I’m in the middle of selling my house and buying a new one so it’s been a little while since I wrote one of these.
Let’s check in first on the hard numbers:
Today’s Coal trading price: 61.50 per Short Ton, which is actually a bit of a recovery from its $52 low point earlier this year, but still well off its former days of $80+ back in 2011, much less its $140 high-point back in 2008.
The FERC released its Infrastructure Report for May and it’s heartening to see that there has still not been a single new coal powered energy source brought online in 2014. And coal continues to only provide 28.45% of the US Energy off its former bragging point of 41%. (Note: this is Utility scale energy only and specifically excludes all the gains in rooftop solar)
Jump the fold for specific updates from around the world
The War on Coal is fought on many fronts, so we’ll check in on each of them for updates here in the US, and then for things happening in China the rest of the world.
COAL PLANT CLOSURES - Stop the Burning
The pace of these announcements has actually slowed a bit, which is unfortunate.
We do have GDF Suez Energy North America’s report that it is closing its Mt. Tom Plant in Holyoke, MA. In 2007, a report showed Mt. Tom to be the second largest single source of pollution (of any kind) in the state of Massachusetts. Mt. Tom will be officially closed by October. This is one of the few remaining operating coal plants in the Bay State.
Omaha Public Power District is also ending its use of coal at its North Omaha Station. Due to its proximity to downtown residents, the NAACP listed the plant as No. 17 of 378 on its Environmental Justice Offenders report. In 2006, this plant put over 4 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Though not specific to a single plant, El Paso Electric has been showcasing a number of its impressive solar investments and announced its plans to be 100% Coal Free by 2016. EPE currently serves over 400,000 customers.
With facts and pricing points like this, its easy to understand this as a business decision:
The utility signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with the massive Macho Springs solar plant in New Mexico, a 50 megawatt (MW) facility with the capacity to power more than 18,000 homes. According to the agreement, signed last year, EPE would buy solar power from Macho Springs for 5.79 cents a kilowatt-hour — less than half the 12.8 cents per kilowatt-hour average price for electricity from new coal plants, according to Bloomberg.
DTE Electric, Michigan’s largest utility with 2.1 million customers announces plans to
retire one-third of its entire coal fleet by 2025 This will be off-set by over 1,000 MW of renewables (almost entirely from Wind)
COAL MINE CLOSURES - Leave it in the Ground
Alpha Natural Resources closed its metallurgical coal mine in Southwest Virginia. Production had already declined to 300,000 tons last year. Mining has already stopped and the next 60 days will be spent removing all equipment and materials since this closure is expected to be PERMANENT. So it’s safe to bet that next year’s production will be ZERO tons.
Cliffs Natural Resources announced plans to close the last mine in its Pinnacle Complex in Pineville, WV. This mine produced 2.8 million tons of met coal last year. This was part of a three-mine complex. The Green Ridge 1 mine closed permanently back in 2010 and the Green ridge 2 mine has been idle since 2012.
COAL INDUSTRY FINANCIALS - Cleaner Earth versus the Bottom Line
The University of Dayton, following Stanford’s move, became the first Catholic school to divest from all fossil fuel investments.
Speaking with Vatican Radio, Dr Curran said, “When we looked at this… we were asking the question, ‘What should we be doing as a Catholic institution to support the social teachings of the Church?’”
Hopefully other schools of faith start asking themselves the same questions.
Sandy Creek Energy built a brand new $1.2 billion coal plant in Waco, TX back in 2008 and brought it on-line just last year. State of the Art! Technology at work! Powering America’s Future! …except now, due to deteriorating market conditions, they would like to formally lower the asset value to $253 million. The county, which got suckered into backing this pollution-spewer with promises of tax revenue, rejected the request and validated its tax appraisal at $885.5 million. That article provides an interesting insight into how many hands are in the local “But we were promised MONEY!” pie.
COAL LAWSUITS - Earth Justice
There are several suits that are all progressing, not to mention the legal/legislative/political/corporate battle royale going on down in North Carolina regarding Coal Ash ponds. I’m not going to cover that in this diary and give it a few more weeks or so to sort itself out.
One new suit is the Sierra Club’s legal challenge to Kansas’ attempt to build a new coal plant.
The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit Friday challenging Kansas' latest move to allow construction of a $2.8 billion coal-fired power plant, partly because the state wouldn't regulate the plant's greenhouse gas emissions.
The environmental group also said in its filing with the state Court of Appeals that the Kansas Department of Health and Environment isn't imposing adequate limits on other pollutants, including mercury, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide.
And in a bit of a surprise victory, a federal judge in Colorado
ruled against Arch Coal in their bid to expand an existing mine citing that the land managers failed to include climate change considerations in their approval process. Arch is planning to appeal.
The court ruling Friday adds to the body of law requiring public land managers to factor in climate change before approving projects.
Coal mining can release methane — a potent heat-trapping gas — from mine shafts through vents. And coal produced from expanded mining would, once burned, contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions linked by scientists to climate change.
This could open a whole front in the War on Coal. This is definitely something worth watching as it proceeds through the courts.
INTERNATIONAL ROUNDUP
Canada’s Ridley Coal Terminal in British Columbia is down 40% from its 2013 volume and 2013 wasn’t exactly a banner year to start with.
China’s coal industry profits from Jan-May are also down 44% from 2013
The Wall Street Journal is also forecasting warnings that China’s coal deman may soon be falling. The economic ripple effects of this would be massive and global. It is also considered the final nail in the US coal industry’s coffin as Natural Gas has cratered the domestic market, exporting to China is widely seen as its only long-term hope.
Already another multi-billion dollar wealth management fund in China is threatening to default and the slumping coal industry is one of the major contributors.
Australia planned two massive investment projects to build up its coal export infrastructure. However, the $10bn Dudgeon Point Terminal Project has been been completely cancelled since there is no longer enough of a demand market to justify it.
Likewise, India’s Adani Group has threatened to cancel its $12bn Abbot Point Terminal project if the sea dredging delays continue. The delays persist due to environmental concerns over the damage this will do to the Great Barrier Reef.
The Australia market is in the same downward spiral as the US, with the Aussie government agency already putting out dire forecasts about the future financial viability of coal amid confirmed reports of nationwide job losses
In Indonesia, the coal industry is described as “in a panic” with closures and bankruptcies expected
The UN is formally asking Norway to shut down its Arctic Coal mines on the basis that it conflicts with the climate research going on nearby.
And even in Germany, where the use of brown lignite coal continues to grow, the way their grid regulation is structured, their overall energy generation surplus is “leaving a trail of blood” on the balance sheet of coal companies