Category: Coal

UK Blackout Emergency Plan Costs Soar

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Coal will come to the rescue in the UK at a cost.Plant-wide_Slider02

The cost of ensuring Britain could turn its lights back on after a catastrophic nationwide blackout has soared by at least £12m this year, as National Grid is forced to pay struggling old coal plants to “keep warm” in case of an emergency.

Britain’s so-called “black start” plans are designed to ensure that electricity supplies could be swiftly restored in the event of an unprecedented power failure plunging all or part of the country into darkness.

As most power plants need to draw some electricity from the grid to start generating, National Grid has to ensure the UK retains a certain number of black start plants that are able to fire up independently using their own generators.

Historically, several of the UK’s coal plants have been relied upon to form part of the black start plan.

But rising green taxes, cheap gas prices and the growth of renewables are together rendering the coal plants increasingly uneconomic, with some closing down for good and most others now only running for parts of the day.

This poses a threat to Britain’s emergency plans because if the plants are not generating when a catastrophic power failure hits, they will take far longer to start up.

Energy regulator Ofgem has now given National Grid permission to pay the plants millions of pounds to keep “warm”, so that they would be ready to start up quickly in an emergency.

 

UHV – Ultra High Voltage Transmission

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China is building a network of Ultra High Voltage power lines to move electricity long distances. They even have plans to build UHV lines to Germany so they can sell the Germans cheap electricity generated by coal.

“There are 2300 new coal plants with 1400GW of capacity planned worldwide”

“China’s proposed investment in long-­distance, ultra-high voltage power transmission lines will pave the way for power exports from China to as far away as Germany.”

While UHV has been used in Russia and other counties in the past, China is perfecting it. The US grid, for example, operates at 500kv or lower.

UnitedStatesPowerGrid

 

UHV allows the transmission of very large amounts of electricity with more efficiency. What are the advantages of UHV?

Increased Transmission Capacity: A single 1000 kV UHV-AC circuit can transmit +/-5 GW, approximately 5 times the maximum transmission capacity of a 500 kV AC line. An 800 kV UHV-DC transmission line is even more efficient, with a capacity to transmit 6.4 GW.

Extended Transmission Distance: A 1000 kV UHV-AC line will economically transmit power distances of up to 2,000 km (1240 miles), more than twice as far as a typical 500 kV AC line . An 800 kV UHV-DC power line can economically transmit power over distances of up to 3,000 km (1,860 miles).

Reduced Transmission Losses: If the conductor cross-sectional area and transmission power are held constant, the resistance losses of a 1000 kV UHV-AC line is 25% that of the 500-kV AC power line. The resistance loss of an 800 kV UHV-DC transmission line is an even more remarkable 39% of typical line power erosion.

Reduced Costs: The cost per unit of transmission capacity of 1000 kV UHV-AC and 800 kV UHV-DC transmission is about 75% of 500 kV AC costs.

Reduced Land Requirements: A 1000 kV UHV-AC line power line saves 50% to 66% of the corridor area that a 500 kV AC line would require. An 800 kV UHV-DC line would save 23% of the corridor area required by a 500 kV DC line.

 

 

China: 1,000 More Coal Power Plants Exporting Power All The Way To Germany

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1,000 more coal power plants for China. And then power exports all the way to Germany.

Coal!!!!

China’s proposed investments in long-distance, ultra-high voltage (UHV) power transmission lines will pave the way for power exports as far as Germany, the head of the national power grid said on Tuesday as he launched an initiative for cross-border power connections

Exporting power to central Asia and beyond falls into China’s “one belt, one road” ambitions to export industrial overcapacity and engineering expertise as it faces slowing growth at home. The plan would allow enormous hydropower dams, coal-fired power plants and wind farms in frontier regions such as Xinjiang to sell into higher-priced markets overseas. The “belt” refers to the land route from Asia to Europe, while the “road”, curiously, refers to the sea route via the Indian Ocean.

Talk of exporting power is a reversal for China, which as recently as 2004 suffered rolling blackouts across its manufacturing heartland. But huge investments in power in the decade since, and the construction of a number of dams, nuclear reactors and coal-fired plants due to begin operating in the next 10 years, mean the country faces a growing surplus.

Liu Zhenya, chairman of State Grid, told reporters that wind and thermal power produced in Xinjiang could reach Germany at half the current cost of electricity there. “There are so many resources, but no market. We need to find it externally.”

 

 

 

Alberta NDP Coal Phaseout Could Triple Power Bills

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If you live in Alberta Canada, get ready for a possible tripling of electricity costs.

