Lethal Heating: 04/08/17

08/04/2017

The End Of Coal: EU Energy Companies Pledge No New Plants From 2020

The Guardian - Arthur Neslen

Companies from every EU nation except Poland and Greece sign up to initiative in bid to meet Paris pledges and limit effects of climate change

Plants such as Boxberg in Germany, seen here, will not be built across most of Europe from 2020 after a moratorium agreed to on Tuesday. Photograph: Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images

Europe’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.
The surprise announcement was made at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, 442 years after the continent’s first pit was sunk by Sir George Bruce of Carnock, in Scotland.
National energy companies from every EU nation – except Poland and Greece – have signed up to the initiative, which will overhaul the bloc’s energy-generating future.
A press release from Eurelectric, which represents 3,500 utilities with a combined value of over €200bn, reaffirmed a pledge to deliver on the Paris climate agreement, and vowed a moratorium on new investments in coal plants after 2020.
“26 of 28 member states have stated that they will not invest in new coal plants after 2020” said Kristian Ruby, Eurelectric’s secretary-general. “History will judge this message we are bringing here today. It is a clear message that speaks for itself, and should be seen in close relation to the Paris agreement and our commitment to provide 100% carbon-neutral electricity by 2050.”

“Europe’s energy companies are putting their money where their mouths are,” he added.
Coal has been central to Europe’s development, powering the industrial revolution, trades union history, and even the EU’s precursor, the European coal and steel community.
But it also emits more carbon dioxide than any other fossil fuel, plus deadly toxins such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and particulate matter, which are responsible for more than 20,000 deaths each year.
Wendel Trio, the director of Climate Action Network Europe, hailed the new move as “the beginning of the end for coal”.
“It is now clear that there is no future for coal in the EU,” he said. “The question is: what is the date for its phase out in the EU, and how hard will the coal industry fight to keep plants open, even if they are no longer economically viable?”
The coal industry though was sceptical about the utilities’ announcement. Brian Ricketts, the secretary-general of the Euracoal trade group said: “Steam engines were replaced by something better,cheaper and more productive – electric motors and diesel engines. When we see a new energy system – with lots of energy storage – that works at an affordable price, then coal, oil and gas will not be needed. In the meantime, we still rely on conventional sources.”
Renewable industry sources also welcomed the news, albeit with the caveat that it would allow continued new investments in the industry for another three years.
“The debate about coal is over,” one industry insider told the Guardian. “This is the only way that we can go forward with decarbonisation. But it would be good to see a phase out of existing coal plants.”
The energy utilities’ initiative faced initial resistance in Germany which is relying on coal to bridge a move away from nuclear energy to renewables under the “energiewende” transition.
In the end though, only Poland which depends on coal for around 90% of its electricity and Greece, which still plans new coal plants, bucked what is becoming a global trend.
New coal plant constructions fell by almost two thirds across the world in 2016, with the EU and US leading the way in retiring in existing coal capacity.
The move is also in line with a pathway for meeting the 2C target laid out by climate scientists last month, as a way of limiting future stranded asset risks.
Europe will have to phase out all of its coal plants by 2030 or else “vastly overshoot” its Paris climate pledges, climate experts say.
António Mexia, the CEO of Portuguese energy giant EDP and president of the Eurelectric trade association, said: “The power sector is determined to lead the energy transition and back our commitment to the low-carbon economy with concrete action.”
“With power supply becoming increasingly clean, electric technologies are an obvious choice for replacing fossil fuel based systems, for instance in the transport sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
“The challenge for policy makers in the next two years will be to target the political instruments, ensure that they are complementary and advance decarbonisation and electrification at the same time,” said Ruby.
Ruby called for a ratcheting up of the cap on CO2 emissions under the EU’s emissions trading system, to speed the transition to a low carbon economy.

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America’s Loss Is China’s Gain: Trump’s Stance On Climate Change Is A Gift To The Chinese

Salon - John Light

America's whiplash-inducing reversal on climate change is China’s gain. Here's why

China's President Xi Jinping waves after speaking at the CEO summit during the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)(Credit: AP)

