Too much sulfer is definitely bad for the environment. Sulfer is bad for infrastructure and fish at high concentration. But, sulfer is awesome for plants with most soil types, helping to make minerals available.
Talking about humans using energy to keep warm - I love that in rural northern Portugal, small holders would build their living quarters above their animal barn, to benefit from heat generated by the sheep/goats/cows.
Great episode Chris. Mark is brilliant and well knowledgeable about the global energy sector. South Africa’s situation is depressing but we continue to make noise hoping it reaches the right ears.
Presenters on this channel are very well informed about energy! Yet another great video that self appointed experts should view to get a balanced view of the world energy struggles.
Only in part, the vast majority is mineral coal, carbon deposited along with all other elements, long, long before life developped in the co2 rich oceans .
There is an important thing not said in your video : coal has usages other than producing electricity : it is needed to turn iron ore into iron. We have no economically viable means to replace it in this process (during the operation, carbon takes the oxygen atoms from the iron oxydes present in the ore.) This is an important part of coal industry, and there is other uses.
Such as water and air filtration. A decent amount of coal is turned into Char and the char to activated carbon. While coconut shell is also used coal has specific properties making it more useful in some cases.
Your description needs to be commented. The premise, that non anthrasitic, non mineral carbon combustion does emmit pollutants is correct, but the pollutant is not,repeat not carbon dioxide gas. The reason that bitumous carbon, carbonized vegetation, pollutes is the content of fertilization material, required by the vegetation to develop : phosphor, potasium, sulfur, nitrogen oxides,normally amonium phosphates, etc. Pure mineral coal, not derived from vegetation is far, far more abundant, and burns clean with a high combustion enthalpy, 33000 kJoule / kg. essentially emmitting residual water and pure Co2, ready for fertilization of greenhouse grown plants, which next to water require 1.47 gram Co2 per gram of cellulose, lignin and glucose( sugar). The richer the co2 content in the greenhouse, the less water is required, to flush out the oxygen, a poison for the plant.
Stunning comment and absolutely correct. We don't know hie the Earth works. God knows, but not we. It is far more complex with all the feedback systems than just burning coal makes us to be destroied. Childish and non-educatuonal. We don't know what will happen with the energies and how the temperature develops, that is the fact.
Charcoal is lighter but purer than coke and Charcoal is better for smelting metal. We do have several hundred thousand years of coal creation that we are burning through as fast as we can. But, unfortunately we do not have any years of charcoal saved up for use.
Not too much has changed in the year since this was done, but many coal plants are scheduled to close in us in 2025. I liked his description of the coal plant. I spent considerable time at coal plants doing project work. I kind of understand that old German guy. When they close, something of America will be lost. Thanks for putting together these episodes.
Coal is what came after wood in terms of humans discovering energy inherent in nature & harvesting it. Here in the US we still have a few lignite coal plants running but only comprising 3% of coal electricity production on the grid. Coal is the easiest hydrocarbon to transition off of the real challenges come ahead. Good luck trying to transition off of combined cycle natural gas for baseload generation & liquid oil for many transportation and production uses. We could have had a world with better baseload generation with nuclear thorium but never invested the necessary R&D to get the most efficient power/waste ratio. Nat gas combined cycle will become the baseload generation source in the future grid in the US.
There is technology available to day to reduce pollution on coal powered power stations to zero .But no governments of the world are interested in this technology. Comes from England !But Nothing???? And fare chipper then building nuclear power plants ??All the B.S. going on is about population control nothing else and population reduction in the world A money 💸💸💸💸💸💸💸💸 transfer to the 5 percent of the worlds population???? All part of the system ajender 21 30 is alive an well?????
11:37 I put down the calculator and applauded 52:00 what a shameful disaster, hope South Africa doesn't go straight towards Sri Lanka's path Thank you for this masterclass, now I can see more clearly why coal is still the king
This was a fascinating conversation. I already knew much of the history of coal in relation to power generation - but Mark filled in the gaps about the variety of other uses for coal - like gas for lighting and jewelry. The discussion about the "coal mining culture" in Germany was also very interesting.
Now that France has nationalized their utilities, do you know if they are going to stop the energy trading scheme where they give a portion of the energy produced by the nuclear stations to energy traders?
