South Africa grid struggling with national rolling blackouts: Strikes, corruption and no respect for coal power

This is Fall of Rome type stuff — everything is coming undone

National rolling blackouts have been occurring for days in South Africa and are forecast to continue for another week at least. One engineer warns they are just a step away from a total blackout and says it will be very difficult to reawaken the entire system. Traffic lights are failing, trains are stopping, and mobiles phones, ATMs and fuel pumps may not work. With unemployment at a shocking 35% already, the million dollar losses from blackouts make for a dark feedback loop.

The immediate cause is strikes for wage claims and terrible maintenance leading to major power outages lasting as long as nine hours. But Green targets and activism only makes it worse because there’s no interest in maintaining plants properly which are planned for closure. South Africa runs mostly on old coal plants, and one of the largest plants is closing (supposedly) as soon as September. And the wind and solar power they have often isn’t helping with the peak loads either.

There is vandalism from every direction. At the bottom end, apparently up to half the people in Soweto are not even paying for electricity […]

Europe wants coal: Austria, Netherlands, switch on old coal plants, Poland pays for coal to homes

In an emergency everyone wants coal

Just like that — Europe is hitting the panic button. Thank the Russians for demanding rubles for their gas and threatening supply. Not only has Germany decided to rescue old coal plants, but so has Austria, which had gone blissfully “coal free” two years ago. How long did that fairytale last? In the Netherlands coal power plants were forced for years to run at only 35% capacity by government ruling, but now, suddenly, full tilt is fine. Sweden and Denmark have both issued an “early warning” to flag potential energy shortages.

In Poland, energy prices are so expensive that three weeks ago the government told people to go and collect wood from forests to keep their homes warm. Last week they the government said it would pay a large part of the cost of buying three tons of coal for each household. It’s that bad.

Much of the EU rely on Russian gas for about 40% of their supplies. The Austrians have storage sites for gas so large they can hold an entire years worth, but they are only 39% full and they want to double that before November.

Germany is now calling this […]

It’s that desperate: Even bitter German Greens say we must “burn more coal”

Amazing how fast the Sacred Cows get pushed aside. Until a few months ago, Germany had been planning to close its last nuclear plants and gas production had been falling for 20 years. But the Russians are cutting back the gas feed and even the German Greens understand what will happen by winter if they don’t have enough energy. Though on twitter, a lot of commentators are wondering why they don’t reopen the nuclear plants they just closed first and why they still plan to shut the last three later this year?

It was never about CO2 was it?

Germany to fire up coal plants as Russia turns down the gas

DW

As Russia reduces its supply of natural gas, Economy Minister Robert Habeck has said Germany must curb its usage. Otherwise, things “could get tight in winter,” he said. Germany must limit its use of gas for electricity production and prioritize the filling of storage facilities to compensate for a drop in supply from Russia, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Sunday.

In a move that goes against the principles of his environmentally-friendly Green Party, the country will also have to increase the […]

In an emergency, we need coal

So it’s a new record. In the 20 years since the National Energy Market formed it has never operated on such a vapor thin margin. Only a few days ago Paul McArdle at WattClarity thought a mere 15% instantaneous reserve plant margin was a headline event, but tonight the grid survived (so far) on a tiny 3% Instantaneous Reserve Plant Margin NEM-wide. Things were so tight the NSW Minister for Energy sought emergency powers to force coal companies to provide fuel to coal generators for the next 30 days on his say so. Presumably next on his list would be emergency powers from God to make the wind blow.

Two years ago Australian taxpayers spend $13 billion a year in climate action (Moran). As researchers at ANU noted, Australia was leading the way — installing more megawatts per person than any other nation on Earth. (Blakers) Despite being the fastest growing and sparsest population, on the most remote nation which was practically a quarry and farm built on coal and uranium deposits, Australian political leaders rushed to compete for green booby prizes in Beautiful Weather Contests.

