The Day Coal Dies

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

This is, I suggest, worth reading:

https://apple.news/AXzxgQXnKSAi3Lo8gssr07A

MichaelG.

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

…but only if you are prepared to accept their cookies or pay.

I guess that this is a reference to the same story I heard briefly on the Radio 4 this morning re stopping the use of coal for electricity generation? Just had a look at https://grid.iamkate.com which takes in data from various sources and which shows a non-zero amount of electricity coming from coal. Generators spooling down? I know that others use different sources to look at power generation statistics – any other data around?

[Nealeb]

On Nealeb Said:

…but only if you are prepared to accept their cookies or pay […]

That pop-up is new … I saw nothing-such this morning, when I read the article and posted the link.

MichaelG.

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Ref.

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

On Nealeb Said:

…but only if you are prepared to accept their cookies or pay […]

That pop-up is new … I saw nothing-such this morning, when I read the article and posted the link.

MichaelG.

.

Ref.

I clicked on your link and the article was fully accessible in Apple News.

I read a while ago that some Coal power stations have been run on “Biomass”. I think this is waste wood pellets from Canada?

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

May be this and the closure of the blast furnaces at Port Talbot should be a wake up call to those of us who have coal fired models to stock up with fuel ? Our boilers are designed for coal and although gas can be used with some modifications or possibly oil at a pinch neither has the smell of coal, hot oil or steam ! That we may be able to get some coal from other sources is fine but good proper steam coal may soon disappear.

I hope the man from Signal Fuels will be at the Midland Show.   Noel.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I got the same pop-up as Nealeb did earlier this morning, and I’m not paying £6.99, or accept all their cookies to read it. I already knew the last coal fired generation plant in the UK, closes today

Regards Nick.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Sorry folks … but please don’t blame the innocent messenger 🙁

The [well-illustrated and very interesting] article was freely available on my iPad when I posted the link in the early hours … and this being a Model Engineering forum, I assumed the content would be of interest.

The ‘pay to avoid adverts’ idea seems to be the latest GDPR-based trick of the trade.

Grrr!!

MichaelG.

[Another JohnSParticipant @anotherjohns]

Vic: Drax and pellets –

The story going around is that the “waste wood” is (partly??) old-growth protected woods from BC in Canada.

If even partially true, it’s sad.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/wood-pellets-bc-forests-green-energy-1.6606921

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Some claim that biomass (wood pellets) are eco-friendly but the energy consumed in chopping down trees, transporting to site, processing into pellets is substantial. Then you transport by train to a dock, load a ship and cross the Atlantic, tranship to another train and transport to Drax. The energy consumption to get from a Canadian tree to a Drax wood pellet is huge. no way can this be eco-friendly, green or whatever.

John

[Ches Green UKParticipant @chesgreenuk]

Coal does seem to be quickly on the way out.

Yesterday, I was reading about the proposal to dam up  the Coire Glas valley (92m above sea level), pump water up to it using excess electricity and use it’s Potential energy as a ‘battery’ when needed. Ref: ‘Coire Glas power station’ –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coire_Glas_power_station

That then led me to ‘Renewable energy in Scotland’ – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Scotland

‘Renewables generate almost all of Scotland’s electricity, mostly from the country’s wind power.

—-

On 26 January 2024, the Scottish Government confirmed that Scotland generated the equivalent of 113% of Scotland’s electricity consumption from renewable energy sources, making it the highest percentage figure ever recorded for renewable energy production in Scotland. It was hailed as “a significant milestone in Scotland’s journey to net zero” by the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy, Neil Gray. It becomes the first time that Scotland produced more renewable energy than it actually consumed, and demonstrates the “enormous potential of Scotland’s green economy” as claimed by Gray.’

I hadn’t realised renewable energy had moved on so quickly … i guess this means my electricity bill will soon be greatly reduced 😉

Ches

[Andrew CrowParticipant @andrewcrow91475]

This type of electricity generation was first developed back in the late 1950’s at a pilot plant near Ffestiniog and it was the lower storage reservoir that flooded the original track bed of the Ffestiniog railway. This led to the construction of a much larger version at Dinorwic in North Wales.

This was at a time when we had mainly coal fired power generation and these couldn’t be shut down at night so it was a useful way of using up surplus power.

Andy

 

[Andrew CrowParticipant @andrewcrow91475]

P.s. the wind doesn’t stop blowing at night either so why not use it.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php

Grid watch shows 1% 0.34GW from coal at 3.25pm.

I guess it takes a while to run a power station down.

regards Martin

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

It’s not just our models and the preserved railways that use coal. Bulmer Brick and Tile works near Sudbury use coal to fire their kiln. The site has been making bricks since at lest medieval times and probably a lot longer than that. All their stuff goes to renovation work using original materials.

regards Martin

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

The Chinese have recently built a new line, the Haoji Railway, to transport 200 million tons (yes, 200 million!) of coal per year from Inner Mongolia to Jiangxi Province at a cost of 27 billion USD. The line is 1,600km long, has a design speed of 75m.p.h. and was completed within five years.

