Energy / Coal

• Clean Coal and Underground Coal Gasification

  The reserve limits for coal, for China as well as the rest of the world, can be postponed for several generations if the technology to gasify coal underground can be commercialized. Underground Coal Gasification (UCG) enables the access of deeper coal layers hitherto unavailable through conventional mining. Several modern pilot projects have been successfully completed in recent years and commercial projects are underway. _Rembrandt The writer known as "Rembrandt" provided a very useful article on underground coal gasification at the Oil Drum blog. The images and quotes shown below are all taken from Rembrandt's article. The technology has gained substantial…

• Why Coal Prices Will Soar in the Coming Years

  World energy policy is gripped by a fallacy — the idea that coal is destined to stay cheap for decades to come. This assumption supports investment in ‘clean-coal’ technology and trumps serious efforts to increase energy conservation and develop alternative energy sources. It is an important enough assumption about our energy future that it demands closer examination. There are two reasons to believe that coal prices are likely to soar in the years ahead. First, a spate of recent studies suggests that available, useful coal may be less abundant than has been assumed — indeed that the peak of world…

• Is Coal Actually Saving us from Global Warming?

  In a contradiction that scientists, skeptics, businesses, governments and the media never saw coming, coal emissions may actually be both contributing to global warming and reducing it.  While this may seem like an oxymoron, it turns out that while excess carbon dioxide from coal emissions creates a warming effect in our atmosphere, the sulfur emitted by coal actually cools the atmosphere. While scientists have argued that carbon dioxide emissions will lead to a warming trend, the facts and figures aren’t holding true to their predictions.  2005 and 2010 have been two of the hottest years on record; however, there has…

• Peak Coal and Chinese Economic Growth

  This is a guest post by Dr. Minqi Li. Dr. Li was a political prisoner in China from 1990 to 1992. He received a PhD in economics from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2002, and he has been teaching economics at University of Utah since 2006. He has published many articles on peak oil, climate change, and global economic crisis in journals such as Monthly Review, Science & Society, Review, Journal of World Systems Research, Development & Change, and Journal of Contemporary Asia. His book The Rise of China and the Demise of the Capitalist World Economy was published by…

• A Clean Way to Use the United States Abundant Coal Reserves

  The US has roughly 1 trillion barrels of oil equivalent in coal resources, or more. It has twice that amount in kerogen resources, but we are looking at coal specifically. The challenge has been to find ways to burn this massive coal resource cleanly, so as to provide abundant and inexpensive electrical power and heat to what should have been a healthy economy -- if not for a government policy of planned energy starvation. Georgia Tech. researchers have devised self-cleaning anodes for a solid oxide fuel cell, which may provide yet another clean way of making use of the massive…

• Indian Coal Shortages has Steel Producers Worried

  Recent research on coal imports in India has worried the country’s steelmakers, which are already under pressure from the rise in iron ore prices and coal prices. According to the latest research conducted by Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ), India may triple its coking coal imports within five years to meet surging demand from steelmakers and power producers. Mark Pervan, the head of commodity research at ANZ, was quoted as saying that steel production in India might increase by about 10 percent a year in the next five to 10 years, driving demand for coking coal. Over…

• High Coal Prices Leading to Increased Power Shortages in China

  China may be the world’s largest producer of coal for power generation, but as the world’s largest consumer, the proportion that it imports is still arguably the single biggest driver of global prices. China often faces power shortages in the middle of winter and middle of summer, respectfully, when heating and cooling demands are at their highest; but this year, power shortages have started two months early and look to be the worse yet, according to a recent Reuters article. The blame falls largely on the shoulders of Beijing. For years, they have controlled the price at which generators can…

• Historical Insights into the Dark Side of Coal

  I have a special emotional relationship with Telemaco Signorini's painting "The Riverbank." The area shown in the panting has changed very little from the time when the painting was made - mid 19th century - and, today, I could take you to exactly that place, in Florence, Italy. It is not far from where I was born and raised; it is the area where my family used to live for generations. Everytime I see that painting (and I have seen the original twice, in two different expositions) I can't avoid the sensation that those men, so hard working, could be…

• China's Enormous Appetite for Coal Causing Environmental Concerns

  Even as developed countries close, or limit construction of, coal-fired power plants out of concern over pollution and climate-warming emissions, coal has found a rapidly expanding market elsewhere: Asia, particularly China. At ports in Canada, Australia, Indonesia, Colombia and South Africa, ships are lining up to load coal for furnaces in China, which has evolved virtually overnight from a coal ex-porter to one of the world’s leading importers. The United States now ships coal to China via Canada, but coal companies are scouting for new loading ports in Washington State. New mines are being planned for the Rockies and the…

• An In Depth Look at Coal

  The energy we get from coal today comes from the energy that plants absorbed from the sun millions of years ago. All living plants store solar energy through a process known as photosynthesis. When plants die, this energy is usually released as the plants decay. Under conditions favourable to coal formation, the decaying process is interrupted, preventing the release of the stored solar energy. The energy is locked into the coal. Coal formation began during the Carboniferous Period - known as the first coal age - which spanned 360 million to 290 million years ago. The build-up of silt and…