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“Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

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Re: “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

#21

Post by shadowgovt »

guerrilla wrote: post #20
woodruffw wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "keeping up with this"? Macro trends are what matter. For example, the US (a very not green country) has cut its coal use by over 50% in the last 20 years[1]. A lot of that is being replaced with natural gas generation, but that's partially because the coal-to-natgas transition is much quicker and cheaper due to the US's established power plants. That wouldn't apply to a developing nation, especia…

This crisis. > Macro trends are what matter. No, it's not all that matters to everyone that can't afford to pay these skyrocketing prices because there's no way to keep up with demand other than reverting to coal. The OP is about social unrest and burning coal now not long-term trends. There is no long term if everything collapses before that. Germany is already burning more coal right now because alternatives cannot…

Is burning coal now even an option?

Unless there's some significant strategic coal reserves that I'm unaware of, you'll be dealing with the issue that a lot of the coal extraction infrastructure has been decommissioned over the past decades due to market implosion. There's a lot more to extract and coal from a mine than putting a pick in the wall.

> and we'll outbid everyone else into starvation for what there is... Green cannot compete in this environment, even where it's most heavily invested in.

If you're saying that developed countries will outbid developing ones for natural gas, that seems to indicate that green technologies are no longer merely an investment decision for developing nations... They're the only option that protects their survival. If you're facing a market where you'll be consistently outbid, what choice do you have but to exit that market?

Re: “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

#22

Post by offmycloud »

woodruffw wrote: post #13
fny wrote: post #6

I hate to say it, but if energy prices keep rising this perspective is going to be disposed of rapidly. High energy prices mean rampant inflation and social unrest. With crude and natural gas prices skyrocketing, developing nations will again turn to coal as an energy source. Developed nations will return (see Germany) to coal as a heating source. Green energy will be thrown to the wayside for the sake of social stab…

This might have been true 20 years ago, but the economic envelope has changed: solar and wind power are both consistently cheaper than fossil fuels. This holds true even in developing nations[1], which means that countries that are still building out their initial power generation and distribution systems stand to benefit from skipping a costly transition entirely (not to mention eliminating a geopolitical lever.) [1…

> solar and wind power are both consistently cheaper than fossil fuels

Solar power is not cheaper than combined-cycle natural gas at midnight. The article that you cited does not contain the words "battery" or "storage", and one really needs to compare the all-in levelized cost of energy (and storage) over the life of the project. It does mention hydrogen, but does not go into the efficiency calculations.

Re: “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

#24

Post by shadowgovt »

Retric wrote: post #7
fny wrote: post #6

I hate to say it, but if energy prices keep rising this perspective is going to be disposed of rapidly. High energy prices mean rampant inflation and social unrest. With crude and natural gas prices skyrocketing, developing nations will again turn to coal as an energy source. Developed nations will return (see Germany) to coal as a heating source. Green energy will be thrown to the wayside for the sake of social stab…

Why would you spend more money on coal than you can spend on other options? Power companies aren’t building Wind/PV because it’s green they are building it because it’s cheap. Yes, higher inflation means higher interest rates, but it also means higher payments from customers over time.

It's cheap and it's liberating. Once you go with solar or wind, you're actually harvesting the "fuel" at point of consumption, which completely changes your transportation story.

They still need a transportation grid for repair and replacement parts, but that need is worlds away from the need of a coal plant supplied with continuous burnable fuel, or a natural gas plant at the end of a pipe. Renewables are a more flexible technology for a world of more change.

Re: “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

#25

Post by shadowgovt »

NoraCodes wrote: post #4
paganel wrote: post #3

Of course that the West would label everything as a "carbon bomb" right now, i.e. everything that doesn't fit its socio-political biases. Labelling nuclear power-plants the same would be met with derision, even though in our day and age the price of energy and the price of "stuff" is pretty well correlated, and seeing as nuclear power-plants are pretty damn expensive then it means that's lots and lots of energy that…

...is the argument you're making here that somehow a nuclear plant or solar farm is somehow equally polluting as a coal-fired power plant? Everything costs time, materials, and money to produce, but only coal plants continue to actively pollute after construction...

And regarding the type of pollution created, more radioactive material has been released into the atmosphere from the world's fleet of coal plants than the world's fleet of nuclear plants. That includes the two with significant containment breaching meltdowns.

It turns out, when you burn a bunch of rocks, You release as gas all the stuff in those rocks.

