Unfortunately for coking coal, it has coal in its name. Unfortunately for the renewable power industry, they’re going to need a lot of coking coal. This seems like quite the conundrum.
"....Greenpeace said the UK risked becoming “a superpower in climate hypocrisy rather than climate leadership” and that the mine would do “absolutely nothing” for the country’s energy security because the coal it contains can only be used for steelmaking...."
also, surely only the stoniest of hearts couldn't let out at least a little chuckle at the idea of the Tories breathing new life into UK coal mining industry.......
I was minded to return to re-read this piece, on the news the mine has got the go ahead! (ye of little faith Doomberg ;-) ). However I also wanted to highlight, amongst the obvious howls of protest, the response from Greenpeace, who did manage to correctly identify that this WAS a coking mine and wouldn't help energy security in the way thermal coal would, neglecting of course to then make the simple next logical connection to what keeps wind turbines standing. I do wish we could get some filmed debates going e.g. Greenpeace vs Green Chicken, I genuinely want to know if these folk are as empty under the surface as they appear to be........
Well if Coking Coal has a branding problem, "Natural" Gas definitely has the opposite, I suspect if you go an old Jay Leno asking people on the street question thing, I dread to think how many would actually answer "yes" to " Is Natural gas just air that exists in nature?"
Just in case you wonder who's in charge at the White House, I'd say it's the World Economic Forum. And they know quite well what they're doing. Once they have us all dead from starving and freezing in the dark, the carbon footprint problem will be fixed.
Why? I don’t understand these environmentalists; they have beliefs that are clearly mutually exclusive with even the slightest analysis. I’m just so confused why specific green sources and getting to absolute 0 (not net zero!) is an article of faith when there are clearly many possible roads to Rome.
Some commenters had a lot of fun with Keith here because of his suggestion of making steel with Hydrogen that's made with electrolysis from excess wind energy that's made during the night when electricity demand is smaller. Let me try to explain in a friendly way what these commenters are seeing but what Keith is not. The short version is this: It makes no sense.
Let's start with hydrogen. It needs to be produced from electricity. For the hydrogen to be clean, it has to be produced from a clean source (when it comes to co2) like for example nuclear, hydro, wind or solar. The efficiency of doing that is low. And after that hydrogen has to be pressurized, which wastes even more energy. And like one writer pointed out, hydrogen is also tricky to store, and transport.
Then electricity. The excess clean electricity simply does not exist. Like we can see in Europe, there's a lack of clean energy. If we are supposed to cut down on co2-emissions, we need to start by eliminating co2 from electricity generation. If we do that using wind and solar, we need 1) massive amounts of new generation and 2) massive amounts of storage. If we get there, the excess electricity will simply go to charging batteries instead of using the electricity to generate and pressurize hydrogen.
Like the Doomberg suggested, it is possible to build massive amounts of nuclear so that we can eliminate co2 in electricity production. After that it's possible to use that abundant electricity to create hydrogen or ammonia in large scale to use it as an alternative fuel. Any amounts of clean fuels created this way can replace oil that is now burned for transportation. For example: Shipping.
Oh, let me also point out that wind tends to be weaker during the night. So wind produces less electricity during the night and solar no electricity at all.
The world just isn't there for creating any meaningful amounts of steel with hydrogen. And if we get to the point where it'd start being possible in theory, we'd eliminate more co2 by using that directly as a fuel instead of making steel. That way we don't need to build huge amounts of battery storage or even huge amounts of wind and solar and by no having to build those, we save huge amounts of co2 waste a lot of less resources and have to build way less mines.
Great post. Hopefully someday we won’t even need to mine for anything on earth thus ruining the landscape, instead building parks and wildlife preserves using robots so we can all learn art and music full time. In the mean time…
Your note does not reflect the sense of urgency. The situation is getting desperate .The world needs shock therapy otherwise we revert to the business as usual attitude; which is not an option. Why can't Americans drive less or drive smaller fuel efficient cars like Europeans? Or promote public transport?? Govt's have to act. One has to understand the use cases and push renewables wherever possible. India is the worlds third largest emitter. Most of the daytime electricity demand (which is primarily from coal fired plants) comes from increasing use of Air conditioning (used 9 months of the year). PV rooftop solar alone is able to significantly reduce daytime electricity use in air conditioning even without storage. Fossil fuels are used in producing all kinds of stuff which the world really could easily do without for a while. Better to use the available resource to produce solar and windmills which are definitely needed.
Read "Numbers Don't Lie" by Vaclav Smil to see more good information in this regard like " To make the steel required for wind turbines that might operate by 2030, you would need the fossil fuel equivalent of 600 Million tons of coal
The electric arc furnace (EAF) process, which uses scrap metal as feedstock, is a much cleaner alternative than the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) process which uses coking/metallurgical coal. Steel Dynamics in the USA exclusively uses EAF technology. Here's more: https://sustainability.steeldynamics.com/eafvsblastfurnace/
Gentlemen, As DRS stated, Hydrogen is a VERY nasty gas. Using Hydrogen for Steel Production would be an unmitigated disaster. Hydrogen in combination with heat causes Hydrogen embrittlement meaning that the resulting steel is brittle and stiff with NO bend. ANY pressure on the steel would cause it to crack. Imagine a High Pressure Boiler at full boil. Now imagine the carnage that would happen once the Steam drum ruptured and went careening into some populated area. It's happened before and caused much Death and Destruction. LOL, H2 Steel...a disaster in the making!
