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Comment by IfOnlyYouKnew | Hacker News Reader

The specific end date isn’t really a meaningful measure, except for symbolic purposes. It’s area-under-curve that matters, or, inversely, how much is being left in the ground.

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Getting the big power plant and mine operators to agree to a 2038 deadline is meaningful. They were involved in the process for coming up with the phase-out path.

I can't imagine Peabody or Koch signing off on a 2038 deadline in the US.

They don't need to sign off on a deadline in the US, it has been and will go away regardless. That's obviously due to the US having enormous reserves of cheap natural gas. You effectively have one big energy segment happy to squeeze another to death. Coal use will get more and more expensive in the US as its decline reaches a cost inflection point in the near future, if we're not already there now. Every aspect of coal electricity generation gets more expensive as it loses economies of scale. By 2038 natural gas + wind + solar will push coal to well below 10% in the US, without any additional government intervention. If the Feds apply pressure, it'll go that much faster / lower.

Doesn't burning natural gas produce just as much CO2 as coal?

No. It can be about half as much CO2 for the same power output due to natural gas plants also being more efficient.

...this is somewhat counter-acted by accidental leakage of methane (itself a potent greenhouse gas), but not entirely.

Oh, that's good to know, thanks.

No, to create the same amount of thermal energy, burning gas produces about 30% less CO2. The main reason is, that coal is pretty much pure carbon while gas is mostly CH4, so you are burning carbon and hydrogene. That is also the reason, hydrogene is mostly produced by splitting natural gas and producing CO2 along.

It's a measurable target. That's more than words.

And 2038 isn't that far out in the future.

Any target that exceeds a term of government needs to be viewed with suspicion. This smells like kicking the can down the road to where it's no longer Angela's problem.

The phase-out plan was designed and signed off by a committee which involves unions, environmental organisations, and power/mining companies. Future governments can use this fact to hold the power companies to account.

Unless the future gov't is run by someone like Trump.

You haven't seen the union workers on friday protesting for a sensible transition. These aren't men that doubt climate change, these are men fearing about their job. If you have a house and a family to care for, change within 5 years can lead to huge political backlashes (in local elections).

Also, this was the coal commission suggesting a strategy, not the government (with plenty of old ministers though). What the government is doing with this now, we'll see

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