By Ye Han
(PREVIOUS FROM YESTERDAY)
Worldwide there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totalling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity, about a third of the world’s electricity. The number of operational coal power plants in (17) countries worldwide in 2021 are as follows:—
Mainland China has the greatest number of coal-fired power stations of any nation in the world. China is the world’s largest coal-fired power generating country, having produced 4,631 TWh (terawatt hours) of the fuel in 2020 — making up 61% of its total electricity output. As of 2021, there were 1,082 operational coal power plants in the country. This was nearly four times the number of such power stations in India, which ranked second. Datang Tuoketuo power station in China is the largest operational coal power plant in the world. As of 2021, the power station has a capacity of roughly 6.7 gigawatts. Ranking second and third, Taean power station and Dangjin power station had a gross generating capacity of 6.4 and 6.04 gigawatts, respectively.
Much of the electricity produced in the United States and the world comes from the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal. In 2019 there were 241 coal-powered units across the United States which generated 23% of the United States electricity. A typical coal-fired power plant as in the Kingston Fossil Plant near Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.A., generates about 10 billion kilowatt-hours a year, or enough electricity to supply 700,000 homes. To produce 109 kWh/year of power, the plant burns 14,000 tonnes of coal every day. Georgia Power’s Plant Scherer is one of the largest coal-fired thermoelectric power-production facilities in the United States. It is a 3.52-gigawatt coal-fired facility that provides electricity for Georgia. It burns a lot of coal, about 11 million tonnes per year.
Power stations burning coal, fuel oil, or natural gas are often called fossil fuel power stations. Fossil fuels are formed from the remains of ancient organisms. Because coal takes millions of years to develop and there is a limited amount of it, it is a nonrenewable resource. The conditions that would eventually create coal began to develop about 300 million years ago, during the Carboniferous period. (The Carboniferous Period is a geologic time that took place from 286 to 360 million years ago. The Carboniferous Period is named after the rich coal deposits that are present in rock layers from this period.). Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is classified into four main types, or ranks: anthracite, bituminous, sub-bituminous, and lignite. The ranking depends on the types and amounts of carbon the coal contains and on the amount of heat energy the coal can produce. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is primarily used as a fuel. It is predicted that we will run out of fossil fuels in this century. Oil can last up to 50 years, natural gas up to 53 years, and coal up to 114 years. But coal is abundant — there are over 1.06 trillion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide. This means that at current rates of production, there is enough coal to last us around 132 years.
If coal and petroleum will get exhausted it will be very difficult for us to transport because most vehicles depend on petroleum, Transport on Earth will become complicated, and if coal will get exhausted we will lose a unique fossil fuel. Aside from power plants, coal is also used for various domestic and industrial purposes. Yet, renewable clean energy is not popular enough, so emptying our reserves can speed up.
Leading hard coal producing (10) countries worldwide in 2018 (In million metric tons) were as follows:—
As many coal-fired power stations approach retirement, their replacement gives much scope for ‘cleaner’ electricity with supplanted nuclear power plants and renewable energy (wind, solar, etc.) sources. But one hope to survive this is via ‘clean coal’ technologies, such as carbon capture and sequestration, also called carbon capture and storage (both abbreviated as CCS) or carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS). Clean coal technologies (CCTs) are a new generation of advanced coal utilization processes that are designed to enhance both the efficiency and the environmental acceptability of coal extraction, preparation, and use.
Carbon capture and storage or sequestration (CCS) is the process of capturing and storing carbon dioxide (CO2 ) before it is released into the atmosphere. It could help mitigate global warming. The technology can capture up to 90%of CO2 released by burning fossil fuels in electricity generation and industrial processes such as cement production. It involves collecting, transporting and then burying the CO2 so that it does not escape into the atmosphere and contribute to climate change. With post-combustion carbon capture, the CO2 is separated from combustion exhaust gases after the fossil fuel is burned. With pre-combustion carbon capture, carbon is trapped and removed from fossil fuels before the combustion process ends. Using a black coal power plant retrofitted with (CCS) can be cheaper per megawatt-hour than with a solar power system.
Carbon capture, utilization and storage or sequestration (CCUS) is a process that captures carbon dioxide emissions from sources like coal-fired power plants and either reuses or stores it so it will not enter the atmosphere. (Captured carbon dioxide can be put to productive use in enhanced oil recovery and the manufacture of fuels, building materials, and more, or be stored in underground geologic formations.). It involves the geological storage of CO2 , typically 2-3 km deep, as a permanent solution. According to the IEA (International Energy Agency), CCUS projects could reduce global carbon dioxide emissions by almost a fifth and reduce the cost of tackling the climate crisis by 70%. According to the IEA report in 2020, CCUS will be needed to put the world on the path to net-zero emissions. It is the only group of technologies that contributes both to reducing emissions in key sectors directly and to removing CO2 to balance emissions that cannot be avoided (i.e. including direct removal of CO2 from the atmosphere).
Currently, coal-fired power stations are built without carbon capture facilities but this is likely to be required at some point during the third decade of the 21st century. It is also likely that plants built before that time are required to be retrofitted with post-carbon-capture technology. All these needs have to be taken into account when considering construction for future new coal-fired power generating facilities. The IEA said: “CCUS can be retrofitted to existing power and industrial plants that could otherwise emit 600 billion tons of CO2 over the next five decades.”
