China and India are both needing more coal and prices are now extremely high. They need maximum fossil fuel.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/how-severe-is-india-coal-crisis-what-is-govt-doing-to-address-it-7570164/

https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/coal-shortages-force-blackouts-across-china/

 

 

[Tomasz + 1,608]

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/russia-plans-to-boost-coking-coal-supplies-to-india-to-40-mln-t-year-2021-10-14

Quote

 

Russia plans to boost coking coal supplies to India to 40 mln T/year

Russia will increase annual exports of coking coal to India to 40 million tonnes for the metal-producing industry from 8 million tonnes of all types of coal it supplies to the country now, Russian Energy Ministry said on Thursday.

MOSCOW, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Russia will increase annual exports of coking coal to India to 40 million tonnes for the metal-producing industry from 8 million tonnes of all types of coal it supplies to the country now, Russian Energy Ministry said on Thursday.

India is the world's second largest coal producer, with the world's fourth largest reserves, but a steep surge in power demand that has outstripped pre-pandemic levels means domestically-sourced supplies are no longer enough.

 

 

[markslawson + 1,042]

Couldn't square the pie chart with the figures in the article - the petroleum slice of the pie seems too large - but it doesn't matter much. The bulk of India's power is coming from coal and a surprising amount (about 3 per cent according to the figures) comes from diesel plants - they need more to boost the incomes of a country where average incomes are still too low, and the developed world is moaning over net zero which is never going to happen anyway. The whole debate is a farce.. a tragic face, not a comedic one..  

[ronwagn + 6,290]

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Coal-Prices-Hit-New-Record-In-China-As-Energy-Crunch-Intensifies.html

Coal Prices Hit New Record In China As Energy Crunch Intensifies

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

On 10/15/2021 at 6:10 PM, ronwagn said:

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/how-severe-is-india-coal-crisis-what-is-govt-doing-to-address-it-7570164/

https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/coal-shortages-force-blackouts-across-china/

 

 

A country like China can easily double its coal electricity production without increasing a single ton of Coal consumption, 40% of China's Coal is for electricity the next 60% is for industrial heating like steel furnaces, refineries, among sectors that can be electrified.

Oil was as important as coal for power generation until 1973, gasoline prices remained around the same when you adjust for inflation, but it was uneconomical run on oil if it wasnt at 20U$D a barrel, (140 U$D/ton)
Natural gas historically is at around 200U$D a ton, or 21U$D a gas barrel (160M3 of natural gas has the same energy as a 160Lt barrel of 50API extra light crude),

However there's a big incentive for oil to go from making Kerosene, Gasoline and Diesel fuel to make much more expensive petrochemicals that are more insensitive to price, when that happens The feedstock of choice to make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel will become natural gas, Nacero in the USA has planned 3 Gas-to-Methanol-to-Gasoline plants in Pennsylvania, Texas and Arizona.

For most of the third world, Coal is the way to go to make electricity, Modern petroleum engineering is like rocket science, Natural gas requires the most expensive infrastructure out there with pressurized pipelines at 100Bar with a series of jet engine powered compressor stations, The US has over 2 million KM of Gas pipelines, it has been building them since the late 1940's, and arguibly it isnt enough, for India, China, Subsaharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, building a comparable nat gas infrastructure to import most of their gas anyway is pretty much impossible.

There's a problem with LNG too, Methanol is a better way of moving Natural gas, Liquefaction plants are as expensive to build as refineries, and you need specialized tankers with cryogenic walls to move it, You can make 2.2Tons of Methanol from a ton of Natural gas and since is liquid at room temperature you dont need infrastructure as expensive. You can convert that methanol into Dimethyl-Ether for gas distribution or to synthetic LPG.



Coal doesnt need a fraction of the specialzied infrastructure, you can load coal in dump trucks, in hopper railcars, it wont go anywhere isnt a gas that must be cryogenically cold to -170°C to turn into a liquid. The future of Non coal fossil fuel power generation is from the gasification of plastic and chemical waste into syngas

[nsdp + 449]

On 10/16/2021 at 5:19 AM, Tomasz said:

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/russia-plans-to-boost-coking-coal-supplies-to-india-to-40-mln-t-year-2021-10-14

 

Tomasz do you know what coking coal is used for? It is not used for power plants. Because the carbon content at 95% typically burns too hot for the boiler seams to maintain integrity.

