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Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been on a charm offensive recently on climate change. He’s talked about Japan’s leading role in taking action on climate issues, and his intention to make climate change a key agenda item at this year’s G20 meeting. This should come as no surprise given how extreme weather events such as heat waves and flooding have recently wracked part of the country.

But Abe’s addiction to coal shows that this charm offensive lacks substance, especially when it comes to Japan’s own energy policy. In Japan’s latest energy strategy published in June, coal remains a major part of the energy mix into the future. Currently, the coal fleet in Japan is growing, not decreasing: At the moment, 35 new coal power plant are in the pipeline all over Japan, adding to the around 100 coal plants already in operation. If all of these plants are built, 107.920 million tonnes of CO2 will be emitted annually, and according to analysis by Climate Analytics, Japan’s share of the Paris Agreement carbon budget would be exceeded by about three times.

Among G7 nations, Japan is also one of the biggest investors in coal power globally. Besides expanding the domestic coal fleet, Japan is subsidizing the export of coal-fired power plants to other countries like Indonesia and Vietnam.

More: https://thediplomat.com/2018/10/abes-coal-addiction/

High Efficiency Low Emission Coal

Deploying high efficiency, low emission (HELE) coal-fired power plants is a key first step along a pathway to near-zero emissions from coal with carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS). HELE technologies are commercially available now and, if deployed, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the entire power sector by around 20%.

What does improving efficiency mean?

Improving efficiency increases the amount of energy that can be extracted from a single unit of coal. A one percentage point improvement in the efficiency of a conventional pulverised coal combustion plant results in a 2-3% reduction in CO2 emissions.

What can be achieved?

Moving the current average global efficiency rate of coal-fired power plants from 33% to 40% by deploying more advanced off-the-shelf technology could cut two gigatonnes of CO2 emissions now, while allowing affordable energy for economic development and poverty reduction. Two gigatonnes of CO2 is equivalent to:

India's annual CO2 emissions

Running the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme for 53 years at its current rate, or

Running the Kyoto Protocol three times over.

In addition to significant benefits from reduced CO2 emissions, these modern high efficiency plants have significantly reduced emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2 ) and particulate matter (PM). Beyond the climate benefits of reduced CO2 emissions, reduction in these pollutants is of additional importance at the local and regional level to address air quality and related health concerns.

WCA Report: The Power of High Efficiency Coal - https://www.worldcoal.org/reducing-co2-emissions/wca-report-power-high-efficiency-coal

More on the main article: https://www.worldcoal.org/reducing-co2-emissions/wca-report-power-high-efficiency-coal

COAL-FIRED GENERATION IN JAPAN

The Japanese government set its 2030 power generation target shares for coal at 26%, nuclear at 22%, and gas at 27%. Due to concerns over the slow restart of nuclear power generation, the power sector’s interest in building more efficient coal-fired power generation facilities with low CO2 emissions is increasing. This article examines the reasons behind Japan’s energy policy and the choice of coal. In addition, it looks at the importance of coal for the future of Asian countries and the ways in which Japan is contributing to clean coal technologies both domestically and internationally.

Historically, Japan’s use of energy resources for power demand and supply has experienced two major changes, as depicted in Figure 1. One is the gradual reduction of oil dependence in 1970–2010 and the other is the dramatic disappearance of nuclear after 2011. The heavy dependence on oil (around 70%) in the 1970s risked Japan’s energy security with the oil crisis. Consequently, a new and stronger energy policy was implemented to reduce dependence on oil by promoting coal, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and nuclear power. The result of this diversification reduced oil dependence from around 70% to 8% by 2010 (red bar in Figure 1). However, the major earthquake coupled with the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 cast a huge shadow over Japan’s energy scene and resulted in major changes. All 54 nuclear reactors in Japan were shut down. In 2012, Japan established a new safety institute, the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), following the introduction of the most stringent new safety standards in the world, which must be implemented before a nuclear reactor can restart.

Japan is a world leader in USC technology for clean coal technology and continues to make further improvements through R&D. As a result, Japan has built coal-fired power plants achieving low emissions. J-POWER’s Isogo Power Station demonstrates Japan’s best clean coal technology, with an efficiency of 45% (LHV, gross), reduced flue gas, single-digit ppm SOx, less than 10 ppm NOx , with PM less than 5 ppm at the stack.

Located in Yokohama, the second largest city in Japan by population, Isogo Power Station is only 6 km from Yokohama’s city center and 30 km from central Tokyo. It is a unique, urban coal-fired power station that employs some of the most advanced clean coal technologies in the world.