And the toll from the bonfire in prices is just starting with Iron […]

EnergyAustralia (a Chinese company) tells Government we need a plan to end Australian coal

EnergyAustralia is 100% owned by China Light and Power (CLP Group) and owns a suite of generators that include coal, gas, wind farms and battery storage in Australia. It was sold by the NSW government for $1.4 billion in 2011. According to Wikipedia, the mothership company, CLP, owns “a number of power stations in Asia” and most are either coal-fired or fossil fuel power stations. It also owns Hong Kong Nuclear Investment Company.

Yallourn Power Plant, | Malcolm Paterson, CSIRO

 

A year ago the same company that announced it was speeding up the closure of Yallourn coal power plant to 2028 instead of 2032, now warns the transition “may not be smooth” and the governments plan to pay incentives to keep them open “may not be enough”. But back in March last year, when EnergyAustralia said it wanted to close Yallorn, it also said that it wanted to show that the transition is possible “without disruption”. In fact the Managing Director raved at the time “”We are determined to show Australia, that it is possible to move from the old to the new in a way that does not leave people behind.”. Blah Blah Blah, eh?

The […]

While Australia is rushing to close coal plants, the UK is thinking of keeping them running

In Australia a Woke tech-billionaire has decided to “keep” the coal assets in AGL in order to destroy them (like that’s the “free market” at work) . But in the rest of the world, coal is $400 a ton and everybody wants it.

Maybe Australians will get so rich selling coal they can afford to use electricity from unreliable generators instead?

Not behaving like a stranded asset. Trading Economics

Britain could keep coal-fired power plants open this winter

LONDON (Reuters) -Some of the British coal-fired power plants slated for closure this year might need to stay open to ensure electricity supply this winter, the government said on Monday.

Countries across Europe are drawing up contingency plans against potential disruption to flows of Russian gas because of the war in Ukraine. Russia typically supplies about 40% of Europe’s gas.

Britain can generate about 50% of its electricity from gas. Although Russia only meets about 4% of Britain’s gas needs, a significant disruption in supply would affect prices in Europe and make it harder for Britain to secure gas from others.

How screwed is that market when they have to “devise” a framework to […]

India going gangbusters on coal — tosses green rules, and wants to reopen 100 old mines

China has already announced it will dig up another 300m tons of coal next year, and now India is planning to boost its own production by 500m extra tons in the next two years.

Coal mine in Dhanbad, India. | Flikr

Amazing what a strong market signal can do

TradingEconomics

India increasing domestic coal production, cuts environmental green tape

India needs a billion tons of coal a year, and digs up about 770 million tons. Suddenly the plan is to increase that to 1.2 billion tons “in the next two years” and if that means opening 100 old mines and throwing away the green tape, so be it.

Phys-Org

Soaring temperatures have prompted higher energy demand in recent weeks and left India facing a 25-million-tonne shortfall…

The government hopes to woo private mining giants—like Vedanta and Adani—to revive more than 100 dormant coal mines previously deemed too expensive to operate, using new technology and fresh capital. …the Environment Ministry said it has allowed a “special dispensation” to the Ministry of Coal to relax certain requirements—like public consultations—so mines could operate at increased capacities. Coal mining projects previously cleared to […]

Australian wholesale electricity prices have doubled in the last year (and it’s because we don’t have enough coal power)

Luckily for Energy Oligarchs, Australian electricity prices have bounced right back to pre-pandemic insanity. Wholesale rates are romping around $170 dollars a megawatt hour in April across the whole national grid…

The media mouthpieces are blaming it on outages of coal turbines — even though wind power fails every week, and solar fails every day. If unreliable generators cause high prices, then Wind is King Fickle. They’re also blaming high coal prices, but coal itself, is a small part of the cost of a two billion dollar plant. Naturally, neither political team has a clue how to fix this. But it’s all so banal — the prices are set at auction, and some fuels are cheap. Add more of the cheap type, and we’d get cheaper electricity.

Right now, if there were more black coal plants setting the price more of the time, electricity would be half the cost. If enough brown coal plants like Hazelwood were still running, the prices would be a fifth. It’s all there in the data that ABC journalists never find. Consider the winning bids by fuel type in Australia for the last quarter of 2021. For Brown Coal, the average winning bid was $11 […]

China boosts coal again: set for record in 2022: Official says energy security trumps carbon neutrality

A week ago our newspapers were full of dire warnings that the Australian coal mining industry was going to be left in the lurch by declining orders from China. “The End of Australia’s coal export boom is Imminent” said the AFR — parroting a report by a group that includes Alex Turnbull, someone known to profit from renewables.

