Can’t wait to see the articles in 10 years about how major countries are phasing out coal in the next 10-20 years.
The US still has work to do but have you SEEN the decline in coal use here over the past 15 years? Right now I think the US is back to using the same amount of coal that it did in 1965! As a percentage of energy use it's at the level it was in 1949!
The optimist in me is pumped about those stats, but the cynical pedantic asshole in me wants to point out >0≠0
Mostly I was just commenting on the fact that I keep seeing articles every few years about how some country or other has gone back on its promises to cut X by Y percent.
Thanks for sharing the facts, though! My cynical side needs to see stuff like that to keep it at bay.
Between 2012 and 2022 electricity generation from coal has gone down from 2400TWh to 1427TWh for the G7. Most of that comes down to the US, Japan and Germany in that order.The UK and France have basicaly no coal left, besides some rarely running plants and Italy and Canada do exit coal a bit slowler, but do not have too much left anymore.
To look a bit closer. The US has the inflation reduction act and is building out renewables at record pace, while gas is killing coal in most places. The speed in decline is rather rapid. Japan has closed down its nuclear power plants after Fukushima, but is restarting them about now, so a decline in coal consumption is possible. Germany did phase out all its nuclear power plants until last year, but still managed to have a decline in coal electricity generation, due to building out renewables fairly quickly. This means that should go even faster.
So yeah, this might happen. Japan is the one to watch though. It really does not built much clean energy these days.
Yep, but we need to feed the energy needs of the rest of the world (gas and coal is at its highest ever worldwide) or find something to fix that. I mean if we want to save the planet I guess.
There have actually been a few reversals from major corpos regarding climate change recently. It should be a positive thing, but I just feel like they’re seeing some scary-ass fuckin data. And their revenue predictions are due to take a nosedive when 60% of the population dies from wildfires, flood, famine, and civil strife, and now they’re working to protect their bottom line.
This is actually a new commitment. There have been large-scale cuts to coal uses in several of the countries already, with the UK dropping to near zero.
Hey I mean tbh at least they’re not actually burning coal, so they don’t have to dig it out of the ground and whatnot. But yeah, sea shipped and lng - not great to be sure
We still need to get rid of all fossil fuels, but LNG is significantly better than coal almost 40% better and that includes life cycle emissions so it includes sea shipping.
Image attached is UK based and assuming sea shipping to Japan is probably higher than this but it's not like Japan produces its own coal, so it's gonna be sea shipping for both of them, so differential wouldn't change that much you can still expect at least 35% savings on emissions.
So I would argue ultimate goal should be complete phase out of carbon emissions for sure, but LNG is significantly better than coal.
If I could find a taker I would bet my life savings, and the next 10 years worth, that this will not happen in 10 years. I'll be shocked if it happens in my lifetime and I'm not even 40.
Looks like it will be demolished rather than converted for wood burning.
What they'll build there is anyone's guess. I can find articles getting very excited about it being an "energy hub for innovation and business", which means absolutely nothing, and makes me think they've received no concrete offers but want a lot of money for the land...
The only problem will be the right wingers who complain.
Here in Australia, many trainee pilots actually fly near a coal power plant as part of their first nav training. You can smell it LONG before you're anywhere near it. I seriously don't think people realise just how bad Coal is, and how far the pollution stretches for (if they did, they'd immediately change their mind and want to dump it)
The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States
That's the beauty of announcing this now: France can start exporting to other countries outside the G7 and offer cheap coal. Then France (or whichever G7 country) can wind down the coal production in line with the country's domestic usage.
Now it isn't lying when you say that coal production is down (happy enviros) and the country is doing it's part to lower emissions (happy constituents). The numbers also show that hydrocarbon sales are up in foreign countries that have become addicted to cheap fuel (happy corps).
As long as you don't look at the numbers going into this, it's going to be a bundle of good news in 10 years. No actual change to the climate and global emissions but it looks good on paper!
No actual change to the climate and global emissions but it looks good on paper!
I can't speak for France but here in the United States the use of coal has absolutely fallen off a cliff since 2008. It's down by nearly 60% since then and overall coal use is about what it was in 1965.
None that I can tell. Digging up and burning coal is a fairly expensive way to generate electricity, and the particulates it produces kill a lot of people. So its in peoples' interest to put a stop to it.
Probably, but you have to build up alternatives and that takes time. And don't forget politics is a huge popularity contest and there are way too many people who'd rather burn coal than have a solar panel or wind turbine anywhere near their property. There are people in Germany who don't want wind farms near their house, but they also don't want any high voltage transmission lines either, imagine how much fun it is to build any infrastructure in regions like that.
With resurgence you mean 33.2% drop in electricity generation from coal between 2022 and 2023 and shutting down 15 coal power plants this year already? Cause that is what is actually happening.
Rising costs of energy starting Feb 22 is the cause of the last huge dip. As a matter of fact, rising the price of energy and the ensuing economic slowdown is still the most effective way to to reduce GHG. Being frugal is the only way to reach 0 emissions in spite of whatever rosy paint one wants to put on green energy, housing renovation and other half-effective measures.
In 2023 the amount of electricity produced with coal reduced by 30,8% and went from 33,2% of the total electricity production in 2022 to 26,1% in 2023.
For comparison 56,0% of all electricity in 2023 came from renewables compared to 46,3% in 2022.