I'm glad to hear you give proper respect for Alex Epstein and his work, it helps give you credibility. BTW Epstein is VERY pro-nuclear, but I'm sure you already knew that.
I really wish you guys would look at the need or the aspiration to get down to net zero CO2. In other words would you please investigate the claims that increased CO2 in our atmosphere is causing the temperature of earth to rise.
it is not. The opposite is true, warmer water releases co2, warmer climate is caused by the change of the orbit excentricity of the earth around the sun, not any small change in liminosity. In summary the temperature leads the carbondioxide content in the air, clearly shown in the Mauna Loa records. With the correct interpretation of course.
@@Arturo-lapaz Exactly, so how come a couple of smart guys like these guys, can be so pro nuclear energy and then pretend that man made climate change is real. Something doesn't pass the smell test
Very interesting section on historical energy use. For sure in some climates, with some primitive technology a tremendous amount of energy was used simply to provide heat. If I have a camp fire in my back yard, I will burn two to six times the wood I use to heat my average efficiency modern home using my catalitic wood stove. Also, cooking with primitive wood burning techniques uses a huge amount of wood, while my pellet grill can cook several meals with one 20 pound hopper full of pellets, and only produces smoke when I want it to.
Chris... If the coal train is required to fuel one DAY of the coal-fired plant, then given the fueling cycle of US Nuclear units the equivalent uranium would fit in your car, probably in your lunch bag.
You seem to have misunderstood the relation between natural gas and nuclear in the new EU finance rules: It is because they are transitional fuels in the eyes of almost all heads of state in the EU. I am not saying I agree with that, but that is the logic. Such a policy does not get decided "by the EU", but a proposal is developed in the European Commission, with hearings and opinions in the European Parliament and then fine tuned or butchered by the heads of state or ministers at The European Council.
Very interesting! Thanks! :) Mark said at the very end that coal has properties that other energy sources don't have. I beg to differ. For electricity Norway has been run on 100% HYDRO for more than 100 years, and blackouts only occur like once every 10 years. Lasting for just minutes. Best thing it's 100% clean, and we'll have it FOREVER!:) A coal mine will eventually run out of coal, but the water will keep running till end of times! :) BTW, we have enough electricity to spare so we are saving Denmark, England and Germany when they are in dire needs. Mark thanks for an very intersting lecture. I just wonder why you are not a professor!:)
I'm a German and I have to admit, Germany is bizarre . Frequently I'm shaking with laughter remembering that Germany, in midst of an energy crisis, did shut down it's last nuclear power plants. It's like the essence of a good joke! It's terribly sad, but the joke wins! A new twist in the German bizarreness is that, instead of just saying, "oh let's build more renewables", now they say "let's build more renewables along with storage systems". Every time I'm like, which "storage systems"??? What are you talking about???
As a German, do you know Germany is net exporter of electricity in euros? Germany imported a lot of electricity from the hydro power up north and nuclear power from France during the excess capacity. They export them back and to southern countries during peak time. How is that possible? Coal is very versatile, you burn them only when necessary.
Here is your master class: the sun rose and the wind blew at times. Frankly wind is ok for pumped water if you have farm house back in the day. And solar can be made to work in some "solar climate" for off grid. But in my iron forge I'll need charcoal.
Good interview, nuclear is the best, no question about that, but nuclear cant do it all. Coal and natural gas are here to stay for the foreseeable future. Again but, the solution is to make the power plants and the industry as a whole "emissions-free". Means capture all gases (and get rid of all chimneys in the industry) and turn them into useful liquids or solids, which can be used in other processes and make money out of it. With making the industry and power plants emission-free, we could half the CO2 emissions, which would make us about carbon-neutral. My favourite is methanol. Every carbon burning process, CO2 and water vapor is produced. Add some H2 to it, and one gets methanol. Replacing coal, gas, oil, with nuclear + methanol will take likely 30+ years. Meanwhile especially coal will be burned. It is cheap (about 2 cents/kWh per chemical energy content), it is abundant, available, energy dense, easy to store und well known and established. Like a good old friend who will never let you down and you can rely on no matter what.
