Wallace Manheimer
Who can develop reliable, cheap, clean electricity? In baseball parlance, the Americans took the lead with their first home run. It invented, developed and perfected the first ultra-supercritical (USC) coal-fired power plant.
The 600-megawatt (MW) John W. Turk Jr. coal-fired power plant in Arkansas came online in 2012 and incorporates new technologies, most notably metallurgical advances that allow pipes and boilers to operate at extremely high temperatures and operate under pressure for long periods of time.
Higher temperatures allow for 40% efficiency, rather than the more common 33%. Furthermore, Turkey has the best pollution control measures and its emissions are mainly carbon dioxide and water vapor. Power magazine was so impressed that it awarded the plant its highest honor in 2013.
It looked like Team USA was going to win the game, but they took their attention off the ball and made numerous mistakes. Instead of capitalizing on its superior technological achievements, U.S. policymakers decided to abandon coal and promote wind and solar energy.
Powerful environmental groups campaign to end coal; Michael Bloomberg boasts that he has donated $500 million to this end. Companies in the coal industry have been hit hard, with some closing, while domestic consumption of the country's most abundant fuel has fallen. Turk remains the only USC facility in the United States
Solar and wind power do not provide reliable power because they fluctuate with weather and time of day.
And, they're not cheap. Germany's power system relies heavily on solar power, and its electricity bills are more than twice as high as in France, where nuclear power dominates, and nearly three times as high as for U.S. consumers.
Furthermore, contrary to popular belief, solar and wind technologies are not clean. Not where its material is mined, where it is used, or at the end of its useful life.
First, mining: These technologies use many strange rare earth materials, such as praseodymium, terbium, cadmium, indium and dysprosium. Such materials are mainly available in western China and Africa, but the environment and working conditions are unknown.
Second, the sites where solar and wind energy are used take up vast amounts of land—many times the area of coal-fired power plants. The average solar power reaching the Earth is about 200 megawatts per square kilometer. Therefore, for perfect and efficient power conversion, a 1,000 MW solar power plant would require an area of 5 square kilometers. But the maximum solar efficiency is only 20%, which increases the land requirement to 25 square kilometers, making this space unavailable for other uses. Even the maximum theoretical efficiency is only 30%.
The numbers for wind energy are even worse: A 1,000-megawatt wind farm requires up to 500 square kilometers of land, the equivalent of about 27,000 major league baseball fields. The land can be used to grow crops and graze animals, but not much else.
Finally, the vast amounts of materials used to manufacture solar and wind energy facilities must be processed, and the lifespan of these facilities is a fraction of that of traditional power plants. Many of these exotic materials are not suitable for standard landfills because their compounds are harmful to humans and are water-soluble. Often, solar or wind companies simply walk away, leaving the relics in place for others to worry about.
Solar and wind energy are more environmental disasters than environmental saviors.
As the U.S. team retreated to the locker room, the Chinese team staged a wonderful scoring climax. Among the top 100 coal-fired power plants in China, 90 are ultra-supercritical units.
After the improvement of USC technology, the efficiency of the Chinese factory is about 44%. The newly built 1,350 MW Pingshan Phase II power plant has an efficiency of 49%! China’s best coal-fired power plants are now cleaner and 22% more efficient than U.S. coal-fired plants.
Since 2010, India has built more than 90 supercritical and ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants.
Has America passed its last coal-burning season?
Maybe—unless America's free-enterprise system is fully integrated, with the private sector largely engaged in engineering and the federal government funding long-term scientific research.
However, U.S. policymakers must abandon their obsession with solar and wind energy as an “existential threat” to the climate. Otherwise, sensible people will be playing fools in fantasy leagues, demonizing the gas that sustains all life—carbon dioxide—while everyone else is competing in the majors.
This absurd approach simply cannot compare with the technological leadership demonstrated by China and India.
This comment was first published on Real clean energy September 30, 2024.
Dr. Wallace Manheimer is a life member of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a member of the CO2 Alliance. He is the author of more than 150 refereed papers.
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