Fifteen years have passed since the Copenhagen Summit, yet the G7 nations, particularly the United States and Germany, have failed to eliminate coal usage. This is disheartening. This is a significant failure from the Western world to both present and future generations globally, especially to India, Latin, America, Africa and South East Asia and Islanders in the Indian and Pacific ocean who cumulatively had a minimal impact in all this but will bear the brunt of the consequences.
Bet.<p>When we look at the increased demand due to population growth, electric vehicles, crypto and AI, I am going to disbelieve this goal until I see it. I would go as far as to bet we see a higher amount in MW produced from coal, but perhaps a smaller percentage. It takes like 20 years to build a nuclear power plant in the US. Maybe if we somehow fix our endemic construction issues and are able to put up a couple nuke plants a year for the next decade we will reach it. Or at best we just replace coal with natural gas, and in which case who cares, our CO2 production is still going up?
cool visualisation of electricity generation source per country <a href="https://app.electricitymaps.com" rel="nofollow">https://app.electricitymaps.com</a>
The province of Ontario (in Canada) did so in 2017:<p>* <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal" rel="nofollow">https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal</a><p>The current (live) grid mix can be found at:<p>* <a href="https://www.ieso.ca/power-data" rel="nofollow">https://www.ieso.ca/power-data</a> § Supply
Natural gas is replacing coal for various reasons. If you are anti-coal, you are likely pro-natural gas whether you know it or not.<p>The economics of coal just don't make as much sense anymore. It's labor intensive, it requires much more future remediation at the generation site, it's burdensome to store, etc.
Necessary, but I'll believe it when I see it. As recently as 2016, the leading Republican presidental candidate was promising to bring back the coal industry.
Oh yeah, if the G7 agree on climate change, that's definitely happening. Just don't look at the Kyoto Protocol, Copenhagen Accord or the Paris Agreement.
Renewables are helping to kill coal, but ironically what's really strangling it is cheap natural gas. Amusingly, if Coal Country really wants to revive the coal industry, they should start voting for Democrats and hope for a fracking ban.