[HN Gopher] Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitab...
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Nearly half of global coal plants will be unprofitable this year
Author : john_alan
Score : 78 points
Date : 2020-04-08 20:57 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| csomar wrote:
| > It looked at 6,696 operational plants and 1,046 in the pipeline
| and found that 46% will be unprofitable this year, up from 41% in
| 2019
|
| I thought this is due to Covid-19 but apparently it's a chronic
| trend.
|
| > That will rise to 52% by 2030 as renewables and cheaper gas
| outcompete coal, the think tank said.
|
| A very slow one too.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| It's a _Chronic Strain_ on the coal industry. The coal industry
| is going _up in smoke_. Profit estimates are in the _weeds_ as
| _green_ energy is at an all time _high_.
|
| Sorry... couldn't resist.
| jseip wrote:
| Thank you natural gas!
| olliej wrote:
| time for yet more subsidies to unprofitable businesses.
| toohotatopic wrote:
| Why should energy costs fall below their current levels? There
| are billions of people who only consume a fraction of the energy
| that citizens of industrialized countries consume. If anything,
| energy prices will rise and coal will remain profitable. Energy
| will be needed to build all those roads and cars. And then there
| is the scarcity of sand. How can sand for concrete be
| artificially created but with more energy?
| woodandsteel wrote:
| They are talking about energy cost per watt hour, not the total
| expenditure for energy.
| [deleted]
| H8crilA wrote:
| That's still so much better than tech companies, even tech
| companies 6 months ago /s
|
| Never forget how absolutely huge coal is. Those Joules are not
| going to be replaced with renewables any time soon. It's
| literally impossible because renewables need Joules themselves to
| be built, not just money. Money does not synthesize power
| generating objects; materials and energy and machinery and the
| approval to do so (capital) all together do:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
| woodandsteel wrote:
| From what I understand there is an ongoing battle in the Chinese
| government between those who understand the country desperately
| needs to get off of fossil fuels as soon as possible, and those
| who want to stay on coal forever. So at the same time that China
| has been building an enormous number of coal plants, it is also
| building renewable power plants and pushing hard on ev's.
| roenxi wrote:
| If this does happen it would represent a win for everyone, but a
| substantial intellectual victory for the people who delayed
| action against climate change in the '00s and '10s. If we're all
| going to switch to renewables in the '20s for economic reasons
| then it would have been madness to force their adoption 10 years
| earlier to deal with a threat that materialises in 2050+.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| > a threat that materialises in 2050+
|
| What the heck are you talking about? We see the issues globally
| for last 20 years at least. Droughts, heatwaves in Europe
| killing tens of thousands, Islands in pacific being flooded due
| to sea rising and so on and on.
| vkou wrote:
| > then it would have been madness to force their adoption 10
| years earlier to deal with a threat that materialises in 2050+.
|
| Unless the economic cost of switching in the 2000s would have
| been substantially lower than the extra damage of 20 years of
| pollution will inflict in the 2050s.
|
| In the past 20 years, we've added 50 PPM of CO2 to the
| atmosphere. That's one third of all CO2 emissions that humanity
| has produced in its history.
| cultus wrote:
| You have this completely and utterly backwards. Please
| understand these issues better before spreading this kind of
| misinformation. Delaying carbon mitigation has only meant that
| necessary measures are much more severe than they would have
| been. Not only that, but we are way past the point of being
| able to prevent many horrible effects of climate change. Fast
| action now will only stave of even worse things.
|
| If you haven't noticed, climate change is already here, and it
| hurts.
| brundolf wrote:
| a) The economic snowball we're finally starting to see for
| renewables is largely driven by governments finally being
| forced by the undeniable reality to take real regulation steps.
|
| b) The economic cost of waiting 10 years to address an
| exponential process is going to _far_ outweigh the cost there
| would 've been to give an extra "oomph" to action, I'm sure.
| roenxi wrote:
| > largely driven by governments ... tak[ing] real regulation
| steps
|
| Which ones? I'm only aware of serious efforts in Germany and
| they basically torpedoed their own electricity use (their
| per-capita trends aren't good). There aren't that many
| governments who could stomach doing that to their people.
| brundolf wrote:
| I think a lot of it has been driven indirectly by vehicle
| regulation. The past few years have seen several major
| countries establish end-dates for gasoline powered
| vehicles. This has spurred development of battery
| technology - very important for wind and solar - and also
| sent a market signal about the future role that fossil
| fuels play in global society. Even if a country hasn't
| explicitly banned fossil fuels yet for electricity
| generation, the writing is on the wall and it's only a
| matter of time. Investors and corporations are seeing that
| renewables are an inevitable future, and adjusting their
| strategies accordingly.
| simonw wrote:
| The World Resources Institute publish a fascinating dataset of
| global power plants here: https://www.wri.org/publication/global-
| power-plant-database
|
| I run a Datasette instance using this data with a map
| visualization here: https://global-power-
| plants.datasettes.com/global-power-plan...
|
| Here's a map of all 2,390 coal plants (click "Load all" to see
| all of them on the same map) https://global-power-
| plants.datasettes.com/global-power-plan...
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| If this comes true which is a BIG if since the calculations
| include "carbon pricing and pollution policies" which are not
| happening anytime soon in China.
|
| It will be almost completely due to the cheap price of natural
| gas not renewables as the article implies.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Every coal plant closed is a coal plant closed.
|
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
|
| China can make no changes and we can still make the world a
| better place. Start with your neighborhood first.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| I didn't say anything about good/bad just that the article is
| implying something very different than reality.
| stevespang wrote:
| But at such low prices unfortunately OIL and natural gas will be
| burning even more in Chinese factories and other uncaring nations
| who place profits over health everyday.
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