WORLD COAL CONSUMPTION AND PARTICULATE AIR POLLUTION

The world’s fossil fuel consumption has been about 78% of all primary energy* for the past 10 years, despite several trillion dollars of investments in RE systems. Current coal consumption is about 8000 million metric ton/y. China and India use about 60%.

* The energy from wells, mines, forests, etc., is called source energy, less exploration, extraction, processing and transport energy = primary energy to power plants, buildings, vehicles, industry, commerce, and transportation, etc.

NOTE: IPCC/UNEP estimates reducing world CO2eq from the “business as usual” projection of 64.7 billion Mt in 2030 by 30 to 40 billion Mt during 16 years (2017 - 2030), would require $30 to $40 trillion, about $1.9 to $2.5 trillion/y, starting immediately. The world’s current level of investment in CO2 reduction is about $280 billion/y, the average of the past 6 years.

http://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-world-way-off-track-on-paris-ac...

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-world-making-almost...

Replacing Old Coal Plants With New Coal Plants

China and India have hundreds of older, low efficiency (0.30 or less), sub-critical, coal plants with low-efficiency (0.95 or less) air pollution control systems. Such plants have high Btu/kWh, high CO2/kWh and high particulates/kWh. As a result, China and India have severe air pollution problems. The prevailing winds transport that pollution in an eastern direction around the world.

China and India should be closing these plants and replacing them with hundreds of high efficiency (0.44), ultra-super-critical coal plants with high-efficiency (0.995) air pollution control systems, such as fabric filter systems. Such plants have low Btu/kWh, low CO2/kWh and very low particulates/kWh. China and India would significantly reduce their coal consumption, CO2 emissions and pollution. See URLs.

China Electricity Generation in 2016, TWh

Go to URL, click on China Energy Portal to get latest data for 2016. China consumed about 3.9 billion Mt of coal. China produced 50% more electricity than the US.

https://blog.energybrainpool.com/en/power-statistics-china-2016-hug...

Future New Coal Plants

Worldwide, about 1600 new coal plants are under construction and in planning stages in 62 countries, according to Urgewald’s tally, which uses data from the Global Coal Plant Tracker portal. The new plants, minus retirements, would expand the world’s coal-fired capacity, MW, by 43 percent. Hopefully that additional capacity would be much more efficient and have high-efficiency air pollution control systems. See table 1.

https://www.equaltimes.org/japan-stubbornly-sticks-to-coal - .WaGFl...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2017/07/07/global-coal-pow...

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/03/forget-paris-1600-new-coal-p...

Coal Plant Pollution Control Systems

Modern coal plants in Europe and the US have pollution control systems with efficiencies of about 0.995 (about 5 lb per 1000 lb of flyash particulates is released to the atmosphere). In China and India, the norm is 0.950 or less (at least 50 lb per 1000 lb is released to the atmosphere).

New Coal Plant in China

During the past few years, China has placed in operation a few high-efficiency coal plants. The new plants have efficiencies of 0.38 (sub-critical), 0.42 (super-critical) and 0.44 (ultra-super-critical), and have high-efficiency pollution control systems.

Table 2 shows a comparison of the performance of plants with various efficiencies. Especially note the very high particulates/kWh for low-efficiency plants with low-efficiency air pollution controls systems.

- Older plants, with low combustion efficiencies, and with low-efficiency air pollution control systems, emit at least 11 times more particulate/kWh than newer plants.

- China and India have numerous plants with combustion efficiencies of 25 to 30%, and with very poor air pollution control systems.

- The IPCC has agreed China and India are allowed to have such dirty plants, and build hundreds more coal plants, because “they are so poor”.

- The IPCC shaming/forcing developed countries to have only very high efficiency coal plants, and make other RE investments, because "they are so rich", renders these countries less competitive with India and China.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/classification-coal-d_164.html

NOTE:

- Coal heat content (HHV) is about 19.5 million Btu/US ton, or 21.50 million Btu/Mt.

- Combustion CO2 is about 210 lb/million Btu.

https://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/co2_article/co2.html

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=73&t=11

- Emission is 210 lb/million Btu x 21.5 million Btu/Mt of coal/2204.62 = 2.048 Mt of CO2/Mt of coal

- Heat rate = 3412/combustion efficiency.

- Total ash is assumed at 8% of coal input; flyash at 50% of total, or 4%