Re: “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

#26

Post by guerrilla »

shadowgovt wrote: post #21
guerrilla wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This crisis. > Macro trends are what matter. No, it's not all that matters to everyone that can't afford to pay these skyrocketing prices because there's no way to keep up with demand other than reverting to coal. The OP is about social unrest and burning coal now not long-term trends. There is no long term if everything collapses before that. Germany is already burning more coal right now because alternatives cannot…

Is burning coal now even an option? Unless there's some significant strategic coal reserves that I'm unaware of, you'll be dealing with the issue that a lot of the coal extraction infrastructure has been decommissioned over the past decades due to market implosion. There's a lot more to extract and coal from a mine than putting a pick in the wall. > and we'll outbid everyone else into starvation for what there is...…

An option for what is the question. To keep these people in power long enough for their patrons to rearrange their bets and suck out a bit more on the way out? Sure. To hold over until something else can come online? I don't know.

Poland has huge infrastructure for coal extraction though by the way. Germany itself has only been down since 2018. Then there's players like Greece (75% o their demand is satisfied by their own coal) who can be trivially outbid. There was Ukraine too, but, you know...

Re: “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

#28

Post by fhedgshd »

woodruffw wrote: post #13
fny wrote: post #6

I hate to say it, but if energy prices keep rising this perspective is going to be disposed of rapidly. High energy prices mean rampant inflation and social unrest. With crude and natural gas prices skyrocketing, developing nations will again turn to coal as an energy source. Developed nations will return (see Germany) to coal as a heating source. Green energy will be thrown to the wayside for the sake of social stab…

This might have been true 20 years ago, but the economic envelope has changed: solar and wind power are both consistently cheaper than fossil fuels. This holds true even in developing nations[1], which means that countries that are still building out their initial power generation and distribution systems stand to benefit from skipping a costly transition entirely (not to mention eliminating a geopolitical lever.) [1…

I really hate this take because it ignores so much nuance. Yeah per kw.hr you make cheaper power with wind but guess what? Most population centers are far enough from windy and sunny areas that transmission is very expensive. Is not like utility companies and regulators are idiots in love with coal. Maybe they are but they like money more.

Re: “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

#29

Post by woodruffw »

fhedgshd wrote: post #28
woodruffw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might have been true 20 years ago, but the economic envelope has changed: solar and wind power are both consistently cheaper than fossil fuels. This holds true even in developing nations[1], which means that countries that are still building out their initial power generation and distribution systems stand to benefit from skipping a costly transition entirely (not to mention eliminating a geopolitical lever.) [1…

I really hate this take because it ignores so much nuance. Yeah per kw.hr you make cheaper power with wind but guess what? Most population centers are far enough from windy and sunny areas that transmission is very expensive. Is not like utility companies and regulators are idiots in love with coal. Maybe they are but they like money more.

> Most population centers are far enough from windy and sunny areas that transmission is very expensive.

This isn't true, at least in the US: we have abundant offshore wind locations, nearly all of which are underutilized. NY alone is working on a 9,000MW offshore wind installation that'll be capable of powering 2.4 million homes (i.e., over 25% of the state.) Other regions where this holds: the entire Eastern seaboard (wind), the southeast (wind + solar), the entire Pacific seaboard (mostly solar, some wind), the gulf coast (wind + solar), and the Midwest (wind).

Besides, we're already paying the transmission cost in most places: it turns out that most people don't want to live near coal- or oil-fired power plants, which means that they need to be built away from population centers. The same goes for public fears around nuclear power.

I don't think regulators are idiots. They're paying institutional costs that aren't part of the renewable calculations, including inertia that makes changing the power grid inherently expensive. That, combined with the storage problem, are the actual reasons for slower-than-economical uptake.

Re: “Carbon Bombs” – Mapping key fossil fuel projects

#30

Post by jlmorton »

offmycloud wrote: post #22
woodruffw wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might have been true 20 years ago, but the economic envelope has changed: solar and wind power are both consistently cheaper than fossil fuels. This holds true even in developing nations[1], which means that countries that are still building out their initial power generation and distribution systems stand to benefit from skipping a costly transition entirely (not to mention eliminating a geopolitical lever.) [1…

> solar and wind power are both consistently cheaper than fossil fuels Solar power is not cheaper than combined-cycle natural gas at midnight. The article that you cited does not contain the words "battery" or "storage", and one really needs to compare the all-in levelized cost of energy (and storage) over the life of the project. It does mention hydrogen, but does not go into the efficiency calculations.

An important point to be made is that as electric vehicles take off, we'll soon start to find ourselves with an avalanche of worn batteries that no longer adequately support EVs, but work just fine as grid storage.

There are 280 million vehicles in the US. If fifty million of those were electric vehicles, then ten years later we'd have enough already-produced batteries to power the entire United States overnight.

There were 300,000 EVs sold in the US in 2020. There were 600,000 in 2021.

This doesn't help right now, but over time, it's becoming clear there will be a flood of cheap batteries available for grid storage.

As a nice side effect, as the market for these used batteries takes off, this might help to assuage fears about expensive battery pack replacements, fueling more EV adoption.

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