Coal Is on a Roll

While in the United States coal is rapidly being replaced with other fuels, particularly natural gas, globally coal’s share of the world energy market is higher than it has been for the last four decades, reaching 30%. Conversely, the fuel with the largest share of the energy market, oil, has been losing market share and now accounts for 33% of the market, the lowest since 1965. Since burning coal produces about double the greenhouse gas emissions as burning oil, these statistics, which come from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, are another indication that efforts to address climate change globally are going nowhere. Not only is the burning of coal for energy increasing in China and India, as would be suspected, but surprisingly coal burning has also been increasing in Europe.

Perhaps the most important thing for Americans to take away from this is that when hearing hear about the declining use of coal in the US is to realize that the US is the exception not the rule. Rather than being on its last legs, coal use is surging and continues to be the main driver of globing warming.

James Hansen Says CO2 Must Be Reduced to 350ppm

The aim of most people fighting global warming is to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from increasing above 450ppm, which is approximately 65ppm above today’s levels. This target has been advocated by climate scientist James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and has been also been advocated by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But Hansen is now saying that the target is too high. In an article in the British newspaper The Sunday Times he says:

“If humanity wants to preserve a climate resembling that in which civilisation developed, then the palaeoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest CO2 must be reduced from its current level to between 300-350ppm. A 350ppm target is only achievable by phasing out coal use….We need a moratorium on the construction of coal-fired power plants and we must phase out the existing ones within two decades.”

If Hansen is right, it appears we will just have to accept a planet that does not resemble the one we are familiar with. Limiting CO2 to 450ppm appears to be an almost impossible task, particularly with China and India counting on coal to lift hundreds of millions of people out of a meager existence. Reducing CO2 to 350ppm or even lower doesn’t seem to be a feasible goal. It is hard to imagine the world only 20 years from now without any operating coal-fired plants. According to the article, Hansen will support his view of setting a lower target in a research paper. Until that paper is published and other scientists have a chance to review it is unlikely that the target of 450ppm will revised. However, perhaps we should be prepared for an even gloomier view of the possibility of extracting ourselves out of our global warming predicament than we now have.

FutureGen “Clean Coal” Project Bites the Dust

Citing rising costs, the US Energy Department cancelled a project called FutureGen which was supposed to demonstrate how carbon dioxide released by burning coal could be captured and stored. With the price of the project, which was supposed to be built in Mattoon, Illinois, reaching $1.8 billion and seemingly still going up the Energy Department called it quits. According to a report in The New York Times the Deputy Secretary of Energy, Clay Sell, said that the project would be revamped. The chief executive of the FutureGen Alliance said that canceling the project would probably result in a 4-year delay.

So, where does this leave us. With a leading climate scientist James Hansen calling for a moratorium on new coal-burning power plants which can not capture and store carbon dioxide to keep carbon dioxide from increasing to atmospheric levels that will cause catastrophic climate change this decision clearly leaves us in a bad spot. Efforts to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy simply do not seem to going fast enough to provide enough electricity if new coal plants are entirely out of the picture. However, if more new coal plants are built without the capture and storage capability carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere will almost surely overshoot the target of 450 ppm which is supposed to limit warming to 2C above preindustrial levels.

The cancellation of the FutureGen project should be a wake-up call. Maybe capturing and storing carbon dioxide from coal plants is just pie in the sky, either technologically impossible or so expensive that coal could not economically compete as a fuel. Maybe instead of holding on to the coal option, we should start gradually dismantling coal plants and go all out to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy. Do we really have any other good choice?

China, the US, and India Lead Global Coal-Burning Binge

According to an analysis by the Christian Science Monitor of plans around the world to build coal-fired power plants during the next five years, pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere will reach new levels, with these plants adding another 1.2 billion tons of this greenhouse gas each year. Coal-burning plants are being planned in 37 countries including eight in the European Union which has taken the lead in fighting global warming. China, the US, and India in that order are planning on building the most new coal-fired generating capacity. According to the Monitor, if all these plants in the 37 countries are built by 2012 there would be 7,474 coal-fired plants in the world pouring out 9 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, a healthy slice of the predicted 31 billion tons from all sources. One ominous note pointed out in the article is that this amount of carbon dioxide exceeds the “business as usual” projections of most climate models. Considering the catastrophic consequences of the business as usual predictions for climate change already being churned out by the models this is worrisome indeed.

It hard to come to any other conclusion that we are on a reckless course to disaster. Nevertheless, many conservatives are still clinging to an outdated ideology that opposes government regulation of industry and the need for tax increases (carbon tax) to shape public policy and hence refuse to acknowledge the obvious. Without a political consensus in the US the path out of this mess appears to be blocked.

India Poised for 25 Years of Increased Coal Burning

While scientists in the US are calling for a moratorium on the building of coal-fired plants to limit greenhouse gas emissions India has plans to quadruple its burning of coal during the next 25 years according to a report by Reuters. To make sure his country has enough coal to burn the minister for coal in India says that India is acquiring “coal properties abroad.” Based on India's plans, world climate scientists apparently have even less influence in India than they do here in the US. According to the UN, India is already number four in the world on the list of greenhouse gas emitters. With about 150 coal-burning plants in various planning stages in the US it hard to see how we are in position to urge India to change its plans in order to prevent possible catastrophic climate change.

Bulldoze Coal-Fired Power Plants Before 2050 Says Climate Expert

The Houston Chronicle reports that well-known NASA climate scientist James Hansen is calling for all older coal-fired power plants that do not capture and store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to be bulldozed before the middle of the century. Hansen is also calling for a cessation of the building of coal-fired power plants. To put this in context, over 150 such plants are in the planning stage in the United States. Hansen is speaking today at the National Press Club.

Hansen believes that energy efficiency measures can make the sharp reduction in coal use that he calls for feasible. Since coal is used for about one half of all electricity generated in the United States these energy efficiency measure would have to be sweeping. Since climate scientists say that we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050 to limit global warming to a level that would not be catastrophic Hansen’s proposal seems quite sensible. The alternative, of continuing to use coal to meet increasing energy demand in the United States, can only lead to disaster on scale that is difficult to contemplate.