You're using a black swan event (russian invasion of ukraine) like it's a baseline of what to expect in the future, ignoring that the world has never invested more money into renewables than ever before
The world is definitely moving on from coal and gas and I reckon this coal crisis will be the last, I expect to see a lot more articles like this coming up around the world:
South Australia’s remarkable 100 per cent renewables run extends to over 10 days
https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australias-remarkable-100-...
No I'm not. Coal went to record highs almost a year before Ukraine was invaded and before any disruption to fossil fuel exports from the region, and many many years after renewables were said to have killed it. Do you really not remember? Stranded assets? Coal is not price competitive at $50/tonne?
> The world is definitely moving on from coal and gas and I reckon this coal crisis will be the last, I expect to see a lot more articles like this coming up around the world:
Not moving on, as record production and demand shows. Will one day in the future move on and won't move back, hopefully according to experts and random internet commentators who said it was definitely dead 10 years ago -- is not going to cut it for climate change though. We obviously need more baskets to put the eggs into.
> South Australia’s remarkable 100 per cent renewables run extends to over 10 days
One tiny state with almost unlimited solar and wind resources in one small country? That's great. Doesn't change the fact that we've run out of time waiting for wind and solar and they've still barely cracked 10% globally yet.
That's it's also hilariously weasel worded -- obviously that state is still burning a lot of gas to generate electricity. Strange why they don't feel they can be honest and up front with the public, why are they still trying to fool people about those things? Doesn't really lend a lot of credibility or confidence to what they're selling.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coal
Looks like a black swan to me, prices steady and trending downwards over the previous 20 years until Covid/Russian invasion which resulted in insane Euro demand
> Not moving on, as record production and demand shows.
https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=all&interval=1M
We can see that renewables are soaking up a lot of the increase in demand, for example you can see South Australia go from coal and gas making up 100% of supply 10 years ago to just gas making up 16% and with the installation of new batteries and hydrolisers in the next few years to drop even further.
It just so happens that SA went hard on renewables because they had some of the most expensive power in the world. I'm sorry that it's not impressive to you. :(
You can also see my home state of Queensland: https://opennem.org.au/energy/qld1/?range=all&interval=1M
Increases in power demand are being met by renewables and it's now taking a bite out of fossil fuels with the largest ever investments by a long shot this year. I've never seen so much money thrown at an issue.
They are also all connected to an Australian grid which connects SA, VIC, NSW, QLD and TAS together, so when for example SA has excess cheap renewable power it can export it to another state reducing their power costs and thus their fossil fuel usage.
> obviously that state is still burning a lot of gas to generate electricity.
Yes but the point is that it has gone down significantly over the last 10 years and this is happening all over the world.
We'll also soon be helping power Singapore:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-30/nt-sun-cables-austral...
> is not going to cut it for climate change though.
At the end of the day if China/India/Vietnam and Indonesia seek to continue to build coal power plants then that's on them and I will continue to push against buying things made in those countries.
Is coal dead? no definitely not, will renewables have replaced significant amounts of coal in the next 20 years, I'd bet the house.
Betting on renewables + batteries in 2022 is like betting on the fast breeder reactor in 1955. There certainly is going to be development in batteries and other forms of storage in the next decade but we don't know where the minerals will come from, we'll have more grid scale batteries catch on fire, face more challenges siting solar farms because, as a major land use, they could affect endangered species, etc.
There will be progress there but remember that decarbonization is not just replacing the current electricity grid but it also involves replacing gas appliances with electric appliances, using electricity for heat in buildings (probably with heat pumps), electric cars (that people will want to charge at night and thus require more grid storage as well as competing for battery materials), replacing industrial uses of energy, synthesizing e-fuels for aviation and other special applications, etc.
Nuclear as we know it faces two problems: (1) the steam turbine and heat exchangers of the LWR are enormous such that an LWR would have a hard time competing even if the heat was free, (2) every country other than Russia has built LWRs sporadically and faced terrible project management problems; China is catching up with Russia with their Hualong One (4 completed in the past 2 years, 12 under construction now.) Long term the industry has to get rid of the water to get the temperature up so the powerset can be made more economical and you can use the heat for industrial applications such as thermochemical hydrogen, with the big plus that a reactor without a moderator can get roughly 50x the energy out of a pound of natural uranium than LWR.
Grid stability cost money and power companies do not want to carry that cost. It is a much better investment for them to let society carry those costs and simply produce as much energy when its most cost effective to do so.
There's also a related problem: once everyone is already paying the cost to purchase and operate backup power on a regular basis, they're not going to bother paying their power bills. They're just going to disconnect from the grid, because people aren't paying them for "power when its most profitable". They're paying for "power when they need it". Grid stability is the literal job of your power company, arguably moreso than power generation.
Which returns back to investments. If consumers will reward companies based on the cost of kw/h, and they will assume that governments take care of balancing the grid, then companies that invest in technology that produce the cheapest kw/h and ignore grid stability. The only way out would be for governments to subsidize less economical ventures but which consider grid stability.
Yet somehow in 2022, peak coal is now in front of us again, and even at these unprecedented production levels, people are buying it for over $400 per tonne. Despite the fact that solar and wind were alleged to have killed coal 10 years ago when it cost $50/tonne. Coal was completely uneconomical, they said. Coal is a stranded asset, they said. How did so many of the "experts" get it so wrong?
At this point it's clear that we can't keep waiting for renewables. You think nuclear takes way longer to get online, non-hydro renewables haven't even matched existing nuclear electricity production yet. They haven't even been able to halt the rise in demand for coal, let alone kill it, 10 years after it was supposed to be dead.
The best time to stop listening to anti nuclear / pro fossil fuel propaganda and save the climate was in the 70s. The second best time is now.