The American Electricity Crisis Is A Self-Inflicted Wound and Irrational Antipathy Toward Coal Is A Big Part of It

Guest Post from Dick Storm.

The U.S. needs about 100 Quadrillion BTUs of primary energy each Year. Currently, coal provides about 10% of this primary energy and should continue to do so until a better energy source is commercially available.

Blackouts and Rationing of Electricity

For all of us that understand energy and electric power generation, we know the electricity generation reliability crisis will get worse and there will be rationing and rolling blackouts. We have already arrived at the critical point and over the last three years people have died from blackouts. Even once highly respected utilities such as Duke Energy have imposed rolling blackouts during high load demand conditions. Two news clips follow as reminders from 2021 and 2022.

So, What Are Some of the Causes of Electric Reliability?

The number one cause is the “War on Coal” power plants! This misguided Net-Zero Carbon policy has caused hundreds of dependable, reliable coal power plants to be demolished. The “War on Coal” is referred to by the government as “Climate Policies.”

It is as if shutting down America’s most reliable, affordable and dispatchable source of power generation will change the climate. It is nuts. Professor Vaclav Smil offers some of his views here. My previous blog post discussed “Threats to the Grid,” most of which are due to excessive and unnecessary Federal Government Regulations.

Who or What Respected Organizations Confirm the Crisis?

According to NERC (North American Electricity Reliability Council) over 122,000 MW of coal plants have been shut down and most, demolished since 2010. Most of this lost generation capacity has not been replaced with electricity generation capacity of like reliability, affordability and Dispatchability.

Thus, our electric system has become stressed with increasing demand but fewer dispatchable power generation facilities. The chart below is from the NERC Summer Reliability Report, 2024. As can be seen on the chart, in 2013 dependable coal plants represented about 30% of total installed generation capacity. By 2023 the dispatchable coal plants had declined to 18%. The non-dispatchable solar and wind in 2023 represent over 8% of total generation capacity.

However, non-dispatch able means, the solar and wind provide power when nature provides proper sunlight and wind, not when a customer (you) turns on a power consuming device. Such as an electric stove or EV charger. Michelle Bloodworth discussed the role of the out of control EPA Rules on the coming electricity crisis in a POWER Magazine commentary.

America Had Over 100 Years of Affordable, Reliable, Abundant and Dispatchable Electricity Until The War On Coal Began in the 1990’s

Here is an example of a typical large utility coal power plant. This one is special to me, because I was the startup engineer for Unit #3 in 1973 and I worked at the plant for several different companies over the next 40 years. So, I am very familiar with all of the plant equipment.  This plant when operating at an 80% load factor will consume about 700 tons of coal per hour. This is seven full railroad coal cars each hour. It is about six million tons per year of coal. 

How Much Power Generation is 2500 MW?

Did You Ever Visit Niagara Falls? The U.S. Side New York Power Authority Generation Station that uses the American share of the total outflow of the Great Lakes is about the same size as Roxboro Coal Plant in Electricity Generation Capacity.

A typical large coal fueled power plant can produce about the same amount of electricity as the Robert Moses, NYPA Niagara Falls Hydro-Electric Plant.

The Roxboro Coal Generating Plant when operating at 100% load will produce about 2500 MW of electricity.  Let me compare this large Thermal Plant with a large Hydro Plant, say the Robert Moses Hydro-Electric plant at Niagara Falls.

Why? Because when I was employed by then Carolina Power & Light Company, I was part of an ASME Committee. Our ASME group had a technical meeting in Niagara Falls. While there, the organizers provided a private tour of the large hydro-electric plant. (that was in the 1970’s, before 911 security measures).

My first impression was, “Holy cow, our plant in Roxboro produces as much as this huge facility and it fits on a real-estate parcel of a few thousand acres.”

The Robert Moses hydroelectric plant is powered by rainwater runoff from eight U.S. states and one Canadian Province. The outflow of most of the water from the Great Lakes flows to the Niagara River and through the hydroelectric plants installed there. This is an example of the energy density of a coal plant as compared to hydroelectric power generation.

Robert Moses Hydroelectric Plant 4.5 miles downstream of Niagara Falls: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_moses_niagara_power_plant_01.jpg

So, Why is America Facing Electricity Rationing and Blackouts?

The U.S. Grid powered a thriving economy for over 100 years with great reliability, based on reliable, affordable and Dispatchable coal power plants. They were made ever more efficient and cleaner resulting in some of the cleanest air in the U.S. of any industrialized country.

Then, after about 2013 government regulatory policies and popular culture has created a self-sabotaging of electric reliability. Over 122,000 MW of electric power generation capacity has been demolished.

This is the equivalent of 50 power plants the size of Roxboro Generating Station. The war on coal fueled power stations is contributing to the coming electricity reliability crisis. The “War on Coal” is self-Inflicted and anti-American. To my knowledge, there has.in fact, not been a major new coal plant built in the U.S. since 2013. 

