Posted on 09/22/2018 9:40:20 AM PDT by rktman
No matter how hard environmental do-gooders are trying to kill coal, they're clearly not succeeding. According to a new report by the Energy Information Administration, despite the ongoing fear-mongering from the left, coal continues to be a major source of power generation in both developed and emerging nations, accounting for as much of the world's electricity today as it did in the 1990s. As it turns out, coal has proven to be incredibly resilient in Asia and Africa, where it has been pushed up by rising demand.
This information may come as a shock for anti-coal crusaders, but IT should hardly be surprising if the reasons behind its staying power are considered. The stuff is cheap and readily available, making it an ideal fuel source for developing countries around the globe – especially when it's not possible for them to employ prohibitively expensive renewables on a grand scale. Indeed, for some countries, exploiting their domestic coal resources is the only way to attain economic development and create a better future for their populations.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Democrats want to deprive poor people from having low cost heating and electricity or places to work.
Control Jim, control. ;-)
IMHO amount of energy consumed is pretty much directly correlated to the quality of life a civilization represents.
Coal is organic and all natural. The lefties should love it.
I work in power generation and have previously operated a super-critical coal-plant that was recently shut down. I've since had to move over to combined cycle units that operate primarily on natural gas.
All of the environmental stuff was certainly a strain on the coal industry, but the real kick in the gut came from the fracking process of natural gas. Because of fracking, the availability of natural gas jumped up considerably, which in turn drove down the per megawatt costs of power generation using that fuel (supply and demand). In other words, it became cheaper and more profitable to use natural gas than to use coal.
This not only hurt the coal industry, but it is effecting nuclear power generation as well.
The glory days of coal are not coming back, even if the global warming fruitcakes gave up their fight for regulation. Ironically, their fight to ban fracking, if successful, would actually help revive coal tremendously. Ha.
Your are exactly right.
I would take it a step further.
Our Currency should be backed by a measurement of “BTU’s” consumption/production.
The Federal Reserve and its Fiat Money is not a fair representation of economic activity and is often late, wrong or has other considerations.
Gold is NOT the solution. Gold, albeit an historical measure or basis of wealth, its value is based on perceptions. Might as well use Tulips.
Bitgold would be better than Bitcoin but both are flawed in that they don’t achieve what they claim.
The only true measurement of economic activity and Life itself is Energy.
Technology evolves. Clean coal is very viable in the energy mix.
Gold and Silver’s value comes from scarcity and that they cannot be counterfeited. (Unlike Gemstones, Bit-coin or Fiat).
Backing the currency with energy assets makes a lot more sense than fiat.
A basket of commodities would be better. Perhaps add Real Estate to the mix.
The question I have about the use of natural gas for power generation is this...How is the use of natural gas for power generation affecting the price of it for home heating & cooking?
Seems to me that I pay an awful lot more for it than I should & all I have is a gas furnace & a water heater. Our electricity is no big bargain either,but that’s a whole other story. Of course,I am basing all this on available spendable income. Naturally,I surely cannot afford to changeover to coal burning in place of what I now use natural gas for. Can anyone answer my question?
The expensive component of energy is transmission. Pipelines and wire. Coal comes by rail then truck.
I was trained in the industry and was on the design side for almost 10 yrs. Yes Combined Cycle is quite amazing. Thermal efficiencies 50% or in Siemens case up to 61%. 15% of Michigan's energy comes from a Dow/Utility in Midland that is Combined Cycle. Yes coal might be waning, I read a while back some researchers were saying it might be better utilized as seed corn for the electronics industries and what they were proposing was way above my pay-grade, but to think refined coal used in circuit boards, batteries etc etc is quite a game changer, love to see it in my lifetime.
I'm not too familiar with the mechanisms that drive pricing on the customer side, but the company I work for does provide both natural gas and electricity to their customers. From a power generation perspective, we always divert natural gas to our customers first during periods of high demand. Use of natural gas for power generation at that point is minimized. To meet the demand for electricity, power generation will be diverted to kerosene, nuclear, coal, etc.
If your gas and power are provided by separate entities, perhaps the gas company increases cost because they are supplying to residential customers and power generating facilities simultaneously.
My mother-in-law owns land in PA and receives payments on the natural gas pulled out of the gas wells on her property, but those wells have been capped and untouched for some time now because they have too much natural gas. That could slowly be driving costs back up too, but still not enough on the side of power generation to go back to coal in a big way.
Never heard about that. Very interesting. There was a lot of discussion when I was in coal on various methods being tested on how to make use of our fly ash byproduct from the coal-burning process. Unfortunately, it's too little too late for our own fleet of coal plants, but it would be nice to see another industry pop up for coal.
Entertaining but sad people are silly enough to think wind and solar can ever be material. Just madness.
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