99% Of U.S. Coal Plants Are More Expensive Than New Renewables. A Coal-To-Clean Transition Is Worth $589 Billion, Mostly In Red States

[Scott]

 

Nevada’s last coal plant is scheduled to close in 2025 after 40 years of service due to rising operation costs. The closure will dramatically improve air quality, yet the economic impact will be borne by dozens of plant employees, as well as the surrounding community of Humboldt County.

So what will replace the North Valmy coal plant?

Local utility NV Energy is planning for a clean economic transition: Two new solar-plus-storage facilities will be built adjacent to the closing plant by 2025, creating hundreds of construction jobs, replacement union jobs, and long-term sustainable tax revenue.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2023/01/30/99-of-us-coal-plants-are-more-expensive-than-new-renewables-a-coal-to-clean-transition-is-worth-589-billion-mostly-in-red-states/?sh=704f03a62510

 

[ozimoron]

Renewable energy creates more jobs. Those solar and wind farms don't install and maintain themselves while coal mines these days have self driving dump trucks. The expense of cleaning up coal tailings is very high as well and often borne by the taxpayer or not done at all. Additionally, mining coal uses lots of water and releases large quantities of CO2.

[placeholder]

With this study points out, is that it's actually cheaper to build new solar or wind power plants then to keep operating existing coal powered  plants.

This news is not new. For years now coal power plants have been shown to be mostly uneconomical when compared to wind and solar..

Edited February 1, 2023 by placeholder

[Hanaguma]

Lovely idea, except for the cost to the environment of producing thousands of solar panels and batteries. Plus, where do they actually come from? Something tells me....China?  Not a good idea to have parts of your energy infrastructure dependent on China for spare parts.

 

I would say a better plan is using nuclear power, with home made facilities and uranium from the US or Canada. 

[pomchop]

2023 and still burning dead plants....

 

.while the entire planet offers multiple energy sources....enough sunshine on the planet to power the entire world if a small percentage is converted...wind power that blows and blows for centuries to turn turbines....waves crashing on shores worldwide with massive amounts of energy that can turn turbines...under sea currents like the gulf stream that can turn undersea turbines....geo thermal bubbling to surface for thousands of years releasing massive amounts of energy to be captured.....hyrogen, nuclear and who knows what other similar technologies and perhaps safer sources...

 

is it simple?  no

Is it cheap?  no but the returns are massive 

 

 When the old peanut farmer (jimmy carter who was also a nuclear physist) begged america  during the arab oil embargo in 1979  (44 years ago) to get off the oil nipple and invest in other sources if the usa had actually  listened to him ...the USA would have likely long ago figured out sources and become the world leader in energy with technology that could/would have been sold worldwide for billions upon billions of $$. and untold jobs.....no oil nipple would not have required so many countries to suck up to the middle east , fight wars over oil, be held hostage by shxxthole countries who happen to sit on top of huge oil reserves...add in all the cost of climate change, bad air, health care, and it becomes apparent that it would have been one of the best decisions ever made...

 

but instead carter got ridiculed...he installed solar panels on the white house to set an example...the very first thing Regan did when taking office was to remove the solar panels...imagine if congress had backed carter with a JFK style goal of going to the moon except applied to finding and developing clean renewable affordable energy....boggles the mind as to how different the world would/could  be today.

 

and here we go again in 2023 with many politicians taking big bucks from the oil guys to keep those dead plants burning....stupid is as stupid does...

 

i suspect in 50 years that our grandkids will look back at our hundreds of years of burning oil and coal and be amazed at <deleted>.......you could send men to the moon and probes to mars, you created the internet, artificial intelligence, massive tech across hundreds of industries,  but you couldn't figure out how to power your homes/industries/transport other than burning dead plants???

[placeholder]

37 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

Lovely idea, except for the cost to the environment of producing thousands of solar panels and batteries. Plus, where do they actually come from? Something tells me....China?  Not a good idea to have parts of your energy infrastructure dependent on China for spare parts.

 

I would say a better plan is using nuclear power, with home made facilities and uranium from the US or Canada. 

If by better, you mean far far more expensive, then you have made a good point. One of the things the IRA addresses is the shortage of battery manufacturers in the US. Already, new battery plants are being built in the USA and Europe. And it takes year to build a nuclear power plant. What's more, so far, disposing of a nuclear plant once it's useful life is over, is a problem that has yet to be solved satisfactorily. And when costs of a nuclear plant are calculated, that decommissining cost is not included in the figures.