122,000 MW of Reliable Coal Power Generation Demolished

The picture below is the implosion of the Sutton Unit #3 at Duke Energy near Wilmington, NC. This one is also personal to me, because I was also the lead Boiler Startup engineer in charge in June 1972 when Sutton #3 went into commercial operation (Then Carolina Power & Light Co.). 

To generate 122,000 MW, it would take 290 plants like this.

In actuality, the Sierra Club website keeps score on the “Beyond Coal Campaign” and they show 385 total coal Units shut down since 2010. According to the Sierra Club, only 145 to go.

Two fair questions can be asked:

1. Who cares?

2. Do we really need these old coal plants? 

I will answer both of the questions with an emphatic Yes, I care and yes we need them!  We do need the remaining 145 coal plants and in addition, more replacements should be being constructed right now. 

Overall, America produces about 16% of our electricity from coal fuel. However, the difference of coal plants compared to solar and wind, is that the coal power is dispatchable. That means that when the need for electricity increases, the coal plants can be ramped up in power output to match the Demand. Wind and solar are intermittent and are therefore, non-dispatchable.

Further, a coal pile on site can store months of primary energy. Pipelines are “just in time” fuel delivery. Do you remember the Colonial Pipeline Hack in 2021? In 2024 it is projected that about 50% of electricity production will be from pipeline supplied natural gas in 2024. Think about that.

Note from the chart below how America’s electricity generation has transitioned from coal as the major (greater than 45%) in 2010 to now, natural gas has taken over the lead as the dominant Primary Energy source for electric power generation.

The greatest need for coal plants come at peak demand hours in the summer and the winter. Especially winter!

The PJM Interconnection Chart of Electric Power Production by fuel is from January 26, 2022. Then, it was 31% coal power generation. Many of the coal plants in service then, have been shut down. More will be lost by January 2025.

The coal plant generation capacity continues to decline as the momentum of the overwhelming assault on coal power continues. This war on carbon based fuels only applies to free, capitalist western countries.

The electricity crisis that we are facing, is self-inflicted by well financed extremist NGO’s, misguided politicians and Deep State (swamp) EPA Bureaucrats. The “War on Coal” is now nearly won by enemies of American prosperity. The “Green New Deal”, which has been codified as the so called, “Inflation Reduction Act” is now a law that will be difficult to repeal. So, what is the rest of the world doing? Do the bureaucrats in Washington care?

What About Coal Use in the World? It has been Rising and in 2023 the Greatest Coal Consumption Ever Has Been Recorded

China consumes over 50% of the world’s coal.

Reasonable Cost, Reliable Energy and Electricity is a Pre-Requisite for Economic Prosperity.

It worked for the U.S. and it has been proven by China, too.

China is the world’s largest manufacturer. This was not always the case. After 2001 when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization they ramped up aluminum and steel production to exceed all other countries of the world in tonnage produced. This takes a lot of Primary Energy and it provides a case study of the relationship of reasonable cost and reliable coal power and economic prosperity.

Conclusions

I have spoken to professional groups of people who are above average in income level, reached prominent levels of respect in the community that are doctors, lawyers, teachers, business owners, politicians, bank presidents and basically, well-informed, well-read individuals. Even technically trained engineers that are not involved in power generation. When I tell them America has No energy policy only a decarbonization policy they look at me like I am creating some kind of fairy tale. 

However, it is true, America has no energy policy. Only climate policies that attack the very fuels our country has depended upon and continues to depend upon. There are policies in place to destroy American electricity reliability.

Electric reliability will be worse in the winter. Yes, expect serious problems this December and January, 2025.

The climate polices of the Biden-Harris Administration are not based on protecting human health or the environment. They began as a war on coal by NGOs and the United Nations and then they were carried forward by the Clinton Administration.

The Clinton EPA started the assault on coal plants with aggressive lawsuits called “New Source Review.” I wrote a few articles on this, here is one which the Dr. Robert Peltier, then Editor of Power Magazine republished in Master Resource, in 2010. The war on coal greatly expanded during the Obama and Biden Administrations.

Net-zero carbon is a path to one world government and socialism, not clean air. The “War on Coal, has now expanded into a “War on All Fossil Fuels” and this is leading to the destruction of reliable electricity generation in America. The only benefactors of the war on carbon in the free world are China, Russia and the rest of the BRICS nations. The best interests of the American people, jobs, prosperity and freedom are not a priority of Biden-Harriis.

Further, killing America’s productive capacity will do nothing to improve the environment when the total world energy use is considered. Net-zero carbon will only destroy America’s productive capacity.

It is as if the leaders in our government are intentionally weakening America and thus ceding our manufacturing, international Hegemony and other strengths to China and the rest of the world. To me, these policies are inexplicably anti-American.

The American Electricity Crisis is in fact, self-Inflicted.

See original post here for full story, references, and sources.

#NetZero #NaturalGas #Electricity #Coal #ClimateChange #Electrification #Blackouts