Its fascinating isnt it...I am very optimistic though. I side more with thinkers like Jordan Peterson, Matt Ridley, etc: there is so much to be happy with, inspired by, and hopeful about. The biggest threats we face, painfully reminded with covid 19, is that disease is the biggest problem we have (in my opinion); climate change for me is at the level of an 'issue'. Its good to expand knowledge about it, its good to do some things to remedy it based on what we think we know, but theres far greater returns to humanity elsewhere, and radical leftist obsession with climate alarm isnt the way to approach it in my view, and alienates much of the world. Its obvious that we should be using much more nuclear than we have. Australia doesnt have any, Indonesia doesnt have any, brazil has a tiny amount. Its just nonsensical. And its unacceptable if the green left is serious about pushing us into urgent action. Germany pledged to shut it down completely because of a tsnuami near the ring of fire in a completely unrelated part of the world... Its also really hard to know who your real friends are. The EU mustve seen that Australia was trying to develop gas fields, and needed development capital, and were too arrogant. They ceded the relationship to asian countries (particularly communist china). They trusted Putin, and thought Australia was too far away and too expensive. They have egg on their face now, because they couldve got in at the ground floor on big offshore projects and locked in prices. Eurasia is a bit of a holy grail. There is a bonanza of raw materials there, but the people have a tendency to be radical and corrupt, and so choosing to partner with them was a blunder for the EU. Lately here in Australia the weather hasnt worked well for wind, the governments and industry havent built any new large plants (coal, nuclear etc), and gas is in price crisis. The coal that is still here is therefore at a ridiculously ironic premium considering we just had a federal election that saw greens and 'teals' increased, and the socialist party installed into power. What are they gonna do? More subsidies for solar pv and wind? Listen to the ideologues and thats the only game in town... My hero at the moment is senator Manchin in the West Virginia. He has cohonies of steel, and represents a coal mining and burning state...
Your explanation of the origin of coal is not just misleading but completely wrong. Hint What are the most abundant Elements? How does the most important Bouduard chemical equation fit into the evolution of mineral Coal? How did Carbon dioxyde evolve? Answer those questions and the truth will emerge and your credibility may be restored, to neutralize your statements pulled out of the air as you know very well.
Out of date information. It now costs more to continue to operate a coal fired electrical plant than it does to replace it with renewable and storage. Even the International energy agency now states that none of the existing energy system is financially viable. Solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of energy in the history of the global energy market place since its inception.
The thing is, it's more complicated than a blanket statement like this. I am not saying you are wrong by technicality, though. The reason why Coal is more expensive LCOE-wise because the average capacity factor of coal has decreased drastically. This is because Coal is a traditional baseload quite similar to nuclear, in that it isn't simple to adjust output or turn on-off. That being said, with the entrance of lots of solar which depresses prices in a merit-order wholesale market system, coal plants cannot simply turn off when these prices get low in the morning and afternoon. This is why coal struggles and therefore is extremely incompatible with a future in renewables, and therefore appear expensive in LCOE cost. In other words, the entrance of renewables are making coal look more expensive than it potentially can be. It's just that coal works best and more cheaply in a system of scale where there are also many other coal and baseload generators in the market. The near zero marginal cost of renewables is requiring a new level of flexibility to generate when prices are ideal, which is why natural gas plants (fairly flexible) are holding up quite alright.
@@PastaSenpai Coal and gas are done for. Everywhere you see batteries being installed? Gas generation is being disrupted too. Batteries are a LOT cheaper than gas peaker plants to operate. And will replace baseload as well in time. Like solar, its a zero marginal cost technology.
@@davefroman4700 First, these technologies receive subsidies on the national level (and sometimes even state level). Second, solar and wind’s nature is high capital costs, near zero marginal costs. This causes displacement and mismatch in wholesale markets. Third, batteries aren’t that profitable yet even with subsidies (they will be soon, like solar). Fourth, comparing gas with batteries is like comparing apples and oranges. Batteries do not generate electricity, they store and output.
@@PastaSenpai Out of date information sir. The capital costs of solar has dropped 80% over the last decade alone. You can buy solar by the pallet today in almost every market for less than 50 cents/watt. In some markets its less than 30 cents. In 1978 that cost was $78/watt
@@PastaSenpai Their output is scalable like a gas plant, and they respond instantly to demand and excess on the grid. And research shows that 5 hours of storage in any market will decimate 80% of the gas generation because they are peakers and frequency modulation assets. Low asset utilization ratio that is costly to maintain and operate vs a battery that costs nothing to operate.
