Archive for the ‘Coal’ Category

Nuclear Townhall
January 6, 2011

No new coal plants have begun construction in the past two years and none are expected to break ground in 2011, according to a report from the U.S. State Department on its website, www.america.gov.
 


Thirteen gigawatts of new construction is already underway and expected to be completed in the next few years, according to Frank Graves, a consultant with the Brattle Group in Boston. But after that the pipeline will run dry. “It’s not as much as they had planned to construct, but it’s not as if the coal industry has been frozen in its tracks,” Graves told America.gov.


The claim that new coal plant permitting has ground to a halt was originally made by the Sierra Club last week and confirmed by the Edison Electric Institute, the industry research group.  The federal government’s Energy Information Administration is the source of the prediction that no new construction will begin in 2011 either.


All sides attribute the slowdown to three factors:  1) declining demand, 2) lower natural gas prices, and 3) environmental regulations. The EPA has undertaken an across-the-board effort to tighten regulations on the six main forms of air pollution – even before its initiative to regulate carbon emissions, which officially began this week. Coal is by far the biggest emitter of sulfur dioxides, mercury and particulate matter, all of which are in the EPA’s sites. Natural gas has fewer pollutants and emits only half as much carbon dioxide.


The decline of coal would be a great opportunity for nuclear, except that new nuclear construction is mired in an even greater regulatory morass and construction of even a handful of new reactors is not expected over the next decade. In that case, natural gas becomes the default source. Some recent analysis has suggested, however, that shale gas wells may play out much sooner than traditional wells and that the overall cost of such reserves may be much higher than is reflected by current prices. In that case, electrical customers are in for a rougher ride than anticipated.

Read more at America.gov
 
 

December 15, 2010
Nuclear Townhall
 

The U.S. inability to move ahead with conventional energy plants – particularly nuclear – is being perceived abroad as an opportunity by foreign companies that are gaining more experience with the technology.

Thus a Russian company, Mechel Mining Management, is proposing to build a $12 million coal processing plant in Keystone, West Virginia. Mechel already owns and operates several metallurgical grade coalmines in southern West Virginia.
 
 “The Keystone low-volatile metallurgical coal is of a very high quality and is in great demand throughout the world,” said Boris Nikishichev, CEO of Mechel Mining Management Company, according to the Bluefield [WVA] Daily Telegraph. “Our plans to step up coal production required us to boost processing volumes as well.”

“The Moscow-based company operates mines and power plants and produces steel, hardware, heat, electric power and other resources,” reported the Telegraph. “The products are marketed domestically and internationally.”

The pattern is likely to be repeated in nuclear reactors, where France and Japan have already shown a willingness to invest in the U.S.
 
Why is foreign investment becoming more common?  First, we have flooded the world with dollars so countries like Russia with lots of raw materials have much American currency to invest. Second, American companies seem so shell-shocked by environmental regulations that they are reluctant to undertake large energy projects.
 
It may be the French and Russians who are being naïve in thinking they can overcome American regulatory barriers – as EDF is finding out at Calvert Cliffs. But then again it may be these foreign companies that cash in when it finally becomes clear that windmills and solar panels will not solve the nation’s energy problems.
 

Read more at the Bluefield Daily Telegraph
 

Hong Kong joined the lengthening list of Asian jurisdictions aiming for a nuclear future this week as the provincial government proposed upping nuclear to 50 percent of its electricity by 2020.
 
The island city is now part of China but is allowed some independence in planning its economic future. Its Special Administrative Region government put out a report this week called “Join Hands for a Low-Carbon Future,” mapping plans for energy efficiency, road transport, auto fuels, turning waste to energy and "revamping the fuel mix for electricity generation." The public is invited to respond 
 
Traditionally Hong Kong got nearly all its electricity from fossil fuels – two-third coal, one-third natural gas – but it has recently bought a 25 percent stake in two 984 MW reactors at Daya Bay in Guangdong Province. CLP Power, the city’s electric utility, recently announced it would also take a 17 percent stake in the Yangjiang nuclear power plant, where six nuclear power reactors should be in operation by 2017.
 
New coal plants have been banned in Hong Kong since 1997 and older plants built in the 1980s will be reaching retirement age over the next decade. CLP Power has met some of its new power needs with natural gas but wants to increase nuclear from 25 percent to 47 percent over the next decade. Natural gas would rise to 40 percent with coal reduced to 10 percent and renewables contributing the last 3 percent.
 
The Chinese government has announced plans to try to reduce carbon emission per unit of economic output by 40 percent in 2020 but the Hong Kong plan would raise the city’s goal to 50 percent.
 
Read more at World Nuclear News

In a story in The New York Times global edition, reporter Tom Zeller, Jr. tells the tale of a small community trying to prevent the gutting of Coal River Mountain, one of the last peaks in the area that hasn’t already been leveled and plowed into neighboring valleys as a result of mountain top mining.

The area is territory to Massey Energy, perhaps the most powerful corporate entity in the state.  Massey has already leveled an estimated 10 percent of the mountains in West Virginia and will undoubtedly continue, since the whole state is still laden with coal. The industry employs 20,000 people and West Virginia trails only Wyoming in coal production.

The alternative to mountain top mining being proposed is a wind farm –- a feckless notion since replacing a single 1000-MW coal plant would require covering 400 square miles of mountaintops with 45-story windmills. 

Mining the uranium for a nuclear reactor would occupy about a square mile and the reactor itself another square mile. Yet the word “nuclear” — to no surprise — is not mentioned in the entire 2,700-word article.

Read more at the NY Times