3.
Fossil Fuels
Archive of Past Articles for Chapter
3
2009 May 10. China
Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired
Plants. By Keith
Bradsher, The NY Times. Excerpt:
TIANJIN, China — China’s frenetic
construction of coal-fired power
plants has raised worries around
the world about the effect on climate
change. China now uses more coal
than the United States, Europe and
Japan combined, making it the world’s
largest emitter of gases that are
warming the planet.
But largely missing in the hand-wringing
is this: China has emerged in the past
two years as the world’s leading
builder of more efficient, less polluting
coal power plants, mastering the technology
and driving down the cost.
While the United States is still
debating whether to build a more efficient
kind of coal-fired power plant that
uses extremely hot steam, China has
begun building such plants at a rate
of one a month....
2009 March. Physics
in the oil sands of Alberta. By Murray Gray, Zhenghe
Xu, and Jacob Masliyah, Physics Today.
Excerpt:
The recent spike in the price of
oil to over US$140 per barrel focused
worldwide attention on the need for
more diverse supplies of fuel from
unconventional sources and renewable
resources. The oil sands of Alberta,
the largest source of unconventional
fuel for North America, are also
the largest petroleum deposit on
Earth. Sometimes called tar sands,
they contain an estimated 2.5 trillion
barrels of crude oil over an area
of more than 140 000
square kilometers, but that oil,
called bitumen, is too viscous to
be extracted by conventional drilling....
Material from a typical commercially
viable oil-sands deposit ... contains
9%–13% bitumen, 3%–7%
water, and 80%–85% mineral
solids. Of the solids, 15%–30%
are fine particles, predominantly
clays, less than 44 µm in diameter.
The challenge in production is to
separate the bitumen not only from
the sand grains but also from the
micron- and submicron-sized clay
particles. Alberta’s bitumen
reserves...are
estimated at 172 billion to 315 billion
barrels. In comparison, the crude-oil
reserves in Saudi Arabia are estimated
at 264 billion barrels....
...Relatively shallow oil-sands deposits
are most economically accessed by
mining operations in which the overlying
dirt, or overburden, is removed by
massive trucks and shovels to expose
the oil sands. The goal of mining
operations is to remove overburden
and extract oil-sands ore in large
quantities, process the ore using
as little energy as possible to recover
at least 90% of the bitumen, and
then reclaim the mines to leave a
landscape that supports vegetation
and wildlife. The technical challenges
of the process are related to the
physics of oil-sands components,
and solving them involves fluid–particle
physics, chemistry, and interfacial
science....
2009 Feb 14. Is
America Ready to Quit Coal? By MELANIE WARNER, NY
Times. With regulations to address
climate change looming, coal power
looks increasingly expensive. Excerpt:
Last May, protesters took over James
E. Rogers's front lawn in Charlotte,
N.C., unfurling banners declaring "No
new coal" and erecting a makeshift "green
power plant" - which, they said
in a press release, was fueled by "the
previously unexplored energy source
known as hot air, which has been
found in large concentrations" at
his home.
...With concerns over climate change
intensifying, electricity generation
from coal, once reliably cheap, looks
increasingly expensive in the face
of the all-but-certain prospect of
regulations that would impose significant
costs on companies that emit large
amounts of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases. As a result, utilities'
plans for new coal plants are being
turned down left and right. In the
last two-and-a-half years, plans
for 83 plants in the United States
have either been voluntarily withdrawn
or denied permits by state regulators.
The roughly 600 coal-fired power
plants in the United States are responsible
for almost one-third of the country's
total carbon emissions, ....
...getting more and more of our energy
from squeaky-clean sources like wind,
solar and biomass sounds like a great
idea, but whether renewables can
keep the lights on and our iPods
charged remains an open question.
THE coal industry is aware of all
of these issues and is fighting back.
An industry-financed group called
the American Coalition for Clean
Coal Electricity spent $38 million
last year informing Americans, via
TV and newspaper ads, that coal is
the source of 50 percent of their
electricity, that it is an abundant
domestic resource and, most importantly,
that there is the promise of "clean," or
carbon-free, coal. ...The problem
is that the technology, called carbon
capture and storage, is still being
developed and could make electricity
generated by coal more expensive
than power from other sources.
..."There are 16 gigawatts of
new coal-fired generation coming
online in the next few years," said
Kevin Book, an energy policy analyst
at FBR Capital Markets. "They
may well be the last plants." Mr.
