Latest selected extracts from my Triple Crunch log
Page last updated: 29 December 2009
Largest Russian steam coal producer eyes IPO in London during first half of 2010.
21 December 2009: Suek is worth $8-9bn, and owned by two oligarchs. “There haven’t been any good opportunities in this sector for a long time, and the sector is on its way up, so therefore this will be a positive story,” one banker tells Reuters, on condition of anonymity.
Coal deposits lying deep beneath the North Sea to be burnt in situ, UK government decides.
9 December 2009: A new plan envisages up to 5 per cent of Britain’s generation needs from Underground Coal Gasification (UGC). Clean Coal, an Anglo-American company, has been awarded five offshore sites to develop UGC. UGC is widely used in Australia. It uses two boreholes, one to ignite the coal, another to capture methane produced by combustion for piping to power plants. A representative professes, so the Times reports, that “polluting carbon dioxide produced from the burning process could be stripped out and backfilled into the cavities created beneath the surface using a technology that was easier than the carbon capture and storage (CCS) method that is proposed for use by power stations.” Commercial operations could begin in 2014.
On the Chinese coal frontlines, coal-to-liquids is being weighed versus CCS.
15 November 2009: Ordos in Shaanxi province is “the new face of coal in China,” the Guardian’s Jonathan Watts reports. The world’s biggest coal company (Shenhua) and an industrial-scale coal-to-diesel experiment are sited here on the most efficient coal mine. So too is one of China’s biggest carbon capture and storage projects. “The future of global emissions, and global warming looks increasingly more likely to be set in industrial powerhouses like this than in the negotiating halls of Copenhagen.” Watts concludes. China has two major coal-to-liquid projects live at present. One, in Ningxia, is a SASOL JV using the South African firm’s gasification methods. The other, in Ordos, pioneers a direct liquefaction technique that cracks carbon with hydrogen extracted from water to produce clear diesel. The Guardian is the first western media organisation to visit. Shenhua is intent on expanding production fivefold. Shu Geping, chief engineer at the plant, says the CTL is competitive at $40 a barrel plus. For each tonne of the liquid, more than 3 tonnes of carbon dioxide are released into the air. CTL generally produces 50% - 100% more CO2 than burning oil. Moreover, 6.5 tonnes of water must be piped from an aquifer more than 70 kilometres away. Government planners have been cautious about adopting CTL more widely because of these environmental constraints. “Ordos will lead the way, but it remains to be seen whether its scientists will be as successful with carbon storage as they have been with coal liquefaction.”
My view: This is very difficult to read from afar. There is a high awareness of carbon downsides evident in the Chinese approach. But in the absence of leadership in the west showing there is way forward without coal, or with much less coal, how can we hope for significant Chinese self restraint?
Australian report says CCS will not be economic before 2030-2040.
30 October 2009: So says the Global CCS Institute, launched by the Australian government earlier this year. McKinsey estimated in September 2008 €60 - €90 per tonne of carbon captured. CO2 allowances under the European Union emissions trading system now cost about €14. McKinsey estimated costs would come down in line with market CO2 costs by about 2030: both to €30 - €45 per tonne.
My view: On top of this comes the energy payback calculation: a lot of energy will be required to compress and pump the gas.
E.On shelves Kingsnorth, citing low electricity demand in recession as the reason.
8 October 2009: Environmental campaigners claim an unexpected victory.
My view: With coal blackened in this way, there is now even greater pressure on the government to fast-track renewables and efficiency.
Birth defects in Pubjab children linked to coal pollution.
30 August 2009: Investigation of sharp increases of birth defects and cancers in the Punjabi cities of Bathinda and Faridkot in a German laboratory show levels of uranium in children’s bodies of up to 60 times normal. An Observer investigation suggests this can only be because of fly ash produced in coal plants. A new report by Russia’s leading nuclear research institution warns of radiation hazard to people living near coal power plants.
My view: We hear far too little about this double imperative for retreating from coal.
