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Climate Rule
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2024
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It fucking stuns me that we still use coal in this day and age.
Honestly, better than gas. Like, yah, natural gas has lower co2 per unit of power at the power plant, but there’s methane leaking all along the supply chain, a green house gas 40 times more potent than Co2.
between 5-10% of the methane that comes out of a well ends up leaking somewhere along the line. To make the heating effect even break even with coal the leak rate would have to be closer to 1%.
Not advocating to keep burning coal, just saying that what we’ve been replacing it with is worse. I’d rather we keep a coal plant open and wait for an opportunity to replace with with a non-carbon emitting power source than build a shiny new gas plant that’s going to be kept around for at least 20 years.
There is a lot of methane and other gases leaking out of coal too.
Natural gas is 95% methane. Coal is a fraction of a fraction of a percent methane. When coal leaks, it ends up as a bunch of rocks on the side of a rail track. When natural gas infrastructure leaks, it dumps Megatons of methane into the atmosphere. The research and reporting on this topic are clear, natural gas has a significantly higher heating impact than coal, with no doubt.
Natural gas as a “bridge fuel” was just as much a lie as “clean coal”, a PR campaign to support lobbyists in their efforts to prevent regulation.
Also from bare black coal gases are lost during transportation and storage as it is not done in air tight tanks. It's not about a brikett of coal lying around somewhere.
The bridge fuel makes at least somewhat sense, as the infrastructure for gas can also be used for handling and using products from power to gas processes, which serve as buffer by increasing the demand for power in times of overproduction from renewable sources.
The release of methane from coal production, storage and transit accounts for less than 8% of total methane emissions in the US. 24% comes from natural gas production, storage and transit. The tanks and pipe lines are far from “air tight”, even if they meet industry defined standards for the term. Source for EPA numbers on emissions if you are curious
The idea of gas power plants as a supplementary system to pick up the slack is a sham, the vast majority of gas generator capacity being built does not shut down when non-emitting systems can meet demand. Especially in the context of replacing coal plants with gas plants. These are base load plants, not peaker plants.
Every time we build a new base load gas plant to replace a coal plant, we’re locking our selves into burning and leaking methane for another 30 years. Something we can not afford to be doing given that we can not wait 30 years to reach net zero emissions, even 20 years is a catastrophe.
The part of the gas and steam power plant which may be in use in the future is the gas turbine part, which can be shut down and started relatively fast. The remaining really large 'steam' part will become basically useless as it has too much inertia.
I also don't understand why in my region black coal power plants were newly built until a few years ago.
Gas turbines base load still take time to spin up and have lengthy shut down and start up procedures, even if they can be shut down. They are faster than a steam plant, but are not designed shut down and start up repeatedly over the course of a day.
The real question is why we are building any fossil fuel plants at all, and the answer is simple, they have immense lobbying power and vast full spectrum media campaigns that they use to prevent entirely viable existing alternatives from being built.
Don't forget people:
NIMBYs who protest against the Verspargelung of the landscape in case a new wind power plant is planned to be constructed. People protesting against roads being built through the 'beautiful' fir monoculture they use to call forrest. Some esoteric aunts who feel the water adder in their home being disrupted or fear 'electro smog', infrasound or drop shadow. Or environmentalists who are afraid that some bird will be shred to pieces. Eliminating all these concerns or ensuring improvement takes endless time and money.
Is a company builds a new fossil power plant as a replacement next to an existing one, everybody is happy because it's supposed to be cleaner. Sure, some environmentalists will also find that the habitat of an endangered species is going to be destroyed. But then the company can create a replacement somewhere near and the concerns of the environmentalists are relieved.