rickyp wrote:Fate
That's why they're building so many coal-fired plants.
You can't supportn this with current information can you?
You are uninformed. As usual.
Beijing, where pollution averaged more than twice China’s national standard last year, will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants next year.
The capital city will shutter China Huaneng Group Corp.’s 845-megawatt power plant in 2016, after last week closing plants owned by Guohua Electric Power Corp. and Beijing Energy Investment Holding Co., according to a statement Monday on the website of the city’s economic planning agency. A fourth major power plant, owned by China Datang Corp., was shut last year.
Nationally, China planned to close more than 2,000 smaller coal mines from 2013 to the end of this year, Song Yuanming, vice chief of the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety, said at a news conference in July.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... -pollution
Oh, for Pete's sake. Stop it. You're making it sound like China is stopping its use of coal. The truth is they HAD to slow it down--or
choke to death:In 2014 the carbon emissions from China made up about 28.8% of the world total, 10.4 billion tons.CO2 emissions [33]
It is believed that a continued increase in coal power in China may undermine international initiatives to decrease carbon emissions such as the Kyoto Protocol, which called for a decrease of 483 million tons by 2012. In the same time frame, it is expected that coal plants in China will have increased CO2 emissions by 1,926 million tons — over 4 times the proposed reduction.[34]
Efforts to reduce emissions
Air pollution has gotten so bad that a study by the World Bank found that air pollution kills 750,000 people every year in China.[36] Issued in response to record-high levels of air pollution in 2012 and 2013, the State Council’s September 2013 Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution reiterated the need to reduce coal’s share in China’s energy mix to 65% by 2017.[37] Amidst growing public concern, social unrest incidents are growing around the country. For example, in December 2011 the government suspended plans to expand a coal-fired power plant in the city of Haimen after 30,000 local residents staged a violent protest against it, on the grounds that "the coal-fired power plant was behind a rise in the number of local cancer patients, environmental pollution and a drop in the local fishermen's catch."[38]
In addition to environmental and health costs at home, China's dependence on coal is cause for concern on a global scale. Due in large part to the emissions caused by burning coal, China is now the number one producer of carbon dioxide, responsible for a full quarter of the world's CO2 output.[39] According to a recent study, "even if American emissions were to suddenly disappear tomorrow, world emissions would be back at the same level within four years as a result of China’s growth alone."[40] The country has taken steps towards battling climate change by pledging to cut its carbon intensity (the amount of CO2 produced per dollar of economic output) by about 40 per cent by 2020, compared to 2005 levels.[39] Reuters reports that "emissions and coal consumption will continue to rise through the 2020s, even though at a slower rate, barring a major intervention including a shift to cleaner burning gas from coal" - in other words, "meeting the carbon intensity target will require a significant change in trajectory for carbon emissions and coal consumption."[41] To that end, China has announced a plan to invest 2.3 trillion yuan ($376 billion) through 2015 in energy saving and carbon emission-reduction projects.[41]
For just a day try not to be a jackass. The country is so backward that some people use coal to cook (same article).
In rural areas coal is still permitted to be used by Chinese households, commonly burned raw in unvented stoves. This fills houses with high levels of toxic metals leading to bad Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). In addition, people eat food cooked over coal fires which contains toxic substances. Toxic substances from coal burning include arsenic, fluorine, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and mercury. Health issues are caused which include severe arsenic poisoning, skeletal fluorosis (over 10 million people afflicted in China), esophageal and lung cancers, and selenium poisoning.
So, please, do tell us about these enviro-warriors, the Chinese.
Without the EPA coal mining would destroy the environment with their mining techniques. Then walk away.... and taxpayers would have to pick up the costs of rehabilitating the mountain tops that the mining companies destroyed.
Don't you think a company should be responsible for all of the costs of operating, or is it okay for coal miners to be subsidized by taxpayers ? (Which they are if they aren't responsible for the costs of the impact of their mines.)
See straw man, burn straw man.
Fate
None of the alternative energy sources is viable: meaning either BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) or the cost is so far above what we currently pay as to be economically unfeasible.
If this were true, then coal would still be a competitive fuel.
This is the market at work Fate...
You have a funny definition of "the market." It seems a lot like "the government."
Is this "the market" at work?WASHINGTON — In a major setback for President Obama’s climate change agenda, the Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the administration’s effort to combat global warming by regulating emissions from coal-fired power plants.
The brief order was not the last word on the case, which is most likely to return to the Supreme Court after an appeals court considers an expedited challenge from 29 states and dozens of corporations and industry groups.
But the Supreme Court’s willingness to issue a stay while the case proceeds was an early hint that the program could face a skeptical reception from the justices.
The 5-to-4 vote, with the court’s four liberal members dissenting, was unprecedented — the Supreme Court had never before granted a request to halt a regulation before review by a federal appeals court.
“It’s a stunning development,” Jody Freeman, a Harvard law professor and former environmental legal counsel to the Obama administration, said in an email. She added that “the order certainly indicates a high degree of initial judicial skepticism from five justices on the court,” and that the ruling would raise serious questions from nations that signed on to the landmark Paris climate change pact in December.
Look, Candidate Obama said he was going to put coal out of business and he's doing his best to make it so. "The market" can't be controlled. And, since Obama knows better, he'll just do it by fiat.
After all, isn't that why we have a king--to take care of us?