What none of the headlines mentioned was that China is set to hit a new all time record of coal use this year.

China now wants to boost coal production by 300m tons —six times* as much coal as Australia uses each year

China already burns 32 82 times as much coal each year as Australia does. Soon that will be 34 88 times as much. But who’s counting?

China promotes coal in setback for efforts to cut emissions

By Joe McMoncald, AP Business Writer, 25th April 2022

Official plans call for boosting coal production capacity by 300 million tons this year, according to news reports. That is equal to 7% of last year’s output of 4.1 billion tons, which was an increase of 5.7% over 2020.

Chinese officials are blunt about why they need more coal:

Australian electricity price doubles: CEO explains prices up due to lack of coal power

LaTrobe Valley Coal Plant

There’s been mayhem quietly running on the Australian electricity market this month. Shh. April used to be an easy month on electricity markets — it’s not summer and not winter, and nothing is stretched. At least not in theory. But this month prices have been running at $150 – $250 per megawatt hour. This is a big rise, even from last month when prices were often $70 – $120 in the big three states. To put that in perspective, six years ago in March, wholesale electricity prices were a tiny $30 – $60.

Last month a couple of units in a Victorian plant suffered a fire. Then on April 1, a single coal turbine at Liddell was retired, and then there was a wind drought, and now, lo, behold “we have lift-off”! Prices are now consistently running at $200-$300 per MWh, and often spend most of the day above $100. Hey, but it’s only been a few weeks.

Ouch, Ouch, Ouch

Prices are cooking …. AEMO (Click to Enlarge)

Don’t blame Russia: Less coal, means more expensive electricity.

The headline makes it sound like coal outages are to blame, when really the […]

A Kalibr Missile just hit Net Zero: Germany wakes old coal plants, UK talks of backflip on gas, oil, fracking too

It’s was the last chance to save The Planet, but nevermind?

Get ready for the Great Reenergize-ment, we’ve reached a tipping point. Even the elite believers know a real threat when they see one. The ruling class, sitting on cushy taxpayer salaries, weren’t threatened by higher fuel prices and carbon taxes, but Russian missiles are another thing. Only a few months ago we had only “ten years til the next mass extinction”. Now, everything coal is good again, and years of pompous energy policies are on fire.

In normal times these would be monster headline backflips with mass protests in the streets from fifteen-year-old school-skippers.

Hat tip to NetZeroWatch

Germany to fire up mothballed coal power stations

By Matt Oliver, The Telegraph

One of Europe’s biggest energy companies is preparing to bring a string of German coal power stations out of retirement as part of efforts to wean the country off Russian gas.

These include plants that have been decommissioned, those that are scheduled to go off-grid this year and others that are currently kept on standby.

Robert Habeck, Scholz’s economy minister, has insisted there will be “no taboos”, throwing into […]

Coal power to hit all time high in 2022 says IEA weeping

h.t Andy May

So much for the End of Coal

It’s a bumper year in 2021, a bigger year in 2022, and possibly more glorious records for coal in 2023 and 2024. Humans burnt more coal last year than at any other time in history.

Coal-fired power generation is set to reach an all-time high in 2021

The declines in global coal-fired power generation in 2019 and 2020 led to expectations that it might have peaked in 2018. But 2021 dashed those hopes. With electricity demand outpacing low-carbon supply, and with steeply rising natural gas prices, global coal power generation is on course to increase by 9% in 2021 to 10 350 terawatt-hours (TWh) – a new all-time high.

As the IEA concludes through gritted teeth: Global coal consumption is not on the Net Zero trajectory and is unlikely to be before 2024. Perhaps someone should tell all the Glasgow Minions?

