Western Railroad Discussion > King Coal, alive and growing

The NY Times reports that, contrary to the given wisdom, more than a thousand coal plants are under construction worldwide. About 36 of them are in the US, with 20,236 MW of installed capacity. On average, these are big plants.

Of the 1,200 plants worldwide, about 2/3 are being constructed in China or India, both of which have become enormous coal importers. If India continues building at the rate it is currently maintaining, it would likely pass the US in total consumption in 2015 or 2016, if I did the math correctly. Lots of export opportunity, and power grid construction need as well.

Good news for coal hauling railroads in much of the rest of the world.


http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/21/king-coal-alive-and-kicking/?ref=energy-environment

Excellent news...

Coal burning releases tons of mercury and radioactive isotopes into the worldwide air, unlike burning natural gas. If I could, I would have these plants either go natural gas, or nuclear. It's just such a dirty fuel. We're talking thousands and thousands of plants pumping out this stuff, every day, 24/7. It really does add up, and it's one reason why there is now so much mercury in our seafood.

Natural gas is way better.

As with everything there are pros and cons...

There are several reasons why coal is still the number one choice of countries outside of the USA when building a new electrical generating facility. The biggest is natural gas, while cheap here, is generally expensive in the rest of the world compared to coal. Other biggies are land use/space, construction time, how quickly the electrical power is needed, and distance to market. Lots of factors to consider that the average person doesn't even think about...

Here's an interesting project in Texas:

http://www.texascleanenergyproject.com/news-room/



Allen



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/12 12:08 by bradleymckay.

In southern Illinois a new "clean" coal 1600 MW plant opened. How clean is it? Could it be a future model for the power industry?

developing nations are going to continue to use the most inexpensive and abundant energy source on the planet: COAL.

all of those families in these developing nations that are the first generations to have electricity won't be giving up their demand for coal fired power plants anytime soon.

good news for the North American railroads that will be transporting this coal for export........

66

MEKoch Wrote:
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> In southern Illinois a new "clean" coal 1600 MW
> plant opened. How clean is it? Could it be a
> future model for the power industry?

Possibly.

If this is the Taylorville plant, it's certainly been very controversial. The structure is a coal to gas liquids technology, which is then used to fire a turbine.

The plant has received a half billion dollar federal construction grant, and a number of major employers in Illinois have protested that they expect to see higher rates and surcharges for purchased electric power to pay for the plant. Cost estimates for the plant are all over the map, as are savings estimates once the plant is running at full power.

No question the plant is much cleaner at the stack than the average coal burning plant, although questions remain about how much cleaner the process chain (mining, moving, burning, waste disposal) is compared to natural gas. It's very popular with southern Illinois coal interests however.

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edited to add

The NY Times has a story today about Dept of Energy grants to create small nuclear reactors that could be built in factories and shipped by rail or barge to abandoned small coal fired plant sites. The general idea is they could be assembled quickly, and use the existing wires and grid, as well as some assets and the labor force already in the area.

The small size would limit the damage if an incident happened. The size discussed seems to be in the 120-180 megawatt space.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/12 10:33 by Lackawanna484.