As Shortfall Looms, Coal Enjoys Unexpected Boom

Despite coal’s high levels of pollution, utilities and governments in emerging economies, at least for now, largely prefer coal-fired power stations over other fuels including natural gas in order to meet soaring energy demand.

Many a swan song has been sung for thermal coal markets as renewable power generation and a push towards using more natural gas have gained traction.

Yet a coal price spike last year, driven by a Chinese change in regulation that capped local mining operations, has shown how easily markets can swing from oversupply to shortfall.

While many analysts and investors see the long-term outlook for coal as bleak due to policies and technological advances that favor cleaner natural gas and renewable in power generation, the shorter-term outlook for the industry has seen a sharp reversal of fortunes.

This year, strong demand growth in Asia’s emerging markets will create a supply shortfall for the first time in at least half a decade. Consumption could even soon rise past the 2014 peak, according to Asia’s largest commodity trading house, Noble Group.

Despite coal’s high levels of pollution, utilities and governments in emerging economies, at least for now, largely prefer coal-fired power stations over other fuels including natural gas in order to meet soaring energy demand.

While gas and solar prices have fallen sharply, coal remains one of the cheapest, easily available, and most easily maintained sources of electricity.

More than 10 gigawatt (GW) of coal-fired power stations were sanctioned for construction last year in Southeast Asia, where most new demand stems from, compared to just 4.6 GW of gas-fired projects, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

“New markets like the Philippines and Vietnam are starting to seek our coal,” the chief executive of Indonesian coal miner PT Bukit Asam, Arviyan Arifin, told Reuters this week.

Rodrigo Echeverri, head of thermal coal analysis at Noble, believes this year’s global thermal coal market will be 13 million tonnes short of meeting 911 million tonnes of demand, compared with a broadly balanced market in the last three years.

The tightness is a result of falling output after some companies including U.S. giant Peabody Energy, filed for bankruptcy, and other miners cut output at unprofitable mines.

At the same time, Chinese imports grew by 43 million tonnes as a result of restrictions on local production, while new coal-fired power plants were commissioned in countries including Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Echeverri told a conference in South Africa this month.

To meet the imminent shortfall, some miners have again begun ramping up output.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest thermal coal exporter, said this month it is targeting production of 470 million tonnes in 2017, compared with its previous goal of 413 million tonnes and up more than 8 percent on last year.

There are also signs that Australian thermal coal output is picking up, with exports from Queensland hitting a record last year.

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via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

February 10, 2017 at 08:53PM

Depressed, Climate Activists Move Into The Last Stages Of Grief

Trump’s election, solidifying the Republican’s dominance at all levels of the US government, has disheartened climate activists. A new article in The Atlantic attempts to build support, but only shows the weakness of their beliefs. Perhaps the skeptics have won this round of the climate wars, but only the weather will determine which side is correct.

For 29 years advocates for public policy changes to fight climate change have struggled to convince the US public to support their agenda. They have failed. Polls show it ranks near the bottom of American’s policy priorities, and the increasingly dominant Republican Party has little interest in their recommendations.

It’s taken a while, but it looks like climate activists have worked through the process of accepting their failure. Paul Rosenberg’s January 2 article at Salon and now Meehan Crist’s article at The Atlantic suggest activists are moving into the fourth stage of the Kübler-Ross process, depression — and their leading edge is moving into the final stage of acceptance — and finding new crusades to wage.

Rosenberg’s article is discussed here. Meehan’s article is less interesting, mostly just the usual throwing chaff into debate. But it is revealing in its own way. The opening is a classic tactic by climate activists.

“There has been a subtle shift recently in the rhetoric of many conservative pundits and politicians around climate change. For decades, the common refrain has been flat-out denial — either that climate change is not happening, or that any change is not caused by human activity. Which is why viewers might have been surprised to see Tucker Carlson of Fox News nodding along thoughtfully on January 6 as climate scientist Judith Curry, a controversial figure in climate science, explained, ‘Yes it’s warming and yes humans contribute to it. Everybody agrees with that, and I’m in the 98% [of scientists who agree]. It’s when you get down to the details that there’s genuine disagreement.’”

The first point is an outright lie. Almost nobody believes “climate change is not happening,.” The climate is always changing. There is a fringe among climate skeptics who believe that “any change is not caused by human activity.” The debate for the past 29 years, since James Hansen warned the Senate in 1988, is about how much of the past warming is anthropogenic — and about forecasts of future temperatures.  Let’s review the evidence. [….]

Are activists grieving for their failure?

In December 2015 I wrote that Activists go thru 5 stages of grief for the climate change campaign. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. We all have heard years of denial and anger. There was a brief period of bargaining, with activists attempting to deal with skeptics. Now we are in depression, and for a few — acceptance, as they find new crusades to pursue. Several recent articles support that theory. Meehan’s conclusion, citing as his authority that not-a-climate-agency, the US military, show depression and perhaps acceptance…

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February 10, 2017 at 07:53PM

Harsh Winter: How Coal, Lignite And Gas Saved Germany From Disaster

Conventional power plants played a crucial role in meeting Germany’s energy requirements during dark and chilly January. Now suppliers are demanding market reforms.

