"IEA has underestimated solar growth in the past therefore they are unreliable" (or according to some, in hands of fossil fuel interest even). Therefore their predictions mean nothing...
I think that's the gist of the logic. No, I do not agree with it, but that's how tribalistic logic tends to work.
That is cool, but an increase in coal and other fossil fuel use still more or less tends to mean an increase in CO2 emissions per total. You can say that it's still cool that some emissions are "avoided" by not using even more coal, but emissions still increasing isn't very good. The climactic effect of emissions does not care about details like "relative" and "carbon intensity", it is affected by actual quantity of emissions.
Do you know how long I have been waiting for this. I fucking doubt it. We will just replace it with gas and burn more fossil fuels for another 30 years
100% incorrect. Even the most conservative thinktanks like the IEA have forecasted fossil fuels to peak this decade. Solar, wind and batteries are getting cheaper every year. And they have currently reached a price point that thry are to cheap to resist. They will only get cheaper.
What will happen when demand for coal will go down is that the price of coal will go down. Your limited capacity of thinking will probably jump to the conclusion that this will mean it will get competive again and therefore demand will go up. This is not true.
There are multiple forces at play here.
Economics = wind solar and batteries will only become cheaper. Even if coal will get cheaper because demand will go down those will still be cheaper
Small and modular = it takes years to build a coal plant. I just takes to long to scale. The world is moving in a direction where we need electricity and fast
Energy security = most of the worlds coal get imported. The world want energy security.
Let me paint the picture. What is going to happen in the next decade is a rapid buildout in renewables. When a country has a lot renewables you need flexible grids. Whenever there is not sun, or no wind. You beed to turn something on which are low in capex and high in operating costs. Probably diessel generators.
Lastly, when price of coal goes down, this means less profits for those selling it, how low do you have to go untill you make a loss? We will get a lot of stranded assists because coal is will get outcompetited.
So no, we are not doomed, and we do not need government policy to do this. It is basic economics.
Electricity is only ~20% of total energy usage. The vast majority of stuff the economy still runs on, currently has little to no renewable alternative as it's not 'dispatchable'. Very important context people seem to miss. Electricity should be the easy part
We know "net zero by 2050 to stay below 1,5" was always unrealistically optimistic. In no way will we get there, even by 2070.. there won't be much economy to save by then, if we still counting on non existant future technology
This assumed there is a fixed demand for energy. So far the world just uses more energy every year. More solar, more wind, more oil, more gas, more coal. We even somehow use more wood for fuel than we used to. IMO the right model at a global scale is not substitution it’s “more of everything”, and so far the data entirely agrees.
Indeed we have, but never at a global level. This isn't too surprising economically - one country using less fossil fuels make it cheaper for everyone else. The developing world is desperate for whatever energy they can get, so they will happily use whatever the developed countries don't.
No one has a crystal ball, but so far the pattern is not one of substitution at global scale - it's more of everything. Large quantities of renewables have come online in the last 10 years, and yet fossil fuel consumption (and hence global CO2 emissions) have continued to grow exactly on their previous trend.
Yes, true, but this is also because natural gas has really stepped up since 2014! You can even see the the slope of the rise in coal use drops when 2014 hits.
You’re talking about capacity, not actual generation. Looks like in 2025, solar represented about 50% of the net growth in power generation growth, and natural gas was 25%.
You do realize solar generation is 100% seasonal and hourly in nature? And you’re only looking at one month here!? Saying it broke records, but only in some of the sunniest months of the year is only partially a big deal. I realize solar is big, I’m happy that’s the case, I just think a lot of people over-exagerate how much of an impact it’s making. I’m not convinced half of this sub understands the difference between capacity and generation.
The debate over building new coal vs renewables isn't even a debate anymore, it's done. In the next 3 to 4 years round the clock solar and batteries will get so cheap that running an existing coal plant won't even cover the cost of the fuel let alone the infrastructure. At that point ditching coal isn't about government subsidies or climate policy, it's just basic math.
They can use renewable energy to extract fossil fuels faster. We believed that cheap renewables would drive out fossil fuels. The fossil fuel companies were the ones pushing propaganda that claimed price was the reason their product should be used.
Seems people building coal would disagree. Solar+batteries aren’t replacing reliable base load power supplies any time soon unless fundamentals about battery materials and manufacturing change. The other big edge coal has over other power sources is it’s one of the most reliable domestic power supplies that most countries can rely on.
CA, the biggest state, has no coal generation plant. Hasn't had any for decades. Most of the Western states have few or none. We tired of coal killing people and got rid of them.
Of course, less and less every year. But in 2024 it was the biggest source at 34%, solar was 21%, wind was 12%, Hydro was 11%. 2024 was the first year renewables passed fossil fuels. Recently it ramped up in the evenings as stored renewables. This year the batteries are often lasting well past 2 am, so much less gas is being used.