[nsdp + 449]

10 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

A country like China can easily double its coal electricity production without increasing a single ton of Coal consumption, 40% of China's Coal is for electricity the next 60% is for industrial heating like steel furnaces, refineries, among sectors that can be electrified.

Oil was as important as coal for power generation until 1973, gasoline prices remained around the same when you adjust for inflation, but it was uneconomical run on oil if it wasnt at 20U$D a barrel, (140 U$D/ton)
Natural gas historically is at around 200U$D a ton, or 21U$D a gas barrel (160M3 of natural gas has the same energy as a 160Lt barrel of 50API extra light crude),

However there's a big incentive for oil to go from making Kerosene, Gasoline and Diesel fuel to make much more expensive petrochemicals that are more insensitive to price, when that happens The feedstock of choice to make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel will become natural gas, Nacero in the USA has planned 3 Gas-to-Methanol-to-Gasoline plants in Pennsylvania, Texas and Arizona.

For most of the third world, Coal is the way to go to make electricity, Modern petroleum engineering is like rocket science, Natural gas requires the most expensive infrastructure out there with pressurized pipelines at 100Bar with a series of jet engine powered compressor stations, The US has over 2 million KM of Gas pipelines, it has been building them since the late 1940's, and arguibly it isnt enough, for India, China, Subsaharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, building a comparable nat gas infrastructure to import most of their gas anyway is pretty much impossible.

There's a problem with LNG too, Methanol is a better way of moving Natural gas, Liquefaction plants are as expensive to build as refineries, and you need specialized tankers with cryogenic walls to move it, You can make 2.2Tons of Methanol from a ton of Natural gas and since is liquid at room temperature you dont need infrastructure as expensive. You can convert that methanol into Dimethyl-Ether for gas distribution or to synthetic LPG.



Coal doesnt need a fraction of the specialzied infrastructure, you can load coal in dump trucks, in hopper railcars, it wont go anywhere isnt a gas that must be cryogenically cold to -170°C to turn into a liquid. The future of Non coal fossil fuel power generation is from the gasification of plastic and chemical waste into syngas

The bittersweet story of how we stopped acid rain https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190823-can-lessons-from-acid-rain-help-stop-climate -change   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire fifty years

Furenes , formaldehyde and mercury poisoning (EPA probes toxic Colorado mine tunnels, investigates possible harm tosulfied  human health .https://www.denverpost.com/2016/10/07/epa-toxic-colorado-mine-tunnels-health-harcm/, mercury poisining,arsenic,bismuth Sulfur oxides , nitrogen oxides as you are standing there. All can kill you. 

Hydrogen sulfide is the only thing close. I have been in this business 50 years involved in multiple cases of river contamination  to coal tailings. You are still not through after you burn it.

The utility will drop its legal fight with the state, dig up nearly 80 million tons of ash and move it to lined storage.ttps://energynews.us/2020/01/13/how-duke-and-its-foes-agreed-to-the-largest-coal-ash-cleanup-in-u-s-history/

 

Edited October 23, 2021 by nsdp
missing time

[ronwagn + 6,290]

12 hours ago, Sebastian Meana said:

A country like China can easily double its coal electricity production without increasing a single ton of Coal consumption, 40% of China's Coal is for electricity the next 60% is for industrial heating like steel furnaces, refineries, among sectors that can be electrified.

Oil was as important as coal for power generation until 1973, gasoline prices remained around the same when you adjust for inflation, but it was uneconomical run on oil if it wasnt at 20U$D a barrel, (140 U$D/ton)
Natural gas historically is at around 200U$D a ton, or 21U$D a gas barrel (160M3 of natural gas has the same energy as a 160Lt barrel of 50API extra light crude),

However there's a big incentive for oil to go from making Kerosene, Gasoline and Diesel fuel to make much more expensive petrochemicals that are more insensitive to price, when that happens The feedstock of choice to make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel will become natural gas, Nacero in the USA has planned 3 Gas-to-Methanol-to-Gasoline plants in Pennsylvania, Texas and Arizona.

