The Coal Industry May Never Recover From The Pandemic

[ronwagn + 6,290]

9 hours ago, NickW said:

Both wind and solar are reaching the point that they need little or no financial incentives. Furthermore the historical financial support for older wind turbines in the USA is time limited. I believe the production tax credit is limited to the first 10 years - thereafter they operate without any subsidy. 

Yes, and I recently read that many of those end up going out of service due to maintenance costs. There are, reportedly, many fields out of service and abandoned yet still standing.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

16 hours ago, ralfy said:

I don't think it can meet the energy needs I mentioned earlier, which means businesses will use every energy source available. Given that, the problem won't be governments but physical limitations.

 

I think you are forgetting about methane hydrates and biogas which are a larger potential resource than all conventional land based natural gas. I should also mention natural gas vents in the ocean which are a potential source and end up in our atmosphere. But, as I said, all safe sources of energy could and should be used. 

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Yes, and I recently read that many of those end up going out of service due to maintenance costs. There are, reportedly, many fields out of service and abandoned yet still standing.

All equipment has a finite life. How many redundant oil and gas wells litter the USA? 

Anyway I am surprised those turbines haven't been pulled down for scrap and replaced with new models. Maybe transmission constraints . 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 6/23/2020 at 2:56 AM, ronwagn said:

A lot of people think they know all about global warming. The thing is that their predictions never come true. The sea level is rising so slowly that it is not affecting people enough to want to deal with it. The rich continue to invest in coastal real estate. Get in line with your theories. 

https://www.climatedepot.com/2020/06/18/new-studies-suggests-sea-levels-are-lower-today-than-they-were-even-during-the-little-ice-age/

Why would even the most extreme global warming believer avoid buying a coastal property? They can just sell in 20 years to a climate change denier. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

12 minutes ago, NickW said:

Why would even the most extreme global warming believer avoid buying a coastal property? They can just sell in 20 years to a climate change denier. 

Believers actually believe what they say and wouldn't buy the property in the first place. They don't think they necessarily have five or ten years, much less twenty. The ones that say they believe, but really don't,  will buy because they are lying. Deniers will examine current statistics and REALITIES before buying. I would buy buy even if I was young. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

All equipment has a finite life. How many redundant oil and gas wells litter the USA? 

Anyway I am surprised those turbines haven't been pulled down for scrap and replaced with new models. Maybe transmission constraints . 

Not much to see there, or to pollute. I have lived around lots of oil wells, refineries, and stripper wells. Nothing that didn't blend in with the scenery. Wind turbines and solar installations are a real eyesore and have more dangerous Materials. Oil and gas installations have steel, aluminum and other valuable scrap. 

https://energycentral.com/news/retiring-worn-out-wind-turbines-could-cost-billions-nobody-has

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

I would be surprised if, inside the USA, anthracite or "hard" coal stops being used.  Right now there is this big push, indeed battle, to install a "cap and trade" on carbon credits. Wall Street, specifically Goldman Sachs, just loves this  (and pumps money to Democratic legislator candidates to get it passed everywhere) because cap and trade creates a new speculator market, one that Goldman can totally control  (now that Lehman Bros. is out of business).  Cap-and-trade will force ever higher prices on the carbon credits, a situation ripe for exploitation by Wall Street.  Politicians are too stupid to grasp this dynamic. 

Now what will happen is that heating products, specifically fuel oil in the Northeast, and that includes heating oil  [#2 oil], propane, and wood, will get expensive.  The old folks on fixed incomes are going to be seriously squeezed.  Already in Vermont we have the situation of old folks having to dial down the thermo to 50 degrees during the winter day, and turn it off completely at night [and hope the pipes do not freeze] simply because they cannot afford the tax surcharges on heating fuels.  That will get seriously worse with carbon credits.

At that point, I will start a bootlegging operation to bring anthracite in from upstate New York, where it is still mined.  Hard coal is selling retail for $110/ton, and for another ten bucks they will bag it for you.  I will get them to bag it in 20-lb bags so that the old folks can handle them, and then those wood stoves will be singing with coal.  I see no other solution to the problem of fighting back against the loonies and the crazies on the Left that are impoverishing old people in their quest to destroy civilization. 

[markslawson + 1,061]

21 hours ago, ralfy said:

Global warming refers to a slight increase in world surface temp. anomaly. Climate change refers to the effects of global warming. Don't confuse the two.