Rogers, 61, may adhere to the pro-coal
sentiments of many of his peers,
but he is hardly a typical captain
of the energy industry. Five years
ago, he began advocating for climate
change legislation at a time when
some companies were still saying
human activity had nothing to do
with global warming. Mr. Rogers,
a native of Birmingham, Ala., considers
himself an environmentalist and calls
his decision to move forward with
the new plant... a difficult one.
...This fall, the 150-foot smokestack
at the company's Mountaineer coal
plant in New Haven, W.Va., will be
outfitted with technology that uses
chilled ammonia to trap carbon dioxide.
The greenhouse gas will then be turned
into a liquid and injected into the
ground. It will be the first such
project that will both capture and
store carbon from an existing plant....
2008 Sept. New
Coal Technologies.
MuseLetter 197 by Richard Heinberg.
Excerpt: For coal, the future of
both extraction and consumption depends
on new technology. If successfully
deployed, innovative technologies
could enable the use of coal that
is unminable by gasifying it underground;
reduce coal's carbon emissions; or
allow coal to take the place of natural
gas or petroleum. Without them, coal
simply may not have much of a future.
Are these technologies close to development?
Are they economical? Will they work?
The technologies discussed in this
chapter go by some rather unwieldy
names, and so we shall call them
by their customary acronyms: Coal-to-Liquids
(CTL), Underground Coal Gasification
(UCG), Integrated Gasification Combined
Cycle (IGCC), and Carbon Capture
and Storage (CCS).
Many energy experts believe that
these technologies may largely define
the world's energy path for the next
few decades. ...In most instances
(with the exception of underground
gasification, or UCG), gasification
is accomplished in-of all things-a
gasifier, into which coal, water,
and air are fed. Heat and pressure
reduce the coal to "synthesis
gas" or "syngas"-a
mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen,
along with solid waste byproducts
consisting of ash and slag, which
can be used in making concrete or
roadbeds.
...to turn coal into a synthetic
liquid fuel to replace petroleum
...The basic process for CTL was
developed at the beginning of the
20th century and was used by Germany
during World War II, when the Allies
cut off access to petroleum imports.
...Two different CTL technologies
are being considered. The process
used by the Nazis and by Sasol is
called indirect CTL; it entails gasifying
the coal at high pressure and temperature,
then using the Fischer-Tropsch process
to synthesize a liquid fuel from
the syngas. This first process is
sometimes also known as "coal
gas-to-liquids" or "coal
GTL." Shenhua in China is working
on a different process, direct CTL,
that bypasses the gasification stage.
...Underground Coal Gasification
(UCG)... offers an alternative to
conventional coal mining for some
resources that are otherwise not
commercially viable to extract. The
basic process consists of drilling
one well into the coal for the injection
of air or oxygen, and another to
bring the resulting gas to surface,
and then initiating underground combustion.
...Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
...capture the carbon from coal and
bury it. ...There are three different
types of CCS technologies in development:
Post-combustion, pre-combustion,
and oxyfuel combustion.
In post-combustion, the CO2 is removed
after coal is burned in conventional
power plants. The technology is well
understood but expensive to deploy.
In pre-combustion, the coal is partially
oxidized in a gasifier (see IGCC,
above); then the resulting syngas,
consisting of carbon monoxide (CO)
and hydrogen (H2), is transformed
into carbon dioxide (CO2) and H2.
The CO2 can be captured relatively
easily prior to the combustion of
the H2-which can also be used for
industrial processes or to fuel transportation.
In Oxy-fuel combustion, coal is burned
in oxygen instead of air. ...After
CO2 is captured, it must be transported
to suitable storage sites. This will
almost certainly be accomplished
via pipeline. There are already approximately
4,000 miles (5,800 km) of CO2 pipelines
in the United States currently being
used to carry carbon dioxide to oilfields
where it is injected to force oil
toward boreholes to maintain production
levels when natural pressure wanes.
However, the market for CO2 is limited
and is destined to shrink in coming
decades as depletion gradually forces
the oil industry into retirement.
...If and when carbon is captured
on a large scale, power producers
will have to pay for both CO2 transport
and storage. Transport will require
the construction of thousands of
miles of pipelines, and storage will
require drilling and other infrastructure
investments. The main forms of permanent
storage for captured CO2 currently
under discussion include gaseous
storage in various deep geological
formations [geo-sequestration] (including
saline formations and exhausted gas
fields), liquid storage in the ocean,
and solid storage by reaction of
CO2 with metal oxides to produce
stable carbonates. ...Each of the
coal technologies surveyed here holds
promise for addressing one problem
or another. None of them is a magic
bullet that can overcome long-term
production declines of either coal
or other fossil fuels due to the
depletion of high-grade resources;
nor can any of them, even if successfully
deployed, truly make coal environmentally
benign. All are expensive in economic
terms; ...Time will tell which if
any of these technologies is deployed
on a large scale.
