All the World's Coal Plants, Mapped.

[NNadir]

All the World's Coal Plants Mapped

This is an interactive map, and when it comes up, it will show 2017 on the slider bar.

You may have heard somewhere coal is dead. Maybe you believed it, or at least wanted to believe it.

Expand to Europe, push the slider bar to "Future" from 2017.

Take a look at China and India.

The US, a country of myopic provincials, is closing coal plants because in the US dangerous natural gas is believed to be "cheap." It isn't. It only appears so because the external costs of gas will fall on future generations who will conversely reap none, absolutely none of the benefits.

I wish you a pleasant work week.

[JNelson6563]

1. Wow! Way too many!

Thanks for posting this!

[RKP5637]

2. Interesting! Thanks! n/t

[Nitram]

3. NNadir, could you summarize the external costs of natural gas for me?

I can think of groundwater contamination due to fracking. And the pipeline right-of -ways, which I assume will revert to nature when the gas runs out. And greenhouse gas emissions, although less than coal.

[NNadir]

6. I'm not ignoring you excellent question, but the answer...

...is somewhat involved. It will take some time to get to it, but I will make an effort to do so.

[progree]

4. It says worldwide, electricity generated from coal peaked in 2014 (so far)

OP's link: https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants

Meanwhile, electricity generated from coal peaked in 2014, so the expanding fleet is running fewer hours than ever. This erodes coal’s bottom line, as does competition from gas and renewables.

Data from the IEA shows CO2 emissions from coal power may also have peaked already, in 2014, even though coal capacity continues to increase. Coal CO2 emissions fell 3.9% between 2014 and 2016 (red line) and coal generation by 4.3% (yellow), as the chart below shows.

Since coal capacity continues to increase (pink), existing coal plants are running for fewer hours (purple). On average, the world’s coal plants were running around half the time in 2016, with a load factor of 52.5%. The trend is similar in the US (52%), EU (46%), China (49%) and India (60%).

Etc. etc. It also says that, according to the EIA, "coal-fired capacity and generation in China has more or less peaked".

Sure, a lot is being replaced by natural gas-fired (unfortunately it doesn't quantify the amount). But I read elsewhere that nat gas has about 1/2 the CO2 emissions per unit of energy as coal. Yes, I get that the difference CO2-wise is like the difference between getting hit by a truck or by a train. And that we must do much better ....

CO2 emissions from existing plants are enough to breach the carbon budget for 1.5 or 2C. These limits would mean no new coal plants and closing 20% of the fleet early, according to one recent study.

All unabated coal would have to close by 2040 to stay “well below” 2C, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). This would mean closing 100GW of coal capacity every year for 20 years, or roughly one coal unit every day until 2040. (Some pathways have slightly slower phaseouts.)

[NNadir]

5. Working figures I've seen in the literature for gas...

...are on the order of 500-600 g CO2/kWh, coal roughly twice that.

Nuclear ranges from 10g/kWh to 50 g/kWh, comparable to wind if it is isolated from back up which is actually dishonest. Solar is generally double nuclear, again with isolation.

Of course the fossil figures will vary with how the use is cycled and should be expected to be significantly higher if the plants are temporarily shut whenever the wind blows.
This is just a consequence of thermodynamics.

There is difference between peaked and dead. I peaked years ago. I'm not dead.