The Haoji Railway viaduct, at 8Km in length it is just a bit longer than the Colne Valley!

Clearly, the Chinese are not going to abandon coal anytime soon and maybe they could give the country that gave railways to the world a hint or two about how to build a 118mile long line from Euston to Curzon Street which is three times over budget, taking over 10 years to build and hasn’t even got a station design for the London terminus yet.

[jimmy bParticipant @jimmyb]

The info I saw on the BBC news suggests that 50% is still from gas and oil?

 

Those green solar panels from China made with lots of coal fired electric power will pave the way to the green future!

If we can’t see it, it ain’t happening…..

 

Much the same with electric cars, cheap as chips now, though who would touch a used one is a mystery. I’ll stick to my 2.5 litre V70, not worth much now due to the £710 a year “tax”, but heyho not to worry.

 

Jimb

[peak4Participant @peak4]

I saw a video the other day on Facebook, but can’t remember the original source, but it seems to relate to this product.
OK it will never power a steelworks furnace, but might be part of a wider solution.

Bill

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

 “I’ll stick to my 2.5 litre V70, not worth much now due to the £710 a year “tax”, but heyho not to worry.”

Is that right? I had a V70 but traded it for a newer V90 which attracted £580 for the first five years but has now gone down to £170, IIRC. I am not saying £710 tax is incorrect, because it’s your car and you pay the tax, but I am puzzled as the V70 went out of production in 2016/17 they are all well out of the road-tax surcharge period now.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Also the last day I believe for Britain’s last steel making blast furnace.   Port Talbot is shutting down.

Unfortunately, in the UK today coal isn’t a cost-effective way of generating electricity, making steel in the UK, or supporting other industries like Heavy Chemicals.  Since there’s no local coal left in the UK to speak of, any industry that relies on coal has to import it.  Mostly comes from Brazil and the USA.

Shouldn’t be a surprise.   The change started in 1984, when the government spotted that Britain’s depleted coal-fields were on the way out.  Since then, British industry has changed enormously, and there’s more to come.  Gas and Oil are also finite natural resources, and they too are depleting…

Dave

[peak4]

On peak4 Said:

might be part of a wider solution.

I sincerely doubt it. First off, where does that energy come from in the end? Food. So if the pedestrians spend more energy we’re basically burning food for power. Secondly, this requires both materials and energy to fabricate. What’s the return on this investment compared to building a windmill or better yet a nuclear power plant? I suspect it’s no match.

[Chris CrewParticipant @chriscrew66644]

“The change started in 1984, when the government spotted that Britain’s depleted coal-fields were on the way out.”

I rather think the ‘change’ began a lot earlier than 1984, which was the year of the miner’s strike. The British government was well aware of the decline in the demand for coal and, even under the National Coal Board, pits were closing throughout the post-war years. Peak coal production in Britain occurred in or around 1913 and had been declining ever since. This decline was initiated when the navy under ‘Jackie’ Fisher as First Sea Lord and Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty began to move the fleet over to oil. In short, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company which was prospecting for oil in what today is Iran, refused to supply the government with the fuel at a price it wanted to pay so the company was effectively nationalised by the purchase of a controlling number of shares and eventually became known as British Petroleum. The Clean Air Act in the 1950’s, the move away from steam traction on the railways in the 1960’s and the contraction of the steel industry in the 1970’s also contributed to a fall in demand for coal. Obviously, a more detailed history of the coal industry is not possible here.

 

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Worst case natural gas produces around half the CO2 emmision compared with coal.

Regarding UK coal production the Selby Field produced 121 million tonnes of coal in the 21 years between 1983 and 2004 transferred direct to the Aire valley power stations by rail.

Hard to make underground mining compete with open cast economically and that’s before even considering the environmental costs.

regards Martin

 

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

Actually, Britain’s got about 300 years worth of coal in the ground at peak (1970s-’80 rates). It’s just that the mines that were producing the active reserves are now all shut and, mostly, flooded.

Ratcliffe had a good life and Drax is trundling on. Drax could burn coal, but the mines that fed it are all shut, so it survives on clever greenwashing. The real shame is that we take 50 years to permit, plan and make a nuclear power station these days.

I’m all for wind, solar and nuclear because they all have the advantage that, whatever the capital cost, the fuel cost is effectively zero. Compare that with cost of 20,000 tonnes per day of wood or 15,000 tonnes of coal to drax (36,000 tonnes before some of the units were decommissioned) over 50 years, that’s quite significant.

 

[FulmenParticipant @fulmen]

Free fuel is nice, but that’s not what matters most. All power sources cost energy and resources to manufacture, and their lifespan is limited. I’m not convinced that wind or solar can compete with nuclear on this. But this will depend on local conditions so I’m not arguing against their use.

The sad fact is that globally we’re using more of *everything* except nuclear.

[Andrew Crow]

On Andrew Crow Said:

P.s. the wind doesn’t stop blowing at night either so why not use it.

Or a solar array + inverter.

[Author]

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