[Hanaguma]

54 minutes ago, placeholder said:

If by better, you mean far far more expensive, then you have made a good point. One of the things the IRA addresses is the shortage of battery manufacturers in the US. Already, new battery plants are being built in the USA and Europe. And it takes year to build a nuclear power plant. What's more, so far, disposing of a nuclear plant once it's useful life is over, is a problem that has yet to be solved satisfactorily. And when costs of a nuclear plant are calculated, that decommissining cost is not included in the figures.

Also you have to think of the cost of disposing of solar panels and batteries,  A nuclear plant can last a century- can a wind farm?

 

No easy answers, especially when the so-called "renewables" all rely on strip mining for their materials, and on China for their manufacture.  

[placeholder]

1 minute ago, Hanaguma said:

Also you have to think of the cost of disposing of solar panels and batteries,  A nuclear plant can last a century- can a wind farm?

 

No easy answers, especially when the so-called "renewables" all rely on strip mining for their materials, and on China for their manufacture.  

https://insideevs.com/news/564366/jb-straubel-battery-recycling-profitability/

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/16/australian-research-finds-cost-effective-way-to-recycle-solar-panels

[Hanaguma]

6 minutes ago, placeholder said:

https://insideevs.com/news/564366/jb-straubel-battery-recycling-profitability/

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/16/australian-research-finds-cost-effective-way-to-recycle-solar-panels

I see you did not comment on the strip mining or the slave labor in China aspect...  perhaps the more important issues IMHO.  

[placeholder]

10 minutes ago, Hanaguma said:

I see you did not comment on the strip mining or the slave labor in China aspect...  perhaps the more important issues IMHO.  

As for strip mining...it's a question of comparative harm. What is more harmful to the environment? Fossil fuel mining or rare earth mining? And unlike coal, which is also strip mined, these materials can be recycled.

And as for uranium mining...

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/longstaff1/#:~:text=Uranium mining facilities produce tailings,and arsenic into the water.

 

 

As for forced labor...it's a good thing that the IRA is pushing for the creation of battery factories outside of China. Europeans are doing similarly.  And as renewables rise and fossil fuel usage, there will be a lot less people seriously and fatally ill from air pollution.

 

[Chomper Higgot]

2 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

I see you did not comment on the strip mining or the slave labor in China aspect...  perhaps the more important issues IMHO.  

Let’s extend that to include oil wars? 

[Hanaguma]

11 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Let’s extend that to include oil wars? 

I agree completely. No more blood for oil.  The US and Canada together have more than enough to fill our energy needs well into the future.  Why buy tainted oil from the head hackers and kleptocrats when it can be sourced locally?

[Chomper Higgot]

1 minute ago, Hanaguma said:

I agree completely. No more blood for oil.  The US and Canada together have more than enough to fill our energy needs well into the future.  Why buy tainted oil from the head hackers and kleptocrats when it can be sourced locally?

Oil and gas are commodities, the price paid in the US is set by global supply prices, hence the price paid is impacted by supplies into the world market from all sources.

 

The US consumer benefits from oil wars and brutal ‘oil backed’ regimes.

[placeholder]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

I agree completely. No more blood for oil.  The US and Canada together have more than enough to fill our energy needs well into the future.  Why buy tainted oil from the head hackers and kleptocrats when it can be sourced locally?

Do they have enough money to export to outer space all the greenhouse gasses created by the burning of said fuels?

[Hanaguma]

3 minutes ago, placeholder said:

Do they have enough money to export to outer space all the greenhouse gasses created by the burning of said fuels?

Not necessary and irrelevant. Are the proponents of "green" energy exporting to outer space all the greenhouse gasses created by the manufacture and use of batteries and solar panels? Takes 250 tons of mining to get enough rare metals for a single car battery in an EV. 

 

 Fossil fuel is getting cleaner and greener over time.  Using natural gas over coal is a no brainer, and uranium over both. And best of all it is not imported.  

[candide]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

I agree completely. No more blood for oil.  The US and Canada together have more than enough to fill our energy needs well into the future.  Why buy tainted oil from the head hackers and kleptocrats when it can be sourced locally?

It is actually sourced locally. The U.S. are already producing most of what is needed, and are a net exporter of energy.

