
Coal CEO admits that ‘clean coal’ is a myth - doener
http://reneweconomy.com.au/coal-ceo-admits-that-clean-coal-is-a-myth-69570/
======
philipkglass
_“Carbon capture and sequestration does not work. It’s a pseudonym for ‘no
coal,’” the CEO of Murray Energy, the country’s largest privately held coal-
mining company, told E &E News.

...

“It is neither practical nor economic, carbon capture and sequestration,” he
said last week. “It is just cover for the politicians, both Republicans and
Democrats that say, ‘Look what I did for coal,’ knowing all the time that it
doesn’t help coal at all.”_

People saying "you _can_ make clean coal power, it's just really expensive,"
are saying essentially the same thing as this article. Over 90% of American
coal is burned in power plants. Coal's big selling point is (was) producing
cheap electricity. Once you make it clean, it's no longer cheap; see last
week's declaration of surrender for the Kemper clean coal plant. It was 3
years behind schedule, $5 billion over budget, and still unfinished:

[https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/06/7-5-billion-
kemper-...](https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/06/7-5-billion-kemper-power-
plant-suspends-coal-gasification/)

It's just going to burn natural gas now.

If you can't build new dirty coal plants in the US, and new clean coal plants
cost significantly more than other clean electricity sources, then coal output
will slowly decline another ~90% from last year's lows. Metallurgical coal is
still going to be used for a long time but companies like Murray Energy would
be doomed.

~~~
xoa
Exactly. One of the entire core values of having electrical infrastructure and
equipment is to make energy sources perfectly fungible, abstracting generation
details from usage. That in turn means that energy generation is always about
economics and national strategy (which in turn often just boils back down to
economics), the expense of any given method is the whole point. This often
comes up with "peak resource" issues, which aren't generally about using up
all of a given resource so much as using all that can be reached for a given
price.

What we're really seeing are fossil fuel industries _finally_ starting to have
to actually compete under a real Free Market as society becomes less tolerant
of letting them ignore their massive externalities. If coal is more expensive
taking into account _not_ being able to dump expensive pollution into the
wider world, then it can and should go away. In fact that cost should have
always been taken into account.

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chris_va
For those curious, this article somewhat oversimplifies the situation.

Coal is dying anyway.

"Clean coal" generally refers to coal => gasification => carbon capture. This
is possible, just more expensive than burning raw coal, which itself is now
more expensive than natural gas.

Mostly because of fracking, at least in the US, natural gas is much cheaper
than buying coal. Compounding that, renewable energy creates high flexibility
in peak demand, so plants designed to operate as baseload sources cannot
amortize costs as effectively.

Additionally, HVDC lines are making regional proximity less important, so
gas/coal locality plays less of a role in pricing.

The market is shifting to peaker plants, like natural gas, which have very low
capital costs and can turn on/off quickly. This kills of coal and nuclear
anyway, which have to run 24/7 to stay cost competitive.

Barring some energy storage miracle, we'll eventually end up with ~35%
renewables, 15% hydro, 50% natural gas in the US, with HVDC interconnect.

(source: climate and energy R&D group)

~~~
xbmcuser
With battery tech and solar panel efficiency improvements that we get every
year I am of the opinion in 10-15 years even natural gas plants will not be
competetive. I am talking about the tech articles we get every year but actual
pannels and batteries that are delivered.

~~~
maxerickson
I think it is pretty difficult to accurately project the adoption rates of
those technologies (because most of the information we have is about adoption
rates when they are marginally price competitive), but the current adoption
rates don't have us with anywhere near enough solar deployed to stop using
natural gas in 20 years.

I guess you are talking more about whether it is a competitive investment, but
if we aren't fully on solar the faster construction time and easier siting of
natural gas plants will drive some investment (siting mostly in terms of land
area/MW).

------
temp-dude-87844
The quote's first appearance is in E&E News [1]:

 _[Robert] Murray yesterday commended President Trump 's announcement that he
would try to boost some coal exports, but he said that ultimately what the
sector needs is for EPA to nix the endangerment finding._

 _[Energy Secretary Rick Perry] also has touted carbon capture and
sequestration technologies for coal plants, even as he questions whether
climate science is settled._

 _Murray said carbon capture won 't help, either._

 _" Carbon capture and sequestration does not work. It's a pseudonym for 'no
coal,'" Murray said while waiting for a ride outside DOE headquarters. "It is
neither practical nor economic, carbon capture and sequestration. It is just
cover for the politicians, both Republicans and Democrats that say, 'Look what
I did for coal,' knowing all the time that it doesn't help coal at all."_

 _Murray acknowledged that the legal fight over the endangerment finding would
be "tough." He thinks that's because climate activists and renewable power
producers want to keep making money off climate change._

 _" All these people will be jumping on this on the other side because it's
all about money, but it is not about America. America needs reliable, low-cost
electricity, and that is a mix of different fuels," he said._

Murray's stance refers to the 'endangerment finding', which holds that
greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act -- a 2009 finding by
the EPA after the 2007 Supreme Court case _Massachusetts v. EPA_. He disagrees
with this interpretation -- particularly about carbon dioxide being classed a
pollutant -- and is arguing that the decision should be reversed under the
Trump administration, while pointing out that carbon capture and sequestration
(CCS) is largely a phrase that has been hijacked by politicians to tout too-
good-to-be-true solutions.

[1]
[https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060056858](https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060056858)

------
saimiam
How cynical and self serving does one have to be to invent terms like "clean
coal/diesel" and "clear skies act" instead of accepting that the world is
ready for proper environmental stewardship?

I mean, even Philip Morris eventually started saying cigarettes cause lung
cancer and kids are better off staying away from them...

