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My question refers to 2021 COP26 climate conference. I'll omit to link some sources because there are too many and readers could better evaluate the issue looking at their own chosen sources.

Basically as far as I understood the only commitment that came out of the conference is to phase out (or down for some countries) coal usage. But I didn't understand if they meant coal usage for energy production or coal usage in general. Coal has a lot of possible alternative uses, mainly in the steel industry, but also some is used by the chemical industry as a precursor to other products. I know that on paper there are so many coal reserves that it could be used for a long time by all the different industries, but actually the coal seams that could be exploited at a low cost have already been exploited. A lot of coal mines nowadays have got so deep that in order to keep digging the machinery must be constantly cooled otherwise they would break in the heated environment.

So I am wondering if there really is an intention to phase out coal use and production on the long term or if it is just a political spin and the real intention is to phase out its use for energy production in order to save it for the steel industry and for the other industries.

FluidCode
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  • Note that for steel production coal is burned to produce heat and this burning does produce CO2, exactly the same way as if the coal were burned for power generation. It is possible to make steel without coal (or at least massively less coal) and some other source of heat. Whether that is efficient is a totally different question. – quarague Nov 18 '21 at 12:47

1 Answers1

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The COP26 statement this question appears to be asking about is the "global coal to clean power transition statement" (primary source).

This statement (which is only one of many statements and declarations resulting from COP26, by the way) only talks about "coal power generation", not about any other possible uses for coal. It further defines power generation as:

the use of coal power that is not mitigated with technologies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, such as Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS).

So it does not even condemn all forms of power generation, only those which do not use carbon capture to prevent it from releasing carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere.

Regarding the question of what this means for the price and availability of coal for other industries than power generation: That's mostly speculative. On the one hand, the lower demand for coal should drive prices down. On the other hand, less coal being demanded means that coal mining will be scaled down, which means less economics of scale, which could make coal more expensive. And then you shouldn't forget that there are some governments which currently subsidize coal mining. This currently artificially reduces coal prices. Those subsidies could be increased, lowered or even replaced by punitive taxes. So governments still have tools to influence the coal prices for their local industries. So it's not just a question of economic forces but also of political will.

Philipp
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  • My guess is that confusion arises because of the usual poor journalism. Most journalists know nothing about science and care less. They will often use the phrase "zero carbon" apparently unaware that all life on Earth is carbon-based. – Nemo Nov 17 '21 at 13:37
  • @Nemo "carbon" is indeed a term which is a pretty bad oversimplification of climate-damaging emissions. First of all, it's not "carbon" that's bad, it's specifically the gas "carbon-dioxide" (CO2). Second, while carbon-dioxide is one major greenhouse gas and currently the most pressing concern, it's not the only one to worry about. Methane, for example, is problematic too. – Philipp Nov 17 '21 at 13:40
  • And carbon dioxide is a gas naturally produced by all aerobic animals and required by all plants. So it's not carbon dioxide per se which is a bad thing just having too much in the wrong place! – Nemo Nov 17 '21 at 13:47
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    Regarding price impact on coking coal, from reducing use of thermal coal... don't expect much impact in most regions. Coking coal and thermal coal are different, with the former being more expensive to extract and process in many parts of the world, and the delivered cost of the latter being mostly just the transport. – Pete W Nov 17 '21 at 14:29
  • I don't think that the argument and the comments about the impact on the cost of coal take into account the future. Changes in any case will happen slowly, but at the same time demand for steel is increasing. Probably for the next ten years the amount of coal mined will remain at the current high levels. So, the coal available in the 30s of this century might be quite expensive even with state subsidies. – FluidCode Nov 17 '21 at 14:39
  • @FluidCode Steel is only a small fraction of coal consumption, though. Anyway, this is all just speculation based on a ton of assumptions about the future which might or might not come true. – Philipp Nov 17 '21 at 14:42
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    @Philipp "Steel is only a tiny fraction of coal consumption" The source you linked is not very informative. The majority of steel production was slowly moved to China, it is not a surprise that US steel industry does not use a lot of coal. – FluidCode Nov 17 '21 at 14:47
  • Coal is used as a reducing agent in steelmaking as well as to heat furnaces, but there is work to use other reductants such as charcoal and hydrogen, as well as to heat furnaces in other ways. So it's not essential. But equally, definitions of low-carbon steel production can mean a lot of different things. (Industry blog) – Stuart F Nov 18 '21 at 10:47