Greens Forgive China their Coal Plants

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Smog hangs over a construction site in Weifang city, Shandong province, Oct 16. 2015. Air quality went down in many parts of China since Oct 15 and most cities are shrounded by haze. [Photo/IC]

The

Center for American Progress

, a well connected green left wing Washington Think Tank, has written an article full of glowing praise for China’s high efficiency coal plants, and the contribution those plants are making towards reducing global CO2 emissions.

Everything You Think You Know About Coal in China Is Wrong

By Melanie Hart, Luke Bassett, and Blaine Johnson Posted on May 15, 2017, 12:01 am

See also: “Research Note on U.S. and Chinese Coal-Fired Power Data” by Melanie Hart, Luke Bassett, and Blaine Johnson

China’s energy markets send mixed signals about the nation’s policy intentions and emissions trajectory. Renewable energy analysts tend to focus on China’s massive renewable expansion and view the nation as a global clean energy leader; coal proponents and climate skeptics are more likely to focus on the number of coal plants in China—both in operation and under construction—and claim its climate rhetoric is more flash than substance.

In December 2016, the Center for American Progress brought a group of energy experts to China to find out what is really happening. We visited multiple coal facilities—including a coal-to-liquids plant—and went nearly 200 meters down one of China’s largest coal mines to interview engineers, plant managers, and local government officials working at the front lines of coal in China.

We found that the nation’s coal sector is undergoing a massive transformation that extends from the mines to the power plants, from Ordos to Shanghai. China is indeed going green. The nation is on track to overdeliver on the emissions reduction commitments it put forward under the Paris climate agreement, and making coal cleaner is an integral part of the process.

…

China is greening its coal fleet

Beijing is stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, China cannot eradicate coal-fired power from its energy mix overnight. China has not yet figured out how to develop its own natural gas supplies—which are more difficult to access and therefore more expensive than those in the United States—and renewable energy expansion takes time. On the other hand, Chinese citizens are demanding cleaner air, and they want immediate improvements. Air quality is now a political priority for the Chinese Communist Party on par with economic growth and corruption. This means that China cannot continue to run the same high-pollution coal plants that were considered acceptable decades ago. Beijing’s solution is to move full speed ahead with renewables while simultaneously investing in what may become the most efficient, least polluting coal fleet the world has ever seen.

Not all coal-fired power is created equal. Emissions and efficiency—the latter being the amount of coal consumed per unit of power produced, which also affects emissions—vary dramatically based on the type of coal and coal-burning technology used. What many U.S. analyses of China’s coal sector overlook is the fact that Beijing has been steadily shutting down the nation’s older, low-efficiency, and high-emissions plants to replace them with new, lower-emitting coal plants that are more efficient that anything operating in the United States.

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The Center for American Progress was founded by John Podesta in 2003, the same John Podesta who later went on to run Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Podesta has been associated with the Clintons since at least the mid 90s.

I find it fascinating that such a well connected left wing organisation has made such an effort to sing the praises of Chinese coal.

The argument that China has no choice other than to use coal for the time being, because they don’t have access to easily recoverable gas like the USA does, is utter nonsense. Even if China does have more difficulty accessing gas than the USA, if China really wanted to cut CO2 emissions, they could simply expand their already substantial zero emissions nuclear fleet.

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May 16, 2017 at 11:41PM

The Osceola MudFlow – With Nick on the Rocks

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5,600 years ago, the summit of Mt Rainier stood 1,000 feet (304 m) higher than today. Then came a giant eruption and the side of the volcano failed, sending a wall of mud careening down the White River Valley all the way to Tacoma and Puget Sound, 40 miles away.

Originally published on Jan 19, 2017

Known as the Osceola MudFlow, up to 500 feet of “liquid cement,” as Nick puts it, shot down the valley at speeds up to 50 miles an hour to creat the Enumclaw Plain by burying the Puget Lowland with hundreds of feet of volcanic mud.

Today, the plain is home to more than 500,000 people.

Nick Zentner is the science outreach and education coordinator for the Department of Geological Sciences at Central Washington University. He has produced more than 40 short videos about Central Washington geology.

The post The Osceola MudFlow – With Nick on the Rocks appeared first on Ice Age Now.

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May 16, 2017 at 10:29PM

Updated sunspot group number reconstruction for 1749–1996 using the active day fraction method

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Ilya Usoskin has kindly sent me the data for the new group sunspot number series he and his colleagues have published. I’ve done a rough and ready plot below. Excel file here in case you have problems wit the links below.

Group sunspot number average value. Missing values given as zero

T. Willamo¹, I. G. Usoskin^2,3 and G. A. Kovaltsov⁴

¹ Department of Physics, University of Helsinki, 00014 Helsinki, Finland
² Space Climate Research Unit, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland
e-mail: Ilya.Usoskin@oulu.fi
³ Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland
⁴ Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia

Received: 4 October 2016
Accepted: 6 March 2017

Abstract

Aims. Sunspot number series are composed from observations of hundreds of different observers that require careful normalization to standard conditions. Here we present a new normalized series of the number of sunspot groups for the period 1749–1996.

Methods. The reconstruction is based on the active day fraction (ADF) method, which is slightly updated with respect to previous works, and a revised database of sunspot group observations.

