last us in the mean time.

p.s. we might already have been at that point now, if it weren't for TMI and the hippies boycotting nuclear power in the 70's and 80's.

No we'd be there now if the nuclear industry wasn't full of stupid assholes lying out their asses with promises of safe nuclear storage and leaving all their shit out on the surface exposed to any number of potential risks. Nuclear is cheap unless it has to pay to clean up everything it creates in the way of toxic threat to humanity. All the lies about how we could and will and how easy it is and none of it ever having got done. Nuclear is a disaster because people are pigs. They love to shit but they don't like shoveling shit. All those great minds as stupid as bricks.

 

[techs]

Originally posted by: bbdub333

Originally posted by: techs
What a disingenuous, misleading statement.

Since Rupert Murdoch took over the WSJ it has gone so far downhill its barely above FoxNews in credibility anymore.

The linked article is a blog. The original article is messed up (cut off after the first couple paragraphs), so you can't see exactly what the article itself said. Even so, the blog's quote was misleading, the OP made it worse.

I'm still working on my "Wall Street Journal becomes FoxNews in print thread".
Its gonna be a doozy.

 

[bbdub333]

Originally posted by: desy

As for emissions, just as pollution controls did the same to cars in the 70's, FE went down, you can expect cleaning up coal plants will have an impact on EROI
It isn't important to me to reduce CO2 but to many it is and will have impact on efficiency, my question is, which is more important, maximum efficiency or reduced emissions?

That's a pretty silly statement to make.

By that logic, a Prius must put out more emissions than an Expedition. After all, the Prius is much more efficient, so it can't have less emissions... right?

Same logic.

 

[desy]

WTF are you talking about? take a engine in a car and put pollution controls on it, it will be less efficient

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: desy
Title: Peak coal

I'll one up you, try peak humans. Finite resources to be consumed by an indefinitely increasing population. One day there will be a reckoning where peak numbers are reduced to sustainable numbers.

Time to dispose of inefficient "organic" and "traditional" farming, pull out all the stops and go full steam ahead with GMOs and other modern farming techniques to boost efficiency.

 

[K1052]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: QuantumPion
The future of our energy supply (assuming society doesn't collapse in the meantime) will be fission and later fusion. This will happen over the next 100 years, by which point hydrocarbon fuels will be obsolete. We have PLENTY of coal, oil, and natural gas to last us in the mean time.

p.s. we might already have been at that point now, if it weren't for TMI and the hippies boycotting nuclear power in the 70's and 80's.

No we'd be there now if the nuclear industry wasn't full of stupid assholes lying out their asses with promises of safe nuclear storage and leaving all their shit out on the surface exposed to any number of potential risks. Nuclear is cheap unless it has to pay to clean up everything it creates in the way of toxic threat to humanity. All the lies about how we could and will and how easy it is and none of it ever having got done. Nuclear is a disaster because people are pigs. They love to shit but they don't like shoveling shit. All those great minds as stupid as bricks.

Instead we built more coal plants to churn out greenhouse gasses, heavy metals, and radium directly into our atmosphere. WTG

The waste aspects of nuclear fission have turned into a political issue and are in no way technologically insurmountable (in fact become less so as time passes).

 

[IGBT]

ok. lets all go back to 1899. shovel horse shite and live by daylight.

 

[SickBeast]

The US should be able to tap more rivers for hydro power. They also have a great potential for wind power. 120 years is plenty of time, and I'm sure that wind alone could easily replace what is currently being generated by coal.

 

[herm0016]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
The US should be able to tap more rivers for hydro power. They also have a great potential for wind power. 120 years is plenty of time, and I'm sure that wind alone could easily replace what is currently being generated by coal.

yea, it could as long as its windy ( around 25 to 30 mph) at every point in the country that there is a windmill... to much wind, it stops, to little, it stops. how many 300 foot tall windmills do you want in your backyard?

I am a big fan of wind, but thats just an uninformed statement. I even have my own windmill under dev. for my apartment.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: herm0016

Originally posted by: SickBeast
The US should be able to tap more rivers for hydro power. They also have a great potential for wind power. 120 years is plenty of time, and I'm sure that wind alone could easily replace what is currently being generated by coal.

yea, it could as long as its windy ( around 25 to 30 mph) at every point in the country that there is a windmill... to much wind, it stops, to little, it stops. how many 300 foot tall windmills do you want in your backyard?

I am a big fan of wind, but thats just an uninformed statement. I even have my own windmill under dev. for my apartment.

Wind is cheaper than nuclear per watt generated. It can be paired quite well with solar. Typically when it's cloudy it's windy, and vice versa. In the right location, a wind farm will be very productive. There are ways to store up the energy as well.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: herm0016

Originally posted by: SickBeast
The US should be able to tap more rivers for hydro power. They also have a great potential for wind power. 120 years is plenty of time, and I'm sure that wind alone could easily replace what is currently being generated by coal.

yea, it could as long as its windy ( around 25 to 30 mph) at every point in the country that there is a windmill... to much wind, it stops, to little, it stops. how many 300 foot tall windmills do you want in your backyard?

I am a big fan of wind, but thats just an uninformed statement. I even have my own windmill under dev. for my apartment.

Wind is cheaper than nuclear per watt generated.

Proof?

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Howard

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: herm0016

Originally posted by: SickBeast
The US should be able to tap more rivers for hydro power. They also have a great potential for wind power. 120 years is plenty of time, and I'm sure that wind alone could easily replace what is currently being generated by coal.

yea, it could as long as its windy ( around 25 to 30 mph) at every point in the country that there is a windmill... to much wind, it stops, to little, it stops. how many 300 foot tall windmills do you want in your backyard?

I am a big fan of wind, but thats just an uninformed statement. I even have my own windmill under dev. for my apartment.

Wind is cheaper than nuclear per watt generated.

Proof?

Well, Greenpeace says it is, plus:

Here is a link

Compare this to the financial costs of nuclear energy. To achieve a situation where 20% of current national electricity production was nuclear power would require the construction of at least five typical nuclear power plants, each with a capacity of around 1000-1500 MW (a typical reactor size).

Based on several recently commissioned third-generation reactors in Japan and South Korea, these reactors would cost between $1500 and $2000 per kilowatt to commission, and therefore between $11.25-$15 billion in total.

Clearly, nuclear power is more expensive. Once built, the plants require fuel rods, an additional cost, and these must be enriched at a separate facility, which would cost upwards of $500 million.

Nuclear power has higher operational and maintenance costs compared to wind power, and nuclear power stations take longer to commission (seven to 10 years) than wind turbines (three to six months once delivered). More carbon dioxide is emitted in the construction of a nuclear power plant, and in the enrichment of fuel rods, than in the construction of wind towers.

You need to realize that there is a ton of propaganda in opposition of wind power due to the nuclear lobby. Big companies like Enron are involved, along with the government. You realize it costs well over $10 billion to create a nuclear power plant, right?