In January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a speech in which he framed both himself and his country as the answer to Trumpism — as proponents of globalization and as proponents of climate action.
“All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it, as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations,” Xi said of the Paris Agreement, without explicitly mentioning Trump’s assertion that the US may withdraw from it. “We should join hands and rise to the challenge,” he told the elites gathered at the conference. “Let us boost confidence, take actions and work together for a bright future.”
China’s bid to become the world’s climate leader is more than just a noble enterprise. Of course, staving off the worst impacts of climate change will spare Chinese lives, and limiting sea level rise will help to protect Chinese cities and the agricultural regions on which the country’s enormous population depends. But there are also reasons for China to green its economy that aren’t explicitly tied to climate: China is tired of the smoggy cities, and the attendant health issues, that come with coal-fired power plants. Furthermore, renewable energy represents a growth area for the country’s economy, which could be facing stagnation. In fact, worldwide, the Paris Agreement is expected to generate $19 trillion in wealth — and China hopes to capitalize on the opportunity.
The United States and China were once the world’s key allies in the fight against climate change. In November 2014, President Barack Obama traveled to Beijing and met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Few knew it at the time, but their meeting would produce an agreement that paved the way for the Paris negotiations.
In that November 2014 announcement, Obama said the United States would commit to cutting emissions immediately — by up to 28 percent by 2025 — while Xi promised to put in place policies that would lead to China’s emissions peaking by 2030. The deal was denounced by conservatives in the United States as a giveaway to China, but the notoriously coal-loving country exceeded its promise and expectations by quickly ramping up renewables. Obama, meanwhile, put in place the Clean Power Plan and other regulations aimed at cutting America’s CO2 emissions.
The United States and China had thrown up some the biggest stumbling blocks during past U.N.-orchestrated efforts to put a climate deal in place. The fact that they were now openly acknowledging, through joint, public pronouncements, that climate change must be confronted and that both countries would put in place policies that did so, was a turning point in the two-decade-long effort to cement a global deal.
The following December, a year and a month after Obama and Xi’s announcement, the Paris Agreement was finalized.
Since signing the agreement, China has continued to encourage growth in renewables. By 2020, the country hopes to get 15 percent of its energy from non-fossil fuel sources, a push that the government will fund with a $361 billion investment in renewables and nuclear energy that will create 13 million jobs for Chinese citizens. That would put China on track to meet its commitment under the Paris Agreement to get 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. Meanwhile, the country, which was at one time bringing two new coal power plants online every week, has seen its coal consumption fall three years in a row and is canceling construction on coal plants, anticipating there won’t be much use for them.
The United States, on the other hand, has moved in the other direction. This week, Donald Trump started the process of undoing Obama’s climate change programs, and hasn’t made up his mind yet about whether to exit the Paris Agreement or simply ignore it. Surrounded by coal miners at yesterday’s executive order signing, Trump triumphantly announced that rolling back Obama’s Clean Power Plan would revive the US’ failing coal industry, though in practice his policies, which may be good for coal CEOs, are unlikely to create many jobs due to automation and other technological advances.
China, meanwhile, is looking for another country to replace the US as its partner in global climate efforts. The EU might be able to step into the role. Beijing has asked Brussels to schedule the annual China-EU summit for earlier this year than usual, with climate change as one of the items on the agenda.
Perhaps the greatest irony in this whole saga is Donald Trump’s go-to reason for dismissing climate change: That it is a hoax perpetrated to aid the Chinese.
Climate change is not a hoax perpetrated to aid the Chinese. Ironically, President Trump’s failure to address it makes way for China to thrive, both economically and diplomatically.
But there is another hoax at play here: The claim, repeated just recently by Trump EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, that there is still debate among climate scientists about whether global warming is caused by humans. That hoax was foisted on the American people by polluting companies and the think tanks they fund, repeated again and again by faux experts who specialize in sowing doubt.
One such expert is Trump’s transition team head, Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He spent years casting doubt on climate change — and before that, worked for tobacco companies to cast doubt on the dangers of smoking. Ebell was most recently found at an annual conference put together by the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, where he was among those fretting that Trump’s climate change-denying EPA head and oil company CEO secretary of state were, in fact, too pro-environment to fully prevent climate action. “Secretary Rex Tillerson may be from Texas and he may have been the CEO of Exxon, but he is part of the swamp,” Ebell said.
The oil industry, which once funded this sort of propaganda, has created a monster it is powerless to stop. Many companies, including Exxon, which played a prominent role in obfuscating climate science, want the president to stay in the Paris Agreement, which will, in the short term, incentivize countries to turn away from coal electricity and potentially embrace natural gas, a product in which the oil industry is already heavily invested and is more than happy to sell. The president, however, remains skeptical of the agreement and of climate science, as his advisers battle among themselves — the plutocrats versus the nationalists — to determine whether the administration will keep America in the climate change agreement or bail.
That Trump has bought into polluters’ hoax so thoroughly is America’s, and the world’s, loss — but in the short term, it’s China’s gain.

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Coal Is On The Way Out At Electric Utilities, No Matter What Trump Says

New York Times - Coral Davenport

A train receiving a load of coal in Price, Utah, last year. For decades, electric utilities have been the largest consumers of coal, but have in large part turned to natural gas, wind and solar for power generation. Credit George Frey/Bloomberg

WASHINGTON — In Page, Ariz., the operators of the Navajo Generating Station, the largest coal-fired power plant in the West, have announced plans to close it by 2019. The electric utility Dayton Power & Light will shut two coal plants in southern Ohio by next year. Across the country, at least six other coal-fired power plants have shut since November, and nearly 40 more are to close in the next four years.

