
Finland set to become first country to ban coal use for energy - csdfg7856
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2113827-finland-set-to-become-first-country-to-ban-coal-use-for-energy/
======
notgood
Meanwhile, the new US president plans to create jobs with "clean coal"[0] (in
a contest of oxymorons that one would win) and also "relax" environmental
restrictions choosing Myron Ebell, a climate change denier as the head of EPA
(Environmental Protection Agency) [1]

But it's the democratically elected president, so we must only watch as he
destroys the world for at least 4 years for the sake of new jobs; we all know
there is nothing more important for our future than creating jobs.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/energy-
environme...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/energy-
environment/wp/2016/11/22/trump-wants-to-lift-restrictions-on-clean-coal-
whatever-that-is/)

[1] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/20...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2016/11/09/trump-victory-reverses-u-s-energy-and-environmental-
priorities/)

~~~
rayiner
The current US President pushed clean coal too:
[https://www.grist.org/climate-energy/how-obama-went-from-
coa...](https://www.grist.org/climate-energy/how-obama-went-from-coals-top-
cheerleader-to-its-no-1-enemy) (until he didn't). During the third debate
against Romney they fought over who could be more pro coal.

The clean coal issue is bigger than one person. Coal isn't just an energy
source, it's a way of life for a significant chunk of the country. Not just
jobs, but something the whole economic infrastructure is built around.
Appalachia without coal is Silicon Valley without computers.

~~~
ajross
That's true, but sort of misses the point. Most regions have a dominant
industry, and these industries change over time. Silicon Valley, to take your
example, used to produce actual silicon devices. Los Angeles used to be a
major petroleum exporter. Those jobs left, but no one cared.

People argue over "appalachia" and make false promises about coal (coal is
dying whether anyone wants it or not -- other sources are simply cheaper now)
because it workers a swing demographic in presidential elections.

~~~
rayiner
People shouldn't make false promises about industries that are not (and should
not) come back. My point is that there is a huge incentive to do so, and Trump
doing it isn't some dramatic change from what's come before.

~~~
notgood
Let me guess, you also think that putting a global warming denier as the head
of EPA is also not a "dramatic change"?

------
dancek
In 2015, Finnish electricity production was as follows [1]:

    
    
      - 33.7% nuclear
      - 16.6% fossil fuels
      - 44.9% renewables
      - 4.4% peat
    

Wikipedia says that all the fossil fuels are imported (except peat) but does
not cite a source. With a fifth nuclear reactor under construction (Olkiluoto
3), the import of fossil fuels would probably diminish at some point anyway.

The renewable electricity production mostly comprises hydropower (25.1%) and
wood-based energy (about 15%). Solar power is not an option--during winter,
every Friday is black Friday here. Wind power would hardly be profitable
without the feed-in tariff [2].

Given the ecological issues with hydropower, the limited nature of wood-based
power and how inapplicable solar and wind power are here, I personally
consider nuclear power to be the most environmentally friendly option if we're
to produce more electricity.

[1]
[http://pxnet2.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/en/StatFin/StatFin__ene__s...](http://pxnet2.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/en/StatFin/StatFin__ene__salatuo/030_salatuo_tau_103.px/)

[2] [https://www.energiavirasto.fi/web/energy-authority/feed-
in-t...](https://www.energiavirasto.fi/web/energy-authority/feed-in-tariff)

~~~
StavrosK
> Solar power is not an option--during winter, every Friday is black Friday
> here

Isn't total "total daylight time per year" constant across the earth?

~~~
alkonaut
> Isn't total "total daylight time per year" constant across the earth?

More or less (depending on how you measure).

Issues:

1) Storage. If you live at lat 65 you need extreme amounts of heat and
lighting in winter, and you need almost no heat and lighting in summer.
Massive seasonal energy storage solutions such as aquifers do exist but they
are expensive. This is why hydro is so good - it's both renewable AND is
perfect for seasonal storage.

2) Incidence. Total daylight that has a good incidence for catching isn't
constant across the earth. A lot of the "extra" sunlight that northern finland
gets in the summer is in the wee hours of the night. It's not exactly
scorching from zenith then. When the sun sits ON the horizon for a few hours,
even a small hill on the horizon will ruin your solar power.

~~~
skriticos2
I would also hazard a guess that the closer to the horizon the Sun is located,
the more atmosphere it needs to cross to reach you (because of the lower
angle) which results in higher absorption rate before it reaches you (simply
said, it's a bit darker the closer you get to the poles). I'm mostly guessing
though, so please correct me.

ps: I remember seeing the sun in northern Norway at midnight in the summer
long time ago when I was visiting. Was just a little bit brighter than the
moon usually is.

pps: This is the same effect as what the sun looks like just before sunset
around the rest of the world.