Well... Classical Chicken and Egg Problem (here we have the Chicken - again). Green Hydrogen is a very nice idea - however we'd need a transport infrastructure for that. Unfortunately Hydrogen is a very nasty gas that has a tendency to destroy most metals / alloys and diffuse through most plastics. Very bad for pipelines, very bad for gaskets and valves. Believe me - I know what I am talking about, because I was plant manager in a Hydrogen Plant some 20 years ago.
I am not saying it will never be possible to setup such infrastructure, but it will take time (>10 - 20 years). And until then we'd better use natural gas and the existing and very cost efficient pipeline infrastructure to transport it and make hydrogen close to the consumer. Steam Reforming of Natural Gas is emmitting 1 Molecule of CO2 per 2 Molecule H2 - thats a lot and means it is simply not viable (anymore). I am putting big hopes in BASFs Methane Pyrolysis - a process, where you make directly H2 and carbon black. They are running a relatively big pilot plant for that already and I'd expect them to commercialize within next years. And you could even use biogas to produce H2.
However - all this is probably too complex for most politicians (and voters) - and thus I expect deciders to take bad / wrong decisions, such as shutting down all nuclear power plants in Germany in a very short time frame after Fukushima. It's all frustrating...
I think I'm beginning to understand parts of Isaiah Chapter 3.
4. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
5. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
I don't understand this post. It's still coal. It's just useful for steel. But we can make steel with Hydrogen and while not cost effective yet, limiting coaking coal will make the process cheaper faster. As you point out steel accounts for 8% of carbon. That's a ton. If we want to limit carbon output steel needs to become cleaner. One thing you didn't mention for making hydrogen is electrolysis. That means that wind turbines at night (because winds tend to be stronger at night when power demand diminishes) can generate electricity to split water molecules. You then get oxygen, a critical valuable asset, and hydrogen, which can be used in steel making and reduce steel's carbon footprint 20-25%. For a blog that talks about tail risk you don't seem to really get the urgency in not implementing carbon reducing policies. The "it's too important" argument is wrong and dumb. You know what makes it hard to build new buildings? Those cities being underwater.
"....Greenpeace said the UK risked becoming “a superpower in climate hypocrisy rather than climate leadership” and that the mine would do “absolutely nothing” for the country’s energy security because the coal it contains can only be used for steelmaking...."
also, surely only the stoniest of hearts couldn't let out at least a little chuckle at the idea of the Tories breathing new life into UK coal mining industry.......
I was minded to return to re-read this piece, on the news the mine has got the go ahead! (ye of little faith Doomberg ;-) ). However I also wanted to highlight, amongst the obvious howls of protest, the response from Greenpeace, who did manage to correctly identify that this WAS a coking mine and wouldn't help energy security in the way thermal coal would, neglecting of course to then make the simple next logical connection to what keeps wind turbines standing. I do wish we could get some filmed debates going e.g. Greenpeace vs Green Chicken, I genuinely want to know if these folk are as empty under the surface as they appear to be........
There is no need for any of this crap. Global Warming is a hoax!
Well if Coking Coal has a branding problem, "Natural" Gas definitely has the opposite, I suspect if you go an old Jay Leno asking people on the street question thing, I dread to think how many would actually answer "yes" to " Is Natural gas just air that exists in nature?"
Just in case you wonder who's in charge at the White House, I'd say it's the World Economic Forum. And they know quite well what they're doing. Once they have us all dead from starving and freezing in the dark, the carbon footprint problem will be fixed.
Why? I don’t understand these environmentalists; they have beliefs that are clearly mutually exclusive with even the slightest analysis. I’m just so confused why specific green sources and getting to absolute 0 (not net zero!) is an article of faith when there are clearly many possible roads to Rome.
Some commenters had a lot of fun with Keith here because of his suggestion of making steel with Hydrogen that's made with electrolysis from excess wind energy that's made during the night when electricity demand is smaller. Let me try to explain in a friendly way what these commenters are seeing but what Keith is not. The short version is this: It makes no sense.
Let's start with hydrogen. It needs to be produced from electricity. For the hydrogen to be clean, it has to be produced from a clean source (when it comes to co2) like for example nuclear, hydro, wind or solar. The efficiency of doing that is low. And after that hydrogen has to be pressurized, which wastes even more energy. And like one writer pointed out, hydrogen is also tricky to store, and transport.
Then electricity. The excess clean electricity simply does not exist. Like we can see in Europe, there's a lack of clean energy. If we are supposed to cut down on co2-emissions, we need to start by eliminating co2 from electricity generation. If we do that using wind and solar, we need 1) massive amounts of new generation and 2) massive amounts of storage. If we get there, the excess electricity will simply go to charging batteries instead of using the electricity to generate and pressurize hydrogen.
