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Friday, May 31, 2024

Energy 176, Coal news, continuing yellow-red alerts

Some recent news about coal energy that I saw. Enjoy.

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1. Not Zero? NSW State Government to Pay up to $225 Million per Annum to a Single Coal Plant to Remain Open

Eric Worrall  May 23, 2024

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/23/net-zero-nsw-state-government-to-pay-225-million-per-annum-to-a-single-coal-plant/

2. Fears Eraring subsidies will need to be extended

Ben Potter and Elouise Fowler  May 23, 2024 

https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/nsw-to-pay-origin-up-to-225m-a-year-to-keep-eraring-open-until-2027-20240523-p5jfxc

3. Coal’s Importance For Solar Panel Manufacturing

Dr. Lars Schernikau  May 23, 2024

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/23/coals-importance-for-solar-panel-manufacturing/

4. Coal Still Powers More U.S. Electricity Than Any Renewable Energy Source

By Tsvetana Paraskova - May 20, 2024

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Coal-Still-Powers-More-US-Electricity-Than-Any-Renewable-Energy-Source.html

5. Asia Embraces Coal as the U.S. Rejects It

By Vijay Jayaraj May 08, 2024

https://realclearwire.com/articles/2024/05/08/asia_embraces_coal_as_the_us_rejects_it_1030384.html

6. G7 Agrees To End Coal Use But Can It?

By Irina Slav - May 04, 2024

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/G7-Agrees-To-End-Coal-Use-But-Can-It.html

7. The emissions and trade flows impact of the G7 coal pledge

By Gavin Maguire May 2, 2024

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/emissions-trade-flows-impact-g7-coal-pledge-maguire-2024-04-30/

8. What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=2

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Since last week until this week, there were yellow-red alerts about every other day, even last Sunday evening until midnight there was yellow alert in Luzon grid, and it was cloudy or raining  practically all day.

Even if power demand has declined due to cooler, cloudy days, supply margin deficiency and/or transmission issue persists.

Meralco is mobilizing big electricity consumers like factories to turn on their big gensets via interruptible load program (ILP), about 300 MW total, they stop getting electricity from Meralco temporarily so that Meralco can avoid imposing rotational blackout on smaller and medium size consumers like houses and offices. 

All these gensets under ILP are running on diesel, fossil fuel. Again, thanks to fossil fuel for saving these companies and the rest of households from blackout. 

Instead of many small gensets, 1 MW, 3 MW etc total 300 MW, we should have 2 or 3 big peaking plants on diesel or oil bunker. The price will increase but it's a lot better than enduring blackout. Compare the pain of few pesos per kwh increase vs the gain of saving food in the refrigerator, higher employees productivity because of aircon use.

All the drama vs fossil fuel do not make sense and should stop. Many days that are cloudy, and there is hardly any wind movement too. So both solar and wind output is near zero even at daytime.

Our ASEAN neighbors are non fan of climate climate. They subsidize their domestic fossil fuels, Malaysia has oil, Thailand and Vietnam have gas, indonesia has huge coal prodn. PH has  gas but it's taxed, the Malampaya royalties.

Our petroleum use is slapped with excise tax, diesel from zero to P6/liter, gasoline from P4 to P10/liter starting 2018 under Train law, to help "save the planet." So the cost of tractors, harvesters, irrig pumps, trucking, fishing boats etc have gone up bec they all use diesel. That contributed to high food inflation.

Our imported coal tax also increased by Train law from P10 to P150/ton. Former NEDA chief Ciel Habito was the main agitator and lobbyist for coal tax, he wanted P600/ton, to save the planet. Indonesia is laughing bec they subsidize their coal.

Big manufacturing plants are forced to run on liquid fuel via gensets instead of electric fuel, all these EV EV pushing and lobbying shd stop. Supply is not enough for households, offices, mfg plants, malls, hospitals, etc. Cars shd get out using more electricity, they shd use liquid fuel. The EV EV pushing to save the planet is another formula for more blackout and underdevelopment.

Power, electricity, kuryente. Everyone wants it, more, plentier, bountiful. An ord house that used to have electric fans only now have 1 or 2 aircon.

Gcash alone shd have hundreds of powerful computers handling millions of transactions per hour.

Grab alone shd also have hundreds or thousands of computers handling millions of bookings and mobility updates per hour. And so on. Kuryente, electricity, more.

And planet saviors and climate drama say we shd have limited power use unless it comes from wind solar. What a brain dead formulation.

The data centers, they are huge electricity users, 24/7 non stop, no blackout even for minute.

They need huge baseload power plants, like nuclear, coal and gas plants. We shd have more of these plants in the country, and then we can aspire to be upper middle income country (UMIC), then aspire to be an industrial country in 1-2 decades. Huge power generation like 5,000 to 10,000 kWh/person/year. Currently we only have 1,000+ kWh/person/year.

And at the PEB last Monday there was mention of having 300,000 EVs by 2028 or something. EVs are also heavy electricity users, they will compete for already thin power reserves. I think we shd entertain expanding the EVs only if we reach power generation of at least 1,800 kWh/person/year bec that would mean we have zero yellow red alerts anymore. 

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See also: 
Energy 173, Nuclear power renaissance, December 15, 2023
Energy 174, NGCP and the big Panay blackout last Jan. 2, January 11, 2024

Energy 175, Toronto's bright lights, March 09, 2024

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