~~~
alkonaut
> Was just a little bit brighter than the moon usually is.

I think that the difference between the minimum brightness of the sun (at the
horizon) and the full moon is still a factor over 100.000 :)

Eyes are remarkably nonlinear.

------
Maakuth
This article paints it as if we're replacing it all with wind power. Actually
we have quite big nuclear power plant projects underway. Still, sunsetting
coal power is a great target and can't come fast enough.

~~~
david-given
Also, it's important to remember the electricity is a small proportion of
total energy use, which is dominated by heating and transport; heating's
usually gas or heavy fuel oil, transport is usually petrol or diesel. And by
'dominated', I mean about 2/3 of all energy use goes towards it.

Yes, migrating to electric heating and transport is possible. Over-unity fuel
pumps are teh awesome, and electric transport is almost workable (but not
quite yet for anything more than short distances); but we're still going to be
talking about a massive _increase_ in electricity consumption, and most
countries' electrical grids can't handle that.

So, I agree with you --- coal is foul stuff, it needs to die, this is an all
senses a good thing; but it's still just a small step on the path to getting
off fossil fuels.

~~~
thatfrenchguy
>electric transport is almost workable (but not quite yet for anything more
than short distances)

You mean in use in every single country for trains since the 60s ?

~~~
K0nserv
As a Swede I was shocked when I moved to Scotland and found out that they have
a lot of diesel trains.

~~~
snaily
Sweden has a whole bunch of not-yet-electrified lines - just not where most
people are:
[http://www.jarnvag.net/component/customproperties/tag?cp[omr...](http://www.jarnvag.net/component/customproperties/tag?cp\[omrade\]\[0\]=gotaland&cp\[omrade\]\[1\]=svealand&cp\[omrade\]\[2\]=norrland&cp\[omrade\]\[3\]=&cp\[sparvidd\]\[0\]=1435_mm&cp\[sparvidd\]\[1\]=891_mm&cp\[sparvidd\]\[2\]=600_mm&cp\[sparvidd\]\[3\]=&cp\[trafik\]\[0\]=persontrafik&cp\[trafik\]\[1\]=godstrafik&cp\[trafik\]\[2\]=&cp\[elektrifierad\]\[0\]=oelektrifierad&cp\[elektrifierad\]\[1\]=&cp\[bind_to_category\]=content:26,content:31,content:36)

~~~
K0nserv
Yeah I probably have some confirmation bias having travelled mainly inside the
Stockholm/Sörmland region and from Stockholm to Gothenburg. I was very
surprised to see that Edinburgh to Glasgow is not electrified for example.

~~~
Reason077
Work to electrify Edinburgh to Glasgow is already in progress. Electric trains
will be running by 2017.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_to_Glasgow_Improveme...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_to_Glasgow_Improvement_Programme)

------
skocznymroczny
Does Finland have a lot of coal anyway? It's easy to ban something you don't
really have. Also easy for a rich country to ban coal use, but you can't
expect poorer countries to do the same, especially if by coal is how rich
countries built their industries. And now they are being told to get rid of
coal and replace them with wind or solar power, usually conveniently offered
by foreign companies.

~~~
Tuna-Fish
We have none whatsoever. Geologically, Finland rests on the Baltic shield
which consists of very old rock, and it's top has been scoured clean of any
newer rock by successive ice ages. If you dig down 50cm from the surface soil
on which I'm standing right now, you get to granite baserock that is almost
two billion years old.

Rock this old does not have any fossil fuel deposits, since the first such
deposits were formed some ~360M years ago.

The closest thing Finland has to fossil fuels are peat bogs. And those are
currently rated "slowly renewable" by both the Finnish state and the EU. This
is half true -- they do replenish, but only at a rate of millimeters per year.
Typically, it would take some 4000 years for a harvested peat bog to return to
it's original thickness.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
IMO peat really should be classified as a fossile fuel.

~~~
lostlogin
That is a good suggestion, it sort of implies it's almost a fossil even though
it was likely a typo.

------
Reason077
A coal ban by 2030 would not make Finland the first country to do so. France
is closing all coal-fired plants by 2023, and the UK by 2025.

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/09/britains...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/09/britains-
last-coal-power-plants-to-close-by-2025)

~~~
repsilat
Iceland already uses no coal for electricity...

From googling around it sounds like there are a number of others too, though
most of those that don't burn coal seem to burn a lot of oil instead. Iceland
just uses hydro power and geothermal energy, though.

