Abstract
Pressure is mounting globally for the discontinuation of the use of thermal coal and other carbonbased fuels for power generation. The pressure to shift power-generating fuel sources to cleaner propositions comes from many fronts, including from financial institutions that have removed funding options for new and existing coal projects, large investment houses that have discontinued coal equity investments from their portfolios, social movements that have heightened awareness and have created industrial and societal disruptions and, notably, scientists and other researchers who have pronounced the need to reduce carbon-rich energy sources for environmental reasons. However, despite this, thermal coal continues to play an important role in power generation in many regions around the world and will continue to do so for decades to come. This is because coal is an abundant mineral, the power-conversion technology is tried and tested and, comparatively, coal power generation tends to be a more affordable option when considered against numerous alternatives. This latter point excludes the cost impacts associated with carbon taxes. This paper specifically covers the relationship between the amount of CO2 produced from the combustion of thermal coal for power generation purposes and the additional heating effect, measured in degrees Celsius, that this CO2 creates. It also provides explicit and comparative figures relating to the world’s largest thermal coal consumers and hence the largest contributors to climate change relating to the combustion of thermal coal.
Highlights
As the world pushes towards developing and securing cleaner sources of energy and a collective net-zero carbon emissions target, the attainment of this objective and the commensurate benefits expected to culminate from this collective drive cannot be accomplished overnight, let alone over the few decades
If it is assumed that future coal-fired power plants are more efficient and that many producers resort to carbon capture, utilisation and storage practices, as depicted in Figure 3, and that these power stations either shut down or follow a linear improvement profile, it is likely that in thirty years’ time, coal-fired power generation will still be responsible for CO2 emissions as follows: CO2 2050 = Pe2050/E/1000/eff × (1 − CA) (4)
The combustion of thermal coal as a primary source of base-load power will continue into the foreseeable future, despite significant protests and efforts to move to cleaner energy sources sooner rather than later
Summary
As the world pushes towards developing and securing cleaner sources of energy and a collective net-zero carbon emissions target, the attainment of this objective and the commensurate benefits expected to culminate from this collective drive cannot be accomplished overnight, let alone over the few decades. Coal fired power plants provided approximately 38% of the world’s electricity in 2018[1] as a base load energy source. It is apparent that there is a general drive by energy providers to demonstrate their intentions and strategies to provide cleaner energy, including energy from renewable sources Cleaner energy in this instance does not necessarily mean a net-zero carbon basis, but rather the lowering of emissions based on a unit of energy generated. This includes energy providers motivating the move away from less efficient to more efficient sources and uses of a particular source of energy, often suggesting the preferred use of cleaner coal, or carbon sequestration, or improving operational efficiencies to lower carbon emissions per unit of energy, or moving away from one fossil fuel but replacing it with another such as from coal to gas, or moving away from fossil fuels altogether. Coal was singularly the largest anthropogenic contributor to global power and CO2 levels in the earth’s atmosphere and has been suggested to be directly responsible for increasing global surface temperatures by over 0.30C out of the 1.00C temperature increase experienced so far since the industrial revolution[3]
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