Prediction: Coal has fallen. Nuclear is next then Oil.

[mspohr]

https://nyti.ms/3AUesB9

In the weeks since President Biden signed a comprehensive climate bill devised to spur investment in electric cars and clean energy, corporations have announced a series of big-ticket projects to produce the kind of technology the legislation aims to promote.

 

[DrGriz]

https://nyti.ms/3AUesB9

In the weeks since President Biden signed a comprehensive climate bill devised to spur investment in electric cars and clean energy, corporations have announced a series of big-ticket projects to produce the kind of technology the legislation aims to promote.

Hmm! Business responds to government incentives! Nobody knew!

 

[mspohr]

‘This is the future’: rural Virginia pivots from coal to green jobs

The region’s long-awaited energy and economic transition will be substantially boosted by America’s first climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Decent well-paid jobs are desperately needed. In Virginia, coal production has declined by 70% since its peak in 1990, and much of what’s left is semi-automated. Those old jobs are largely gone and are not coming back. The IRA provides ring-fenced money for training, innovation and manufacturing, as well as an array of tax breaks and other financial incentives to help consumers and businesses transition away from fossil fuels. And Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat senator from West Virginia played a pivotal role in watering down – and then reviving – the legislation, directing billions of dollars to the economic revival of depressed coal towns.

 

[mspohr]

World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, study finds

The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study. It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed due to the 1.1C of global heating caused by humanity to date. These include the collapse of Greenland’s ice cap, eventually producing a huge sea level rise, the collapse of a key current in the north Atlantic, disrupting rain upon which billions of people depend for food, and an abrupt melting of carbon-rich permafrost. At 1.5C of heating, the minimum rise now expected, four of the five tipping points move from being possible to likely, the analysis said. Also at 1.5C, an additional five tipping points become possible, including changes to vast northern forests and the loss of almost all mountain glaciers. In total, the researchers found evidence for 16 tipping points, with the final six requiring global heating of at least 2C to be triggered, according to the scientists’ estimations. The tipping points would take effect on timescales varying from a few years to centuries.

 

[mspohr]

InsideClimate News: Remember That Coal Surge Last Year? Yeah, It’s Over. Remember That Coal Surge Last Year? Yeah, It’s Over - Inside Climate News

Renewable energy rose to make up nearly one-fourth of the electricity generated in the United States in the second quarter this year, while coal generation declined.

 

[eevee-fan]

InsideClimate News: Remember That Coal Surge Last Year? Yeah, It’s Over. Remember That Coal Surge Last Year? Yeah, It’s Over - Inside Climate News

Renewable energy rose to make up nearly one-fourth of the electricity generated in the United States in the second quarter this year, while coal generation declined.

They really need to research and see if anything in coal can be used to make EV batteries...

 

[eevee-fan]

Well, with the coming of Sodium Ion, I guess it may not matter. Pumping sea water into the Salt Lake and extracting salt from it is probably a win-win for Utah. Probably can do the same at the Salton Sea.

 

[nwdiver]

They really need to research and see if anything in coal can be used to make EV batteries...

Graphite.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Graphite.

Yes, graphene electrodes. Not that much coal would be needed for the world's supply of electrodes!

 

[eevee-fan]

Piedmont Lithium selects Tennessee for second lithium hydroxide project; 30,000 metric tons per year

Piedmont Lithium has (earlier post) selected Etowah, Tennessee as the location of the company’s planned 30,000 metric ton per year (tpy) LHP2 lithium hydroxide operation (“Tennessee Lithium”). Planned completion and start of production is in 2025. The project will convert spodumene concentrate...

www.greencarcongress.com

Another Lithium extraction project.

"Tennessee Lithium’s production target of 30,000 tpy of lithium hydroxide will complement the company’s planned Carolina Lithium operation to bring Piedmont’s estimated total US-based production capacity to 60,000 tpy by 2026. Current total US production of lithium hydroxide is just 15,000 tpy."

 

[mspohr]

‘Wildfire of disinformation’: how Chevron exploits a news desert

Gizmodo reported that content on the site has been written by Mike Aldax, who works for a San Francisco-based PR firm. Since 2014, according to Gizmodo, Aldax “has also written for a Chevron-funded newspaper in California called the Richmond Standard”. Chevron’s Texas offering has echoes of other dubious “local news” sites that have emerged in recent years. Locality Labs and Metric Media, both operated by the same ex-journalist, have opened hundreds of “news” sites, which purport to represent local communities, since 2019. The sites, which include the Great Lakes Wire and the Illinois Valley Times, masquerade as local news outlets, but in reality are funded by Republican and conservative groups.

 

[iPlug]

Leaders in lowest carbon intensity power generation have a higher hill to climb now. Good news is the laggards are making progress, driven by retiring coal and moving to renewables + NG.

Carbon intensity of U.S. power generation continues to fall but varies widely by state

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Leaders in lowest carbon intensity power generation have a higher hill to climb now. Good news is the laggards are making progress, driven by retiring coal and moving to renewables + NG.

Carbon intensity of U.S. power generation continues to fall but varies widely by state

Higher hill, but now there are ebikes.