2008 August. Coal
and Climate. By
Richard Heinberg, MuseLetter #196.
Excerpt:
...Since coal is the most significant
source of human-generated greenhouse
gas emissions, releasing about
twice as much carbon dioxide per
unit of energy produced as natural
gas, the news that there may be
much less coal available to be
burned than commonly thought should
be heartening to climate scientists
and environmental activists, and
to policy makers and citizens concerned
about the fate of the planet. Reduced
estimates of future coal supplies
should be factored into climate
models—which
typically assume that there is
enough coal available to permit
continued expansion of usage well
into the next century.
At the same time, because global
warming has emerged as the central
environmental issue of our era, climate
concerns will inevitably impact how
much coal we continue to burn and
how we burn it—whether these
concerns come to be expressed through
caps on emissions, carbon taxes,
cancellation of orders for new coal-fired
power plants, or the promotion of
new carbon sequestration technologies.
In any case, the coal industry will
be—indeed, already is being—forced
to change....
...Will efforts to address Climate
Change solve the economic problems
arising from coal, oil, and gas depletion
and increasing scarcity? It is possible
in principle, but in reality the
stronger likelihood is that energy
scarcity will rivet the attention
of policy makers and private citizens
alike because it is an immediate
and unavoidable crisis. The result:
as scarcity deepens, support for
climate policy may fade even as climate
impacts worsen....
2008 June. Coal
in the United States. Museletter #194-Richard Heinberg.
Excerpt:
Because the US has the world's largest
coal reserves, it has sometimes been
called "the Saudi Arabia
of coal." It is the world's
second-largest coal producer, after
China, but surpasses both the number
three and four producer nations (India
and Australia) by nearly a factor
of three.
...Today coal fuels about 50 percent
of US electricity production and
provides about a quarter of the country's
total energy.
The US currently produces over a
billion tons of coal per year, with
quantities increasing annually. This
is well over double the amount produced
in 1960. However, due to a decline
in the average amount of energy contained
in each ton of coal produced (i.e.,
declining resource quality), the
total amount of energy flowing into
the US economy from coal is now falling,
having peaked in 1998. This decline
in energy content per unit of weight
... can partly be explained by the
depletion of anthracite reserves
and the nation's increasing reliance
on [lower quality] sub-bituminous
coal and even lignite, a trend that
began in the 1970s. ...Today, Pennsylvania's
anthracite is almost gone. Mining
companies there are now exploiting
seams as thin as 28 inches. West
Virginia, the second largest coal-producing
state (after Wyoming), where much
coal is surface mined in an environmentally
ruinous practice known as mountaintop
removal, is nearing its maximum production
rate and will see declines commence
within the next few years, according
to a recent USGS report. ...The Illinois
basin boasts large reserves of bituminous
coal, but production has fallen there
since the mid-1990s. Its coal generally
has a high sulfur content (3 to 7
percent), which runs afoul of US
environmental laws, especially the
Clean Air Act of 1990. Prior to this
legislation, power plants burning
high-sulfur coal released emissions
resulting in acid rain that decimated
forests throughout much of the nation.
...However coal is mined, the industry
must always confront the bottom line:
the cost of getting coal out of the
ground cannot exceed the market price
for produced coal. Thus the current
price determines whether marginal
coals will be mined profitably, or
simply left in the ground. ...During
the two-year period from January
2006 to January 2008, prices rose
from about $100 a ton to $250 a ton
for high-quality metallurgical grades
of US coal. Central Appalachian steam
coal is currently selling for about
$90 a ton, up from $40 two years
ago.
...The US has seen a long controversy
between coal resource optimists and
pessimists-a controversy that is
somewhat mirrored in the global coal
resource picture. In 1907, Marius
R. Campbell, Director of the USGS,
headed the first attempt at a scientific
survey of US coal, concluding that
ultimately recoverable reserves amounted
to 3157.2 billion tons. Since production
in that year was 570 million tons,
simple arithmetic yielded an R/P
ratio of 5500/1, which was interpreted
as meaning that the nation had a
5,500-year supply. That implied an
effectively limitless amount for
the practical purposes of economic
planning.
