By Wallace Manheimer
Who can develop reliable, cheap, clean power? In the parlance of baseball, the U.S. led early with a leadoff home run. It invented, developed and perfected the first ultra-super critical (USC) coal-powered plant.
Coming online in 2012, the 600-megawatt (MW) John W. Turk Jr. Coal Plant in Arkansas employed new technology, most notably, an advance in metallurgy that allowed pipes and boilers to operate for extended periods at extremely elevated temperature and pressure.
This higher temperature allows efficiency of 40%, instead of the more usual 33%. Also, Turk had the best pollution controls, its emissions being mostly carbon dioxide and water vapor. Power Magazine was so impressed that it gave the plant its highest honor in 2013.
It looked like the U.S. was set to win the game, until it took its eye off the ball and made numerous errors. Instead of exploiting its remarkable technological achievement, U.S. policymakers decided to abandon coal and promote wind and solar.
Powerful environmental groups fought to end coal; Michael Bloomberg bragged that he contributed $500 million to the effort. Companies in the coal industry suffered, some went out of business, and domestic consumption of the country’s most abundant fuel declined. Turk is still the only USC plant in the U.S.
Solar and wind do not provide reliable power, as they fluctuate with the weather and time of day.
Also, they are not cheap. Germans, whose electric system relies heavily on solar, pay more than twice as much for electricity as the nuclear-dominant French and nearly triple the amount paid by U.S. consumers.
Furthermore, solar and wind technologies, contrary to popular belief, are not clean; not where their materials are mined, nor where they are used, nor at the end of life.
First, the mining: These technologies use many exotic and rare earth materials like praseodymium, terbium, cadmium, indium and dysprosium. Such materials are available mostly in Western China and Africa, under who-knows-what environmental and working conditions.
Secondly, where they are used, solar and wind take up tremendous amounts of land – many times the acreage of a coal plant. The average solar power reaching Earth is about 200 MW per square kilometer. Hence, with a perfectly efficient conversion to electricity, a 1,000 MW solar farm would require 5 square kilometers. But maximum solar efficiency is only 20%, boosting the land requirement to 25 square kilometers, space that could not be used for anything else. Even the maximum theoretical efficiency is only 30%.
The numbers for wind are worse: A 1,000 MW wind farm would require a whopping 500 square kilometers – equal to about 27,000 big league baseball fields. This land could be used for crops and grazing animals, but not much else.
Finally, disposal of the huge amount of material used in the fabrication of solar and wind facilities, whose life spans are mere fractions of traditional generating plants, must be disposed of. Many of these exotic materials are not suitable for standard landfills, as their compounds are harmful to humans and are water soluble. Frequently, the solar or wind company has just walked away and left the relics in place for others to worry about.
Solar and wind are more of an environmental disaster than an environmental savior.
With the U.S. relegated to the locker room, China came to bat and staged a tremendous scoring rally. Out of the top 100 Chinese coal plants, 90 are ultra-supercritical units.
Having improved on USC technology, Chinese plant efficiency is around 44%. The new 1,350 MW Pingshan Phase II plant achieves 49% efficiency! The best Chinese coal plant is now cleaner and 22 % more efficient than its American counterpart.
Since 2010, India has constructed more than 90 super critical and ultra-super critical coal plants.
Has the U.S. played its last coal-fired season?
Perhaps – unless America’s free enterprise system were brought fully into the game, with the private sector mostly doing the engineering and the federal government sponsoring long-range scientific research.
However, U.S. policymakers must abandon their obsession with solar and wind as answers for a climatic “existential threat.” Otherwise, sensible people play a fool’s game in a fantasy league that demonizes a gas sustaining all life — carbon dioxide – as others compete in the majors.
Such absurdity is no match for the technical leadership displayed in China and India.
This commentary was first published at RealClearEnergy on September 30, 2024.
Dr. Wallace Manheimer is a life fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers and is a member of the CO2 Coalition. He is the author of more than 150 refereed papers.
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