Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Turkey has very big plans for coal, with more than 80 new plants in the pipeline, equivalent in capacity to the UK’s entire power sector. The scale of the coal rush is greater than any country on Earth, after China and India. It is pushing forward in a year when the world’s nations must seal a deal to combat climate change at a crunch UN summit in Paris in December and when scientists have warned that 80% of known coal reserves must stay in the ground.
Turkey is desperate to keep stoking its fast-growing economy and to wean itself off its enormous dependence on Russian gas. But opponents warn that coal brings a heavy human health toll, estimated to already cost Turkey several billion Euros a year, and they point to the virtual absence of solar power in the sunny country.
A short drive from Goğulhan, Hussein Alp Aslan, is looking down on vast 20km-long opencast coal mine that feeds the Afşin-Elbistan plant with low-quality, highly polluting lignite coal. The patchwork of ochres and greys, smouldering fires and gigantic insect-like machines tearing at the seams, is laid out beneath a fringe of sharp mountains and a blue sky.
About 700km to the north, on the Black Sea coast, lies Zonguldak. Here, the smokestacks of three coal-fired power plants form a snaking line along the floor of a steep, forested valley, including the nation’s first plant which opened 70 years ago. It is indisputably a coal town. The football team was named Coal Sports, the school Black Diamond and a new $1bn coal power station is planned here, backed by Chinese investors.
Zonguldak hosts one of Turkey’s few hard coal reserves and standing inside a pitch-black tunnel, just off one of the hairpin bends that leads to the road out of the valley, miner Murat Sahin says: “I like the job – it’s kind of a privilege. We like the fact that coal is heating people’s homes, and producing electricity. We feel productive.”
For Sahin, coal itself is not the problem, but the way it it used. “I agree with the air pollution concerns, but they have to take the correct measures to put filters on the power stations, and they are not doing it,” he says. “We have to use local resources. Would you prefer nuclear power here? It is much more dirty – look at Chernobyl.” He smiles away concerns for his own health, with the coal dust picking out the laughter lines around his eyes: “That’s an advantage of the job: miners never grow old.”
The Turkish government has emphasised the use of indigenous resources in pushing its coal rush, but 95% of the fuel used by plants built in the last five years has come from abroad. Opposition to these coal imports is an issue that unites both the coal miners and local groups campaigning against the new plant in Zonguldak, where a green mountain spur on the coast is being cut away to expand the port.
Government support for coal is strong, including substantial subsidies, but projects in the newly privatised industry require financing. On 16th floor of Garanti Bank’s headquarters in Istanbul, the glass walls show a glittering panorama of the booming city as executive vice president Ebru Dildar Edin explains the bank’s approach.
The international spotlight will focus on Turkey when it hosts a G20 summit in November, just weeks ahead of the crunch UN climate summit in Paris. One issue could be the big coal projects that are reliant on imported fuel, which Edin says are likely to need foreign finance: “I don’t think there will be a big appetite for these from Turkish banks.” But this is not a barrier to the $12bn proposals at the Afşin-Elbistan complex, which sits on its own vast lignite reserves.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
vtsnowedin wrote:I suppose we could shut down a couple of hundred plants with state of the art scrubbers on them to balance out the pollution.
Synapsid wrote:Tanada,
Despair not--Turkey has begun construction of her first nuclear-power plant, at Akkuyu on the south coast, just across the strait from Cyprus. The second is planned for Sinop, at the point farthest north on the Black Sea coast.
No unhealthy fixation on coal alone, in Turkey, no sir.
The coal plants and the nuclear ones are consistent with the lack of progress on the Turkish Stream NG line Gazprom has been planning for. Turkey has not exactly welcomed the proposal with open arms.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
ROCKMAN wrote:And to repeat what was said months ago about how to deal with coal plant GHG: "They could try the approach Texas is currently making. We also have huge lignite deposits. The second largest source of GHG in the US comes from a plant where half the burners run on NG and the other half on lignite. But we're in the process of building the largest CO2 sequestration system on the planet to handle much of those GHG's. Will cost more than $1 BILLION just for the infrastructure. And it's being done primarily to address the US govt's efforts to shut down coal burning plants.
There are numerous technical approaches to dealing with climate change. But the cost of such approaches is often the stumbling block. The motivation for the Texas sequestration project isn't to save the planet...it's to save the Texas economy which is expected to have a significant increase in electricity demand in the coming decades. It would appear that in Europe they might be against GW. But the question is whether they are willing to fund the battle or not."
Or more to the point: can Turkey afford (and willing to pay) for a plan to reduce those emissions? Maybe the EU might want to toss some $’s at Turkey to help out? Or take the opposite route and pass trade sanctions against Turkey. Let’s just hold our breaths and see who does what, eh?
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
GASMON wrote:Ulenspiegel wrote:@Gasmon,
is it really so difficult to get correct data? You are talking nonsense.
Please show us the "correct" data, with sources.
Thanks,
Gas
GASMON wrote:Ulenspiegel wrote:@Gasmon,
is it really so difficult to get correct data? You are talking nonsense.
Please show us the "correct" data, with sources.
Thanks,
Gas
ROCKMAN wrote:T - "...I strongly doubt any of the CCS strategies will ever be used except in a very limited fashion for things like enhanced oil field recovery." I suspect you understand that the Texas CCS project isn't a proposal but construction to capture the second largest source of GHG in the USA started over a year ago. But I agree about the cost justification: we aren't doing it to "save the earth" or for "future generations". It's strictly a necessary business plan: Texas needs an ever increasing amount of electricity, we have a huge lignite reserve and the feds are constantly pushing against us over of GHG emissions. The $billion+ price tag is cheap compared to he hundreds of $billions of electricity we'll generate in decades to come. And beside: the feds are chipping in a big chunk of the cost. So thank you...suckers. LOL.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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