Results. Stability of some key solar observers has been evaluated against the composite series. The Royal Greenwich Observatory dataset appears relatively stable since the 1890s but is approximately 10% too low before that. A declining trend of 10–15% in the quality of Wolfer’s observations is found between the 1880s and 1920s, suggesting that using him as the reference observer may lead to additional uncertainties. Wolf (small telescope) appears relatively stable between the 1860s and 1890s, without any obvious trend. The new reconstruction reflects the centennial variability of solar activity as evaluated using the singular spectrum analysis method. It depicts a highly significant feature of the modern grand maximum of solar activity in the second half of the 20th century, being a factor 1.33–1.77 higher than during the 18 and 19th centuries.

Conclusions. The new series of the sunspot group numbers with monthly and annual resolution is provided forming a basis for new studies of the solar variability and solar dynamo for the last 250 yr.

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May 16, 2017 at 10:28PM

Ed Miliband’s Neutering Of OFGEM

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By Paul Homewood

John Constable explains how Ed Miliband neutered OFGEM’s powers to stand up for consumers’ best interests:

There is likely to be increasing pressure to reform the gas and electricity regulator, Ofgem, which is widely held to have failed in the protection of consumers. This accusation is to a large degree both misguided and unjust. Ofgem is constrained by its Statutory Duties, which were revised by Ed Milliband in 2010 to put climate policy costs beyond criticism. It is this, as much as institutional lassitude, that accounts for it being so ineffective a consumer champion.

In the wake of concern about rising electricity retail prices to domestic households, the Conservative Party has suggested a price cap on Standard Variable Tariffs. It is fair to say that this policy has not been well received by commentators and economists, who with very good reason believe it likely to be counterproductive. Whether the voting public will be persuaded that a price cap is in their long-term interest remains to be seen, but it could well prove popular. – With a maladroit sense of timing that is typical of the hapless energy industry my own electricity and gas supplier has just sent me a letter explaining that due to price rises next year’s annual dual fuel bill is likely to be about 8% higher. Doubtless many other households are receiving similar news, and perhaps thinking positively about Mrs May’s offer to stamp on rip-off tariffs.

One, more sophisticated, reaction to this sort of news is to blame the regulator, Ofgem. If the government needs to wade in to protect consumers, surely the regulator must have failed in its job. This is an understandable conclusion, but to a very significant degree it is unjust to Ofgem, which is itself tightly regulated by the legal definition of its Statutory Duties and powers. These are defined in the Gas Act 1986, the Electricity Act 1989, the Utilities Act 2000, the Competition Act 1998, the Enterprise Act 2002, the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008 and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, and, crucially, in amendments to these acts. Perhaps the most important of these amendments occurred in the Energy Act of 2010, which originated under Ed Miliband when he was Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Though a small change, it drew the regulator’s teeth.

The Utilities Act 2000 had described the overarching principal objective for energy regulation as the protection of the interests of existing and future consumers, wherever appropriate by promoting competition (for further details see this DECC analysis). This was a lucid and unconstricting brief. A determined regulator could range far and free in the pursuit of consumer welfare.

The Energy Act of 2010 amended this principal objective by defining “interests” thus in two separate paragraphs (16 (3) 1A and 17 (3) 1A referring to gas and electricity:

Those interests of existing and future consumers are their interests taken as a whole, including—

(a) their interests in the reduction of gas-supply/electricity supply emissions of targeted greenhouse gases; and

(b) their interests in the security of the supply of gas/electricity to them.

This change was of enormous importance, since an increasingly large part of the charges on the consumer were (and still are) the result of policy. In effect, the revision to Ofgem’s principal purpose made them unable to comment on the imposition of cost increases resulting from measures to mitigate climate change. Since these coercive cost increases are invisible to the market and cannot be reduced by competition, there was no means other than the regulator, or the slow and uncertain cycles of electoral democracy, to expose them to criticism.

This is no trivial matter. Policies now account for about 17% of the price to domestic households, in other words about £26/MWh of a total price to household consumers of £154/MWh (see the Committee on Climate Change Energy Prices and Bills). Median annual domestic electricity consumption in the UK is approximately 3.5 MWhs per household, so this amounted to about £91 per household per year, or roughly £2.4 billion a year, assuming 26 million households, a sum that greatly exceeds the £1.5 billion a year rip-off that prompted Mrs May to suggest a price cap.

According to the government’s estimates, in the now discontinued Estimated Impacts, we can see that this problem is set to grow dramatically. In 2020 the domestic price impact will have in all probability doubled, to £52/MWh, or about £180 a year on the electricity bill, a nationwide cost of about £5 billion per year.

Constrained by its remit, as set out by Ed Milibands Energy Act of 2010, Ofgem is powerless to comment on these enormous impositions. In essence, by being compelled to have regard to the interests of future consumers in the light of climate change the regulator has been absorbed by government and, like the Committee on Climate Change, made a mere cog wheel in the policy delivery mechanism. Consequently, and with the sole exception of the National Audit Office, there is no statutory body that has any interest in holding the government to account on climate policy costs, and none that is exclusively focused on the energy sector.

Restoring Ofgem’s Statutory Duties to their earlier free-ranging state could yield enormous benefits for the consumer. Such a reform should also be supported by electricity retailers, who, for all their faults, are carrying the can for climate policy related price increases over which they have no control. By contrast, a ‘reform’ of Ofgem that further weakened an already crippled body would be a disaster for all concerned.

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May 16, 2017 at 10:15PM