What Clean Coal Is and Isnt

[elleng]

'President Trump often talks about “clean coal” in his speeches, but it is not always clear what he means by the term. Consider his comments at a rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night.

“We’ve ended the war on beautiful, clean coal,” Mr. Trump said. “And it’s just been announced that a second brand-new coal mine where they’re going to take out clean coal — meaning they’re taking out coal, they’re going to clean it — is opening in the state of Pennsylvania.”

That’s a little confusing, to say the least.

The term “clean coal” was popularized in 2008 by coal industry groups, at a time when Congress was contemplating climate change legislation. While the term is deliberately vague, it is often understood to mean coal plants that capture the carbon dioxide emitted from smokestacks and bury it underground as a way of limiting global warming.

This technology, known as carbon capture and storage, is still in its infancy.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/climate/what-clean-coal-is-and-isnt.html?

[Angry Dragon]

1. Trump should use clean coal in his hotels if it is so good

[caraher]

2. "They're going to clean it" ?!?!

This isn't even a kindergarten level of understanding...

[modrepub]

3. "Clean" or Not Coal is Uneconomical

It's almost comical regarding how many plants and companies still can't figure this out. As I've said many times before, combined cycle natural gas plants reach efficiencies of 65% with some smaller systems reaching 80% efficiencies while coal plants average about 34%. That means it takes twice as much BTU value in coal to produce the same electricity as a gas plant. Coal plants need several hundred people to function, you can run a gas plant with a couple dozen or less (a nuclear plant needs two or three times as many people as a coal plant).

This simple economic reality is why companies that are heavily reliant on coal plants are losing stock value (equity) or on the verge of bankruptcy. I can tell you a story of one plant that borrowed $1B (from GE capital) to upgrade its control equipment, found out the control equipment would't run as advertised, missed its bond payment (where it revealed after less than a year after it borrowed the $1B it only had $20M on hand, their bond payment was multiple times higher than its cash on hand), then got sued by its coal supplier because they could (and did) buy coal on the spot market cheaper than its contract price. (And these people are thought of as titans of their industry)

Its all economics. You want to save coal plant? Go ahead, but its going to cost the rate payers. On the PJM grid, typical gas prices are in the $28-33/MW range to break even. Coal's break even price is a little over $40/MW.

You'd think tRump the businessman would recognize a bad deal when he sees one.

[hunter]

4. Gas fired plants are easy.

You can order a continuous rated diesel gas power plant any size you like and have it dropped off on your driveway, parking lot, or building site within a few days.

Big 65% plus efficient combined cycle gas power plants are almost as easy, from shipping containers to startup in a few months. It's the permitting process that usually slows things down with these larger plants.

The world's gas "reserves" are huge, international LNG transport perfected, and that's what's killing coal.