“Whether you’re in oil and gas, forestry, agriculture, tourism, we need good, affordable, dependable power to be successful,” Coal Association of Canada president Robin Campbell said. “It’s one of the things we have in this province that allows us to compete globally and we’re about to lose that.”

The NDP says phasing out coal is necessary not only to reduce green house gases but also to improve air quality.

Campbell says all those concerns could be addressed through investing in clean coal technologies without jeopardizing base-load power.

New coal power plants generate more CO2 than natural gas but they generate way less CO2 than wood pellets.

Another study:

It found that the boost in renewables and the end of coal would mean a 45 per cent reduction in emissions, or 18.5 million fewer tonnes of carbon released into the atmosphere a year.

However, under the province’s privatized utility system, prices would have to be between $60 to $85 per megawatt hour to justify wind power construction.

And if solar power were to make up 50 per cent of the renewables mix “it would cost between $200 and $300 per megawatt hour,” the study found.

Alberta Energy Companies are bailing on contracts and leaving Alberta taxpayers to pay and pay and pay  for the NDP’s stupidity.

The NDP now have a “coal phaseout negotiator” for getting rid of coal. It will cost billions. And will make Alberta a have not province.

 

 

Word of the Day: Sewage Sludge

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Ok. Technically Sewage Sludge is a phrase.

The other day I was talking about cofiring. And I discovered that one of the fuels they cofire alongside coal is sewage sludge.

What is sludge?

Up to 95 percent is water. But it starts as wastewater, which is a mix of food, paper, diapers, plant mater, feces, condoms, sanitary napkins, paints, pesticides, bacteria, pathogens, pharmaceuticals, sand, metal particles, road salt, insects and gases.

I think I would prefer 100% coal.

 

Word of the Day: Cofiring and more CO2

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Cofiring: the combustion of two different types of materials at the same time.

This word may not be new to many of you (or some of you) but it was to me. Or course I have mocked the idea of replacing coal with wood since burning wood from the USA creates more CO2 than coal. The DRAX post from the other day points out that even DRAX’s own study showed more CO2 from wood pellets than from coal.

And destroying forests to produce more CO2 in the atmosphere seems to me to be amazingly stupid.

So I’ve been investigating to see what kind of cofiring goes on and how much CO2 is produced. The really important terms are Total CO2 and Net CO2 and CO2 neutral.

Total CO2 refers to the gross emissions of CO2 from this power plant.

Net CO2 refers to the emissions of CO2 from the fossil fuel used in this power plant, since biomass is assumed to be CO2 neutral. Gross CO2 and net CO2 will be the same where only fossil fuel is used.

In my opinion the concept of CO2 neutral is bogus. CO2 is CO2. If you generate 600MW of power and you care about CO2 then it shouldn’t matter whether you use coal or sewage sludge or any other biomass. It should be total CO2. (Not completely true because other things are produced from coal power plants like SO2 etc but today we talk CO2)

I came across this paper: A Techno-economic assessment of the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions through the use of biomass co-combustion

The paper claims:

Using sustainably-grown biomass as the sole fuel, or co-fired with coal, is an effective way of reducing the net CO2 emissions from a combustion power plant. There may be a reduction in efficiency from the use of biomass, mainly as a result of its relatively high moisture content, and the system economics may also be adversely affected.

Notice the term net CO2 is used. Their conclusions are based on the fallacy that the CO2 produced by burning the biomass is zero. But they were nice enough (honest enough?) to show the figures for total CO2.

The table shows the result of the experiments. The one I highlighted has 4 sections:

PN1: a 600MW power plant burning 100% coal. CO2 = 759 g/kWh
PN2: a 600MW power plant burning 80% coal and 20% straw. 773 g/kWh
PN3: a 600MW power plant burning 80% coal and 20% sewage sludge. 765 g/kWh
PN4: a 600MW power plant burning 80% coal and 20% straw (reburn). 818 g/kWh

In all cases biomass+coal cofiring produces more CO2. And the CO2 numbers don’t take into account transportation of coal or biomass. So locally sourced biomass isn’t a disaster. But wood pellets from the USA produce a lot of CO2 just in transport costs.

Capture

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chesapeake Energy and Sierra Club and Aubrey McClendon

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Three weeks ago, Aubrey McClendon, co-founder of Chesapeake Energy Corp (a major player in shale gas) was accused of rigging bids for oil- and gas-drilling rights. McClendon slipped away from his security team and climbed into his 2013 Chevy Tahoe. He sped north along a lonesome two-lane stretch of Midwest Boulevard, toward the prairie-scrub city edge, where he drove his SUV into a wall at high speed.