~~~
Reason077
Electricity grids in countries like Norway and New Zealand run almost entirely
on renewables. In fact, in Norway it's something like 99%. But of course, what
those countries have in common is relatively small populations with lots of
natural resources to draw on.

France is over 75% nuclear with another 20% being met by renewables.

The UK reached 46% from nuclear & renewables in 2015, with most of the rest
being met from gas turbines.

~~~
kalleboo
I think all the electricity production in Sweden is either Hydro or Nuclear (+
token amounts of wind), but our hydro also acts as a buffer to Denmark's wind
power, so sometimes we get Danish coal power imports instead to make up for
it...

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Sweden in 2014 produced about 64 TWh (42%) from large hydro and 62 TWh (41%)
from nuclear. The rest came from wind 12 TWh (7.9%) and from other 13 TWh
(8.5%), other being mostly biofuel and waste.

[https://bjelkeman.wordpress.com/2015/04/17/sustainable-
energ...](https://bjelkeman.wordpress.com/2015/04/17/sustainable-energy-the-
growth-of-wind-power-in-sweden-par/)

The electricity use is only 123 TWh of a total energy use of 379 TWh (2011).
Of which 127 TWh is still coal and oil products. So still a lot of work to be
done, primarily in transport.

[https://bjelkeman.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/sustainable-
energ...](https://bjelkeman.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/sustainable-energy-a-
swedish-energy-balance-sheet-part-2/)

------
jabl
Meanwhile, that same new energy strategy announced by the government also
effectively halts wind power construction until an "inpartial", "objective",
"thorough", etc. study investigating why wind power causes people to become
sick is done. Also, bats. Yes. One of the parties in the current government is
a "conservative populist" party where party representatives have been claiming
that wind power causes bats to explode. Yes, really.

 _EDIT_ : Slightly less inflammatory..

~~~
doikor
Wind power isn't doing very well here in Finland though. It is 100% propped up
by subsidies. The government will pay them 85,30 €/MWh for the electricity
generated by wind power even though the market price is somewhere around 30
€/MWh so they basically get more from subsidies then from the electricity they
actually sell. The current projection is that with the current subsidies wind
power will have cost the tax payer around 3 billion euros by 2030.

Though the True Finns have a very wrong approach to this (trying to ban
building wind power because it causes "harm" to people and other unscientific
bullshit) instead of just dismantling the harmful subsidies (or at least
lowering them to something sensible). Or the most sensible approach of taxing
the things we don't want (polluting energy. coal etc.) and let the free
markets sort the rest out.

~~~
biehl
The (spot)-market price on Nordpool is mostly related to variable costs, and
doesn't really cover construction and other fixed costs.

That energy generators need a higer price than spot-price doesn't really
warrant calling it "subsidies".

In Denmark land-wind is the cheapest (LCOE) energy.

~~~
doikor
Ok but why are we building nuclear power with 100% private money and subsidise
wind? It literally makes no sense. The system should work the other way. Tax
what we don't want and let the free markets work the rest out. Now we are
grossly propping up a form of electricity that doesn't work very well here in
Finland.

If we can do multi billion euro nuclear power projects with private money in
other energy production ways why can't the wind?

As a side note the guaranteed price ends after 12 years. Do you know what
happened when the first wind company that got to that 12 years did? It went
bankrupt the same day. There is literally no way they can compete with the
other wind power companies that get the subsidy. Basically we are going to get
a nice "start wind power company" -> "take subsidies for 12 years" -> "go
bankrupt" -> "start a new one" loop.

~~~
biehl
Finland doesn't guarantee prices for nuclear for some period? That sounds
unlikely. The Hinkley Point plant in the UK was recently guaranteed a very
high "strike price" to get it built

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_power_station)

And those "subsidies" are free market! In Denmark power generators submit
competing bids on the lowest required guaranteed price when building new wind
power.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_Rev#Horns_Rev_3_offshore...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horns_Rev#Horns_Rev_3_offshore_wind_farm)

~~~
doikor
No we don't. The heavy industrial corporations and some of the larger energy
corps got together and formed a company called TVO. TVO got a few billion
euros of loan and started to build nuclear plants (the current one under
construction is Olkiluoto Unit 3). Only subsidy I know of is for the insurance
in case of a nuclear accident. Though TVO already owns Olkiluoto 1 and 2. As I
understand the third reactor on the same site doesn't have any effect on the
insurance.