Other editors might have labelled this, “Coal Still Vital” or “Coal’s Day is Here”! Instead the IEA saw a sedate plateauing that kept plateuing in the headlines:

Fully two-thirds of global coal is used by just two countries. The other 193 nations split […]

Coal power will exit early say experts as two largest countries on Earth battle over coal supplies

On the one hand, our bureaucrats are telling us coal power in Australia might be finished by 2035.

..

On the other hand, in the rest of the world, coal prices are hitting records, China and India are suffering rolling power cuts. In China, floods have shut about 10% of the 682 coal mines in the Shanxi Province. China is so desperate for coal that a few days ago, it finally unloaded the Australian coal it held hostage in the 80 bulk carrier ships that have languished offshore for months in a petty trade war. Pune, in India is in a coal shortage crisis, forced to shut down 13 power plants because they’ve run out of coal. They’re asking people to be “sparing” between 6 and 10 both morning and night. India has 135 coal fired plants in total, and fully 70 of them are currently working with less than four days coal supply.

China coal futures hit record as flood swamps mine hub

Even with the efforts, China could face a coal supply gap of 30-million to 40-million tonnes in the fourth quarter, Citic Securities analysts said in an October 8 report. A shortage of […]

Gore Effect goes global: Gas, electricity price shocks mean industry threatened, and may switch to coal in time for COP 26

The COP 26 organizers must be quaking in their chardonnay. Just when they need all the usual hyped up wind powered record headlines, they’re getting headlines of record gas prices, rocketing inflation, and industries thinking about shutting down.

Welcome to the Green Revolution:

UK industry could face shutdowns as wholesale gas price hits record high

Rob Davies and Joanna Partridge, The Guardian

Wholesale gas prices hit new all-time highs on Wednesday, prompting warnings that factories could be forced to shut down over winter or switch to more polluting fuels just as the UK hosts the Cop26 climate conference next month.

Trade body UK Steel said it was now “uneconomic” to make steel at certain times in the UK, with British firms facing double the electricity prices paid by rivals in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

Don’t say “oil” say “polluting fuels that had been abandoned”:

Paul Pearcy, the federation coordinator at the trade body British Glass, said companies that make windows could be forced to revert to powering their furnaces with polluting fuels that had been abandoned.

British Glass makers are thinking of using fuel oil again because gas […]

Now India has a Coal Crisis too: half the plants only have three days supply left

Spare a thought for the people of India having to bid against a desperate China to get enough coal.

India’s coal crisis brews as power demand surges, record global prices bite: Times of India

CHENNAI: Indian utilities are scrambling to secure coal supplies as inventories hit critical lows after a surge in power demand from industries and sluggish imports due to record global prices…

Over half of India’s 135 coal-fired plants have fuel stocks of less than three days, government data shows, far short of federal guidelines recommending supplies of at least two weeks.

That is a lot of coal burning:

India is the world’s second largest importer of coal despite having the fourth largest reserves.

“Domestic consumption increased by about 10% in the last two years because of work from home and air conditioning,” a senior Tamil Nadu government official told Reuters.

Remember when coal was a stranded asset?

Australian coal prices

9.9 out of 10 based on 83 ratings

This month China has spray painted on its green tan, just in time for the Glasgow Climate Beauty Contest.

China doesn’t want to win the Glascow Climate Beauty Contest. It just wants the other contestants to keep fighting for the booby prize. They win the trophy and lose the trade war.

It’s Green paint for President Xi

China’s great green theatrical ploy fools the gullible Western leaders

Coal power is the cheapest source of electricity in the world and China controls most of it. Meanwhile it’s doing a smashing job of cheering on the other competitors as they take Coal Chastity Vows and run barefoot, naked and green into the quicksand pit of Energy Doom.

The UK and Europe are already thigh-deep, struggling with an energy shakedown of their own making. Yet China, with more coal power than the entire rest of the world combined, puts on the Green-cloak, beaming from Coal Mountain to tell us what sacrifices it will make.

This is the same China that built three times more coal power than the rest of the world did last year. The nation in 2020 that opened more new coal power than the rest of the world shut down.

China’s net construction of coal power capacity within the country grew by 29.8 gigawatts, essentially […]

Renewable bandaid burns money: New transmission line alone costs as much as new advanced Coal Plant

The Humelink transmission line does not connect a single large city.