 

[mspohr]

Private equity still investing billions in dirty energy despite pledge to clean up

Private equity firms pumping billions of dollars into dirty energy projects are exposing investors, including pensioners, to unknown financial risks as the planet burns and governments face escalating pressure to act, new research finds. The first-of-its-kind climate risks scorecard ranks Carlyle, Warburg Pincus and KKR as the worst offenders among eight major private equity companies with significant fossil fuel portfolios.

 

[mspohr]

Revealed: rightwing US lobbyists help craft slew of anti-protest fossil fuel bills

Republican-led legislatures have passed anti-protest laws drafted by an extreme-right corporate lobbying group in a third of all American states since 2018, as part of a backlash against Indigenous communities and environmentalists opposing fossil fuel projects, new research has found. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) helped draft legislation criminalizing grassroots protests against pipelines, gas terminals and other oil and gas expansion projects in 24 states, under the guise of protecting critical infrastructure

 

[eevee-fan]

Looks like Denmark is making the move from being fossil fuel energy provider to renewable energy provider. Smart!

 

[eevee-fan]

Should the US convert coal plant sites to nuclear? The DOE seems to think so

The US Department of Energy yesterday released a study stating that 80% of US coal power plant sites could be converted to nuclear.

electrek.co

That's what I'd do in Simcity!

 

[mspohr]

Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Much Sense https://nyti.ms/3QIF5it

Responding to such a climate emergency with nuclear power is like calling on a sloth to put out a house fire. The 63 nuclear reactors that went into service around the world between 2011 and 2020 took an average of around 10 years to build. By comparison, solar and wind farms can be built in months; in 2020 and 2021 alone, the world added 464 gigawatts of wind and solar power-generation capacity, which is more power than can be generated by all the nuclear plants operating in the world today.

And after all this build time, you get a very expensive source of energy. In a common energy-industry measure known as “levelized cost,” nuclear’s minimum price is about $131 per megawatt-hour, which is at least twice the price of natural gas and coal, and four times the cost of utility-scale solar and onshore wind power installations. And the high price of nuclear power doesn’t include its extraneous costs, such as the staggering price of disasters. Cleanup and other costs for the 2011 Fukushima disaster, caused by an earthquake and a tsunami off the Japanese coast, may approach a trillion dollars.

But the argument for significantly ramping up the production of nuclear power — especially in places where overall energy consumption isn’t growing, like in the United States and Europe — falls short. That’s because the nuclear industry has long been hobbled by two problems that its boosters can’t really wish away: Nuclear is far slower to build than most other forms of power, and it’s far more expensive, too. And now there is a third problem on the horizon. As battery technology improves and the price of electricity storage plummets, nuclear may be way too late, too — with much of its value eclipsed by cheaper, faster and more flexible renewable power technologies.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

We've witnessed almost a complete collapse of the coal industry. Companies that once commanded Billions in Market Value just 5 year ago have been reduced to Bankrupt shells. Things can change very quickly when inflection points are reached.

Nuclear and Coal share the same base load profile. The one thing nuclear advocates are pushing to save nuclear 'A Carbon Tax' will also promote its poison; Variable Wind and Solar. If their growth continues we could see significant nuclear curtailment in less than 5 years. Plants with a capacity factor of >90% are running razor thin margins. They can't survive even modest curtailment.

As Bloomberg pointed out a few weeks ago... EVs are poised to lower demand enough to cause a permanent collapse in the price of oil by ~2022. As more countries pledge to ban petrol powered cars in the next 15 years and Tesla has accelerated production plans this appears to be almost inevitable.

Combined cycle NG plant are over 50% thermally efficient, where coal is 40% thermally efficient; and that is why NG is the prevalent electric plant. Coal is still here 7 years latter and oil price is thru the roof…. Don’t quit your day job, as a fortune teller your not good!
Hopefully we will be building more at Atom splitting power plants.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Nuclear Power Still Doesn’t Make Much Sense https://nyti.ms/3QIF5it

Responding to such a climate emergency with nuclear power is like calling on a sloth to put out a house fire. The 63 nuclear reactors that went into service around the world between 2011 and 2020 took an average of around 10 years to build. By comparison, solar and wind farms can be built in months; in 2020 and 2021 alone, the world added 464 gigawatts of wind and solar power-generation capacity, which is more power than can be generated by all the nuclear plants operating in the world today.

And after all this build time, you get a very expensive source of energy. In a common energy-industry measure known as “levelized cost,” nuclear’s minimum price is about $131 per megawatt-hour, which is at least twice the price of natural gas and coal, and four times the cost of utility-scale solar and onshore wind power installations. And the high price of nuclear power doesn’t include its extraneous costs, such as the staggering price of disasters. Cleanup and other costs for the 2011 Fukushima disaster, caused by an earthquake and a tsunami off the Japanese coast, may approach a trillion dollars.

But the argument for significantly ramping up the production of nuclear power — especially in places where overall energy consumption isn’t growing, like in the United States and Europe — falls short. That’s because the nuclear industry has long been hobbled by two problems that its boosters can’t really wish away: Nuclear is far slower to build than most other forms of power, and it’s far more expensive, too. And now there is a third problem on the horizon. As battery technology improves and the price of electricity storage plummets, nuclear may be way too late, too — with much of its value eclipsed by cheaper, faster and more flexible renewable power technologies.

The back and forth discussion in the 1300+ comments to that column make for entertaining reading.