While Donald Trump is abolishing environmental laws and encouraging the polluting coal industry, data from around the world show that the past year saw a sharp decline in the planning and construction of coal-fired power plants. The closure of coal production units is also planned in Israel
By Racheli Vox, Angle, Science and Environment News Agency
Recently, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an order canceling many environmental regulations established during the time of his predecessor in office, Barack Obama, and intended to reduce the damages of the coal-fired power plants that pollute our health and the environment. Despite Trump's attempts to strengthen the American coal industry, new data show that the global trend is towards a greener and healthier future.
In the last year there has been a dramatic decrease in the planning and construction of coal-fired power plants in the world, according to Report of the environmental organizations Greenpeace and the Sierra Club and the environmental research body CoalSwarm. The number of coal-fired power plants whose construction began between January 2016 and January 2017 decreased by 62 percent compared to the same period last year, at the same time as a 48 percent decrease in pre-construction activities, such as announcing the construction of power plants and obtaining permits for construction, and a 19 percent decrease in the number of plants under construction.
The authors of the report attribute the sharp decline to the transition to renewable energies: energies that do not rely on sources such as fossil fuels but on non-degradable sources, such as solar energy, wind, water and biomass (organic matter derived from non-fossilized plants or animals). Most of the change is due to policy changes in China and India, designed to fight air pollution and encourage clean energy. In addition to the decline in the construction and planning of future stations, a record number of existing stations have been decommissioned in the last two years, mainly in the United States and the European Union. The authors of the report relied on publicly available information, company reports and satellite photographs.
214 die a year
The harmful effect of coal-fired power plants on our health is beyond doubt. Air pollution, one of the main damages of coal-fired power plants, found to be related For heart disease, lung cancer, acute and chronic respiratory diseases, stroke, low lung functions in children and more. World Health Organization Cancer Research Center Defined air pollution as a certain carcinogen. In the letter sent by the former CEO of the Ministry of Environmental Protection David Leffler to the outgoing CEO of HAI Eli Glickman it is claimed that the coal-fired power plants of the Electric Company in Hadera and Ashkelon cause the death of 155 people a year in the Hadera area and 59 people a year in the Ashkelon area.
"The health damage of the coal-fired power plants has several layers," explains Dr. Daniel Mader, founder of the scientific consulting company SP Interface. "First and foremost, coal-fired power plants emit fine, breathable particles of materials such as soot into the air. The smaller the particles, the more dangerous they are. Particles smaller than 10 microns enter the respiratory system and it is very difficult to remove them from there. Particles smaller than 2.5 microns can enter through the lungs into the blood system and cause damage inside the body, such as a stroke for example."
Particulate pollution is not the only air pollution caused by coal-fired power plants. "The power plants also emit nitrogen oxides, sulfur oxides and heavy metals," says Madar. "Some of these pollutants can be dealt with using scavengers, which clean the exhaust gases from the power plants, but they don't clean everything."
Additional damages caused by coal are related to the way it is stored. "The coal is stored in open areas, and when it gets wet, some of the toxic substances inside it, such as heavy metals, seep into the soil and groundwater."
Greener gas?
In accordance with the global trend, Designed in Israel Closure of four of the six coal-fired production units at the "Orot Rabin" power plant in Hadera by June 2022. Filters designed to reduce air pollution were installed in the two remaining units. However, the units that will be closed will be converted to natural gas-based production units, an energy source that, despite its green aura, may also cause environmental damage.
One risk in natural gas is methane, which makes up about 70-75 percent of it. Environmentally, methane is bad At least twice as much Carbon dioxide - the most common greenhouse gas, which causes most of the warming in the global climate change process. known that up to 8 percent of the gas in natural gas wells escapes into the atmosphere, and another amount leaks from the transmission pipes during its transportation and storage, as well as from abandoned gas wells. In addition, when using natural gas, it is true that about half of the amount of carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere compared to burning coal, but carbon dioxide emissions still occur. Madar explains: "Because natural gas is considered green, people have a tendency to use it more, without guilt and without limitations, and to produce more energy. This increased energy production means that after a few years the amount of carbon dioxide that is emitted returns to the same level or even exceeds what was once emitted."
It appears that the only solution that will be free of health and environmental effects is renewable energies. Following The Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the State of Israel has set itself the goal of producing 7 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by the year 2030. However, it seems that we are very far from there. "By and large, the situation in Israel today in terms of renewable energies is bad," says Madar. "Only around 1.5 percent of all electricity in Israel is produced from renewable energies. According to the government's goals, at the beginning of 2015 we were supposed to reach 5 percent, and we didn't get there. We were supposed to reach 10 percent in 2020, and unfortunately we will not get there either. We are among the worst in the OECD in this regard. It is also important to note that until 2014 the number was less than one percent of all electricity produced, so the change in recent years is not great, but it is respectable compared to what it was before."
11 תגובות
for miracles
I don't think there is less corruption in other places.
