Why Can’t We Build Coal Plants, Too?

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Why Can’t We Build Coal Plants, Too?

Posted by Jeff Rubin on February 3rd, 2010 under SmallerWorldTags: carbon tariff, china, climate change, coal, copenhagen climate treaty, india • 8 Comments

Don’t confuse North American voter skepticism about the recent farce in Copenhagen with indifference to environmental issues.

Photo ops for local schmoes trying to make it big on a world stage don’t abate a single ton of carbon going out into the atmosphere, and neither does anything else coming out of that environmental summit. Nor could it, really, when over half the participants, including the most egregious carbon emitter of them all—China—didn’t even want to be there. With energy consumption per capita at a tenth of ours, the only thing that interests countries like China is emitting a whole lot more. That country may lead the world in clean wind power, but it also has more coal plants spewing emissions than the US, UK and Japan combined.

So it’s only natural that people in this part of the world would be skeptical, if not downright cynical, about trying to go down the multilateral path ever again.

But just because North Americans have lost faith in international environmental summits doesn’t mean that environmental—and, in particular, carbon—concerns don’t factor more and more into our economies and our everyday lives.

Try setting up a brand-spanking-new coal-fired power plant, like the 800 China and India will have on the go, and see how far you get in the approval process. With the exception of major coal-producing areas like Wyoming, West Virginia and Alberta, you can’t get new coal-fired facilities licensed anymore, not even in places like Texas, which still get nearly half their power from coal, let alone in holier-than-thou states like California.

Unlike the plethora of platitudes and pontifications that came out of Copenhagen, North American power users put their money where their mouths are. It costs a lot more to generate a kilowatt of electricity from natural gas, or, even more, from running a nuclear power plant, than from burning still-abundant but carbon-dirty coal.

You can stand wherever you want on the global climate change debate. (I’m no climatologist, but it seems to me the recent images of open water in the once-frozen Arctic Ocean are pretty compelling evidence, even if it’ll take another 300 years to melt the Himalayan snow cap.) But whether or not you believe in anthropogenic global warming isn’t really the point.

The point is that we all live in one world, and what’s valid at one end of the world should be valid at the other end. There can’t be ever-more-expensive carbon abatement restrictions on the side of the planet that thinks its emissions are responsible for adverse climate change, while on the other side there’s a doubling in global coal consumption over the next two decades.

If we think global warming is for real, we need to put a price on our own carbon emissions, and slap a carbon tariff on everyone else’s.

Otherwise, why can’t we build coal plants, too?

marcovth

Oil market faces glut, TD says

The oil market faces a “massive glut” that will hold down prices, Toronto-Dominion Bank says in a new forecast.

“Even though the global recovery got under way during the second half of last year, this blow to the crude oil market is going to continue to be felt for some time, as the fundamental picture remains quite weak,” TD economist Dina Cover said in a research note today.

Ms. Cover noted that while demand from non-OECD countries such as China has increased, there has been no significant rebound in OECD countries. True, total global demand ended 2009 a tad above 2008 levels but compared to 2007, the more accurate pre-recession benchmark, demand was down about 2 per cent, she said. And as prices rose back toward $70 (U.S.) a barrel after the collapse, OPEC compliance rates slipped. Factoring in higher production in countries such as Canada, the U.S. and former Soviet Union, total global output was up 1.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2009, some 1.3 million barrels a day more than demand. Indeed, in the last two months of the year, the supply-demand imbalance widened markedly, she noted.

“So while demand for crude oil is improving alongside the economic recovery, supply has been rising at a faster pace, preventing the market from working down inventories and moving back into a more balanced position,” she wrote. “… Even once the rebound in crude oil demand is in full swing, the supply overhang, combined with growing excess capacity, will limit any upward pressure on prices.”

Ms. Cover projects prices to average about $80 a barrel this year and $85 in 2011.
http://www.oiltradersblog.blogspot.com/ HMS

Just watched your video presentation on Climate Change Business.

Great material.
http://www.thenucleareconomy.com/ Zachary

“It costs a lot more to generate a kilowatt of electricity from natural gas, or, even more, from running a nuclear power plant, than from burning still-abundant but carbon-dirty coal.”

Not really. In the U.S. the average cost of electricity in 2008 was 1.87 cents per kilowatt-hour for nuclear and 2.75 for coal. Nuclear is far and away the best deal: cheap reliable abundant electricity without emissions into the environment. France has Europe's cheapest electric rates, and the cleanest air of any nation in the industrialized world.
marcovth

Of course, it costs billions and billions to store the waste and to dismantle old reactors.

If you include that in the electricity price, coal will likely be cheaper.

I think NASA's (the space agency) first mission should be to figure out how to drill 10km+ holes in an economical way to make geothermal energy feasible anywhere in the world.

Potter drilling is working hard on it, but NASA should team up with them.

Eventually, geothermal will be the only, cheapest, and reliable, way to replace oil for cars and coal/nuclear for electricity. At 10 km+ it's available anywhere in the world where you have water to generate steam through these holes.
sergedd

Great work Jeff, enjoyed your book several times over too. Gary Holden, CEO Enmax gave us a presentation confirming decommisioning 100 Coal plants in the US and how his corp is moving to more gas co-gen plants. With electricity trading every 5 minutes, the coal plants are more expensive than wind , so the coal plants are left with unwanted power (when the wind blows). It will get even less economical when the total cost of coal is accounted for through CO2 capture or carbon tax. Electricty grid and trading is an interesting topic. Solar is not far away.

I follow the climate thing too (I was a climatologist and meteorologist for a while). The trend is real, but even if one does not beleive it, what gives us the right to use our air as a dumping ground? Interestingly, Alberta has a $15/ton levy on large emitrers, so there may be light at the end of the tunnel.
Serge
sergedd

the emissions are different. There is some CO2 released during the mining and processing of ore and some Tritium released into environment. It's still much better than coal and the end products are locallized as opposed to global CO2. I see more future in smaller Hyperon reactors, but for the investment, I'd rather go wind/solar and efficiency wedges first. I don't know how France does it. Both Canada and US had Nuclear go very expensive, hence no new plants.
sergedd

Great work Jeff, enjoyed your book several times over too. Gary Holden, CEO Enmax gave us a presentation confirming decommisioning 100 Coal plants in the US and how his corp is moving to more gas co-gen plants. With electricity trading every 5 minutes, the coal plants are more expensive than wind , so the coal plants are left with unwanted power (when the wind blows). It will get even less economical when the total cost of coal is accounted for through CO2 capture or carbon tax. Electricty grid and trading is an interesting topic. Solar is not far away.

I follow the climate thing too (I was a climatologist and meteorologist for a while). The trend is real, but even if one does not beleive it, what gives us the right to use our air as a dumping ground? Interestingly, Alberta has a $15/ton levy on large emitrers, so there may be light at the end of the tunnel.
Serge
sergedd

the emissions are different. There is some CO2 released during the mining and processing of ore and some Tritium released into environment. It's still much better than coal and the end products are locallized as opposed to global CO2. I see more future in smaller Hyperon reactors, but for the investment, I'd rather go wind/solar and efficiency wedges first. I don't know how France does it. Both Canada and US had Nuclear go very expensive, hence no new plants.

Recent Blog Post

What the leaders need to understand about Canada’s shifting economy

Why Can’t We Build Coal Plants, Too?