Coking Coal Has a Branding Problem
“I’m sorry to bang on about coal, but it makes you look a little bit weaselly not answering the coal question.” – Justin Rowlatt
The world has gathered in Glasgow for COP26, and on the opening morning we were treated to quite the spectacle on the BBC. Justin Rowlatt, the BBC’s climate editor, took British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to task for not doing enough to rule out a new coal mine currently under consideration in the UK. That’s Rowlatt below, foaming with total indignation that Johnson could even fathom allowing such a project to proceed.
Flustered by the line of attack, Johnson retreated to citing statistics about how coal has become almost irrelevant to the UK power grid:
“When I was a kid, 80% of our power came from coal. When I was mayor of London, it was 40%. It’s now 1%.”
Not satisfied with that answer, Rowlatt interrupts Johnson:
“Let’s talk about coal and I know everybody asks you this question. But you’re going to China, you’re going to India, you’re going to the developing world saying, ‘phase out coal,’ at the same time saying as not ruling out a new coal mine in Britain, a new coal mine in Britain! We started the industrial revolution, we should have closed the mines!”
I’m not sure what’s more hysterical (horrifying?) – that the climate editor for the BBC seems to have no earthly idea what he is talking about or that the British Prime Minister seems to have no earthly idea what he is talking about.
The coal mine at issue would have been in Cumbria and it was to produce coking coal, not thermal coal (we use the past tense because it is clear this mine is never opening). Coking coal is not burned to make electricity. Coking coal is used along with iron ore to make steel. If the world cannot produce steel, much of the world economy grinds to a halt.
Unfortunately for coking coal, it has coal in its name. Unfortunately for the renewable power industry, they’re going to need a lot of coking coal. This seems like quite the conundrum.
For example, it is well-known that the production of wind turbines consumes a lot of steel. At least we thought it was well-known. The picture below shows a popular tubular steel tower design. It’s a similar story with electric vehicles and all manner of stuff required to enable the green revolution. There is no path to meaningfully reduced CO2 emissions that doesn’t involve the use of massive amounts of steel.
Is the production of steel a dirty business? Absolutely! It accounts for nearly 8% of global CO2 emissions. Are there ways to reduce that impact and should they be implemented? No doubt! Is China’s steel industry measurably dirtier than mills in the United States and Europe? Unquestionably! Think they care what we do? Nope!
The world will keep mining coking coal and making steel as it always has, it’ll just be much more expensive and less environmentally friendly than it could otherwise have been, which will further impede the implementation of the renewable energy revolution. Coking coal mines in Russia and China will continue cranking out product with far fewer environmental protections than Cumbria would have implemented. Huge dry bulk cargo ships will meander around the globe, packed with coking coal from exporting countries like Canada and Australia, polluting the oceans in the process.
As with many fundamental commodities, the price of coking coal has soared to eye-watering levels in the past few months, albeit for reasons mostly unrelated to the Cumbria standoff. We were already writing a piece on arbitrage in the coking coal market when the BBC clip crossed our Twitter feed – we hope to get that one done before too long.
Critics will point out that the production of green steel – an innovative set of technologies that rely on hydrogen instead of coal – is just over the horizon. We certainly hope so, but we note that the hydrogen will have to come from fossil fuels or (gasp!) nuclear power, because otherwise the production of green hydrogen at scale will rely on the very same yet-to-be-built renewable energy infrastructure that will consume massive amounts of steel. How’s that for the circle of life?
We don’t doubt that steam reforming natural gas to produce the hydrogen necessary to make green steel a reality would lead to substantial reductions in CO2 emissions. After listening to that BBC interview, we have grave doubts using natural gas for this process will be considered acceptable. It’s a fossil fuel, after all, and better isn’t better when only zero will do.
Anyway, that mine is never getting permitted and – to borrow a phrase from a former British Prime Minister with a little more shrewdness than Mr. Johnson – we shall continue attempting to lift ourselves out of the bucket we are currently standing in by pulling on the handle.
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I don't understand this post. It's still coal. It's just useful for steel. But we can make steel with Hydrogen and while not cost effective yet, limiting coaking coal will make the process cheaper faster. As you point out steel accounts for 8% of carbon. That's a ton. If we want to limit carbon output steel needs to become cleaner. One thing you didn't mention for making hydrogen is electrolysis. That means that wind turbines at night (because winds tend to be stronger at night when power demand diminishes) can generate electricity to split water molecules. You then get oxygen, a critical valuable asset, and hydrogen, which can be used in steel making and reduce steel's carbon footprint 20-25%. For a blog that talks about tail risk you don't seem to really get the urgency in not implementing carbon reducing policies. The "it's too important" argument is wrong and dumb. You know what makes it hard to build new buildings? Those cities being underwater.
Well... Classical Chicken and Egg Problem (here we have the Chicken - again). Green Hydrogen is a very nice idea - however we'd need a transport infrastructure for that. Unfortunately Hydrogen is a very nasty gas that has a tendency to destroy most metals / alloys and diffuse through most plastics. Very bad for pipelines, very bad for gaskets and valves. Believe me - I know what I am talking about, because I was plant manager in a Hydrogen Plant some 20 years ago.
I am not saying it will never be possible to setup such infrastructure, but it will take time (>10 - 20 years). And until then we'd better use natural gas and the existing and very cost efficient pipeline infrastructure to transport it and make hydrogen close to the consumer. Steam Reforming of Natural Gas is emmitting 1 Molecule of CO2 per 2 Molecule H2 - thats a lot and means it is simply not viable (anymore). I am putting big hopes in BASFs Methane Pyrolysis - a process, where you make directly H2 and carbon black. They are running a relatively big pilot plant for that already and I'd expect them to commercialize within next years. And you could even use biogas to produce H2.
However - all this is probably too complex for most politicians (and voters) - and thus I expect deciders to take bad / wrong decisions, such as shutting down all nuclear power plants in Germany in a very short time frame after Fukushima. It's all frustrating...