For studies, try the NAS final report and Berkeley Earth, which was set up to by skeptics and ended up confirming what NAS said.

Glanced at the NAS report. The findings are far from surprising. Everyone can agree on about one degree since start of industrialisation and 1.5 over 250 years is probably right, so I'm not sure what it was hoping to achieve. The real trick is to extend the time line back to the Medieval Warm period or the Roman Warm period or even the back end of the Holocene and then try to see whether the current warming is unusual or faster than previous changes in climate. There are those who claim that it is but given the huge error bars on proxy measurements (as evident in the NAS report) and the very short period of modern measurements it is difficult to take such claims seriously. Then there is the argument that okay, the earth's climate has been generally cooling on a geological time scale (no argument on that point), however the recent warming attributed to humans in this scenario - goes against that trend. So the change might not be significant but it upsets things, or something. See NASA's James E Hansen  Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change Hansen argument is that "moderate" global warming will trigger feedbacks and so on.. I'm not sure I take that argument seriously but it is an interesting one.. 

[ralfy + 55]

5 hours ago, ronwagn said:

I think you are forgetting about methane hydrates and biogas which are a larger potential resource than all conventional land based natural gas. I should also mention natural gas vents in the ocean which are a potential source and end up in our atmosphere. But, as I said, all safe sources of energy could and should be used. 

Those are not safe sources. And given recent history, it's likely all sources--safe or not--will be used because of low energy returns coupled with high demand. That's why, as I pointed out earlier, just to meet the basic needs of the current population, we will need more than double current energy use.

 

[ralfy + 55]

16 minutes ago, markslawson said:

Glanced at the NAS report. The findings are far from surprising. Everyone can agree on about one degree since start of industrialisation and 1.5 over 250 years is probably right, so I'm not sure what it was hoping to achieve. The real trick is to extend the time line back to the Medieval Warm period or the Roman Warm period or even the back end of the Holocene and then try to see whether the current warming is unusual or faster than previous changes in climate. There are those who claim that it is but given the huge error bars on proxy measurements (as evident in the NAS report) and the very short period of modern measurements it is difficult to take such claims seriously. Then there is the argument that okay, the earth's climate has been generally cooling on a geological time scale (no argument on that point), however the recent warming attributed to humans in this scenario - goes against that trend. So the change might not be significant but it upsets things, or something. See NASA's James E Hansen  Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change Hansen argument is that "moderate" global warming will trigger feedbacks and so on.. I'm not sure I take that argument seriously but it is an interesting one.. 

I think the NAS did that with another report:

http://dels.nas.edu/Materials/Report-In-Brief/4745-Surface-Temps

But I think its final report looks at multiple studies, including those that involve ice core data.

Given that, the problem it raises is the possibility that we're underestimating the issue, and that we will only know what gets upset only when they happen. Meanwhile, we need to use more fossil fuels anyway because of increasing resource and energy demand worldwide.

I think this is the reason why several organizations, from the U.S. military, the DoD, and the Pentagon, to various multinational banks, to companies like Lloyds of London, have been issuing reports to their clients and personnel about what to do given the possible effects of not only global warming but even a resource crunch.

 

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

2 hours ago, ralfy said:

Those are not safe sources. And given recent history, it's likely all sources--safe or not--will be used because of low energy returns coupled with high demand. That's why, as I pointed out earlier, just to meet the basic needs of the current population, we will need more than double current energy use.

 

I don't know what statistics you are estimating from but I am not saying it is inaccurate. I think that it would require high economic growth in the Third World and a lack of efficiency growth in the way we use energy. I think all that would probably require 30 years. Just my guess. Plenty of time for all sorts of developments, especially in natural gas use unless something better comes along. Or, the remaining population could be living in a dystopian nightmare.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

4 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I would be surprised if, inside the USA, anthracite or "hard" coal stops being used.  Right now there is this big push, indeed battle, to install a "cap and trade" on carbon credits. Wall Street, specifically Goldman Sachs, just loves this  (and pumps money to Democratic legislator candidates to get it passed everywhere) because cap and trade creates a new speculator market, one that Goldman can totally control  (now that Lehman Bros. is out of business).  Cap-and-trade will force ever higher prices on the carbon credits, a situation ripe for exploitation by Wall Street.  Politicians are too stupid to grasp this dynamic. 

