Trump’s Plan For Clean Coal Could Put The Brakes On Natural Gas

15 Comments on "Trump’s Plan For Clean Coal Could Put The Brakes On Natural Gas"

rockman on Fri, 11th Nov 2016 8:55 pm 



Trump’s clean coal policy??? They are referring to a portion of President Obama’s legacy:

From just last August from

http://undark.org/2016/08/17/clean-coal-tech-booming/

“Donald Trump was in Virginia last week assuring coal miners that he would save their jobs by reviving the coal industry — while Hillary Clinton, he said, would be a “horror show” for coal country. The implication was that Democrats are happy to let the industry wither.

In fact, the Obama administration continues to invest billions of dollars toward the development of so-called “clean coal” technologies designed to make coal-fired plants more climate friendly by capturing carbon dioxide emissions and storing them before they are released into the atmosphere. Despite the industry’s woes and the steady decline in coal use for electricity production in the U.S. — largely the result of cheap natural gas — coal is still a major power source, and it is responsible for 26 percent of U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions, and 42 percent of total global emissions.”

Which fits well with the rest of the POTUS’s coal legacy. According to govt stats: more coal produced from govt leases during his two terms the during any other 8 year period.

The reality of US coal:

U.S. coal exports to China (the largest producer of GHG) surged during President Obama’s first term, jumping from 387,000 tons in 2009 to over 4 million tons the following year. Demand for US coking and steam coal also grew rapidly in Japan, India, and South Korea.

US coal exports increased rapidly in 2011 at the beginning of President Obama’s second term returning to levels not seen since the early 1990s, and accelerating to keep up with rapidly rising global demand. U.S. coal exports rose 49 percent during the first quarter of 2011 compared to the previous quarter, according to the EIA.

Apneaman on Fri, 11th Nov 2016 9:12 pm 



I guess in the information age it’s hard to remember year old information.

There are 2,100 new coal plants being planned worldwide — enough to cook the planet

Jul 9, 2015, 2:29pm EDT

“There are more than enough coal plants in the pipeline to bust through the 2°C threshold

Let’s start with the first point — there are at least 2,177 coal units currently on the drawing board around the world. Of those, 557 are actually under construction. The rest are in various planning stages:”

http://www.vox.com/2015/7/9/8922901/coal-renaissance-numbers

2°C is long gone. 3°C is the new 2°C and many scientists do not seem to want to talk about already underway self reinforcing positive feedback loops. Basically the snowball effect is coming.

Sissyfuss on Fri, 11th Nov 2016 9:48 pm 



Clean coal is like cold fusion. We’re working on it, we’re making phenomenal progress, we just need a little more funding to get us over the top.

Truth Has A Liberal Bias on Fri, 11th Nov 2016 10:29 pm 



If he denies global warming then why does coal have to be clean? Trump likes to win. Once he wins he gets bored. It’s the wanting and not the having with dudes like him. He’ll get bored of the job, tired of the long hours, and intolerant of the small living quarters that the job of president provides. The pay ain’t that great either. He’ll resign before his term is up.

Anonymous on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 12:33 am 



Clean coal is a technology that has struggled for years

Clean coal is a technology that DOES NOT EXIST.

Fixed it fer ya.

Davy on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 6:23 am 



It always comes back to money when we discuss things like clean coal. Coal is increasingly uneconomic just like oil. The best stuff has been produced with a lot of less economic stuff still around. Coal is an intensive industry requiring big equipment. It requires moving large quantities of dirt to get to it. Coal is only partially uneconomic because of policy. Gas is the biggest reason coal is under so much pressure and the increased cost of getting coal in relation to gas. Part of this is the gas bubble because many of us are pretty sure gas is uneconomic at the price it is at. This is a big financial smoke and mirror show.

If you add to this equation and expensive process of cleaning up coal and you find the numbers don’t work. If they worked more would have been done. This idea is not new and it is not going anywhere. We can clean up coal but not at the right price. Our economy is struggling now and it will be further under pressure if fossil fuel prices rise. If we look at cost benefits for society the money would be better spent elsewhere like less energy use strategies but that opens up a can of worms with the reality of a growth based system that must grow. Everywhere we look catch 22’s of bad choices emerge and clean coal is just one of many.

Trump will exhaust his campaign promises once reality sets in. Mark my word there will be little change in the year ahead. Primarily because change in the energy industry is very slow anyway. We will see much the same with what Obama is doing. The same is true on the other side of the equation with greens. Their hoped for and unrealistic goals for alternative energy is in a similar situation. There are cost benefit limits to alternative energy and its growth is likely going to be nothing like what many preach.