Just another hidden renewable subsidy.

Boy O boy, that bill blew out fast:

Households could be up for $2b electricity transmission cost blowout

Peter Hannan, Sydney Morning Herald

Transgrid now expects its proposed HumeLink – a 500-kilovolt line connecting Wagga Wagga, Bannaby and Maragle – to cost $3.317 billion, up from $1.35 billion estimated in January 2020. That would make it “by far the most expensive transmission project” in Australia, said Bruce Mountain, director of the Victoria Energy Policy Centre…

NSW Households will be forced to pay $60 per year above their already-inflated-costs whether they want renewable energy or think windmills are a bird-killing, shamanistic health-hazard that won’t stop storms, floods or droughts any better than crystal shields do.

We can see why the government won’t let people choose to buy green power voluntarily.

Transgrid said the steel and materials costs more, but wow, golly, there was also a bill for “environmental offsets” through the Kosciuszko national park of an eye-watering, wait for it, $935 million. Perhaps they are transplanting the trees they cut […]

If CO2 mattered, the UN would prefer Australian coal

What will it solve if Australian coal stays underground? | Graph IEA

If Australia stops digging up clean high energy coal, hands up who thinks Indonesia, Russia, India or China will cut back too? Anyone?

Australia is stopping the world from digging up more dirty coal.

To lower greenhouse gas emissions — burn more Australian coal

But it’s never been about carbon dioxide…

Abolish our coal industry? Tell ’em they’re dreaming

Greg Sheridan, The Australian

Australia is typically the second biggest exporter of coal. But we are not the dominant producer of coal. Australia produces only about 6 per cent of the world’s coal. China produces about 50 per cent of coal globally.

Most nations that use coal have some coal of their own. Australia, with such a small population of 26 million, exports most of its coal. Our biggest coal export competitors are Indonesia, Russia, Colombia and South Africa.

In the event that we were self-destructive enough to abolish our coal industry, global coal use would not decline. Our export markets would be taken by Indonesia, Russia and so on. Countries such as China and India would be forced […]

Australian government needs coal subsidies to save grid from renewables subsidies

In Australia, the subsidy bandaids are piling up.

We subsidized weather-controlling generators in the hope that our electrical infrastructure could not only provide electricity but would also stop storms, floods and The Taliban. However the weather-controlling-generators were also weather-dependent, and it was costing quite a lot to add storage, stability, transmission lines and synchronous condensors. Who knew changing global weather would cost so much?

Once upon a time Australia had a full complete electricity grid that was cheap and efficient. Then we added inefficient things to it until we had two whole grids, one that changed the weather (in theory) and a spare one that filled in for all the other grids failures. For some reason it was not cheaper to run two whole grids rather than just one.

The subsidies were needed to drive out the cheapest player (coal power), but having succeeded, we then needed different subsidies to keep the coal power in.

What a tangled web we weave when first we lie to ourselves.

Grid and bear it: subsidised coal part of energy overhaul

Geoff Chambers, The Australian

Special payments will be needed to keep ageing coal-fired and gas […]

The Not so Clean Green Future: Germany uses 20% less wind, and (wow) 38% more coal

Coal is dead, an old relic, but Germany is burning a lot more coal

If the world cools and gets cloudier will renewables stall as margins become even less appealing? Will wandering jet streams interrupt reliable trade winds as the intersection of hot and cold air generates more clouds over solar panels?

German Wind Power Consumption Plummets 20% In First Half 2021… Coal Power Consumption Jumps 38%!

Pierre Gosselin

What would we do without coal?

The first half of 2021 saw a massive 20% drop in wind power consumption in Germany…while “coal power saw a renaissance.”

The reason for the steep drop, according to the findings, was due to unfavorable weather conditions.

The Germans ran out of wind both on and off shore. People stopped investing because the subsidies ran out and the populace insisted on not having the giant industrial plants in their backyard. Then the winds slowed (why didn’t their climate models see that coming?) Europe talked itself out of building gas plants in order to stop global warming, then got an extra cold winter, and they also run out of gas. So what was left was good old reliable […]