President Trump campaigned on a pledge to restore the limping American coal industry, vowing to bring jobs and production back to a sector that has been on a steady decline for over a decade. But to do that, he would have to revive demand for coal by electric utilities, which for decades have been the largest consumer of the heavily polluting fuel. Nearly all the coal mined in the United States generates electricity.

On March 28, Mr. Trump headed to the Environmental Protection Agency, where, flanked by coal miners and coal company executives, he signed an executive order directing the agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, to begin rolling back a set of regulations on coal-fired power plant pollution that made up the centerpiece of President Obama’s climate change legacy.

“Today I’m taking bold action to follow through on that promise,” Mr. Trump told the miners. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal.”

But executives at the nation’s largest electric utilities say Mr. Trump’s announcement and the eventual fate of the regulations known as the Clean Power Plan make little difference to them. They still plan to retire coal plants — although perhaps at a slightly slower pace — and, more significant, they have no plans to build new ones.

“For us, it really doesn’t change anything,” said Jeff Burleson, vice president of system planning at Southern Company, an Atlanta-based utility that provides electricity to 44 million people across the Southeast, of the prospective rollback of the Clean Power Plan. “Whatever happens in the near term in the current administration doesn’t affect our long-term planning for future generation,” he said.

As do most electric utilities, Southern Company plans its investment on a 50-year horizon, the expected life span of a new power plant. Its planners do not see coal as economically viable in that time frame.

With or without the Clean Power Plan, power companies say, coal is simply no longer the fuel of choice for keeping the lights on in America — and they do not expect it to make a comeback. Cheaper natural gas and renewable sources like wind and solar power have replaced it.

“We’ll continue to grow the renewables portion of our business and meanwhile rely on natural gas, but we don’t see investing in new coal,” Mr. Burleson said.

A decade-long boom in extracting gas and oil from rock in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has led to a glut in natural gas, causing its price to plummet below that of coal. Electric utilities have turned away from buying coal and toward the cheaper fuel, a market shift was already underway well before Mr. Obama announced the Clean Power Plan.

“This is not an environmentally driven trend we are seeing,” said Jairo Chung, an associate vice president at Moody’s Investors Service. “What we are seeing now is in the interior of the U.S., where wind is very rich, states and utilities are pushing ahead in investing in it — not because of regulation or environmental concerns, but because it’s economically driven.”

Natural gas produces just half as much planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution as coal — an additional benefit, electricity generators say, as they invest in the new power generators that will provide electricity to America for the next half-century.

This decision is also driven by economics. Electric company executives are including in their long-term profit-and-loss calculations an expectation that the federal government will eventually tax or regulate carbon dioxide pollution.

Several electric utilities, including Southern Company of Atlanta, have already incorporated an anticipated carbon tax into their business models, plugging in estimated fees of $10 to $40 per ton of carbon dioxide pollution. “We don’t know exactly what the future holds, but we hold a presumption that there will be a price on carbon on the horizon, either from legislation or regulation,” Mr. Burleson said.

Legal experts say it is not certain that Mr. Trump will succeed in efforts to roll back the Clean Power Plan.

And under the current statute, which has yet to be put into effect, the federal government is still required to regulate carbon dioxide pollution. So, even if Mr. Trump does succeed in repealing his predecessor’s carbon dioxide rules, either he or his successor will be required to issue replacement rules.

While Mr. Trump tries to roll back the rules today, executives of electric power generators assume that his successors will eventually reinstate them in some form. Essentially, they say, Mr. Trump’s moves are a bump on the road to a future in which the government constrains climate-warming pollution and consumers increasingly demand cleaner power.

“At this point, it really, in terms of how we’ve been transitioning our fleet and transmission — it probably won’t have a big impact,” John McManus, a vice president at American Electric Power, an Ohio-based utility that provides power to five million people in 11 states, said of Mr. Trump’s E.P.A. announcement.

American Electric Power was once built entirely around coal. In 2005, 71 percent of its electricity was coal-fired. But that figure has dropped to 47 percent and is expected to fall further, according to the company’s projections. Natural gas-fired power has grown to 27 percent from 20 percent in 2005, and that share is expected to grow.

Over the next three years, the company plans to invest about $1 billion in new wind and solar generation and $3 billion in new transmission lines to move that electricity, Mr. McManus said. “We have been relying on what makes sense for a different kind of electrical system in the future.”

Still, companies say, the changing environment matters. “This is our long-term view — unless the entire issue of climate change goes away,” he said. “And we don’t expect that to happen.”

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