Hong Kong Announces A Program to Phase Out Coal Power.

[NNadir]

A consultation put to the people of Hong Kong suggests an increase in nuclear capacity to supply half of electricity as a major plank of its climate change strategy.

The Special Administrative Region's government has explained its proposed approach to mitigation in a consultation document out for public comment until the end of the year. It covers five sectors: energy efficiency, road transport, road fuels, turning waste to energy and "revamping the fuel mix for electricity generation."

"Our objective is to reduce the proportion of coal in the overall fuel mix," said the document. The fossil fuel currently "dominates" city power supplies with 54% of generation, while 23% comes from natural gas.

With renewables neglibigle to date, the remaining 23% comes from CLP Power Hong Kong Limited's 25% stake in two 984 MWe reactors at Daya Bay in Guangdong Province. Some 70% of the power plant's output is routed to Hong Kong.

New coal power plants have not been allowed since 1997 and the latest units, from the 1980s, will retire in the period 2020-30. To handle the drop in coal's contribution below 10% by 2020, the government wants to increase natural gas generation to meet 40% of supply and to boost nuclear to 50%.

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/EE_Hong_Kong_to_replace_coal_with_nuclear_1509101.html">Hong Kong to replace coal with nuclear

Speaking only for myself, I object to the "increase natural gas generation" part since I believe that all dangerous fossil fuel waste dumping should be phased out.

No permanent storage for dangerous natural gas waste exists, and none can be built.

Have a wonderful evening.

[hatrack]

1. Nice idea, but unless it applies to Guangzhou and Guangdong provinces, good luck.

Funny how dreadful, toxic air quality that makes people sick and shortens their lives goes on for decades, but dreadful, toxic air quality that makes corporations relocate quickly elicits at least the appearance of planning and even action by those "in charge".

[NNadir]

2. Everybody on the planet knows that the air in China is now among...

...the worst in the world.

China knows it, which is why they behaved as they did during the Olympics.

All that said, China has the most realistic proposal to fight not only its own air pollution but that of the planet as a whole.

Specifically they are using a huge chunk of the money they've accumulated - to build the largest nuclear infrastructure on earth, with the most variable nuclear fleet in the world with incredible fuel flexibility.

I had an aunt - passed away now - who scrimped and saved her whole life. When her son - not necessarily my favorite cousing - became wealthy he took excellent care of her. She said to me, "Money doesn't solve your problems, but it makes it easier to deal with them."

One may argue about how the Chinese became wealthy, but the fact is that they had more than one billion people and did impose, for better or worse, the most draconian population policy on earth. They are now investing their money, in my view, to help a population that still uses, per capita, 1/6 of the energy that Americans use.

I personally wish they would not try to build a car CULTure, but the fact is, that the future now lies with them.

I analyzed in a very brief back of the envelope calculation what their newly announced reactor policy will involve: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/9/13/901690/-Chinas-Govt-Invites-the-IAEA-to-Review-Its-Nuclear-Regulatory-Needs.">China's Gov't Invites the IAEA to Review Its Nuclear Regulatory Needs. These reactors will be available into the 22nd century. They are the equivalent of removing from earth's atmoshere, nearly the equivalent of all the waste dumping the USA puts in the air to produce electricity.

China is showing it can phase out coal.

If they build 400 GWe of nuclear capacity, 80 GWe in the next ten years as planned - they are building plants, and placing orders all around the world, building infrastructure to do this - they will produce more nuclear electricity than the US produces electricity.

A close look at their plans shows that they are very electic and have carefully thought through their fuel cycle and expanding the use of nuclear energy to include transportation. They will make non-hydrogen liquid fuels from nuclear energy, both methanol and DME.

We got wealthy historically off sweat shops and cheap immigrant labor, the British, in their times, off brutal colonialism. Neither of our nations paid any attention to our environments in those times. British citizens dropped dead in the streets from air pollution as late as 1954.

But China is nearly alone in the world in doing the only rational thing that hsa a chance at fighting the pollution mess.

[txlibdem]

3. I say it's great. Isn't Cali suffering from China's coal plants?

I heard that somewhere but can't find the source right now.

One question: where is the USA's program to get rid of coal?

[NNadir]

4. Everyone on earth is suffering from everyone else's coal plants.

It's hard to point one's finger at China and say, "look what China is doing to California!!!" when Chinese live on less than 30%, per capita, energy than Americans.

I suffer from the coal that LADWP burns in Utah.

Only two governments to my knowledge have formally announced coal phase outs, although the French have effectively accomplished it, if you don't count steel. I discussed coal and <em>steel</em> referencing the work of the great Vaclav Smil on another website where I write:

http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2010/08/wither-steel.html">Whither the steel?

The governments that have announced phase outs are the one referenced in the OP and the government of the Canadian province of Ontario.

Regrettably both proposals rely not only on nuclear energy - which figures prominently in both proposals and will, in fact, carry most the weight while flitting freaks pretend it's all about so called "renewable energy," but on dangerous natural gas.

Dangerous natural gas is not clean energy. No permanent repository exists for dangerous natural gas waste, and dangerous natural gas mining is now proposing to destroy all of the cap rock in the continent forever. However dangerous natural gas is the favorite fig leaf of the failed so called "renewable" energy industry which is, in fact, more or less a wholly owned subsidiary of the gas industry.