We are cooking the planet because we have no choice. If you want change then eliminate half the population and those remaining need to be put back on the land in 19th century farming arrangements. Pol Pot did that and the name for that was “The Killing Fields”. If you think you can have a healthy planet and modernism you are smoking hopium. Since this is not going to happen we either ignore reality as we increasing face a precarious existential situation or we adapt and mitigate.

I imagine a little bit of both strategies will occur especially when the worst of climate change sets in. This period of climate destabilization appears to be now with both poles in extreme change. There are no good choices. One would think the best choice is leave denial both with climate change deniers and green deniers but there is more to it. A loss of confidence from a loss of hope could destroy the economy anyway so “catch 22” again. We are increasingly faced with dangerous problems that will require good decisions. Bad decisions from a false reality can’t end well. Good decisions that require facing reality will crash confidence which can’t end well. The world needs to wake up and face death of our modern way of life with overconsumption and overpopulation but doing so is deadly. I am not sure we can collectively face reality for systematic reason and this leave you the individual to change. Dramatically lower your expectations for life is a good starting point. If you can do that and not go into depression then you will be tough enough to face what is ahead. It is a sad story and we live in a world that preaches happy endings but increasingly there are none.

Sissyfuss on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 7:41 am 



Davy, one of your best comments ever. Precise and cogent, well done! OT, when you are in the field with goat shit between your toes, do you consider that a close encounter of the turd kind?

Davy on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 8:50 am 



Siss, sometimes I think I am idiot for walking around in goat shit when I could have warm sand and the smell of ocean surf in my nostrils.

Kenz300 on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 11:29 am 



Wind and solar are safer, cleaner and cheaper.

Cheaper wins.

rockman on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 11:51 am 



“Clean coal is a technology that has struggled for years”. If you’re talking about CCS the tech to pull CO2 out of a cumbustion gas stream has been around for decades. Granted work is ongoing to develop more efficient methods but a lack of tech hasn’t been the problem. Like many “solutions” it’s the cost that represents the biggest hurdle. And often it isn’t the cost of extracting the CO2 that’s the biggest expense but the transportation and disposal. The largest CCS project in the world is being built in Texas. And just the 82 MILE PIPELINE will cost $200 million…20% of the total project cost. The project would have cost considerably more if all the injection wells had to be drilled. Fortunately it’s an active field with more then 100 well bores available.

Unfortunately the experts estimate that only 5% of the existing coal-fired power plants would be suitable for CCS. And a big factor why CCS has focused on Texss is that being relative new to burning coal (lignite actually) we have the most efficient plants in the country. That and proximity to injectable existing fields.

The CO2 recovery tech: The Petra Nova project might overcome some of the existing cost concerns through its use of technology that has already been tested in another DOE-sponsored project. That 3-year pilot-scale test project in Alabama successfully captured more than 150,000 metric tons of CO2 per year from a coal power plant using an advanced amine-based CO2 capture system to gather the carbon emissions that are released in the power plant after combustion.

In terms of effectiveness, the DOE reports that the amine-based solvent used in this system will effectively strip these carbon emissions from the plant’s flue gas stream (i.e. post-combustion) before it is released into the atmosphere using less energy (a.k.a. with a smaller parasitic load) than previous designs. The captured emissions will then separated from the solvent, compressed, and then transported via pipeline to the West Ranch oil field in nearby Vanderbilt, Texas for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The project will include a monitoring program to determine if the CO2 actually remains in the well.

Petra Nova CCS Fact Sheet:

Company/Alliance: Petra Nova Holdings: a 50/50 partnership between NRG Energy and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corp.

Capture: 1.4 Mt of CO2 captured annually (90% capture)

Capture Technology: Post-combustion: KM-CDR amine scrubbing CO2 developed by MHI and KEPCO

Timing: Project is scheduled to start at the end of 2016. Project is on time and on budget.

The total project cost is estimated to cost $1 billion.

NRG received $167 million from the DOE Clean Coal Project Initiative (CCPI) March 10 2010.
The project partners NRG and JX Nippon are contributing $300m each as equity investment for the project.