US coal campaigners frustrated by Obama’s failure so far to outlaw mountain-top removal.
5 August 2009: Some 500 mountaintops have already been removed in the Appalachians to get at thin coal seams. 1,200 mountain streams have been buried. By 2012, according to EPA estimates, 2,200 square miles of forest will have gone. Yet the EPA signed 42 permits for more mining in May, turning down only six. This is a higher ration than under Bush. Around 170 permits are pending. Obama may be upstaged by the Senate, where a draft bill prohibiting dumping in streams (a route to killing the mining) has much support from both parties.
My view: I’ll never forget the first time I saw the time-series satellite photos of this mining. Quite sickening.
Climate activists target open-cast coal mines and power plants in Scotland.
4 August 2009: The protestors accuse Scotland’s national government, which claims to be the world’s best performer on climate, of hypocrisy.
My view: Hats off to these protestors.
Biggest single point source of CO2 in Europe is the Polish Belcha coal plant: 30m tonnes a year
22 July 2009: 50 more giant coal plants are planned across Europe, totalling around 50 GW (the UK total is 70) showing the EU emissions trading scheme is not working. Belcha is currently 4.4 GW but will increase to 5.2 GW next year. It burns brown coal from its own mine, and won’t have a CCS system until 2015 at the earliest.
My view: The pictures of this plant offer a window on the final challenge of climate change. We will have to find a way to shut plants like this down, voluntarily, if the planet is to be saved.
Official review criticises Kingsnorth police for action against protestors in August 2008
22 July 2009: The review concludes that police exercised disproportionate use their powers, and had poor understanding of them. In particular, they used blanket stop-and-search, and sleep deprivation techniques. Journalists were placed under surveillance by police, who also mistreated and held two women for four days for attempting to photograph an officer who had covered his badge.
My view: This comes on top of the indictment of police, in their own internal review - and by a retired senior policeman - for unsolicited violence and other systemic failings at the G8 protests in London. This does not augur well for the inevitable non-violent direct actions and protests over the building of coal-fired power plants that lie ahead.
Climate change protestors who hijacked Drax coal train convicted of obstruction
3 July 2009. The judge did not allow the protestors, who shovelled coal off a train onto the tracks, to justify their actions on grounds of imminent threat from global warming. They will be sentenced to community service, not jail.
My view: This was not a victory for common sense and survival like the jury acquital earlier this year of the protestors who painted a slogan on the chimney at Kingsnorth, but it is another important benchmark in the process - I believe inevitable - of people-power forcing a full retreat from coal.
Pioneering German CCS plant release CO2 after local opposition to storage (no url)
26 June 2009: Vattenfall releases stored CO2 into the atmosphere at its Schwarze Pumpe plant. The company was supposed to transport captured CO2 350km by tanker for injection into a Gaz de France gas field beginning March or April, but had no permit to inject the gas underground. Interim storage was becoming a heated issue. Public acceptance is also becoming a problem at two CCS projects Vattenfall hopes to build in Germany and Denmark. Most environmental groups are supportive, but local groups are emerging as opponents.
“Pioneering CCS plant releases carbon after local opposition,” Terry Slavin, ReCharge, 26 June 2009.
My view: I can think of a very long of things to worry more about than pumping CO2 deep underground into capped gas reservoirs near where I live.
US Geological Survey says US can no longer be considered the “Saudi Arabia of coal”
8 June 2009: The problem is that new data show very few of the vast reserves can be mined profitably, even at higher coal prices. Coal currently provides nearly one-quarter of the total energy consumed in America, and about half the electricity. An emerging “peak coal” group argues that current production levels may not be possible for much longer.
My view: However much is left, it is way more than we need to commit the planet to ruin. Almost three quarters of all coal reserves are in just five countries. In league-table order from top to bottom, they are the US, Russia, China, India and Australia. “Resource” decisions in those nations will probably decide whether or not humankind has a liveable future on the planet.
