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Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

reuters.com

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Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#51

Post by IIAOPSW »

woodandsteel wrote: post #19

From what I understand there is an ongoing battle in the Chinese government between those who understand the country desperately needs to get off of fossil fuels as soon as possible, and those who want to stay on coal forever. So at the same time that China has been building an enormous number of coal plants, it is also building renewable power plants and pushing hard on ev's.

>there is an ongoing battle ... between those who understand the country desperately needs to get off of fossil fuels as soon as possible, and those who want to stay on coal forever.

Sounds like a certain other major country.

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#52

Post by Reason077 »

adventured wrote: post #49
Reason077 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike the USA, China does not have huge resources of natural gas. For the most part, natural gas will not replace coal in China. China does have a lot of renewables[1] - enormous solar and wind farms in the interior and west, and the potential for far more. These can produce energy much cheaper than coal plants can. But the challenge is getting that energy to the more populous provinces in the south and east where i…

> Unlike the USA, China does not have a lot of natural gas. China doesn't need a lot of natural gas within its borders. It's neighbors with Russia, which can supply via pipeline all the natural gas that China can take. The issue is it remains cheaper to do coal domestically in China than to buy natural gas from Russia, so they overwhelmingly prefer to do that still. It's also of course expedient for China to use coal…

Perhaps, but it’s hard to see China ever wanting to become too dependent on imported natural gas. They like coal not only because it’s cheap (which, increasingly, it isn’t), but because it’s domestic.

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#53

Post by teruakohatu »

adventured wrote: post #49
Reason077 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike the USA, China does not have huge resources of natural gas. For the most part, natural gas will not replace coal in China. China does have a lot of renewables[1] - enormous solar and wind farms in the interior and west, and the potential for far more. These can produce energy much cheaper than coal plants can. But the challenge is getting that energy to the more populous provinces in the south and east where i…

> Unlike the USA, China does not have a lot of natural gas. China doesn't need a lot of natural gas within its borders. It's neighbors with Russia, which can supply via pipeline all the natural gas that China can take. The issue is it remains cheaper to do coal domestically in China than to buy natural gas from Russia, so they overwhelmingly prefer to do that still. It's also of course expedient for China to use coal…

Russia has shown to be willing to use natural gas as a geopolitical weapon. There is no chance China will become dependant on natural gas from outside their border.

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#54

Post by ineedasername »

zxcmx wrote: post #44
ineedasername wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a long enough timescale they may burn themselves out, but on a long enough time scale everything comes to an end. Things happen, and then they stop happening. Exponential growth occurs, and then it stops occurring. Its eventual end does not disprove its prior existence.

Sure, we can agree it's exponential until it's not. And then we can start to think about whether it's going to be a logistic curve or oscillate and what factors might amplify or damp and our model is much more interesting. Like, the original statement is about systems that people study and model, and how the exponential condition can really only exist for brief periods relative to the lifetime of almost all systems o…

Oscillation and a sort of meta-stability is not uncommon, and something I personally find fascinating!

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#55

Post by function_seven »

teruakohatu wrote: post #53
adventured wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlike the USA, China does not have a lot of natural gas. China doesn't need a lot of natural gas within its borders. It's neighbors with Russia, which can supply via pipeline all the natural gas that China can take. The issue is it remains cheaper to do coal domestically in China than to buy natural gas from Russia, so they overwhelmingly prefer to do that still. It's also of course expedient for China to use coal…

Russia has shown to be willing to use natural gas as a geopolitical weapon. There is no chance China will become dependant on natural gas from outside their border.

I'm thinking that China could flip the script by getting Russia to become dependent on Chinese money buying their gas. Use just enough of it to establish the relationship, but not so much that a pipeline shutdown will overly harm the Chinese economy.

The population ratio (~10:1) and GDP ratio (~4:1) makes it possible to create this scenario.

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#56

Post by bobthepanda »

teruakohatu wrote: post #53
adventured wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unlike the USA, China does not have a lot of natural gas. China doesn't need a lot of natural gas within its borders. It's neighbors with Russia, which can supply via pipeline all the natural gas that China can take. The issue is it remains cheaper to do coal domestically in China than to buy natural gas from Russia, so they overwhelmingly prefer to do that still. It's also of course expedient for China to use coal…

Russia has shown to be willing to use natural gas as a geopolitical weapon. There is no chance China will become dependant on natural gas from outside their border.

Not only that, but Russia-Chinese relations have not always been smooth. They have had dustups over one of the longest land borders in the world before.

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#57

Post by kstrauser »

newswriter99 wrote: post #36
jethro_tell wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I love lighting my water on fire and fracking earthquakes. Switching America's oil subsidies to solar and wind would be much better than pretending that fracking shale is a net plus.

>Yeah, I love lighting my water on fire and fracking earthquakes Natural gas from fracking does not cause burning tap water. https://www.cred.org/is-fracking-connected-to-burning-tap-wa... Fracking-related earthquakes are either minimal or bebeficial https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/does... 0/10 "green energy" shill. Fracking gave us dirt cheap natgas, which is damn cleaner than coal AND why yo…

> Natural gas from fracking does not cause burning tap water.

I'll take a step back from "burning", because that seems hard to prove, but it most certainly does contaminate ground water: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fracking-can-cont...

> Fracking-related earthquakes are either minimal or bebeficial

That's the most insane claim I've read on the Internet this week. You should be ashamed for saying that.

Beneficial earthquakes. Now I think I've heard everything.

I know it's against Hacker News rules to assume bad intent in posts, but I cannot believe that you're saying these things in good faith. It's just not possible.

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#58

Post by bobthepanda »

woodandsteel wrote: post #19

From what I understand there is an ongoing battle in the Chinese government between those who understand the country desperately needs to get off of fossil fuels as soon as possible, and those who want to stay on coal forever. So at the same time that China has been building an enormous number of coal plants, it is also building renewable power plants and pushing hard on ev's.

China's Five Year Plans are very big on numbers.

I don't think I've seen one where China has ever reduced a target related to economic expansion. I'm kind of surprised they even need that much more power at this point, since the country is fairly developed, where growth tapers off and energy efficiency starts rising.

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#59

Post by IAmEveryone »

newswriter99 wrote: post #36
jethro_tell wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I love lighting my water on fire and fracking earthquakes. Switching America's oil subsidies to solar and wind would be much better than pretending that fracking shale is a net plus.

>Yeah, I love lighting my water on fire and fracking earthquakes Natural gas from fracking does not cause burning tap water. https://www.cred.org/is-fracking-connected-to-burning-tap-wa... Fracking-related earthquakes are either minimal or bebeficial https://www.americangeosciences.org/critical-issues/faq/does... 0/10 "green energy" shill. Fracking gave us dirt cheap natgas, which is damn cleaner than coal AND why yo…

I hear these “Beneficial Earthquakes” are all the rage in the wellness community. Could be better than Probiotic Plutonium, Fun Flooding, and maybe even Happy Cardiac Arrest

Re: Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year

#60

Post by IAmEveryone »

XCSme wrote: post #38

Is this good or bad news? I assume good for the environment, right? Or creating the alternative sources would generate more CO2?

Natural gas is second-worst after coal among the major energy sources, releasing about half as much CO2.

Leaving coal in the ground is both necessary as well as supremely effective to stave off the next global catastrophe.

It also drastically reduces other emissions, some of which have been implicated in the current catastrophe.

As a cherry on top, it upsets coal magnates, a self-selected group uniquely qualified to entertain us with their misery.

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