...Shortly after World War II, Andrew
B. Crichton (a coal engineer and
mine operator in Johnstown, Pennsylvania)
....went on to offer his own estimate
of national coal reserves as 223
billion tons-a number not that much
smaller than the current official
estimate. ...National Academy of
Sciences [NAS], July 2007, Research
and Development to Support National
Energy Policy. This book-length report
concluded that "there is no
question that sufficient minable
coal is available to meet the nation's
coal needs through 2030," and
also that "there is probably
sufficient coal to meet the nation's
needs for more than 100 years at
current production levels" ...Werner
Zittel and Jörg Schindler, Energy
Watch Group [EWG], March 2007, Coal:
Resources and Future Production ...
report ... offers several peaking
scenarios for US coal. The most optimistic
shows a peak in 2070.... They offer
two alternative scenarios for future
production: one in which only recoverable
reserves at existing mines are considered
producible (peak in 2015), and the
other in which reported estimated
recoverable reserves are all producible,
but regional production trends are
taken into account (peak in 2040).
They suggest that "The real
profile will be somewhere between
these two extremes."
...Previous MuseLetters on global
coal supply issues are archived on
Global Public Media (www.globalpublicmedia.com)
at MuseLetter 193: It's Happening,
MuseLetter 190: The Great Coal Rush
(And Why It Will Fail), and MuseLetter
179: Burning the Furniture).
2008 May. It's
Happening. By Richard
Heinberg, MuseLetter #193. Excerpt:
...While oil and gas were formed
primarily from enormous quantities
of microscopic plants (algae) that
fell to the bottoms of prehistoric
seas, coal is the altered remains
of ancient vegetation that accumulated
in swamps and peat bogs (peat currently
covers 3 percent of Earth's surface;
in previous geologic eras, that percentage
was much higher). While oil and gas
were formed during two relatively
brief periods of intense global warming,
roughly 150 and 90 million years
ago, coal formation started much
earlier and occurred during much
longer time spans, with the first
primary formation period occurring
during the late Carboniferous period
(roughly 360 to 290 million years
ago), another in the Jurassic-Cretaceous
(200 to 65 million years ago), and
a third in the Tertiary (65 to 2
million years ago).
All fossil fuels vary in quality.
... At the high end of the coal spectrum
is anthracite-a hard, black coal
that has more carbon, less moisture,
and produces more energy per kilogram
than other coals. At the low end
are lignite and sub-bituminous coals,
which are brown, friable, and have
more moisture, less carbon, and a
lower energy content. Coal that contains
high amounts of mineral impurities
(especially sulfur) may be unusable.
The qualities of coal determine its
uses. Generally, only anthracite
is suitable for making coke for steel
production, a process that requires
high temperatures; it is therefore
referred to as "metallurgical
coal" or "coking coal." Since
anthracite is much less abundant
than other coals, it sells for higher
prices; it also therefore tends to
be mined preferentially. Other coals
are used mainly for electricity generation
and are therefore known as "steam
coal," but this category includes
a wide variety of coal types, from
bituminous to lignite. At the lowest
end of the spectrum are coals that
are barely distinguishable from peat.
...The estimation of coal reserves
has evolved through the decades,
and now constitutes a sophisticated
process entailing the work of thousands
of trained and experienced coal geologists
around the world....
See also 2008 June, Coal
in the United States, by Richard Heinberg,
MuseLetter #194.
2008 Apr 8. There's
Gas in Those Hills. By CLIFFORD
KRAUSS,The New York Times. Fracture
drilling workers run machinery
on a farm outside of Pittsburgh.
Companies are risking big money
on rural Pennsylvania, producing
billions of dollars' worth of natural
gas. Excerpt: HUGHESVILLE, Pa.
- At first, Raymond Gregoire did
not want to listen to the raspy
voice on his answering machine offering
him money for rights to drill on
his land. They want to ruin my land,
he thought. But he called back anyway
a week later to hear more. ...Property
owners at a seminar in Clarks Summit,
Pa., on negotiating with gas lease
companies.
By the end of February, he had a
contract in hand for $62,000, and
he pulled together a group of 75
neighbors who signed $3 million in
deals.
"It's a modern-day gold rush
in our own backyard," Mr. Gregoire
said. ...A layer of rock here called
the Marcellus Shale has been known
for more than a century to contain
gas, but it was generally not seen
as economical to extract. Now, improved
recovery technology, sharply higher
natural gas prices and strong drilling
results in a similar shale formation
in north Texas are changing the calculus.
A result is that a part of the country
where energy supplies were long thought
to be largely tapped out is suddenly
ripe for gas prospecting. ..."Now
I can retire," said Robert Deiseroth,
a 63-year-old farmer and auctioneer
from the town of Hickory, who recently
received a $16,000 royalty check
from Range Resources that he hopes
will be repeated month after month. "This
was a godsend for me. If it weren't
for this I would have to sell off
some of my land to get some money
for retirement."....
