[Coral-List] Remost meetings

Douglas Fenner douglasfennertassi at gmail.com
Thu Sep 26 06:51:14 UTC 2019


Gene,
    I'm not so sure as you seem to be of the accuracy of the data on the
number of coal-fired plants.  Particularly in the USA.  You write that the
USA has 15 coal fired electric plants.  That seems an awfully low number,
and my guess is that you liked that because it shows that the US is not the
big culprit burning coal to make electricity that some make it out to be.
     So I did a little checking myself.  Doesn't take a lot.  Wikipedia is
easy to access, I found.  Their article on "Coal power in the United
States."  They write, and I quote, "The average share of electricity
generated from coal in the US has dropped from 52.8% in 1997 to 27.4% in
2018.[7]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States#cite_note-eia.doe.gov-7>
In
2017, there were 359 coal-powered units at the electrical utilities across
the US, with a total nominal capacity of 256 GW
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigawatts>[8]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States#cite_note-8>
(compared
to 1024 units at nominal 278 GW in 2000).[9]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States#cite_note-9> The
actual average generated power from coal in 2006 was 227.1 GW (1.991
trillion kilowatt-hours per year),[10]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States#cite_note-epd2006-10>
the
highest in the world and still slightly ahead of China (1.95 trillion
kilowatt-hours per year) at that time."  Hmmm, 359 seems a tad larger than
15, or am I just quibbling??  And US generated power from coal was the
largest in the whole world not long ago, even slightly larger than China.
US has come down some since then, and China's has gone up.  But the US is
using vastly more coral than you suggest.
       It also says "Coal power <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power> in
the United States accounted for 39% of the country's electricity production
at utility-scale facilities in 2014, 33% in 2015, 30.4% in 2016, 30.0% in
2017, and 27.4% in 2018.[2]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States#cite_note-2>
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_power_in_the_United_States
      The article includes a pie diagram that shows that in 2016, coal
produced 30.4% of US electricity, natural gas 33.8%, nuclear 19.7%, hydro
6.5%, wind 5.5%, biomass 1.5%, and "other" 2.6%.  So presumably solar
produced less than biomass or it would likely have been listed separately.
       The Wikipedia article on "Global greenhouse gas emissions" has a
graph that shows that in 2005, the latest they have data on, electricity
generation around the world produced about 28,000 million metric tons
equivalent to CO2 in greenhouse gases by electricity generation,
agriculture produced about 6000, industrial processes produced about 2000,
"waste" produced about 1500, and "international transport" about 1000.  In
another graph, it shows that coal is producing about 4.2 billion tons of
carbon, petroleum about 3.4, natural gas about 1.9, cement production about
0.7, and gas flaring about 0.01 or so.  All rising trends, except for gas
flaring.
       They have a diagram for world sources of greenhouse gas emissions.
Electric power station 25.6%, industrial processes 15.9%, transportation
fuels 13.2%, land use and biomass burning 12.1%, agricultural production
11.6%, fossil fuel retrieval, processing and distribution 10.5%,
residential, commercial, and other sources 7.5%, and waste disposal and
treatment 3.6%.
       They have a graph that shows the cumulative energy-related carbon
dioxide emission between 1850 and 2005, the US is 324.9, Germany 117.8,
China 94.3, Russian federation 92.5, UK 58.1, Japan 46.1, France 31.7,
India 28.6, Canada 23.8, and so on.  Their map for per-capita
responsibility has Canada, US and Australia at the top, Russia,
Kazakhstan and Germany next, and most other countries way down the list.
     While the US is burning less coal than it used to, to produce
electricity, it's still burning quite a lot.  Most of the reduction is due
to the fact that natural gas (methane) is cheaper now, due to fracking.  So
coal-fired plants have been converted to burning gas.  Gas produces less
CO2 per unit energy produced.  Good.  Gas also produces much less of other
pollutants, like fly ash, soot, SO2 (the main cause of acid rain), and
mercury (the main source of mercury in tuna).  Good.  BUT methane (natural
gas) is an 80 times more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, and leaks are
twice as big as thought, so gas is no better than coal for global warming.
Industry says it is stopping almost all the leaks, but those are the ones
before the gas gets to the meter at the house or business, and most of the
leaks are after that.
      So trying to show that the US is a minor contributor to global
warming by showing that the US burns very little coal (a claim that is not
actually true, but it is decreasing), omits the fact that the US continues
to emit greenhouse gases in a major way, because it continues to burn
fossil fuels overwhelmingly to power electricity.  PLUS, you don't mention
that the US has emitted nearly twice as much CO2 cumulatively than China.
So the US has caused nearly twice as much of the problem,  and is still
producing a major amount of greenhouse gases, doesn't that suggest that the
US ought to do it's part???
       Cheers,  Doug



On Mon, Sep 23, 2019 at 5:29 AM Eugene Shinn via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Those of you concerned about global pollution from air travel might be
> interested in some data I received this morning.I assume these data
> regarding the numbers of coal fired power plants on our planet is
> somewhat correct. Would still be scary even if there were half as many ..
>
> Number of coal fired power plants in various countries:
>
> *The EU has 468 - building 27 more... Total  495*
>
> *Turkey has 56 - building 93 more... Total  149*
>
> *South Africa has 79 - building 24 more... Total  103*
>
> *India has 589 - building 446 more... Total  1036*
>
> *Philippines has 19 - building 60 more... Total  79*
>
> *South Korea has 58 - building 26 more... Total 84*
>
> *Japan has 90 - building 45 more... Total 135*
>
> *China has 2,363 - building 1,171 more... Total 3,534*
>
> *_USA has 15 - building 0 more...Total 15_*
>
> --
>
>
> No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
> ------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
> E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
> University of South Florida
> College of Marine Science Room 221A
> 140 Seventh Avenue South
> St. Petersburg, FL 33701
> <eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
> Tel 727 553-1158
> ---------------------------------- -----------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list



-- 
Douglas Fenner
Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
NOAA Fisheries Service
Pacific Islands Regional Office
Honolulu
and:
Consultant
PO Box 7390
Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA

"Global warming is manifestly the foremost current threat to coral reefs,
and must be addressed by the global community if reefs as we know them will
have any chance to persist."  Williams et al, 2019, Frontiers in Marine
Science

A call to climate action  (Science editorial)
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2019-05-30&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2840296

New book "The Uninhabitable Earth"  First sentence: "It is much, much worse
than you think."
Read first (short) chapter open access:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/read-a-chapter-from-the-uninhabitable-earth-a-dire-warning-on-climate-change


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