Ken Silverstein | Nov 25, 2013

The United Nations is wrapping up its climate talks in Warsaw, Poland while the Asian countries are grappling with how best to fuel their economies. China, India and Japan are environmentally aware but -- for different reasons -- looking to coal.

Last week, two events were occurring at the same time in Warsaw -- a meeting of national governments to discuss their steps to curtail heat-trapping emissions and a gathering of coal industry executives expressing their willingness to adopt next-generation technologies. The industry wants to be part of the solution and is looking to the UN for guidance, albeit the tenor there is that coal should be left in the ground unless there is a way to keep global temperature rises to a minimum.

The well-known dilemma is that the developing world has relied largely on coal to deliver its economic transformation. That’s because it is both cheap and abundant. But even China is having to lay off on coal because some of its cities are becoming unlivable. While China mines about 3 billion tons of coal a year, it must still import the fuel. Coal imports there peaked in December 2012, although the air-related issues have recently caused those shipments to plateau.

India, too, is a fertile market for coal. The Daily Finance is reporting that more than 20 percent of India’s 98 coal-fired power plants don’t have enough fuel to keep them going for any period of time. So, the country must bring in increasing amounts of coal to keep the lights on. The news story says that India could surpass China in terms of total coal imports within the next five years.

Meantime, an Australian news organization says that India’s carbon dioxide emissions have risen by 7.7 percent between 2012 and 2013. It adds that China, which emits the most greenhouse gases in the world, saw a 5.9 percent during that time. That’s less than the 7.9 percent over the last decade but it still accounts for 70 percent of the global increase, it adds.

Emissions in the United States, by comparison, fell by 3.7 percent during that time. That’s because coal use here dropped by 12 percent, the Australian news group says, while electricity derived from shale gas has jumped. That said, Bloomberg is referencing the World Energy Congress, which says that the world has the highest levels of greenhouse gases in the last 800,000 years. It adds that China and India will account for 76 percent of the planned coal generation.

Japan’s Case

Japan, of course, has an uncommon situation given that a third of its electric power capacity had come from nuclear energy. But that power source is now on hold because of the crisis in Fukushima in March 2011. Replacing that nuclear power has to come from somewhere. And, in this case, two sources: coal and liquefied natural gas, all imports.

SNL is reporting that Japan has received sub-bituminous coal shipments totaling 270,000 tons through September 2013, or a nine month time period. That compares to 80,000 such tons in all of 2012 and 170,000 tons in 2011, it adds, noting that prior to the nuclear accident that it did not import any coal.

Japan will fire up 14 new gas and coal plants by the end of 2014, Reuters adds. It references the International Energy Agency, which says that the new plants will cost $7 billion to build and increase the country’s fossil fuel capacity by 6.4 percent by the end of next year. Coal, specifically, will contribute 1.6 gigawatts more to Japan’s 39 gigawatts.

The coal industry says that newer technologies are increasing efficiencies and minimizing pollutants. Consider: Carbon capture and burial and advanced coal technologies focused on efficiency are not mutually exclusive of one another. The two can be used in tandem; however, the current high cost of equipment would tend to prevent that possibility. Efficiency upgrades, meanwhile, could be made to existing coal-fired power plants.

Those older and pulverized coal-fired plants are the least efficient units with about 35 percent of the energy input converted to electricity. But as more power generators opt for supercritical units with higher water-side operating pressures the efficiencies associated with pulverized coal units can increase to at least 40 percent. Ultra-supercritical facilities have efficiency rates of 50 percent or more.

Coal gasification, meanwhile, is different. Here, the coal is essentially cleansed of its emissions before it would be released from the smokestack. It’s even more expensive than the supercritical methods.

Enough to satisfy the opposition or keep temperature increases to a minimum? No, but it can help Asian nations and others reduce their emissions because they will continue to rely on coal.

Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein

Copyright © 1996-2013 by CyberTech, Inc. All rights reserved.

To subscribe or visit go to:  http://www.energycentral.com

To subscribe or visit go to:  http://www.energybiz.com

http://www.energybiz.com/article/13/11/asian-nations-look-coal-and-modern-technology