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Coal Can’t Fill World’s Burning Appetite
Steven Mufson and Blaine Harden, Washington Post
With Supplies Short, Price Rise Surpasses Oil and U.S. Exporters Profit
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Long considered an abundant, reliable and relatively cheap source of energy, coal is suddenly in short supply and high demand worldwide.
An untimely confluence of bad weather, flawed energy policies, low stockpiles and voracious growth in Asia’s appetite has driven international spot prices of coal up by 50 percent or more in the past five months, surpassing the escalation in oil prices.
(20 March 2008)
An Export in Solid Supply
Clifford Krauss, New York Times
These days, people really are taking coals to Newcastle.
That flow is part of a vast reorganization of the global coal trade that is making the United States a major exporter for the first time in years – and helping to drive up domestic prices of the one fossil fuel the nation has in abundance.
Coal has long been a cheap and plentiful fuel source for utilities and their customers, helping to keep American electric bills relatively low.
But rising worldwide demand is turning American coal into another hot global commodity, with domestic buyers having to compete with buyers from countries like Germany and Japan.
… Coal and utility executives predict that coal will remain the most economical fuel in years to come. But they concede that any significant rise could have an important inflationary impact since coal is used to produce about half the nation’s electric power, and coal is also vital in steel production.
For coal producers, the new demand abroad is good news at a time when coal is under political attack at home. More than 50 proposed coal-fired power plants were delayed or canceled over the last year because of concerns over greenhouse gas emissions.
… Many environmental groups see the rising global trade as an ominous development, however, since it promises to confound efforts to limit global emissions. World consumption of coal has increased in recent years by more than 4 percent annually, a major reason that emissions of carbon dioxide are going up, not down. Carbon dioxide is the principal gas implicated in global warming.
(19 March 2008)
Why carbon capture is an illusion
Bruce Cox, Globe & Mail
On March 10, Environment Minister John Baird released detailed regulations to address global warming. These so-called tough measures lean heavily on new technology that captures and stores greenhouse gas emissions. Mr. Baird says catching carbon emitted from coal-fired power plants and tar-sands projects, then burying it deep underground, is a large part of Canada meeting its greenhouse gas emissions targets for 2020 and 2050.
This is unlikely. Even if we set aside the fact that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has set new, weaker goals so that Canada is no longer holds up its share of the Kyoto agreement, the sorry truth is that carbon capture and storage is a kind of fool’s gold – all glitter and promise, but of no real worth. It won’t enable us to meet even these weaker commitments, and it will be an expensive, diversionary tactic while Canada climbs the carbon charts.
Simply put, taking the carbon dioxide out of emissions (from a power plant or installation), and finding a safe place to tuck it away permanently isn’t easy, isn’t cheap and isn’t going to happen in time to save the climate. There are problems with the technology that no one has been able to solve on an industrial scale. Enormous amounts of money will have to be spent just to try and make it work. It really does look like the proverbial bottomless pit.
But the most damning problem is that even if it works and even if you assume the industry’s enthusiastic targets for this technology can be realized, the technology will kick in too late.
Bruce Cox is executive director of Greenpeace Canada.
(18 March 2008)