Now what will happen is that heating products, specifically fuel oil in the Northeast, and that includes heating oil  [#2 oil], propane, and wood, will get expensive.  The old folks on fixed incomes are going to be seriously squeezed.  Already in Vermont we have the situation of old folks having to dial down the thermo to 50 degrees during the winter day, and turn it off completely at night [and hope the pipes do not freeze] simply because they cannot afford the tax surcharges on heating fuels.  That will get seriously worse with carbon credits.

At that point, I will start a bootlegging operation to bring anthracite in from upstate New York, where it is still mined.  Hard coal is selling retail for $110/ton, and for another ten bucks they will bag it for you.  I will get them to bag it in 20-lb bags so that the old folks can handle them, and then those wood stoves will be singing with coal.  I see no other solution to the problem of fighting back against the loonies and the crazies on the Left that are impoverishing old people in their quest to destroy civilization. 

My wife tells me that her grandmother used anthracite in central Illinois. Maybe it was shipped in from elsewhere. I assumed they only had bituminous around here, I never bothered to check. There are many miles of unmapped coal mines under subdivisions in Springfield. One time a new house sank into one. 

I thought that anthracite might be too hot for a wood stove, but I don't know, you probably do. I would definitely burn it if I couldn't get natural gas or propane for a fair price. Pelletized biomass is also a common item to use if you don't want to cut and split wood. We even ship lots of it to Europe. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Region Pennsylvania anthracite

Edited June 25, 2020 by ronwagn
reference

[NickW + 2,714]

12 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Believers actually believe what they say and wouldn't buy the property in the first place. They don't think they necessarily have five or ten years, much less twenty. The ones that say they believe, but really don't,  will buy because they are lying. Deniers will examine current statistics and REALITIES before buying. I would buy buy even if I was young. 

Seriously. If I was absolutely loaded and found a nice coastal property. Why not buy it and enjoy. If the sea washes it away in 50 years time - so what. I will probably be 6 feet under. 

[NickW + 2,714]

7 hours ago, ronwagn said:

My wife tells me that her grandmother used anthracite in central Illinois. Maybe it was shipped in from elsewhere. I assumed they only had bituminous around here, I never bothered to check. There are many miles of unmapped coal mines under subdivisions in Springfield. One time a new house sank into one. 

I thought that anthracite might be too hot for a wood stove, but I don't know, you probably do. I would definitely burn it if I couldn't get natural gas or propane for a fair price. Pelletized biomass is also a common item to use if you don't want to cut and split wood. We even ship lots of it to Europe. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Region Pennsylvania anthracite

Anthracite is commonly used in smoke control zones where people still burn solid fuels. 

You can mix a little into a wood stove but I wouldn't try and run one off of it. I used to have a wood stove and would occasionally put a few brickettes in if I didn't have much dense hardwood on hand. 

[NickW + 2,714]

12 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Not much to see there, or to pollute. I have lived around lots of oil wells, refineries, and stripper wells. Nothing that didn't blend in with the scenery. Wind turbines and solar installations are a real eyesore and have more dangerous Materials. Oil and gas installations have steel, aluminum and other valuable scrap. 

https://energycentral.com/news/retiring-worn-out-wind-turbines-could-cost-billions-nobody-has

Pretty much like wind turbines then. They maybe a few redundant old farms about. There may even be a reason to keep the old ones there perhaps with a few spinning to retain planning consent rights before redevelopment.

Is there an inventory of redundant wind farms still standing across the USA  that would support your claim  that these derelict structure slitter the landscape? 

 

BTW - that article is complete BS. $200-$500K to take down a single turbine????? I am a shareholder in a community Wind farm scheme and for planning consent we had to lodge £50K with the local authority (its effectively a 25 year loan to them that accrues interest) to be used to decommission 8 x 2.3MW turbines in the advent that the company goes bust. It also rolls out the same old chestnuts about turbines only lasting 10 years......

 

Edited June 25, 2020 by NickW

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

20 hours ago, NickW said:

All equipment has a finite life. How many redundant oil and gas wells litter the USA? 

Anyway I am surprised those turbines haven't been pulled down for scrap and replaced with new models. Maybe transmission constraints . 

Easier/cheaper to build a new one next to it?

[markslawson + 1,061]

23 hours ago, ralfy said:

Given that, the problem it raises is the possibility that we're underestimating the issue, and that we will only know what gets upset only when they happen. Meanwhile, we need to use more fossil fuels anyway because of increasing resource and energy demand worldwide.

I think this is the reason why several organizations, from the U.S. military, the DoD, and the Pentagon, to various multinational banks, to companies like Lloyds of London, have been issuing reports to their clients and personnel about what to do given the possible effects of not only global warming but even a resource crunch.