Like the Doomberg suggested, it is possible to build massive amounts of nuclear so that we can eliminate co2 in electricity production. After that it's possible to use that abundant electricity to create hydrogen or ammonia in large scale to use it as an alternative fuel. Any amounts of clean fuels created this way can replace oil that is now burned for transportation. For example: Shipping.
Oh, let me also point out that wind tends to be weaker during the night. So wind produces less electricity during the night and solar no electricity at all.
The world just isn't there for creating any meaningful amounts of steel with hydrogen. And if we get to the point where it'd start being possible in theory, we'd eliminate more co2 by using that directly as a fuel instead of making steel. That way we don't need to build huge amounts of battery storage or even huge amounts of wind and solar and by no having to build those, we save huge amounts of co2 waste a lot of less resources and have to build way less mines.
Great post. Hopefully someday we won’t even need to mine for anything on earth thus ruining the landscape, instead building parks and wildlife preserves using robots so we can all learn art and music full time. In the mean time…
we need green chicken T-Shirts
Your note does not reflect the sense of urgency. The situation is getting desperate .The world needs shock therapy otherwise we revert to the business as usual attitude; which is not an option. Why can't Americans drive less or drive smaller fuel efficient cars like Europeans? Or promote public transport?? Govt's have to act. One has to understand the use cases and push renewables wherever possible. India is the worlds third largest emitter. Most of the daytime electricity demand (which is primarily from coal fired plants) comes from increasing use of Air conditioning (used 9 months of the year). PV rooftop solar alone is able to significantly reduce daytime electricity use in air conditioning even without storage. Fossil fuels are used in producing all kinds of stuff which the world really could easily do without for a while. Better to use the available resource to produce solar and windmills which are definitely needed.
Read "Numbers Don't Lie" by Vaclav Smil to see more good information in this regard like " To make the steel required for wind turbines that might operate by 2030, you would need the fossil fuel equivalent of 600 Million tons of coal
The electric arc furnace (EAF) process, which uses scrap metal as feedstock, is a much cleaner alternative than the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) process which uses coking/metallurgical coal. Steel Dynamics in the USA exclusively uses EAF technology. Here's more: https://sustainability.steeldynamics.com/eafvsblastfurnace/
Gentlemen, As DRS stated, Hydrogen is a VERY nasty gas. Using Hydrogen for Steel Production would be an unmitigated disaster. Hydrogen in combination with heat causes Hydrogen embrittlement meaning that the resulting steel is brittle and stiff with NO bend. ANY pressure on the steel would cause it to crack. Imagine a High Pressure Boiler at full boil. Now imagine the carnage that would happen once the Steam drum ruptured and went careening into some populated area. It's happened before and caused much Death and Destruction. LOL, H2 Steel...a disaster in the making!
Well... Classical Chicken and Egg Problem (here we have the Chicken - again). Green Hydrogen is a very nice idea - however we'd need a transport infrastructure for that. Unfortunately Hydrogen is a very nasty gas that has a tendency to destroy most metals / alloys and diffuse through most plastics. Very bad for pipelines, very bad for gaskets and valves. Believe me - I know what I am talking about, because I was plant manager in a Hydrogen Plant some 20 years ago.
I am not saying it will never be possible to setup such infrastructure, but it will take time (>10 - 20 years). And until then we'd better use natural gas and the existing and very cost efficient pipeline infrastructure to transport it and make hydrogen close to the consumer. Steam Reforming of Natural Gas is emmitting 1 Molecule of CO2 per 2 Molecule H2 - thats a lot and means it is simply not viable (anymore). I am putting big hopes in BASFs Methane Pyrolysis - a process, where you make directly H2 and carbon black. They are running a relatively big pilot plant for that already and I'd expect them to commercialize within next years. And you could even use biogas to produce H2.
However - all this is probably too complex for most politicians (and voters) - and thus I expect deciders to take bad / wrong decisions, such as shutting down all nuclear power plants in Germany in a very short time frame after Fukushima. It's all frustrating...
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I think I'm beginning to understand parts of Isaiah Chapter 3.
4. And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
5. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.
I don't understand this post. It's still coal. It's just useful for steel. But we can make steel with Hydrogen and while not cost effective yet, limiting coaking coal will make the process cheaper faster. As you point out steel accounts for 8% of carbon. That's a ton. If we want to limit carbon output steel needs to become cleaner. One thing you didn't mention for making hydrogen is electrolysis. That means that wind turbines at night (because winds tend to be stronger at night when power demand diminishes) can generate electricity to split water molecules. You then get oxygen, a critical valuable asset, and hydrogen, which can be used in steel making and reduce steel's carbon footprint 20-25%. For a blog that talks about tail risk you don't seem to really get the urgency in not implementing carbon reducing policies. The "it's too important" argument is wrong and dumb. You know what makes it hard to build new buildings? Those cities being underwater.