Israel I have all the rights, I lack nothing, I was born here, I feel safe here, a citizen with all the rights and who has fulfilled all his duties above and beyond, and I am not interested in living anywhere else.
The President of the United States, and also the Prime Minister of Israel, are of interest to me on a pragmatic level only, that they will take care of security and the economic situation that will continue as it is.
Global warming worries me as much as an asteroid collision with the Earth, a future earthquake or a nuclear war...
What worries me more at the moment is the pollution of my environment in Israel, and the projects of petrochemical industries and treatment of natural gas waste products that they want to build along the seashore in our country.
my father
I agree with you that there is no lack of corruption in Israel. This is exactly why I choose not to live in Israel at the moment. If I can't promote what I feel in Israel then I prefer to do it where I can, and not waste my life without supporting the corrupt.
Not that in the US the situation is much better, but at least here I have civil rights (even without being a citizen) and what's mine is mine.
Most people are like the (false) story of the frog in the hot water. Same with global warming...
Miracles
We didn't choose him.
And we have our own corrupt thieves and liars that we choose over and over again.
So what do we have to cry about the choice of the Americans?
Pragmatically, as long as he continues to transfer money and weapons to us so that we can continue to survive here "suits me". (And by the way, Obama also did it, so I had no complaints against him either).
My first priority is my personal security from a pragmatic point of view, everything related to peace agreements, settlement politics, Palestinians, the division of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, ... until today, any change in the political situation was only for the worse, today there is a balance that is quite stable in this respect, and therefore I prefer the political situation to remain as it is. Therefore this combination of Trump and Bibi that continues to serve the freezing of the political situation suits me. Obama also served this situation, the combination of Obama / Bibi, two cowards who are afraid of their own shadow, also contributed to stability. On the other hand, Mrs. Clinton, who had all kinds of ideas for changes... I was a little more afraid than Trump.
my father
We can start from the fact that Trump has already done great damage to the USA. The need for foreign workers is a direct result of the insane cost of tuition here. Those who think that stopping work visas is the solution are going to be very surprised.
We can continue that the environmental laws here have tangibly improved the state of health, and the decisions of the genius are already harming this state.
Trump has already caused an increase in food prices in California and real harm to those who grow the food (and it's not Yale graduates...)
One can add his serious damage to the US's standing in the world.
Trump is a thief, a liar and a fool.
Father, I was in a government office in California not long ago. There is a picture of the president on the wall. President Obama!!
"Following the Kyoto/Paris agreement, Israel committed to reduce by only 7%. But you won't stand for that either."
And the facts show that no other country complies with these agreements either.
It just means that these political agreements are not worth the paper they are written on.
So what do you want from Trump?
101
This utopian scenario probably won't happen.
Not because the prices of the panels will not continue to fall (in relation to the price of wind turbines, I find it hard to believe that there will be a drastic drop in price with only an increase of a few dozen in efficiency. A wind turbine is a mechanical body whose main cost is the construction and labor materials, and these are not expected to be very cheap)
Your mistake is that you don't calculate the drop in the price of mineral energy that will happen if green energy really starts to occupy a significant volume that will actually reduce the use of oil.
In many oil wells you don't even have to pump the oil because it just gushes out. Saudi oil, for example, costs the Saudis a few cents per barrel (of course it brings thousands of percent of profit) maybe oil wells in all kinds of places will be closed due to lack of finances but don't forget that the technology of the oil producers is also improving.
In conclusion, without the decisions of politicians and the support of the states, polluting energy will always be cheaper.
101 is right - we are not only a gas powerhouse, we are also a solar powerhouse, so there is no reason in the world to continue burning coal in Hadera and poisoning half of the country.
The prices of solar panels have fallen in recent years and continue to fall rapidly, there are already solar cells that are able to generate electricity from the full spectrum of light and even generate a small amount of electricity at night from infrared radiation. Wind turbines are constantly improving and their price keeps dropping. Already today we are at the point where renewable energy is cheaper than mineral energy and this ratio is only going to improve to the point where it would be simply madness to extract energy from the earth's soil when you have a tremendous amount of the sun and the blowing winds.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas but it is not a problem because the climate system has a negative feedback.
An example of one of the negative feedback factors are the plants - carbon dioxide is food for the plants, which grow more and cool the planet.
About Wikipedia for Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere
There is a graph of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last hundreds of millions of years
And it can be seen that life flourished on Earth even with high levels of carbon dioxide in tens of meters.
Did Trump sign or not... after all, we didn't elect him.
(And the attempts of the media, especially in Israel, to constantly slander the American president are a bit pathetic)
I just don't understand why in Israel there is no public pressure on Bibi and his government to sign an order to close the coal plants in Israel even though we are already a natural gas powerhouse and there is no reason to continue burning coal here.
And why do chimneys continue to grow in her room and there is already a fourth chimney that keeps emitting smoke?