Survey Of 600 Utilities: 80%+ Expect Lower Coal Investment Over Five Years, 60%+ "Much Less"

[hatrack]

EDIT

From a survey of more than 600 utility stakeholders:

Utilities are finding that reducing emissions through renewables doesn’t necessarily compromise resiliency and reliability. Coal- fired power production, which last year plunged to its lowest level in more than four decades, is anticipated to continue its decade- long slide, dropping by an additional 13 percent in 2020. Natural gas is expected to remain a key part in the power generation equation — most likely as a backup, covering for the intermittency of solar and wind energy — as coal usage continues to decline. 83.7% said there would be less capacity investment in coal over the next five years, including 60.1% saying it would be “much less.

According to the report – “Battery storage appears to hold the key, given its utilitarian role as a veritable Swiss army knife capable of consuming, supplying, conditioning and storing electric energy. Such storage allows typically non-dispatchable resources like wind and solar energy to be used precisely when the systems need them most, helping balance load and generation across time and space.”

EDIT

S&P Global (Standard & Poors):

Building a coal-fired power plant comes with regulatory and policy risks managed over multiyear permitting and construction timelines for plants where it may take decades to recoup the investment. Meanwhile, banks and other capital sources are limiting exposure to coal, and any project would likely face legal challenges. “I think it’s unlikely any utility will build a large-scale coal plant in the next five years and possibly ever,” said Travis Miller, an energy and utility strategist for Morningstar.

Emily Medine, a principal at Energy Ventures Analysis who also sits on the board of coal producer Contura Energy Inc., agreed that no new coal plant is likely to emerge in the U.S. in the next five years. Medine said the future of coal would depend on the success of retrofitted and new installations of carbon capture technology.

EDIT

https://climatecrocks.com/2020/11/17/coal-continues-calamitous-crash/

[keithbvadu2]

1. Good thing Trump has already saved all those coal jobs, eh?

Good thing Trump has already saved all those coal jobs, eh?

[NNadir]

2. Switching from coal to gas is like an alcoholic announcing...

...that one has been cured of alcoholism because one only drinks beer and wine.

As for the reality of the battery bullshit, it would be useful to follow the CAISO data which gives a great online real time analysis of all so called "renewable energy" infrastructure in that gas dependent renewable nirvana, California, laced with so many transmission lines that they have to shut the grid off on hot windy days lest the state explods into flame.

Batteries, charging and discharging, are included in the CAISO data. The current scale, after half a century of hype and a world racing to 420 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide speaks volumes. The full environmental conseqences of digging all sorts of cobalt, nickel and manganese for batteries. has not come home to roost because batteries thankfully remain a trivial part of California's infrastructure. If they ever become significant, there will be he'll to pay.

They've already mined incredible amounts of copper, and produced huge amounts polymers for insulation for those wires, which regularly need replacement when they melt in fires.

Copper is generally made by roasting copper sulfide ores releasing sulfites and sulfates into our favorite garbage dump, the atmosphere. Guess what? The heat for this process does not remotely come from so called "renewable energy "

The popular enthusiasm for this three card Monty energy scheme represents is fairly toxic, and represents yet another scheme where oblivious bourgeois types screw poor people with Trumpian scale misinformation.

There is zero environmental good news in this latest installment in the series of the "coal is dead" fantasies.