~~~
notadoc
Frank Luntz is kind of a modern wizard with coining friendlier terms for
politicians to use

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz#Use_of_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz#Use_of_language)

You might recall the whole rephrasing "global warming" as "climate change"
thing too

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.c...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/mar/04/usnews.climatechange)

------
mrstone
Since when is a CEO of a coal company an authority on environmental impact? I
suppose it's whatever fits someone's agenda. Reminds me of that video of the
'Weather Channel CEO admitting climate change is not real'. I don't see how
this claim is any different. Let science answer the questions, not CEOs.

~~~
enraged_camel
Not all CEOs are empty suits. Some have to know a shit ton about their subject
matter in order to make good decisions.

The remarkable thing about a coal CEO saying clean coal is bullshit is that it
is seemingly against his own interest. CEOs rarely speak out publicly against
their company's own product. It's the equivalent of Philip Morris eventually
coming out and admitting that smoking causes cancer.

~~~
IncRnd
It's the other way around. It is in his own interest to say this, not against
his own interest. He clearly said that clean coal raises costs. That means
that costs would be lower without clean coal. Lower costs are in his own best
interest.

------
codewithcheese
This is all about timing. Murray want to do cheap coal plants to be as
profitable as possible. Trump is the guy that can allow him to.

------
65827
It's odd how much utter nonsense you must embrace (at least publicly) to
survive in so many companies in this world.

------
triangleman
Site is hugged to death. I am assuming by "clean coal" we are talking about
CO2 being difficult to capture, rather than just cleaning the emissions of
SO2, NOx, and particulates.

------
ouid
This is bullshit, there's lots of ways to make coal cleaner, including CO2
sequestration. It's just expensive.

~~~
blackguardx
Are we closer to CO2 sequestration than a working fusion reactor?

~~~
njarboe
Both technologies can "work" right now (5-10 yr design and construction time).
The trick is getting the economics to "work" within even an order of
magnitude. Source: I'm a geologist and my dad is a plasma physicist
researching fusion power.

~~~
ouid
the upfront cost to clean coal is very large, but it reduces the usable energy
by less than 30%. That's much less than an order of magnitude, especially
given how cheap it is to burn coal.

Upfront costs also generally go down over time. The infrastructure required to
perform carbon sequestration is extremely nascent. There's a lot of specialty
equipment, and drilling to sufficient limestone deposits. These things will
scale well though. Especially with government funding.

~~~
njarboe
Not sure what you mean exactly by "up front costs" but yes, the capex and time
to production for a complete clean coal power plant system or a functioning
fusion power plant is what would make producing energy by those methods many
times more expensive than natural gas or solar. Maybe if power companies can
finance at negative interest rates, like some counties are doing, the high
capital costs become a positive rather than a negative and all sorts of
schemes are possible.

~~~
ouid
Natural gas requires the same upfront costs to scrub CO2 out of the exhaust
for. In particular, it requires CO2 scrubbers.

The most efficient place to capture carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is before
it enters the atmosphere.

Therefore, any attempt to lower the amount of carbon in the atmosphere should
necessarily start with removing the carbon dioxide from exhaust.

All fossil fuel plants should have scrubbers, it is by far the most cost
effective measure that we can take to dramatically reduce increases to
atmospheric CO2. The argument that "clean coal is no coal" is assuming that
there should be no similar requirement on natural gas.

~~~
njarboe
The capital costs for setting up scrubbing CO2 from a natural gas plant may be
similar to coal but you get about twice as much energy per amount of CO2 from
natural gas as you do from coal. Sequestering 1/2 the amount of carbon should
cost quite a bit less in energy and dollars. Reducing the amount of CO2
release into the atmosphere definitely should be a high priority and a carbon
dioxide release tax is probably the best way to do that.

Another thing about natural gas that makes it better than coal is that the
hydrogen in natural gas reacts with oxygen in the atmosphere to form water.
This actually reduces the total amount of the atmospheric gas and therefor
reduces the greenhouse effect. I have yet to find a scientific paper that
describes the magnitude of this effect and I haven't found where this
phenomenon is taken into account in climate models. Most people don't realize
that the pressure of the atmosphere at the surface is a more important factor
for "greenhouse effect" heating than its composition. The surface of Venus is
so hot not mostly because of the high % of CO2 in the atmosphere but the
surface pressure is 93 bar as compared to Earth's 1 bar.