The nuclear plants in Finland are built for a real need (cheaper electricity)
without any viable alternatives if we want to limit reliance to other
countries (ask the east block countries how fun it is to rely on Russian gas
for your electricity/heating during the winter). In some countries you would
probably use coal or gas but as Finland doesn't have any of those (literally 0
natural gas, oil or coal reserves) we have had to rely on nuclear (for which
we have fuels to burn in the bedrock). We have already built dams pretty much
everywhere we can so hydro cannot be expanded in any meaningful way. Solar and
wind just don't work as baseline power for heavy industry in Finland (at least
not yet. The battery technology just isn't there). Solar is useless during the
winter and wind has too much variance.

Also due to the delays in construction of the new reactor (thanks Areva and
Siemens) we have been very close to actually running out of power (with the
connections to Sweden and Russia maxed out) and have had to resort to reserve
gas power plants with MWh prices in the hundreds of euros as most plans for
the grid have included the new reactor being done in time.

In Finland the subsidies for wind power is just flat selling price into the
grid. You can take subsidy on building too but then you cannot get the one for
selling electricity (which is much better with the current prices)

~~~
biehl
Well, I looked up "Mankala model", so for TVO and Olkiluoto the investors and
the consumers are largely the same - which means that the investors/consumers
will just directly over-pay for the electricity, by having a larger total cost
(mostly the capital costs) than what they could have paid by buying the
electricity on Nordpool. Or conversely, they will never recoup their
investment if they just sell the energy on Nordpool.

~~~
doikor
Them overpaying doesn't always happen (They don't use the Mankala model for
the fun of it. It adds risk due to the capital investment but has been worth
it over the long term up to date at least). As I understand both Olkiluoto 1
and 2 have been cheaper then buying from Nordpool to the owners (one of the
reasons they wanted the third one). They of course also sell any energy they
don't use into Nordpool. These are mostly private companies. They wouldn't do
it if there is no profit in it. Why take risks of billions of euros if they
stand to gain nothing?

In Finland 40% of energy produced is done under the Mankala model. Out of wind
energy the percentage is 57% (so over the average).

Also one of the reason why the price in Finnish Nordpool has been so high
lately is the delays in Olkiluoto 3. The actual estimated cost of production
(so cost of running) is 3€/MWh. With the price in Nordpool around 30 to 50
€/MWh they stand to make 25 to 45 €/MWh of profit. If they can offload a good
chunk of the capital costs of building the reactors to the people buying from
Nordpool and get their own power needs at a very big discount (basically the
3€/MWh + (whatever their share of the capital costs is - money made out of
selling into the grid) it is profitable to the owners even if the plant itself
didn't make money directly.

~~~
biehl
Well, the Mankala model is not a problem.

And most likely Olkiluoto 3 had a reasonable business case before the cost
overruns. So the question is more or less: is the real price of nuclear the
price that was hoped for Olkiluoto 3 or the actual price that will be paid?
(maybe mostly by Areva and not TVO). The "strike price" of Hinkley makes me
think that it is probably the latter.

And while the trends look favorable for solar and wind, they seem less
favorable for Nuclear - cf.

Historical summary of EIA's LCOE projections (2010–2016) -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source)

------
chinathrow
The question is what happens to _all_ the central power plants once the cost
of transmission is more expensive than the cost of generation of solar power.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM&feature=youtu.be&t=10m48s)

~~~
doikor
Cost of transmission already more then the cost of power in many places in
Finland. Though I think that is mostly due to the subsidies in generation side
being much larger then transmission.

For example for me transmission is 0.022€/kWh while power itself costs
0.03€/kWh. This is with a 2 year contact. With 1 year contract it would be
closer 0.04€/kWh

This is with 1x25A (quite common for apartments/flats) connection. The
transmission fees go up in some networks if you have more (like the very
common 3x25A for houses)

I happen to live in one of the cities where the city still owns the company
that owns the networks so I have one of the cheapest transmission fees in the
country. For example my parents who live ~50km away from me have to pay
0.0398€/kWh for transmission. They used to have it cheaper then I did but the
network was bought by a foreign owned company (Caruna) which is now pumping
out the legal maximum amount of profit from transmissions (it is regulated) by
gaming the system by taking stupid loans (paying multiple times market rate in
interest) from their parent company to make the company never make profit
(price hikes are partly connected to profits)

Privatisation of the electric grid (the transmission part) is just plain
stupid. It is a natural monopoly as nobody is going to build a second grid
where an existing one already is available and I really don't believe
capitalism is any good in that situation. The solution for power generation
here in Finland is good as you can buy your electricity from anyone but you
still have to use the local grid and thus pay to the local (monopoly) power
grid company for transmission. This is one of the things where I think we have
failed here in Finland big time. Should have just kept the network public and
outsourced the maintenance and building to private companies trough
competitive tendering.