Okay, we can agree on a few things here. Just to be clear I don't endorse Hansen's reasoning at all, and find the carbon in the atmosphere theory so convoluted - this business where the theory has to explain why the miniscule human emissions are significant and why direct measurements show carbon of industrial origin is only a tiny proportion of carbon in the atmosphere - as to be difficult to take seriously. But hey, I'm not a scientist and scientists tell me that the its been confirmed in multiple different ways, so I should get back in my box. However, there is now a clear and compelling case that adaptation is now the way to go and forget attempts to control emissions which basically haven't worked at all. We should be prepared and await developments..   

[ronwagn + 6,290]

16 hours ago, NickW said:

Pretty much like wind turbines then. They maybe a few redundant old farms about. There may even be a reason to keep the old ones there perhaps with a few spinning to retain planning consent rights before redevelopment.

Is there an inventory of redundant wind farms still standing across the USA  that would support your claim  that these derelict structure slitter the landscape? 

 

BTW - that article is complete BS. $200-$500K to take down a single turbine????? I am a shareholder in a community Wind farm scheme and for planning consent we had to lodge £50K with the local authority (its effectively a 25 year loan to them that accrues interest) to be used to decommission 8 x 2.3MW turbines in the advent that the company goes bust. It also rolls out the same old chestnuts about turbines only lasting 10 years......

 

I think that the first wave of wind turbine contracts probably lacked a lot of needed clauses! Hopefully all that is hashed out now. I only know what my search engines tell me. I personally think that Great Britain needs to frack natural gas. I hate to see all the scenery littered with wind turbines. It is a small area. They need to allow remuneration for the locals who are against it IMHO. Who owns the land you are leasing?

From my research, most of the wind turbines get buried, at great expense, after being transported. Few localities are going to allow them to sit dormant very long. Of course bankrupt companies may not be forced to get rid of their mess and the landowner may have to do it. 

I really don't mind wind turbines in flatlands, but when they go on scenic hill crests or near other scenic places it is not a good choice IMHO. 

[NickW + 2,714]

6 hours ago, ronwagn said:

I think that the first wave of wind turbine contracts probably lacked a lot of needed clauses! Hopefully all that is hashed out now. I only know what my search engines tell me. I personally think that Great Britain needs to frack natural gas. I hate to see all the scenery littered with wind turbines. It is a small area. They need to allow remuneration for the locals who are against it IMHO. Who owns the land you are leasing?

From my research, most of the wind turbines get buried, at great expense, after being transported. Few localities are going to allow them to sit dormant very long. Of course bankrupt companies may not be forced to get rid of their mess and the landowner may have to do it. 

I really don't mind wind turbines in flatlands, but when they go on scenic hill crests or near other scenic places it is not a good choice IMHO. 

Id agree with you on that point. Th progression of the industry to very large turbines makes open flatlands a more viable option than hill crests.

Most of the turbine is recycled (the metals). The concrete is left in the ground. The blades can be reused however demand is limited so they can be buried in specific landfill cells - this means they can be dug up later and reused once a reccyling industry is developed. In any case they are inert so they aren't going to pollute the ground. 

As for the UK - most future build will be offshore and out of site of land. I am not fundamentally opposed  to fracking but you need to consider how densely populated the UK is compared to the USA. 

[NickW + 2,714]

6 hours ago, ronwagn said:

I think that the first wave of wind turbine contracts probably lacked a lot of needed clauses! Hopefully all that is hashed out now. I only know what my search engines tell me. I personally think that Great Britain needs to frack natural gas. I hate to see all the scenery littered with wind turbines. It is a small area. They need to allow remuneration for the locals who are against it IMHO. Who owns the land you are leasing?

From my research, most of the wind turbines get buried, at great expense, after being transported. Few localities are going to allow them to sit dormant very long. Of course bankrupt companies may not be forced to get rid of their mess and the landowner may have to do it. 

I really don't mind wind turbines in flatlands, but when they go on scenic hill crests or near other scenic places it is not a good choice IMHO. 

As for decommissioning, how many oil and gas companies are required to deposit the funds with local govt / central govt before consent is granted? 

I draw your attention again to this point. The farm was commissioned in 2003. 

