Europe Returns to Coal

A number of power plants in that most progressive of continents take a leap backwards and reintroduces coal

By Matt Ransford Posted 04.25.2008 at 2:02 pm 6 Comments

Coal Plant Melancholic Optimist

In a slow-motion shock to environmentalists worldwide, European countries are turning back to coal to fire new power plants. At a time when India and China are ramping up production in their outdated coal-burning facilities, the last place anyone expected to see a coal resurgence was in the generally progressive nations of Western Europe. Most turning again to coal are hamstrung by record oil and natural gas prices; Italy and Germany have the added stress of having banned new nuclear plants as an alternative. Coal is relatively cheap and widely available, both features absent from oil and natural gas. The global reserves are much deeper as well.

Proponents argue coal is better than it used to be due to "clean coal" technologies. It is something of a misnomer, however, because the "clean" largely applies only to particulate matter and not to carbon emissions. While no one will bemoan a reduction in airborne soot, it's the carbon we don't want getting out. To be fair, the plants on the drawing board are models of waste recycling and efficient cooling, but none of that serves to deter the inevitable warming effect from the plants' exhausts.

So far, 50 plants are on schedule to be opened over the next five years. Each has been given a life expectancy of at least fifty.

Via NY Times

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6 Comments

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AxionLM

04/27/08 at 12:40 pm

I don't think it would be fair for us to judge the power plants merely by their names and no hard data. Technology has come a long way since the old relic coal power plants were opened and with these new technologies come greater efficiency and near-zero emissions.

Syngas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngas) itself greatly improves the efficiency. For example, instead of getting 80MWhr per power plant, you can now get 100MWhr from the same sized plant, using the same amount of coal and producing much less greenhouse gases.

Maybe if we could get some comparative statistics between the old and the new, we could make an informed decision on whether they're taking a leap backwards or forwards.

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Arawn

04/27/08 at 9:07 pm

I don't see any reason, to continue with Petroleum, and every reason to forgo Natural Gas. Natural Gas is easy to burn, with relative cleanliness, but Power Plants are large. As above, run a coal-water paste in a counterflow heat exchanger, so it's hot enough to produce Syn-Gas, and you've something as efficient as can be.
Carbon-dioxide is not a dangerous Green-House Gas, because the Biosphere can metabolize it, in a long term recycling. I don't know where a developed european country is supposed to dispose of Nuclear Waste, but that stuff was never really produced for any purpose than Stock-Piled Weaponry.
Hey, with Coal Fired Power Plants, you can run Electric Trolley Busses, with Regenerative Braking, and save a lot of Petroleum for the rather backwards american market, which will then sell it on to the Chinese.

Arawn
Do you hear what I hear, then you might be selling flowers too.

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Arawn

04/27/08 at 9:07 pm

Arawn
Do you hear what I hear, then you might be selling flowers too.

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KarstenHWeiss

04/29/08 at 11:41 am

Well, what do you expect? People who do not reduce their energy requirements and continue to live with comfort and fun in mind will NEED to use every shred of fossil fuel they can find. It is disappointing, but understandable IF (and only if) you accept that our world's population needs to live like Europeans (or even worse: North Americans). You cannot tell them not to want it. After all, those who pollute the most do little to change in their own countries.

Those who do the polluting and consumption need to figure out how to do it much, much less. Until that time it will get worse. The levels of pollution will only go down if the level of consumption goes down.

It is not about with which energy source you over-consume, it is about over-consumption.

Karsten
--
http://www.polluteless.com
Practical Advice to Pollute Less

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menar003

05/01/08 at 2:40 am

What type of "pollution" are you talking about? If you are talking about carbon dioxide, then all animals are polluters. From flies to alligators to humans, we all exhale carbon dioxide. Also, if I am to assume by "pollution" you mean the so called "global warming gases", what about cows? Methane has 20 times as much of an affect at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. Cows are responsible for a bigger contribution to "global warming gases" than all the power plants put together.

Are we going to go on a killing spree against the cows to save the planet? If so, I want to be on record as saying I do not agree with that. I have a bad feeling that the cows will turn on us.

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sivcool5

05/04/08 at 1:25 pm

Why should europe return to coal when it was doing perfectly without it? Europe should be a role model not a dull model