Why Is Mexico Returning To Coal?

[Elderberry]

Oil Patch By Haley Zaremba - Feb 23, 2021

As the world transitions away from fossil fuels and weens itself off emissions-heavy energy sources, one country is running against the current and right back into the arms of coal. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has bucked all convention as he tries to make good on his campaign trail promise to establish a norm of energy sovereignty for his country. Bringing down the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and curbing the extraction and combustion of dirty fuels - particularly coal - is paramount to the increasingly urgent missive of avoiding catastrophic climate change. In order to keep the globe’s temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial averages - the threshold set by scientists to stave off the very worst effects of climate change - we will need to cut oil use by 37% and gas use by 25% and cut out oil altogether by just 2030. Put simply, this decade will make all the difference in the future of our species.

This is why it’s particularly alarming that a sizeable economic and industrial force like Mexico has thrown caution and a fair amount of carbon dioxide to the wind and doubled down on its anachronistic dedication to ramping up its coal industry at the very time that most countries are attempting to phase out the particularly dirty fossil fuel.

“Instead of thinking of a transition from coal and fossil fuels, he’s thinking of using more coal and petroleum,” Adrián Fernández Bremauntz, director of climate change organization Iniciativa Climática de México, was quoted by the Guardian. “No other G20 country has such abnormal or retrograde energy policies as this government,” he added. “It’s not going to advance us toward our climate goals.”

More: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Why-Is-Mexico-Returning-To-Coal.html

[catfish1957]

Easy and smart move.  Supply and demand.  As the idiots of the G-20 move toward boxing themselves in with solar and wind based on this Climate Change Scam.  The Mexicans get to reap the benefits of buying their coal for probably next to nothing. Watch them also become powerehouses in the petrochemcical industry, as eveyone else sticks the knife in the oil sector.

This might be the sad and unintended solution of the border crisis.  Mexico surpasses us as economic power 50 years from now.  And anyone thinking their government will be as generous on crossings?  .....

[rangerrebew]

Un-Greening: Mexico gives up on renewables, revives coal industry
Mexican flag

…

Mexico, the eleventh biggest population on Earth, was all enthused about renewables a few years ago, but now they are actively winding back wind and solar and reactivating coal projects.  Mines are being reopened, coal miners are being hired and the state owned Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) has been told to buy electricity from its own coal generators before they buy electricity from the privately owned renewables generators.

López Obrador is called a populist, he talks of energy sovereignty, and speaks badly of predecessors who opened up the energy sector to foreign and private interests. He vowed to put ” at least 80% of the budget – into fossil fuels.””
Mexico was once a climate leader – now it’s betting big on coal

David Agren in San Juan de Sabinas, The Guardian

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, has unveiled plans to buy nearly 2m tons of thermal coal from small producers like Rivera. He also plans to reactivate a pair of coal-fired plants on the Texas border, which were being wound down as natural gas and renewables took a more prominent role in Mexico’s energy mix.

Not only is López Obrador is betting big on fossil fuels, he is also curtailing clean energy.

The CFE’s current investment plan forgoes clean energy projects entirely. And a bill for overhauling the electricity industry that was recently sent to Congress would force the CFE to purchase power from its own facilities, including coal plants, before renewables.

https://joannenova.com.au/2021/02/un-greening-mexico-gives-up-on-renewables-revives-coal-industry/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=un-greening-mexico-gives-up-on-renewables-revives-coal-industry

[Cyber Liberty]

Because Mexicans are not as stupid as Democrats are?

[HoustonSam]

This might be the sad and unintended solution of the border crisis.  Mexico surpasses us as economic power 50 years from now.  And anyone thinking their government will be as generous on crossings?  .....

Interesting thought.  All the grass-cutting and house-cleaning down there will be done by Bubba and Lurleen.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Renewable power has weakened anybody who relies upon it, from Germany to Spain to now Texas.