NRG Energy was initially pursuing smaller-scale plans at the Parish plant, looking at capturing around 375,000 tons per annum of CO2. The project was expanded to its current form to accommodate the need for larger volumes of CO2 for EOR operations at mature oil fields in the Gulf Coast region. The first site to use CO2 from the WA Parish Project is Hilcorp’s West Ranch Oil Field. Through EOR, it is expected that oil production will be boosted from around 500 barrels per day to approximately 15,000 barrels per day. This field is currently estimated to hold approximately 60 million barrels of oil recoverable from EOR operations.

rockman on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 12:13 pm 



Davy – “It always comes back to money when we discuss things like clean coal. Coal is increasingly uneconomic just like oil. The best stuff has been produced with a lot of less economic stuff still around.”

Not entirely correct. Consider that about half of Texas electricity comes from burning lignite. Such poor quality it really doesn’t seem right to call it coal. But Texas has huge deposits at the surface which requires nothing more the earth moving equipment so it’s very cheap to “mine”. Which is fortunate given the very low Btu content per ton.

Today that crappy lignite is running half the burners at the second largest source of GHG in the country. The other half burns NG. But again being local, very abundant and very cheap to dig it works very well for Texas and will continue to do so for many decades. And will be even more attractive decades down the road as NG prices inevitability get much higher. Which is why even though Texas has developed a world class alt energy supply with wind power we haven’t cut our coal-fired capacity 1 Btu. And also why Texas has built the largest CCS project ($1 BILLION) on the planet to handle the GHG emissions from those lignite burners.

Lignite is a very poor energy source. And with our ever growing electricity demand Texas is fortunate to have a 100+ year supply of it.

Anonymous on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 1:33 pm 



LOL rockman. CCS is not just too ‘expensive’ it also, does not work. What part of that is too complex to understand? The only process capable of sequestering carbon, effectively, are natual ones. The Earth eco-system itself. Artificially trying to ‘bury carbon’, like its in an old fridge, or old clothes, simply isnt going to work-ever. Throw all the money you like at it, or quote sources with an invested interested in trying to peddle this deeply flawed concept all you like. Hell just recently started to realize that throwing a lot of crap in a hole and covering it up, is a really BAD idea, and stopped doing it. And the shit we used throw in holes in the ground was far easier to manage than an odorless, colorless gas like carbon.

Its not going to happen, and while you feel money is measure of all things, or the only measure, in this case, no amount of money is going the make the CCS fantasy happen.

Sissyfuss on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 3:34 pm 



Don’t forget that there is 40 year lag time on GHG released and climatic effect of said gasses. CCS is another smoke screen to hide BAU behind while the poles melt and the oceans begin to boil.

makati1 on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 5:52 pm 



Sissy, it is ALL a game to make more money before the SHTF. The 40 year lag means we are already doomed. All we can do is hurry our demise.

Apneaman on Sat, 12th Nov 2016 5:55 pm 



Sissyfuss, the most disturbing thing about the 40 year lag is that over half of all industrial emissions have come in the last 30 years-ish.

Global Warming Fact: More than Half of All Industrial CO2 Pollution Has Been Emitted Since 1988 – DECEMBER 15, 2014

“But 1988 is the year in which the scientific evidence for and risks of human-caused climate change became widely known, and when initial steps were taken to address the problem. It is the year when NASA scientist James Hansen testified before the U.S. Senate that human-caused warming was underway, testimony that was reported on the front page of the New York Times. ”

http://blog.ucsusa.org/peter-frumhoff/global-warming-fact-co2-emissions-since-1988-764

This is a great article explaining, in easily understood language that everyone can understand, why and how the lag time works.

Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay Between Cause and Effect

Posted on 22 September 2010

“The reason the planet takes several decades to respond to increased CO2 is the thermal inertia of the oceans. Consider a saucepan of water placed on a gas stove. Although the flame has a temperature measured in hundreds of degrees C, the water takes a few minutes to reach boiling point. This simple analogy explains climate lag. The mass of the oceans is around 500 times that of the atmosphere. The time that it takes to warm up is measured in decades. Because of the difficulty in quantifying the rate at which the warm upper layers of the ocean mix with the cooler deeper waters, there is significant variation in estimates of climate lag. A paper by James Hansen and others [iii] estimates the time required for 60% of global warming to take place in response to increased emissions to be in the range of 25 to 50 years. The mid-point of this is 37.5 which I have rounded to 40 years.”

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html

2010. Since 2010 we have learned that a number of climate and other environmental phenomena were greatly underestimated and there have been a parade of reports highlighting the timing errors in the models and predictions. “faster than previously expected” measurements and consequences are our new reality. Nothing has blown me away more than how far and fast Arctic amplification and sea ice loss has happened in the last decade. Surreal.

35 second animated visualization of the startling decline of Arctic Sea Ice.

Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Volumes 1979-2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NP0L1PG9ag