By Terry Jarrett
Washington Examiner
WASHINGTON, DC (Jan. 5, 2018) – Maybe you have to live in the Northeast — or even Southeast United States — to get the full effect. But right now, much of the country is struggling through brutally cold weather. It’s not uncommon to see temperatures down in the teens across much of the South. And record sub-zero temperatures in the North have many recalling the “polar vortex” of 2014.

Home heating bills will surely be climbing this month as the mercury plunges. But there’s a more troubling problem emerging. As Bloomberg News is reporting, the nation’s electric grid has begun to show signs of “fatigue” as power plants churn in overdrive to meet heavy demand. Oil burning power plants in New England are running short on fuel. And some of these plants may reach end-use limits due to emissions restrictions.

Coal to the Rescue as Record Cold Grips the East

By John Siciliano
Washington Examiner
WASHINGTON, DC (Dec. 29, 2017) – Coal-fired power plants are king again as sub-zero temperatures sent demand for heating and electricity soaring on the East Coast Friday in the largest energy market in the nation.

Coal outpaced both natural gas and nuclear power plants in the PJM market, which extends from the Midwest to Washington, according to real-time updates provided by the grid operator PJM Interconnection.

Coal provided nearly 20,000 megawatts more electricity throughout the day Friday than its primary rival natural gas and over 10,000 megawatts more than nuclear power plants.

One megawatt of electricity can provide 750-1,200 homes with power. 
 

Building a Stronger America: 
President Donald J. Trump’s American Infrastructure Initiative

USTDA to Host Coal-Related Reverse Trade Missions 

WASHINGTON, DC – The United States Trade Development Agency will host two Coal-Fired Power Emissions Monitoring and Control Reverse Trade Missions (RTM) this spring to bring public officials and coal plant operators to the U.S. for site visits and meetings with U.S. businesses. 

The first will bring representatives from Turkey, South Africa and Romania to the United States April 11 - 20.  The second will be May 14-23 with representatives of India, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

These countries use a significant amount of coal-fired power, and are making plans to retrofit older coal-fired power plants as well as incorporate emissions control technologies into new ones. As they pursue these goals, delegates will attend meetings with U.S. suppliers of SOx, NOx, VOC, mercury and particulate matter controls. Plans involve visits to U.S. coal-fired power plants currently using these technologies.

For more information, visit these two links.

https://www.ustda.gov/events/2017/middle-east-north-africa-europe-and-eurasia-sub-saharan-africa/global-coal-fired-power

https://www.ustda.gov/events/2017/south-and-southeast-asia/global-coal-fired-power-emissions-monitoring-and-control
 

USTDA Accepting Initial Proposals for Cleaner Coal Projects in Emerging Markets 

18 States, Coal Group, U.S. Chamber Want Ash Order Overturned

By Jonathan Matisse
Associated Press
NASHVILLE, TN (Jan. 8, 2018) — Eighteen states, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, national coal industry interests and more than a dozen other groups are urging an appeals court to overturn a coal ash cleanup order at a federal utility’s Tennessee plant, contending the decision will have wide-reaching, expensive consequences.

In a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals brief this week, the states argued that the order at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Gallatin Fossil Plant would broadly expand federal oversight into groundwater pollution historically regulated by states. More citizen lawsuits will almost certainly be filed and they will require coal ash cleanups elsewhere, costing utility ratepayers tens of billions of dollars, attorneys for the states wrote.

“Reasonable minds can differ among stakeholders as to the most prudent long-term plans for these impoundments, and under cooperative federalism every stakeholder has an opportunity in the process to voice those concerns,” the court filing says. “If upheld, customers across the Circuit will be paying for the preference of those citizens who have strong opinions regarding environmental issues — not what the most reasonable outcome should be.”

By Jude Clemente
Forbes
NEW YORK (Jan. 24, 2018) – Electric cars are a rapidly growing market. In 2017, sales in the U.S. were up nearly 30%, to about 200,000 units. This surge is even more impressive given that the very low gasoline prices we have seen obviously incentivize sticking with the traditional oil-based, internal-combustion-engine purchase.

There are now numerous initiatives globally to ban the sale of oil cars, mostly to clear the skies of smoggy cities. China, India, Norway, the UK, France and the Netherlands, for instance, have said they want to phase out gas and diesel vehicles within the next few decades. Government incentives influence car buyers’ attitudes, and the model for more could be Norway, where electric cars now account for 33% of all sales. The World Economic Forum documents the countries announcing bans on sales of oil cars.

But there’s much more to the electric car story than what you might be hearing. The anti-fossil-fuel business tends to forget and/or ignore the fact that electric cars are, obviously, just that ... powered by electricity, a secondary energy source that is mostly generated by the combustion of coal and natural gas both here in the U.S. and around the world.

By Pam Frost Gorder
Ohio State University
COLUMBUS (Jan. 4, 2018) – Engineers at The Ohio State University are developing technologies that have the potential to economically convert fossil fuels and biomass into useful products including electricity without emitting carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

In the first of two papers published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, the engineers report that they’ve devised a process that transforms shale gas into products such as methanol and gasoline–all while consuming carbon dioxide. This process can also be applied to coal and biomass to produce useful products.

Under certain conditions, the technology consumes all the carbon dioxide it produces plus additional carbon dioxide from an outside source.

In the second paper, they report that they’ve found a way to greatly extend the lifetime of the particles that enable the chemical reaction to transform coal or other fuels to electricity and useful products over a length of time that is useful for commercial operation.

Finally, the same team has discovered and patented a way with the potential to lower the capital costs in producing a fuel gas called synthesis gas, or “syngas,” by about 50 percent over the traditional technology.

The technology, known as chemical looping, uses metal oxide particles in high-pressure reactors to “burn” fossil fuels and biomass without the presence of oxygen in the air. The metal oxide provides the oxygen for the reaction.

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