 

The only reasons the U.S. are still importing crude oil is  that (1) some needed varieties are not easily found in the U.S. soil and (2) some crude oil is imported, then refined and re-exported.

[placeholder]

1 minute ago, Hanaguma said:

Not necessary and irrelevant. Are the proponents of "green" energy exporting to outer space all the greenhouse gasses created by the manufacture and use of batteries and solar panels? Takes 250 tons of mining to get enough rare metals for a single car battery in an EV. 

 

 Fossil fuel is getting cleaner and greener over time.  Using natural gas over coal is a no brainer, and uranium over both. And best of all it is not imported.  

Mining for electric car batteries ‘hundreds of times’ better than petrol car emission cycles

https://electrek.co/2021/03/01/mining-electric-car-batteries-hundreds-of-times-better-than-petrol-car-emission-cycles/

 

 "Fossil fuel is getting cleaner and greener over time." Or to put it another way, it's getting less dirty. But is that enough?

It's an irreducible fact that when methane is 100% combusted it still creates CO2. And the problem doesn't stop there. Methane is actually 80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than is CO2. It just doesn't last as long.

 

Research shows oil field flaring emits nearly five times more methane than expected

Flares, or fires lit at oil and gas wells to burn off excess gas that cannot be transported and sold, are a common sight at oil fields around the world. Some are even visible from space.

But a new study published in the journal Science Thursday found that the process is not eliminating nearly as much methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide, as assumed.

"Our findings indicate that flaring is responsible for five times more methane entering the atmosphere than we previously thought," says Genevieve Plant, lead author and assistant research scientist at the University of Michigan.

https://www.npr.org/2022/09/29/1125894105/oil-field-flaring-methane-report

 

Satellites discover huge amounts of undeclared methane emissions

"These are large emissions, and we see quite a lot of them on the global scale, much more than we had expected."

Scientists have only recently worked out how to detect methane emissions from space, but what they have seen since has taken them by surprise. The greenhouse gas, which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide, is leaking from gas pipelines, oil wells, fossil fuel processing plants and landfills all over the world.

https://www.space.com/satellites-discover-huge-undeclared-methane-emissions

 

 

 

 

[Eric Loh]

1 hour ago, Hanaguma said:

Fossil fuel is getting cleaner and greener over time.  Using natural gas over coal is a no brainer, and uranium over both. And best of all it is not imported.  

Fossil fuels can be scrubbed cleaner but they will never be greener. Better of spending the money on green energy transition than spending exorbitant amount to build scrubbers. 

[Tug]

10 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

Lovely idea, except for the cost to the environment of producing thousands of solar panels and batteries. Plus, where do they actually come from? Something tells me....China?  Not a good idea to have parts of your energy infrastructure dependent on China for spare parts.

 

I would say a better plan is using nuclear power, with home made facilities and uranium from the US or Canada. 

Lovely idea just think of all the pollution caused by the manufacturing of cars and trucks then think about how much pollution each one causes during its service life humm so just what is your point?yes the manufacturing of solar panels and generators will cause some pollution initially but none during their service life oh and didn’t our competent president put seed money in the infrastructure plan to manufacture renewable components here in the USA oh and tax credits for Americans who buy solar and electric EVs?.unfortunately nuclear power creates a very long lasting deadly form of pollution and are vulnerable to catastrophic failure otherwise they are great but dangerous in the long run.

[Credo]

14 hours ago, Hanaguma said:

Lovely idea, except for the cost to the environment of producing thousands of solar panels and batteries. Plus, where do they actually come from? Something tells me....China?  Not a good idea to have parts of your energy infrastructure dependent on China for spare parts.

 

I would say a better plan is using nuclear power, with home made facilities and uranium from the US or Canada. 

Oh, boy.  I always find it interesting when right-wingers take such an interest in the environment while ignoring the vast amounts of destruction and pollution caused by the oil and gas industry.  Then there are the large coal-fired generating plants in the Western US that operate on strip mines, that effectively destroy vast swaths of fertile land, erode the fertility, pollute waters or drain underground water reserves; scar or alter the landscape; damage roads, homes, and other structures; and destroy wildlife.  And all that doesn't even begin to address the air pollution, acid rain from the sulfur.

 

But yes, let's stop solar and other forms of green energy because they cause so much pollution?  Really?  That's your argument?