Coal power

[JSH]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

No one's paying them to send up less.

All costs are passed down to the end consumer.

It costs more to send up less NOx when you are controlling it by SCR injection.

Yes, costs are passed down to the consumer so they spin pollution as a cost savings for their ratepayers.

EDIT: Birmingham, AL has some of the worst air quality in the USA.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Yeah Germany is doing so well the only country beating them in the area of increased CO2 production is china.

A 27.8% reduction seems pretty good to me.

[oil pan 4]

Yeah there are 4 or 5 grades of coal that are commonly burned.
Peat, but you really don't want to burn peat.
Lignite, or brown coal.
Sub and regular Bituminous coal
Steam coal
Anthracite
Graphite

Steam coal and anthracite usually are one grade these days and most people don't burn graphite.

I want steam coal, anthracite or high grade bituminous coal for my coal furnace.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by JSH

You forgot the other option they are pursuing - renewables. Renewables are by far the fastest growing segment of Germany energy production and currently stand at 33% of total production.

This is a common mistake in confusing the words "energy" and "power" when we mean to say electricity. Most people are doing this. Most written articles are doing this. Which for Germany, electricity is only 21% of primary energy consumption.
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33% of ELECTRICITY is from renewables. Which includes biomass. 22.4% of ELECTRICITY in germany is from solar and wind.
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But solar and wind is only 4.1% of the total primary "ENERGY" comsumption in Germany. Biomass makes 7.1% of the "ENERGY" in Germany. This is obviously much different than the common misrepresentation that we keep seeing. More energy comes from burning wood for heating than from wind and solar put together after their decades long best effort to replace all energy with with rebuildables.
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https://www.cleanenergywire.org/fact...wer-mix-charts
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[ThermionicScott]

Peat is really best saved for making Scotch.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by sendler

This is a common mistake in confusing the words "energy" and "power" when we mean to say electricity. Most people are doing this. Most written articles are doing this. Which for Germany, electricity is only 21% of primary energy consumption.

True, I was talking about electricity not total energy consumed within the country. The topic is electricity. The fact that roughly 1/3 of the energy used in Germany is oil used for transportation is interesting but not on topic.

Also primary energy consumption = energy produced + energy imported - energy exported. Germany is a net exporter of electricity so that skews their primary energy consumption toward fossil fuels.

Also where are you getting that only 21% of their primary energy consumption is electricity?

[oil pan 4]

If solar and wind power are really cheaper than coal then why did Germany waste all this money on coal power plants?

[me and my metro]

Until battery storage is a reality for the solor and wind you still need the steamers for steady power production.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

If solar and wind power are really cheaper than coal then why did Germany waste all this money on coal power plants?

I can't specifically answer as I can't read the article in the original post (it is behind a paywall). However, the likely answer is that Germany is replacing base load nuclear plants and coal plants are a good fit for base loads. Wind and solar work better for peak loads.

It is likely more about the type of loads then the cost of generation.

However, the increases in installed capacity for wind and solar FAR exceed the increased capacity for coal plants since 2011.

Since 2011 Germany has added:
Coal: 0.68
Wind: 30.47
Solar: 19.52

https://www.energy-charts.de/power_inst.htm

[sendler]

Originally Posted by JSH

True, I was talking about electricity not total energy consumed within the country. The topic is electricity. The fact that roughly 1/3 of the energy used in Germany is oil used for transportation is interesting but not on topic.

Also primary energy consumption = energy produced + energy imported - energy exported. Germany is a net exporter of electricity so that skews their primary energy consumption toward fossil fuels.

Also where are you getting that only 21% of their primary energy consumption is electricity?

The topic is coal POWER. Not coal electricity. Any of these topics needs to be primary energy. There are way too many feel good articles written about how we are replacing xx percentage of ELECTRICITY (and calling it POWER or ENERGY) with rebuildables, but on the world average, and in Germany, electricity is only is only about 20% of primary energy. The other figures I quoted are right from the charts. only 22.4% of Germany's electricity is solar and wind. And only 4.1% of primary energy is solar and wind.