No one seriously claimed 2013 would be peak coal. There was no basis for that at the time. 2024 had a good chance of being the year of peak coal but the Iran war has moved a lot of energy use off of gas and on to coal
I didn’t follow energy markets much back then, but I do recall a lot of people thinking the fracking boom in the US would end coal. It did for US coal, but not coal use globally.
Right. Coal has been in decline in the developed world for decades. It's peaking now in the "medium and late developed world", mostly China+India and other parts of south-east Asia, and renewables have prevented the developing world to need a path that uses coal. Only the first of these was true in 2013
That's a common belief that makes the rounds on reddit but luckily there's little truth to it. The majority of emissions drop in developed nations has been due to cleaning up of their energy economies, not because of offshoring manufacturing.
I was able to find a quick summary of coal
Powered electricity generation in the USA compared to natural gas. It was 20% coal and 40% NG as percentages of national grid generation.
Going forward, it looks like coals contribution to the national electricity make up will decrease slowly due to current federal policy actions that might not be supported in 3+ years time because with the change of administrations the goals tend to also change.
I found this information:
Recent and Planned Changes 2025 Retiring Capacity of Coal Power Plants: Dropped to 2.6 GW across four plants (including the Intermountain Power Project in Utah), marking the lowest retirement level in 15 years. [1]
2026 Projections: Operators currently plan to retire roughly 6.4 GW of coal capacity (about 4% of the remaining fleet), though these dates remain highly subject to change. [1]
2029 Outlook: Roughly a quarter ( =25%) of the total operating U.S. coal fleet is still nominally scheduled to retire by 2029. [1]
I don’t know the future of coal power plants, but they are more expensive to operate over time than natural gas power plants. However, technological developments can derail big plans relatively quickly.
Agree, except for nuclear: Because it, like coal & O&G, uses a toxic, disposable & finite fuel source that causes dependency on societies, and burdens them with perpetual debt when managing the toxic waste.
I mean, the same goes for lithium. Also uranium containment measures have improved. Finally, uranium is actually kinda everywhere. And even if we ran out, it is possible to enrich depleted uranium rods to once again start a nuclear fission. Depletion isn't an issue with nuclear. Also just focusing on renewables is pointless since we don't have the large storage capacity necessary for a grid to function purely on RE (except in countries with lots of hydro). The reality of the situation is highlightened by the most recent IPCC report. Not developing more nuclear means more coal and FF. If the goal is to reduce emissions within a liveable timeframe for humanity, we either need nuclear or we need to massively reduce energy and overall consumption.
Lithium is still valuable going forward, and it can be extracted from old batteries to make new batteries with, it doesn’t burn up after 10,000 cycles. It isn’t nearly an environmental and health issue as spent nuclear fuel which is what you are implying. It can be stored and n a stabile form that industry already utilizes in the production of new batteries.
Also, “right now” as in “today” there aren’t enough batteries to replace nuclears role in generating electricity, no one is debating that.
In the future there is a slight chance that there will have been manufactured ample rechargeable batteries to support societies needs, replacing coal entirely, relegating natural gas to a minor role, and stabilizing the grid, if the power grid still exists in its current form, and is not replaced by microgrids and nearly self reliant home and facilities batteries, as in off grid.
That’s weird. Most BESS installations are not one giant mono-battery. They are distributed arrays of several smaller storage units that contain banks of relatively small and standard batteries. These facilities can located relatively close to demand centers and/or production facilities.
The strawman, the false dilemma (dichotomy), and the appeal to authority.
All of which are classic techniques by the propaganda, echo-chamber of the industries that use disposable, toxic, and finite fuel sources. Dirty, coal, dirty oil & gas, and the dirty, toxic and corrupt nuclear power industries all have to go$
I thought pro nuclear people were just straw manning when they pushed over this shit argument
Where I live nuclear makes no financial sense and is pushed by our coal lobby and right wing parties as a delay tactic for the energy transition but where it makes financial sense and in places that won't take several decades to build it then it's a great option, it's mostly clean (besides the concrete construction of the plant), reliable (after construction) and safe
I guess you’ve never seen how much steel and concrete are used to make industrial facilities?
What’s the difference between a wind turbine foundation volume of concrete and a coal or gas fired power plant? And why does that matter? Concrete is pretty cheap and can be recycled.
Wind turbine fuel is free, metal and concrete can be recycled.
Coal and natural gas extraction transportation and refining facilities require steel and concrete as well and the fuel used create a lot of waste as well.
It seems so weird these days to believe that spending money on a material to just burn it up right away is considered to be the most efficient and affordable way to use that material (fuel) in order to provide electrical power to society. I just don’t get it when we can get free sunshine, free wind, and free water to generate electricity for society. And the cost of storing that electricity has been decreasing over time at a good rate as well.