 I am a shareholder in a community Wind farm scheme and for planning consent we had to lodge £50K with the local authority (its effectively a 25 year loan to them that accrues interest) to be used to decommission 8 x 2.3MW turbines in the advent that the company goes bust.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

6 hours ago, NickW said:

As for decommissioning, how many oil and gas companies are required to deposit the funds with local govt / central govt before consent is granted? 

I draw your attention again to this point. The farm was commissioned in 2003. 

 I am a shareholder in a community Wind farm scheme and for planning consent we had to lodge £50K with the local authority (its effectively a 25 year loan to them that accrues interest) to be used to decommission 8 x 2.3MW turbines in the advent that the company goes bust.

In the US, the coal, oil, and NG producers are under stringent legal requirements to clean up after themselves and they must post bonds. This has been true for at least 50 years. Most companies "self-bond": i.e., the bond is carried on the companies' books and is not in the hands of a third party. The established long-standing practice is for the asset and the bond to be sold together to a different company in a corporate restructuring when things are about to go down hill. The new company then declares bankruptcy and the taxpayers or landowners are stuck with the problem. Coal mines are fairly obvious, but there are tens of thousands of oil and NG wells have been abandoned without being properly plugged. Some of them have been emitting NG, some with H2S in it, for a hundred years. I would rather have wind turbines: you can at least see those suckers.

[NickW + 2,714]

44 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

In the US, the coal, oil, and NG producers are under stringent legal requirements to clean up after themselves and they must post bonds. This has been true for at least 50 years. Most companies "self-bond": i.e., the bond is carried on the companies' books and is not in the hands of a third party. The established long-standing practice is for the asset and the bond to be sold together to a different company in a corporate restructuring when things are about to go down hill. The new company then declares bankruptcy and the taxpayers or landowners are stuck with the problem. Coal mines are fairly obvious, but there are tens of thousands of oil and NG wells have been abandoned without being properly plugged. Some of them have been emitting NG, some with H2S in it, for a hundred years. I would rather have wind turbines: you can at least see those suckers.

Hence the reason for the bond to be held by a third party. 

The £50K was based on the best of 3 quotes which included removal of all parts except the concrete foundations which were to be recessed back by 600mm and covered in topsoil. The clearance company could sell on the materials. 

Apart from the visual impact a redundant WT is pretty much inert. Abandoned mines and wells are anything but. 

Edited June 26, 2020 by NickW

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

5 minutes ago, NickW said:

Hence the reason for the bond to be held by a third party. 

The £50K was based on the best of 3 quotes which included removal of all parts except the concrete foundations which were to be recessed back by 600mm and covered in topsoil. The clearance company could sell on the materials. 

In truth wind and solar farms don't get decommissioned like  mines or wells, because the wind and solar resource is not depleted. The farms get upgraded instead. This means some of the infrastructure is reused.

It is true that some inverters installed in 2010 are at end-of-life in 2020, but some of the replacement is due to upgrades. It's also likely that inverters installed in 2020 will last a lot longer than 10 years because the technology continues to improve.

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

In truth wind and solar farms don't get decommissioned like  mines or wells, because the wind and solar resource is not depleted. The farms get upgraded instead. This means some of the infrastructure is reused.

It is true that some inverters installed in 2010 are at end-of-life in 2020, but some of the replacement is due to upgrades. It's also likely that inverters installed in 2020 will last a lot longer than 10 years because the technology continues to improve.

Ebay is full of 2nd hand inverters from upgrades. I bought a Mastervolt Soladin for £60 to serve the 810W of panels on my east facing roof the other week. The other Soladin I have I bought in 2008 and its serving 660W on the west face. When they go wrong its often the cooling fan which is a £5 replacement. 

Likewise Ebay awash with second hand panels from solar farm upgrades. I bought 4 270W for £240. On an 810W array I have had 700W which is pretty good at 51 degrees latitude. 

Payback on DIY solar which a PV immersion diverter is about 17% per annum tax free.  Beats the 0.1% my bank is paying on instant access.  In fact splitting the area east and west gives the best output across the whole day.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

11 hours ago, NickW said:

As for decommissioning, how many oil and gas companies are required to deposit the funds with local govt / central govt before consent is granted? 

I draw your attention again to this point. The farm was commissioned in 2003. 

 I am a shareholder in a community Wind farm scheme and for planning consent we had to lodge £50K with the local authority (its effectively a 25 year loan to them that accrues interest) to be used to decommission 8 x 2.3MW turbines in the advent that the company goes bust.

I think that Great Britain might have been more picky than the U.S.A. in 2003. You might know.