At German utility company RWE’s site in Lingen in the norther state of Lower Saxony the staff had reason to celebrate on January 17. That day, they fed more energy into the grid than ever before. The output reached 3,300 megawatts, more electricity than all of the wind turbines in Germany can produce combined.

Power generation and consumption in Germany on 17 January 2017 –– source: Agora Energiewende

The local nuclear power plant, along with three gas-fired plants, ran at full blast. “We fed everything we could into the grid,” says Matthias Hartung, who oversees RWE’s power plant division. He happened to be on site that day.

Lingen was not the exception, either. Nuclear- and gas-fired power plants, as well as those using black- and brown coal were in constant use nationwide. Conventional energy sources peaked at 67,000 megawatts that day and supplied 90 percent of Germany’s energy, according to think tank Agora Energiewende. Renewables did not even reach 15,000 megawatts. Wind turbines operated at 12 percent of their capacities, solar plants at 14 percent – even at midday.

Germany’s transition to renewable energy seemed to pause on January 17. In the central and southern regions heavy clouds covered the sky, paired with fog on the ground. The sun barely reached the solar roofs. There was also very little wind that day.

“Gas- and coal-powered plants ensured the supply,” RWE manager Hartung concludes. This was the case on many days this winter, but especially in January. Between January 17 and 25 the contribution of solar- and wind energy remained almost constantly low.

Power generation and consumption in Germany since 1 January 2017 — source Agora Energiewende

As a result, the sector is now debating the successes and failures of the country’s plan to transition to renewables, commonly known as the Energiewende, and the role of conventional power plants in the energy supply.

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via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

February 10, 2017 at 07:23PM

Judith Curry: The New ‘Climate Denial’

Interesting article in The Atlantic, but I’m still trying to figure out what is being ‘denied.’

The Atlantic has an interesting article How the New Climate Denial is Like the Old Climate Denial.  Subtitle: Both are excuses for inaction.

It seems that I am the scientific poster child for the new denialism:

There has been a subtle shift recently in the rhetoric of many conservative pundits and politicians around climate change. For decades, the common refrain has been flat-out denial—either that climate change is not happening, or that any change is not caused by human activity. Which is why viewers might have been surprised to see Tucker Carlson of Fox News nodding along thoughtfully on January 6 as climate scientist Judith Curry, a controversial figure in climate science, explained, “Yes it’s warming and yes humans contribute to it. Everybody agrees with that, and I’m in the 98 percent [of scientists who agree]. It’s when you get down to the details that there’s genuine disagreement.” Carlson immediately turns to the camera and moots a multi-part series: “What do we know? What don’t we know?”

This rhetorical stance—yes, climate change is real, and yes, human activity is implicated, but we don’t know how much human activity is to blame—is fast becoming the go-to position for conservatives. In confirmation hearings last week, Senator Ed Markey asked Scott Pruitt, Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, if he agrees with Trump that global warming is a “hoax.” Pruitt replied that he does not. But later, under questioning by Senator Bernie Sanders, Pruitt refused to say how much change is caused by human activity. He would say only that the “climate is changing, and human activity contributes to that in some manner.” When pressed by Sanders on whether he agreed with 97 percent of scientists who have published in peer-reviewed journals that human activity is “the fundamental reason we are seeing climate change,” Pruitt equivocated. “I believe the ability to measure with precision the degree of human activity’s impact on the climate is subject to more debate.”

Well, I’m getting ready to declare victory here.  What I have been trying to do for the last 7 years is to bring to ‘denying’ policy makers to a more rational position on the science of climate change.  It seems like this has been accomplished (I’m humble enough not to take full credit

Uncertainty has proved a reliable tool to manipulate public perception of climate change and stall political action. In 2015, the Union of Concerned Scientists released The Climate Deception Dossiers, which describes a 1998 memo from the American Petroleum Institute that, according to the dossiers, “mapped out a multifaceted deception strategy for the fossil-fuel industry that continues to this day—outlining plans to reach the media, the public, and policy makers with a message emphasizing ‘uncertainties’ in climate science.” The UCS authors write that the memo (included in the report) states “victory” would be achieved “when ‘average citizens’ and the media were convinced of uncertainties in climate science despite overwhelming evidence of the impact of human-caused global warming and nearly unanimous agreement about it in the scientific community.”

Huh?  Acknowledging uncertainties is ‘science denial’?   Virtually no one denies that humans have an influence on climate.  The key question is whether human causes have dominated the recent warming.  Even the IPCC hedges on this one, with their highly confident ‘more than half.’

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February 10, 2017 at 06:53PM