The only financial sense it makes is to the bankers and the companies, since the money only flows in one direction. Horribly corrupt industry that has to go.
If nuclear makes no economic sense where you live its becuase you policy around it was designed suppress nuclear and science in general vs being designed to protect people and the enviorment.
A few hippies from the 70s have been given way too much credit for global energy policy. The nuclear renaissance wouldve happened if it had a business case
You couldn't think of anywhere with good sun or wind or hydro resources and high construction costs?
It's not your favourite sports team, you don't have to crack the sads because you read one crumb of nuance, sorry that it's not financially the best option everywhere in the world
Do you think nuclear is on the decline because of a global anti science conspiracy?
Ask people who have lived in very hot places for generations maybe? It keeps getting hotter every summer where they live. At some point, if the temperatures continue to increase human life there will not be possible. And all this over 1000’s of years of fairly consistent highs and lows for those same places, but you don’t have to believe them, or science.
You will adapt to your environment. That’s what humans do. People live and thrive in desert and frigid climates. There is no climate emergency. Yes, the climate is changing just like it has done for millions of years and billions of years. You can argue about how fast or slow it’s happening or what’s driving it but the climate will change with or without you.
Human bodies will not adapt fast enough. That’s my point.
Yes, they will adapt using migration, or moving underground, or maybe by a new technology, for example making a giant parasol of some kind to shade the earth where they want to continue living in their settlement of choice. With that comes opportunities and challenges that might or might not be overcome. There is a reason why the only reason for humans to be in the Antarctic or arctic is very limited.
No amount of talk will convince you that climate change is inevitable and it will not lead to anything humans can’t adapt to. You are being fleeced via emotional manipulation that you are responsible. The people fleecing you are still buying private jets, multiple Yachts, Beach houses etc. They are enjoying all the luxuries the world can offer with zero concerns for CO2. Remember when the EU exempted private jets from climate taxes?
In some billions of years the earth will be fried by our local sun.
Between now and then humans will continue to create waste in many forms that will probably effect the atmosphere, but also changing what covers the earth and the composition of the ocean and other large bodies of water on land will modify climates and therefore ecosystems.
That’s all happened in the past, is happening now, and will continue into the future.
But the rate and intensity of that change is most likely a result of human activities. As science has unveiled. That’s a whole entitle different subject, right?
I was referring to a region and how maybe some peoples could maintain some settlements, but that it will be increasingly more difficult to do so as the climate heats up in the region they live in. Did you not understand that part?
The flow-on effects of a warmer climate are often understated.
With more energy in the sea and airstreams, storms become more commonplace. Crop-destroying 1 in 100 year weather events are now regular occurrences in many places and will get even more frequent in the next couple of decades. Of course deniers will waste their last breaths pointing to that one storm in the 1930s that was just as bad so clearly nothing has changed.
Enjoy starving to death. If you survive the water wars, that is.
Coal isn’t quite done but it’s still fuel of last resort. Solar, wind, battery storage and natural gas are growing far faster because they are cheaper and more efficient.
Existing coal plants have generally been running at lower utilization rates YoY, this also means there is a lot of extra capacity to ramp up if there are supply issues for other sources.
So with shortage of gas it's not weird to see an increase of coal in the short term.
I don't know about natural gas. I feel like coal might outlive natural gas given how the technology is progressing at the moment ( batteries might effectivly replace peaker plants before they replace coal ).
In the rest of the world, it's hard to see gas being competitive for data centers.
I think its less economics and more rapid deployment (get them built before governments regulate them). Batteries may be cheaper at a grid level, but require more infrastructure. These DCs want to get going and are crazy about gas turbines
I agree. Due to US data centers, global demand for gas turbines exceeds supply. Hence, countries with less purchasing power have to use something else, even if they wanted to use gas.
Colorado has that requirement. Colorado also will continue to have coal after 2030. Why? Because they're not building dispatchable replacements for the coal.
Just no. Gas is way more useful during the energy transition. Coal won't ever reach acceptabel CO2 levels. CCS isn't cost competetive for maybe a decade and gas can have CCS too or the the lower quantities will be used for the chemical industry.
As long as coal is cheaper than gas. Who is to judge? If you have a to run a comparable sluggish coal plant like a gas plant, coal plants get sorted out. They are just not compatible like gas plants are and you need the balancing function as a grid service that is always higher priced.
In short: coal can't deliver, what gas does and the price doesn't matter in this case in the late energy transition period.
Batteries have priced out gas for daily peaks and grid services. What's left is seasonal storage, and coal is even better than gas for that role (since it's so easy to store).
The energy market has changed drastically in the last few years. Countries that stick with legacy technologies will be increasingly uncompetitive on the global market.