For most of the third world, Coal is the way to go to make electricity, Modern petroleum engineering is like rocket science, Natural gas requires the most expensive infrastructure out there with pressurized pipelines at 100Bar with a series of jet engine powered compressor stations, The US has over 2 million KM of Gas pipelines, it has been building them since the late 1940's, and arguibly it isnt enough, for India, China, Subsaharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, building a comparable nat gas infrastructure to import most of their gas anyway is pretty much impossible.

There's a problem with LNG too, Methanol is a better way of moving Natural gas, Liquefaction plants are as expensive to build as refineries, and you need specialized tankers with cryogenic walls to move it, You can make 2.2Tons of Methanol from a ton of Natural gas and since is liquid at room temperature you dont need infrastructure as expensive. You can convert that methanol into Dimethyl-Ether for gas distribution or to synthetic LPG.



Coal doesnt need a fraction of the specialzied infrastructure, you can load coal in dump trucks, in hopper railcars, it wont go anywhere isnt a gas that must be cryogenically cold to -170°C to turn into a liquid. The future of Non coal fossil fuel power generation is from the gasification of plastic and chemical waste into syngas

I can't quite imagine there being that much plastic and chemical waste to meet the production of natural gas unless your methanol ideas were gradually put into place. Ethanol is another liquid fuel that can be produced from just about any plant refuse. Natural gas can be produced as biogas from waste food, sewage, rubbish, etc. Those waste streams are much larger. Of course we still have a lot of coal that could be used to make liquid fuel also. 

IMHO the idea of making a quick transition to Green Dreams will become a Green Nightmare. We need to trial and use all the best options based on fairly weighing all options rationally. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by ronwagn

[Sebastian Meana + 278]

On 10/23/2021 at 12:55 AM, ronwagn said:

I can't quite imagine there being that much plastic and chemical waste to meet the production of natural gas unless your methanol ideas were gradually put into place. Ethanol is another liquid fuel that can be produced from just about any plant refuse. Natural gas can be produced as biogas from waste food, sewage, rubbish, etc. Those waste streams are much larger. Of course we still have a lot of coal that could be used to make liquid fuel also. 

IMHO the idea of making a quick transition to Green Dreams will become a Green Nightmare. We need to trial and use all the best options based on fairly weighing all options rationally. 

While there's isnt that much plastic and chemical waste ,currently, there's reason that can change, for example finland uses 2/3 of the oil consumption per capita of the US despite the consumption of plastics is highly depressed by the 1200KG per person wood consumption per year, in the late XIX century people didnt believe there was a place for petroleum once the electrical light bulb was invented, however

[Piotr Berman + 82]

1200KG per person wood consumption per year <-- Finns kind of look wooden, don't they?  More seriously, they export paper and other wood products, so I do not see how that impacts the use of plastics.

 

[Piotr Berman + 82]

One can see that "wind, solar and other RE" has 4 times worse ratio of capacity to energy in India compared to thermal, and about 6 times worse compared to nuclear.   Adding 50 TW of nuclear power would decrease vulnerability to price changes of fuels and remove more CO2 from the output stream.

There are plans to add 5-10 TW of nuclear power, half domestic and half Russian, but this is way too little.

 

[Andrei Moutchkine + 828]

On 10/22/2021 at 5:30 PM, Sebastian Meana said:

A country like China can easily double its coal electricity production without increasing a single ton of Coal consumption, 40% of China's Coal is for electricity the next 60% is for industrial heating like steel furnaces, refineries, among sectors that can be electrified.