2008 Mar 19. An
Export in Solid Supply. By
CLIFFORD KRAUSS, NY Times.
Excerpt:
... a vast reorganization of the
global coal trade that is making
the United States a major exporter
for the first time in years- and
helping to drive up domestic prices
of the one fossil fuel the nation
has in abundance. Coal has long
been a cheap and plentiful fuel
source for utilities and their
customers, helping to keep American
electric bills relatively low.
But rising worldwide demand is turning
American coal into another hot global
commodity, with domestic buyers having
to compete with buyers from countries
like Germany and Japan. Environmental
concerns have forced some American
utilities to cut back on plans for
coal-burning power plants.
..."Watch out, consumer," said
David M. Khani, a coal analyst at
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group. "You're
probably going to see accelerating
electricity prices in 2009, 2010
and 2011."
...World consumption of coal has
increased in recent years by more
than 4 percent annually, a major
reason that emissions of carbon dioxide
are going up, not down. Carbon dioxide
is the principal gas implicated in
global warming. "Any rise in
coal use around the world is bad
news for the environment," said
Alice McKeown, who works on coal
issues for the Sierra Club.
..."As U.S. coal demand is constrained
because of increasing environmental
regulation, coal production in the
United States will increasingly go
toward overseas buyers," Chris
Ruppel, an energy analyst at Execution,
a brokerage and research firm, predicted.
..Kenneth B. Medlock, an energy analyst
at Rice University, predicted many
more electricity consumers will begin
to feel the coal price spike over
the next year, particularly in states
most dependent on coal, like Kentucky,
Illinois and Ohio.
"Their power bill is going to
go up, but it also will start to
affect the prices of goods they buy
at the grocery store," he added.
2008 February. The
Great Coal Rush (and Why It Will
Fail). By Richard Heinberg,
Museletter #190. Excerpt:
The world appears poised for a
headlong sprint toward greater
dependence on coal. ...one crucial
question that will shape this next
great coal rush: How much is left?
The answer from conventional wisdom
is, Lots. Coal appears to be the
most abundant of the conventional
fossil fuels, and everyone agrees
that enormous quantities remain
to be extracted ...Decades-old
estimates assure us that there
is 150 years' worth of supply at
current rates of production; therefore
we should be able to enjoy plenty
of coal for several generations
to come. However,... this conventional
wisdom is in need of substantial
correction.
... there is every indication that worldwide petroleum production
will begin an inexorable, inevitable decline beginning around
2010. This is the often-discussed phenomenon of Peak Oil ...
Many analysts believe that by 2015 oil production will be declining
at an annual rate of over two percent per year and prices may
be in the multiple hundreds of dollars per barrel.
...China currently obtains nearly 70 percent of its energy from
coal and is the world's primary coal consumer, using nearly twice
as much as the next country in line (the US). The quantities
are staggering: in 2007 alone, China added electrical generating
capacity - nearly all of it coal-based - equal to the whole of
France's or Britain's entire electricity grid. During 2007, China's
installed electricity generating capacity grew 17 percent, reaching
over 700 gigawatts, second only to the US's 900+ gigawatts.
It is entirely foreseeable that this enormous, rapid growth in
coal consumption should entail an equally enormous environmental
cost. ...Coal is the dirtiest of the conventional fossil fuels.
Sulfur, mercury, and radioactive elements are released into the
air when coal is burned and are difficult to capture at source.
During the early phase of the industrial revolution, both the
mining and the burning of coal generated legendary amounts of
pollution. In cities like London, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, smoke
and airborne soot reduced visibility to mere inches on some days.
...One visitor to Pittsburgh during a temperature inversion in
1868 described the city as "hell with the lid taken off," as
he peered through a heavy, shifting blanket of smoke that hid
everything but the bare flames of the coke furnaces that surrounded
the town. During autumn and winter this smoke often mixed with
fog to form an oily vapor, first called smog in the frequently
afflicted London. In addition to darkening city skies, smoky
chimneys deposited a fine layer of soot and sulfuric acid on
every surface. "After a few days of dense fogs," one
Londoner observed in 1894, "the leaves and blossoms of some
plants fall off, the blossoms of others are crimped, [and] others
turn black." In addition to harming flowers, trees, and
food crops, air pollution disfigured and eroded stone and iron
monuments, buildings, and bridges. Of greatest concern to many
contemporaries, however, was the effect that smoke had on human
health. Respiratory diseases, especially tuberculosis, bronchitis,
pneumonia, and asthma, were serious public health problems in
late-nineteenth-century Britain and the United States....
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