I’m assuming suicide. When I read about this I was reminded of the huge (well .. it should have been huge) scandal discovered by Time Magazine in 2012.

“between 2007 and 2010 the Sierra Club accepted over $25 million in donations from the gas industry, mostly from Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy—one of the biggest gas drilling companies in the U.S. and a firm heavily involved in fracking—to help fund the Club’s Beyond Coal campaign.”

The problem with the “Beyond Coal”  campaign is that it wants to replace coal with super-expensive renewables (instead of cheap natural gas)  despite the bribes from McClendon.

China has 150 new coal power plants planned “a capacity of 123GW, more than twice Germany’s entire coal fleet”.

Not only will killing coal in the USA put 10s of thousands of people out of work (many of whom will probably vote Trump) … replacing coal with renewables will make manufacturing and home electricity even less competitive.

And even more coal will be burned in China (and India etc) than is not burned in the USA.

McClendon was an idiot to fund the Sierra Club.

 

 

 

 

 

Ontario Converts 4,000MW of Coal Power Plant to 44MW of solar

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Ontario Canada is converting a 4,000MW coal power plant to a 44MMW solar farm.

“Through the IESO’s new Large Renewable Procurement program, solar providers will receive an average of 15.67 cents/kWh for their clean energy.”

“The province’s pivot toward renewables has not come without significant economic ramifications, however. On-peak power cost consumers 17.5 cents/kWh in Nov. of 2015, compared to just 9.7 cents/kWh in the same month of 2006, according to the Ontario Energy Board—an 80 per cent hike. For off-peak power, Ontarians paid 8.3 cents/kWh in 2015, relative to 3.4 cent/kWh in 2006—or 144 per cent more.”

There was no mention in the story how 44MW of intermittent power can replace 4,000MW of dispatchable power.

There was no mention in the story of how many jobs will be transferred to China or India.

 

 

 

 

DRAX Wood Burning Scam Unravelling

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I’ve written about DRAX before. Because of loopholes in UK and EU “climate” laws the largest coal power plant is switching from coal to wood pellets sources from the USA.

DRAX has made the news again.

The report says it has found ‘misleading statements by Enviva about its emissions and environmental impacts’ in its prospectus when it was floated on the New York stock exchange last April.

The report says Enviva has claimed that ‘burning wood in power plants reduces carbon emissions compared to coal’. But the study says Drax’s own data shows that while burning coal leads to emissions of 1,901lb of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour (Mwh), the figure for wood is significantly higher – 2,128lb per Mwh.

Enviva’s claim is only possible because of a UK and EU ‘policy loophole’ – which does not apply in America – classing biomass fuel such as wood pellets as ‘zero carbon’.

According to the study, Enviva has not made this clear. Its claim to the SEC that using its pellets ‘reduces’ emissions only applies to making and shipping the pellets, not burning them.

The complaint calls on the SEC to launch an investigation to ‘establish and enforce clear guidelines applicable to companies that may be claiming climate benefits’.

Drax produces eight per cent of the UK’s electricity – enough to power six million homes. Half of its six 650 megawatt (MW) generators have been converted from coal to burn wood pellets from America. Drax spokesman Andrew Brown yesterday confirmed the firm wants to adapt its remaining three furnaces.

http://www.thegwpf.com/biofuel-emits-more-co2-than-coal-u-s-watchdog-to-probe-draxs-green-supplier/

The East Germans Have Successfully Take Over German Climate Policy

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What was once launched as a – well-intentioned – green energy revolution has now mutated into a giant VEB [i.e. East German state company]. In Gabriel’s system electricity production is no longer determined by demand – as is usual in a market economy. It is not demand that determines supply – but the subsidy billions. Produced is only what wind and solar power and feed-in tariffs expensively allow, not what the public and the economy need – cheap energy. In Gabriel’s national energy system there is an ideological distinction between “good” (green) and “evil” (traditional) energy. Therefore, even profitable and clean gas power plants are switched off – as just happened to Europe’s most modern gas-fired power plant in Irsching. Instead, new subsidy-fed projects are connected to the grid without the necessary network capacity and without the necessary storage technology. For these intermittent power plants, coal power plants have to be kept running as backups, which in turn emit a lot more CO2, which now are also extra-taxed. It all feels like socialist self-perpetuating: this energy revolution cannot be stopped. 

 

http://www.thegwpf.com/the-madness-of-germanys-energy-socialism/