Oil was as important as coal for power generation until 1973, gasoline prices remained around the same when you adjust for inflation, but it was uneconomical run on oil if it wasnt at 20U$D a barrel, (140 U$D/ton)
Natural gas historically is at around 200U$D a ton, or 21U$D a gas barrel (160M3 of natural gas has the same energy as a 160Lt barrel of 50API extra light crude),

However there's a big incentive for oil to go from making Kerosene, Gasoline and Diesel fuel to make much more expensive petrochemicals that are more insensitive to price, when that happens The feedstock of choice to make gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel will become natural gas, Nacero in the USA has planned 3 Gas-to-Methanol-to-Gasoline plants in Pennsylvania, Texas and Arizona.

For most of the third world, Coal is the way to go to make electricity, Modern petroleum engineering is like rocket science, Natural gas requires the most expensive infrastructure out there with pressurized pipelines at 100Bar with a series of jet engine powered compressor stations, The US has over 2 million KM of Gas pipelines, it has been building them since the late 1940's, and arguibly it isnt enough, for India, China, Subsaharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, building a comparable nat gas infrastructure to import most of their gas anyway is pretty much impossible.

There's a problem with LNG too, Methanol is a better way of moving Natural gas, Liquefaction plants are as expensive to build as refineries, and you need specialized tankers with cryogenic walls to move it, You can make 2.2Tons of Methanol from a ton of Natural gas and since is liquid at room temperature you dont need infrastructure as expensive. You can convert that methanol into Dimethyl-Ether for gas distribution or to synthetic LPG.



Coal doesnt need a fraction of the specialzied infrastructure, you can load coal in dump trucks, in hopper railcars, it wont go anywhere isnt a gas that must be cryogenically cold to -170°C to turn into a liquid. The future of Non coal fossil fuel power generation is from the gasification of plastic and chemical waste into syngas

Also, methanol. Especially as a potential bunker fuel for ships that does not require cryo storage. Unlike for gas engines, engine may run with very high compression, making it compact.

Edited October 25, 2021 by Andrei Moutchkine

[Boat + 1,315]

On 10/22/2021 at 8:37 PM, nsdp said:

The bittersweet story of how we stopped acid rain https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190823-can-lessons-from-acid-rain-help-stop-climate -change   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia_mine_fire fifty years

Furenes , formaldehyde and mercury poisoning (EPA probes toxic Colorado mine tunnels, investigates possible harm tosulfied  human health .https://www.denverpost.com/2016/10/07/epa-toxic-colorado-mine-tunnels-health-harcm/, mercury poisining,arsenic,bismuth Sulfur oxides , nitrogen oxides as you are standing there. All can kill you. 

Hydrogen sulfide is the only thing close. I have been in this business 50 years involved in multiple cases of river contamination  to coal tailings. You are still not through after you burn it.

The utility will drop its legal fight with the state, dig up nearly 80 million tons of ash and move it to lined storage.ttps://energynews.us/2020/01/13/how-duke-and-its-foes-agreed-to-the-largest-coal-ash-cleanup-in-u-s-history/

 

A few years ago I took an internet dive on coal and waste reservoirs. Some of them were huge. Our government and our corporations did a poor job looking to the future. One wonders why going greener became more popular. Your right, that stuff kills.

[PHJ 0]

On 10/26/2021 at 2:07 AM, Piotr Berman said:

One can see that "wind, solar and other RE" has 4 times worse ratio of capacity to energy in India compared to thermal, and about 6 times worse compared to nuclear.   Adding 50 TW of nuclear power would decrease vulnerability to price changes of fuels and remove more CO2 from the output stream.

There are plans to add 5-10 TW of nuclear power, half domestic and half Russian, but this is way too little.

 

India does not have huge Uranium reserves so growth of N power plants is limited and that will be in foreseeable future till the scientists figure out how to effectively use Thorium fuel for N power plants. Even though Solar power has limited capacity ratio it will grow exponentially in the energy matrix due to abundance of sunlight in India and ease of setting it up. Wind wont contribute much as most of India is not windy. Hydro power plants wont grow much due to environmental issues and opposition. Coal will come below 50% by 2030 but would still be highly relevant for next 30-40 years. Natural Gas plants wont grow much due to limited local reserves and fluctuating international prices.