If one was a hostile foreign power who wished to destabilize an enemy, one way would be to convince your enemy to use wind turbines which sell to them very cheaply, and get them to rely upon them for power while you purchase coal from them because they are shutting down reliable coal plants and you build more coal plants of your own.

If anybody has not figured out relying upon unreliable renewable power is a national security issue, they should by now.

[Sled Dog]

Because Mexicans are not as stupid as Democrats are?

Mexicans don't want to destroy their own country.

The Rodents do.

Also, if Mexico imports cheap coal to make electricity and sells it's oil in the global market, they make a profit.

[Fishrrman]

Blather from the source article:
In order to keep the globe’s temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial averages - the threshold set by scientists to stave off the very worst effects of climate change - we will need to cut oil use by 37% and gas use by 25% and cut out oil altogether by just 2030.

Consider the source of this anti-coal article:
"oilprice.com" ...

[catfish1957]

Blather from the source article:
In order to keep the globe’s temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial averages - the threshold set by scientists to stave off the very worst effects of climate change - we will need to cut oil use by 37% and gas use by 25% and cut out oil altogether by just 2030.

Consider the source of this anti-coal article:
"oilprice.com" ...

????

This was an op-ed from an envirowhacko.  Site itself is pro-energy.  You do understand that some op-eds do not reflect the host site don't you?

[Sled Dog]

Blather from the source article:
In order to keep the globe’s temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial averages - the threshold set by scientists to stave off the very worst effects of climate change - we will need to cut oil use by 37% and gas use by 25% and cut out oil altogether by just 2030.

Consider the source of this anti-coal article:
"oilprice.com" ...

Hmmm...."pre-industrial averages".

Techno-babble for the ignorant religious cultist.

The Industrial Revolution started very near the bottom temperature range of the Little Ice Age.

Temperatures before the onset of the Maunder Minimum and the LIA were much higher, and coincided with...unprecedented agricultural prosperity in Europe.

Over how many years was this "pre-Industrial Average" supposed to have been calculated, and who got to pick which years?   Knowing those con-men, did they only pick winter temperatures to average?   Which warm years, outside of the Medieval Warm Period did they deliberately leave out?

Who picked that 1.5C degree rise as the We're All Gonna Die Apocalypse?   On what basis?   How was the optimum temperature determined?   

[Joe Wooten]

   How was the optimum temperature determined?   

Anal extraction

[Elderberry]

Mexico was once a climate leader – now it's betting big on coal

David Agren in San Juan de Sabinas February 15, 2021

https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexico-once-climate-leader-now-110003131.html

The men on the midnight shift smoked cigarettes and cracked jokes in the glow of their helmet lights as they prepared to go underground. They were loading safety equipment and coils of pipe onto wheelbarrows, in readiness for a second shift due to start working later that week.

“We’re reactivating the industry,” said Arturo Rivera Wong, who had just taken on 40 more workers at the mine he owns in the scrublands of the border state of Coahuila.

“Four furnaces at the big thermoelectric plant are going to be reactivated,” he explained. “This is going to kickstart coal sales.”

As the climate crisis worsens and clean energy prices plunge, governments around the world have been weaning their economies of coal and other fossil fuels.

Mexico is moving in the opposite direction.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, has unveiled plans to buy nearly 2m tons of thermal coal from small producers like Rivera. He also plans to reactivate a pair of coal-fired plants on the Texas border, which were being wound down as natural gas and renewables took a more prominent role in Mexico’s energy mix.

Not only is López Obrador is betting big on fossil fuels, he is also curtailing clean energy.

The populist president has promoted a vision of energy sovereignty, in which state-run bodies – the oil company Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) – pump petroleum and generate electricity. Private players, which have heavily invested in clean energy, are relegated to a secondary role in López Obrador’s vision – while emissions and climate commitments are an afterthought.

[DefiantMassRINO]

... because coal is cheaper thanks to decreased demand in US.