Originally, Isogo Power Station had two 265-MW subcritical boilers. The old station started commercial operation in the 1960s, and had been supplying baseload power for more than 35 years. In 1996, the government approved a replacement plan. As a result of discussion with the buyers and Yokohama City, the new station was designed to have 2 units of 600 MW with the world’s highest energy efficiency and lowest emissions for a coal-fired power station. The boilers and turbines use USC technology with a main steam temperature/pressure of 600°C/25 MPa and a reheat steam temperature of 610°C. The plant uses a dry-type DeSOx system to reduce emissions.

Figure 4 shows that SOx and NOx emissions from Isogo are less than those from fossil-fired power plants in other developed countries, due to this advanced DeSOx and DeNOx system.



Typical power plant simplified flow diagram



More, long read: https://www.worldcoal.org/coal-fired-power-generation-japan-and-world

16 February 2019 - Japanese trading house ITOCHU announces coal exit. It is part of the company’s efforts to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions

Japanese trading house ITOCHU has pledged to stop investing in new coal-fired power plants as well as thermal coal mines.

It is part of the company’s efforts to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help tackle climate change.

ITOCHU, with an equity market capitalisation of $29 billion (£22.6bn), is to continue divesting its existing thermal coal mine investments in Australia and Indonesia – the organisation has sold its interest in the Rolleston thermal coal mine held through its subsidiary, ITOCHU Minerals & Energy Australia.

It said in a statement: “ITOCHU has already established and announced our sustainability action plans.

“We recognise that, among other things, our coal-related business must be one of the issues which we have to promptly address as its impact on our business and our surrounding stakeholders will be significant and we therefore hereby commit ourselves, as our policy, to neither develop any new coal-fired power generation business nor to acquire any new thermal coal mining interest.”

More: https://www.energylivenews.com/2019/02/16/japanese-trading-house-itochu-announces-coal-exit/

January 3, 2019 - EPA Says Limits On Mercury, Air Toxins Too Expensive For Power Plants

The Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering the reasoning behind its rule that limits air pollutants from coal and oil-fired power plants. An expert says that could lead to the standards’ undoing and more coal pollution in Indiana.

The agency wants to overturn a finding that says the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS) is “appropriate and necessary” — the legal basis for the rule.

When the Obama administration passed the rule, it considered all of the hazardous pollutants that were likely to be reduced at coal and oil-fired power plants, not just the ones it was trying to regulate. So where Obama’s EPA estimated up to $90 billion in public health benefits per year, Trump’s EPA estimated less than $6 million.

But the Trump administration says these side benefits shouldn’t be part of MATS — and that it's too costly for utilities to comply with the standards.

Janet McCabe, who now works for Indiana University’s Environmental Resilience Institute, helped develop the rule under the Obama Administration. She says this could set the rule up for a legal challenge and change the way the EPA writes regulations — because several of them consider side benefits.

"If you quit smoking and your primary desire is to reduce your chances of getting lung cancer, you will also benefit from quitting smoking in many other ways that affect your health positively, right?" McCabe gives as an example.

"You'll reduce chance of stroke, you'll be able to exercise more and that’s healthy. Your breath will smell better, there are all of these other things that are kind of co-benefits."

McCabe says since 2011, MATS has helped the country reduce its mercury emissions by about 80 percent.

“The rule has made a difference and certainly this would not be the right direction to go,” she says.

Utilities have already spent more than $18 billion to comply with MATS — which mostly paid for the cost of better pollution control technologies. McCabe says if MATS goes away completely, it could have big consequences for Indiana, which is primarily powered by coal.

More: http://www.wbaa.org/post/epa-says-limits-mercury-air-toxins-too-expensive-power-plants#stream/0

If one were to click on each of the highlighted links in the source document for the other thread on coal power plants in Japan, you may find some of what is on here as well as seeing a document of temperatures with no English explanation.

Power companies do not want to invest (CAPEX) in advanced emission control equipment due to the cost vs benefit which is explained in some of these articles. This has been the case for several decades now and more.

For us it is cheaper, supposedly, to shut coal fired plants down and roll to natural gas followed by biomass, wind, solar etc.

As opposed to the pause in global warming story from the other thread, pragmatic factors are at play with these decisions in Japan, China and the rest of Asia to ramp up the number of coal fired power plants including the world leadership position in pollution abatement.

#Coal #ElectricalGeneration #Japan #Asia