On the last go around, TIG tried to mandate utilities produce at least some minimum amount of generation capacity from coal, dressed up as “grid reliability and security”.
Here we go again. The signing of the four EOs to increase production and use of coal starts at about the 50 minute mark.
Steve
It isn’t going to help. Natural gas is a cheaper fuel than coal, and so is wind and solar in many cases. Plus the last new coal plant came online in 2013. Coal plants are getting older and requiring more maintenance.
If you like coal, presumably you will take a close look at Peabody (ticker BTU). Stock is in a down trend from November. Those who like to buy low may find it an opportunity. But is about double from 2020.
I doubt that coal is a dead market. Those with coal in the ground will find a price that makes it salable.
Additionally, in the last decade, over 100 existing coal power plants have either switched to nat gas or completely closed down.
This is older data but it still holds:
Coal is not coming back; thankfully.
I don’t know what the full text of this EO says. iirc, on the last go around, he was mandating that utility companies have some minimum percentage of generation capacity from plants that have fuel stored on site, which means nukes and coal, as gas fired plants tend to simply be connected to a gas main. This was dressed up with the same sort of “security” and “reliability” language as he spoke today. He also spoke today, of plants threatened by Biden era regulations, that he was sweeping away. Bottom line, he appears to be, again, mandating coal use, regardless of it’s economics.
Steve
How can you possibly mandate coal usage by EO? What is the enforcement mechanism? What are the consequences?
If you can force a private power company to switch their energy source, then why not force all cars to be EV (or diesel) by EO? Obviously that would not stand up in court.
I’m not sure, actually. He did try to mandate coal use last time, but he got a lot of push back–push back from the coal industry who were angry about running unprofitable plants. As far as I know, this time it was most about removing environmental regulations.
For whatever reason, coal job losses were much steeper under Trump than Biden.
This article talks about what he tried to do in 2018. His push was rejected that time.
I found this article about today’s EOs.
If is promises blue collar “jobs”, and has a big lobbyist check attached, things happen.
Steve
What happened to Germany when the Nord Stream pipelines were blown up? I also recall an emergency in Texas when weather killed the grid…
Google remembers:
Data showed that failure to winterize traditional power sources, principally natural gas infrastructure but also to a lesser extent wind turbines, had caused the grid failure, with a drop in power production from natural gas more than five times greater than that from wind turbines.
Boy, is that some sort of “security” and “reliability” language!
The Captain
At the same time, US electrical grid operators are warning of capacity crunches. It would seem worthwhile to at least maintain what baseload generating capacity we presently have.
One interesting excerpt:
While retirements are accelerating, most new additions in the interconnection queues are intermittent renewables—and that highlights a mismatch in reliability attributes…
MISO’s Curran echoed this concern, pointing to a projected drop in the amount of electricity available during the most critical periods. “MISO’s Future Planning Scenarios estimate that while the total amount of installed electric generation will increase significantly over the next 20 years due to the rapid growth of wind and solar,” she said, “the actual amount of electricity available to the system during critical hours could decline by about 32 GW due to the operational characteristics of these new resources.”
DB2
Why not build gravity batteries? Electric motors and energy regen.
The Captain
Agreed, but…whale oil is the future!
Pushing coal when there are cleaner, cheaper fuels is bonkers.
Closing coal mines has serious economic impact in some areas. Slowing the process is good politics some places.
Managing the process to transition away from coal makes sense, ramping up production does not.
We should be using more combined cycle natural gas, not pushing coal.
Using cleaner, more efficient, and more energy dense fuels is good policy. Politics shouldn’t interfere with good policy.
Sure. And closing the local butcher shop and bakery and other Main Street stores has serious economic impact in some areas. So prohibiting WalMart from opening up anywhere near is good politics too.
Really really stupid economics, but you do you.
The story of butcher shops is well known. Still a few butcher shops around. Not many meat cutters in grocery stores any more. Swift and Armour drove out many local meat packing houses. Now most meat is packaged by big operations by Tysons and Cargill.
As to coal, economics work against building new coal fired power plants in the US. (Not sure about China and India where they have coal but natural gas must be imported.). Extending the service life of coal fired plants can be good economics and good politics.
Lets not forget natural gas is a fossil fuel and produces carbon dioxide when burned. It is abundant but should be a temporary energy source while we expand green energy production.