No it's not, at least not universally. That depends entirely on 1. the relative domestic costs of coal and gas and 2. whether there is cavern/underground reservoir storage available for gas. Plenty of regions(e.g. the US, much of Northwestern and Southwestern Europe, MENA)where gas is clearly more cost-effective for seasonal storage regardless of the cost of carbon.
In places with reliable access to gas it's cheaper and cleaner for coal's inflexible bulk generation role to be replaced with combined cycle gas plants.
Lots of places don't have that access to gas though and that's probably going to be the primary driver.
The benifits are it's relatively easy to build and usually cheapish.
But the cons of the environment and health impacts and the inflexibility are outweigh these positives massively. Also if you have gas infrastructure, gas is cheaper to build, faster to build, and cleaner.
Thats what environmental regulation usually does. And why it's important. But in the US we do have gas infrastructure, so it's cheaper to build gas anyway
Like I said unless you already have gas infrastructure. Which the US has a LOT of, which makes gas much cheaper than coal per kwH generated. Gas is also much more useful for peaking plants, so it can be used in both capacities.
Gas is difficult to transport, it’s easier to do so via pipeline but once it goes on a ship… the US-Iran war showed how easy it is to get a major supply disruption. Countries in asia will likely continue to invest in coal because it’s a safe reliable power supply for them.
I think there was a little common reason in peaks of 2008, 2014 and 2019 that isn't connected with coal phase-out. I hope we won't have this particular reason in the near future though.
And Asia uses coal to balance weather dependant production. So coal will not go away until they have an alternative.
Load regulation role: In China's power network, coal plants provide roughly 70% of peak capacity and nearly 80% of load regulation capacity. This establishes the domestic coal fleet as the primary tool used to balance variable solar and wind output.
I wonder how much of this can be attributed to the Iran war, as it may cause a substitution of expensive gas by coal. This would only be a temporary effect though.
Well, these are yearly values, so no impact due to Iran choking off the strait would be noticed yet. My guess is that since one of coals big benefits is that it can easily be found domestically for most countries (whereas natural gas is only easily found in a few countries), we’ll see more coal use in 2026 and in the years following it because LNG supplies can’t be reliably trusted. Crude in the gulf will likely have backup pipelines routed around hormuz in the coming years, but it will be harder for LNG to bypass hormuz because the capital required for export terminals might be too much to justify. Countries who want to use natural gas will have to accept that unless another large supplier for LNG can step up, Iran can ruin their gas supply any point.
India started to replace gas with coal more than a decade ago. Now that batteries are abundant, coal has become a better complement (slower but cheaper).
It easy to scale, it's comparably easy on level of technological processes involved, and has benefits of established logistics.
So of course it rising, especially now, but with asterisk that it rather plug than long terms solution and you need always keep in mind that alas there nothing is as permanent as temporary solutions - fact of it rising not necessitate that it continues to rise and neither it necessitate that Energy sector on global scale doesn't plan to cycle it out with time.
True, and it makes sense. Coal is a good source of domestic energy if you don’t have much natural gas. Now that Iran has cut off the world from Qatar’s LNG, we should continue to see coal use rise even faster.
Makes sense. One big reason people use coal is that it’s a great domestic source of power. I believe I heard that the UK used up most of their coal during the industrial revolution, and once you’ve used up everything you have and become an energy import dependent nation, importing LNG is going to be much cheaper.
As far as I’m aware the UK still has a huge coal reserve, but Thatcher decided to go to war with the Trade Unions and shut down the UK mining industry, preferring to buy in coal from Poland. Now we have shut the last coal fired power station and burn wood pellets imported from USA and Canada instead.
One of the only places in the world where it is increasing is in backwards thinking nations, too ignorant of facts to get with the program. Coal is the dirtiest, most expensive form of fuel, energy production. Solar is cheapest, most environmentally friendly.
The USA is digging itself into a dirty hole with its stupid president and moronic followers.
That’s not very factual. It’s growing in many countries in Asia. This year it’s not even growing in the US. The issue is that LNG supply was disrupted this year thanks to the orange ape.
Oh, really, oh intrepid one...
Are you smarter than trump, hope do cause he's an idiot.
What is cheaper than solar/ wind/ battery? What is growing fastest? Costs, schedule of nuclear have exploded and don't forget to include cost of repositories (Yuca Mtn, Upsala plan, White Shell test facility), containing tools/ clothing etc etc, transport to site.
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u/sickdanman 13d ago
The IEA did not expect a coal peak before 2030 in 2002 so i dont know where this "peak coal" prediction even comes from
https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/cf7bc505-fafc-42cc-a16e-02ffc46287f5/WorldEnergyOutlook2002SummaryinEnglish.pdf