edit: And solar is just plain stupid in Finland. Basically for half the year
it is between ok and great. For the other half it is somewhere between bad and
0 electricity generation. And the time when you get 0 energy from your solar
panels is the time when it is the coldest and need the most energy. So
building solar here just leads to having to build double energy production and
hikes the price of electricity up for no good reason.

~~~
renesd
Some thoughts about recent developments which may change your mind about solar
panels being useless in Finland ...

Hydrogen production is now possible with renewable energy. There are some
trains going into service in a few days in Germany that use Hydrogen instead
of diesel. I also saw many hydrogen Toyota cars whilst in Japan. The
technology is here, and works.

The break through in Hydrogen production happened in 2014. Just after which
the hydrogen train started being designed. Only Toyota have been able to make
the technology work in a cost effective way for smaller vehicles as far as I
know. However, it's a simpler thing to do with larger vehicles like buses and
trains.

Also, directly using the energy for things like Aluminium smelting does not
require batteries. This is already happening in Germany. Even if it only works
for half the year, the energy savings are massive. Without needing batteries,
solar power is hell cheap.

When you can convert all the wasted extra power from renewables into Hydrogen,
you can use that energy to power much of the transport and heating. This may
make it cost effective to install the solar for summer months, but still have
all the extra power generation ability for when solar is not producing. This
is because now using excess power is now profitable, and it doesn't have to be
thrown away.

I'll also note that the energy revolution 2 in Germany has produced massive
savings in energy use. Apparently every euro of energy saved is worth three-
five euros of cheaper energy generation. These energy analytics systems are
now starting to be sold world wide.

I think there's still 20 years whilst existing infrastructure is being
replaced, but we are already at the point alternatives are significantly
cheaper. Even if we don't assume technology gets better every day.

Even in countries where the government is owned by the coal industry
(Australia) coal mines are being closed down to be replaced by cheaper
alternatives. Much of the world is without electricity, and they can get
electricity for a much smaller investment with renewables, as renewables
scale. Coal, nuclear and other older technologies don't scale down to the low
end. At the high end they now can't compete on cost (even ignoring health and
other pollution costs they don't get charged for in many places).

~~~
renesd
Editing the comment doesn't work for some reason.

s/coal mines/coal plants/g

Also I meant to make a point about how renewables have access to a much larger
market than fossil fuels. Because big funds are divesting, because countries
are banning them. There is a bigger market on the demand side for renewables
because of the scaling. The market is also a lot bigger on the supply side
because less capital is needed to supply renewable power.

Also the big advanced tech countries (Germany, China, Japan) are switching off
producing fossil fuel using technology. Which will result in the prices for
this type of technology increasing, and more advancements going into
renewables.

~~~
doikor
Problem with the "would be cheap for half the year" is that you would still
have the capital costs of building the grid for 2x (actually you would need 4x
the grid as the energy usage during winter is roughly 2x of the amount in
summer in Finland) the use as you want to run your factory during the winter
too. Even if solar is cheap I doubt it is that cheap to offset a capital cost
like that.

Most of central Europe is a quite useless comparison for a place like Finland
for energy production. The weather is just very different. ~2 hours of
sunlight and -30 weather isn't that rare even in Helsinki (which is quite a
bit father south then a good chunk of the country). Pretty much whole of
Finland is outside of the "makes sense to build solar here" zone. I don't see
that many people building big solar plants in Alaska so why would you in
Finland (roughly the same latitude)

Australia has mostly been digging coal for export. It is quite natural that
they would close mines if the demand internationally (mainly in Asia) goes
down.

------
opopie
Canada also announced this same goal:
[https://www.thestar.com/business/2016/11/21/federal-
governme...](https://www.thestar.com/business/2016/11/21/federal-government-
to-phase-out-coal-by-2030.html)

------
_pdp_
I only hear good things about the nordic countries and that news just tops it.

Lately I've been researching Tesla's solar roofs but it seems to me that it
will be a difficult thing to pull off in UK due to building control and all
kinds of other arcane systems that prevent use of modern building practices.

~~~
SixSigma
This is akin to saying

"The USA bans all burning of moon rocks for power"

------
faragon
That's ok, as they can afford building new nuclear reactors ([1]).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Finland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Finland)

------
boneheadmed
Which nation will be the first to mandate citizens walking around with one
hand tied behind their backs? Literally, rather than just as a metaphor.