The coal-fired power plants were promoted by governmental decision-makers around the world as well as by the industry for a long time. But meanwhile, the phase-out or at least a cutback of coal-fired power plants is considered to be a key strategy for the transformation towards a sustainable society. Existing coal-fired power plants can be improved to generate electricity more cleanly and economically in the future. The development toward new advanced ‘clean coal’ technologies (CCTs)’ are a new generation of advanced coal utilization processes that are designed to enhance both the efficiency and the environmental acceptability of coal extraction, preparation, and use. For comfort and hope, it attempts to address this problem so that the world’s enormous resources of coal can be utilized as long as they exist for future generations without contributing to global warming. Much of the challenge is in commercializing the technology so that coal use would remain economically competitive despite the cost of achieving low, and eventually ‘near-zero’ emissions. The technologies are both costly and energy-intensive.
In 2018, a landmark report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the U.N.’s climate science body), warned that allowing the planet to warm any more than 20 C above preindustrial levels would drive hundreds of millions of people into poverty, destroy coral reefs and leaves some countries unable to adapt. To keep temperatures from rising past the 1.50 C goal, the global greenhouse-gas emissions should be cut 7.6% every year for the next decade, according to a report from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP). The world has already warmed 1.10 C since the Industrial Revolution. Research from the UNEP released in 2019 shows that if nations stick with current plans to reduce emissions, and even maintain the status quo, global temperatures will rise more than 30 C (50 F or 60 F) by the end of this century. (If we let the planet warm that much, we won’t be able to have civilizations like the ones we’re used to). The year 2050 will be the middle of the century, which many countries have pledged to have a net carbon footprint of zero by then.
After 2020, we began to collectively realize a few basic things about greenhouse emissions (which include burning of coal and other fossil fuels): One: The story of climate change due to greenhouse emissions have been unfolded over decades, but its trajectory is much the same.
TWO: People began to understand that the biggest reason for not making full, fast use of these new clean energy technologies was the political power of the fossil-fuel industry. Three: The giant heavy blow of carbon that the world had put into the atmosphere was more since 1990 than in all human history before, which acted like a time-delay fuse, and the temperature just kept rising. Four: Aiding and funding for the rapid deployment of solar panels and wind turbines are urgently needed from rich and developed countries to poor and underdeveloped countries. Five: It appeared that scientists had systematically underestimated just how much damage each tenth of a degree would actually do. It can’t be analyzed specifically upon the warning signs of disastrous climate change occurrences (flooding, wildfires, storms, heavy rainfall, temperature rise, glacier ice melting in the north and south poles, etc.) gradually happening around the world, worsening and extending more year by year. The climate change we’re experiencing today is in large part the result of greenhouse gas emissions that had happened more than a decade ago. Six: Coal is the world’s most abundant and widely distributed fossil fuel source. Despite the variation of embedded resources, it can be found in most countries around the world. Coal-fired power stations are relatively expensive to build since their construction involves both large quantities of expensive materials, such as iron and steel and large volumes of labour. Electricity produced from coal-fired power plants has now been in operation for more than two centuries around the world. Its technology is thoroughly experienced and has been exploited with good management due to long-term use. Seven: The U.S. Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has assumed that carbon capture and storage will be necessary for 2025. Therefore, ‘clean coal’ technologies (CCTs)’ (which involve CCS and CCUS) have to be promoted and installation should be compulsory and mandatory in all CFPPs around the world, and if required, rich countries should give aid and assist technology transfer to the most needed countries.
Each country builds various types of electrical power plants, including coal-fired power plants, in strategic areas that are eligible with both technical feasibility and economic suitability for needed electricity demand to support the development of the community and industrialized firms. Upon accumulation, all the constructed electrical power grids around the country are combined and interconnected to form the National Electricity Power Grid Network Infrastructure (The link between generation sources and customers. It consists of a high voltage transmission system, which connects electricity from power stations to substations and smaller local networks which transport electricity into homes and businesses.). Therefore, to phase-out even one or a number of collective coal-fired power plants suddenly or in a short period of time, before they are supplanted by clean energy power plants, can dismantle the power distribution system and operation of the country’s National Electricity Power Grid Network infrastructure partially or even over a certain percentage, depending upon the existing entrenched or established footprint situation. To substitute with clean energy electrical power station with efficient capacity can’t be constructed overnight. It depends upon budget allotment and proved technical accomplishment. Therefore, step by step implementation is required to complete the project, within a reasonable time limit.
But on the other hand, as most of the COP26 summit participant countries want all the fossil fuel power plants, especially coal-fired power plants, around the world to be “phased-out” (to discontinue the use of coal in phases) before 2050, to meet the target of having a net carbon footprint of zero by then. If this is the case, will the countries that own the existing coal-fired power plants be willing to comply and conduct either decommission or surrender the operations within the time frame specified? The Yes or No answer depends upon the situation in the country concerned.Even rich countries with many existing coal power plants, such as China, the US, India, etc., have now proposed changing the terminology to “phase down” (to reduce the size or amount of by-products) of coal. Other countries that are not rich may have many difficulties doing so. Will the net carbon footprint of zero by 2050 be fully achieved by dubious conditions and delayed actions upon the reduction of carbon emissions that the world is currently facing?
Based upon the efforts that the whole world contributes from now onwards, we will have to wait and see what our planet will experience in 2050. The younger generation will have to pray and expect, hope for the best and prepare for the worst. As a result, all people around the world should beg their concerned religious Gods to miraculously save the planet from disastrous climate change and maintain a sustainable society and livable conditions for all human beings, inhabited creatures, and the environment for eternity. References:- TIME
