Coal Is Now the World's Most Expensive Fossil Fuel | Hacker News Reader

Coal Is Now the World's Most Expensive Fossil Fuel

bloomberg.com

85 pointsadventured11 comments

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Bloomberg's journalists should really start to consult their articles with some experts...

First of all, oil is still not cheaper than coal in terms of energy efficiency:

1 oil barrel is equal to 159 kilograms.

1 metric ton is equal to 1000 kilograms.

oil heat of combustion = 47 MJ/kg (optimistically)

coal heat of combustion = 25 MJ/kg

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/facts-and-figu...

coal price per metric ton from article = $66.85

oil price per barrel from article = $26.98

Which give us:

coal: 25 [MJ/kg] * 1000 [kg] = 25000 MJ / 66.85$ = 374 [MJ per $]

oil: 47 [MJ/kg] * 159 [kg] = 7473 [MJ] / $26.98 = 276 [MJ per $]

Secondly, we have regulations and limits on coal and some artificial anti free market regulations on renewable. So comparing it does not make any sense. You newer know what would be a price of renewable energy in total without these regulations.

Thirdly, as a homework please make a similar calculation for wood :)

In addition it seems that that the drop in oil prices is more from the massive drop in demand due to the coronavirus than the new flood of supply from Saudi Arabia. So if demand picks up oil prices will go up.

I totally agree. Additionally in times of crisis or recession coal price may also drop as all industry related materials.

Wouldn't be surprised Putin broke up OPEC+ to cover up the decision of extending his reigning period to President for life. MBS and Putin are BFF's and this was probably MBS taking one for the team.

Not exactly related to your remark, but the results and ranking are probably different if you integrate the cost of the equipment and maintenance.

I'm guessing that the overall costs to use them as power sources is somewhat more complex than "What if I put a bunch of coal in a pile and lit it on fire?"

Yeah, you need to split crude oil into simpler fuels and gases to burn it efficiently, so it looks even worse for crude oil.

They're quite distinct energy sources anyway. You refine oil into petrol and it moves cars, whereas you use coal to generate electricity. No matter how cheap coal is I'm not sticking it in my Subaru. There might be a small amount of diesel-fired electricity generation, but it's not a major contributor to the energy mix and it's more for remote locations.

> coal: 25 [MJ/kg] * 1000 [kg] = 25000 MJ / 66.85$ = 374 [MJ per $] oil: 47 [MJ/kg] * 159 [kg] = 7473 [MJ] / $26.98 = 276 [MJ per $]

You divided your coal by energy by your oil price and vice versa

Thank you. The calculation is right. It is just wrong price labeling. Coal costs 66$ oil 27$ It is fixed now.

> some artificial anti free market regulations on renewable.

fossil fuels have these as well. as well there are regulations and limits on renewables.

It is true though that these things make it hard to measure the true cost. Additionally externalities add to the true cost of things. What pollution is created when building a solar panel? What is it's cost? What is the cost of coal pollution? Both mining it and burning it?

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