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Blackout: Dwindling Coal Reserves and the Siren Song of “Clean Coal”
David Roberts, Grist
There isn’t nearly as much coal left as most people think. “Clean coal” will run down limited reserves even faster. If humanity doesn’t begin massive, sustained investment in renewable power sources immediately, civilization could be at risk before the end of the century. And that’s without considering the impacts of climate change.
Such is the stark conclusion of Richard Heinberg’s Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis, which despite its dry tone and technical complexity is one of the scariest f*cking books I’ve ever read.
Right now the U.S. is on the verge of a momentous gamble, as reflected in the ACES bill: betting that long-term emission reductions can be achieved via carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). ACES postpones serious domestic reductions for over a decade on the assumption (hope?) that CCS technology will mature and drop in price enough to enable the indefinite use of coal.
Similarly, at U.N. talks it is fervently hoped that CCS will enable coal to continue driving developing-world economic expansion (as oil declines, coal use has risen). Nothing approaching WWII-scale investment in renewables and efficiency is on the table.
It’s a game-theoretic exercise played for Dantean stakes. If Heinberg is right, policymakers are operating under two fateful, and possibly fatal, illusions.
First, they think the U.S. has a “250-year supply” of coal, and that China, Russia, Australia, and India have similarly inexhaustible supplies. They’re almost certainly wrong.
…The second fateful illusion: that carbon capture and sequestration can enable the continued expansion of coal use.
(27 July 2009)
The Good Earth
Sarah Ferguson, ABC: Four Corners (Australia)
This week on Four Corners: “The Good Earth”, the story of the high stakes battle now being fought between government, farmers and mining companies for the control of Australia’s most fertile agricultural land.
Reporter Sarah Ferguson visits the front line as farmers confront two mining giants with a blockade that’s intended to keep coal exploration teams off their property. The mining companies say that coal mines can co-exist with intensive agriculture but farmers reject this view warning they will not give up their land.”I think we can win. But I’ll tell you what, I’ll never give in. Long as while I’m alive. If they come on, they take me out in a box.” (George Clift, farmer)
The Liverpool Plains in northern New South Wales has been called the food-bowl of Australia, the nation’s most fertile agricultural land. The key to its productivity is its rich volcanic soil and a ready supply of underground water. Massive aquifers run below the plains making the region almost drought proof.
This land produces massive quantities of wheat, corn, sunflower seeds, canola, sorghum along with sheep and cattle.”I’ve only lost one crop in 70 odd years I’ve been farming… Jimminy crickets, when the good lord gives us something like that why would you even take a chance of destroying it?” (George Clift: farmer)
The answer to that question is simple. Coal and lots of it. It’s estimated there may be up to one and a half billion tonnes of coal under the plains and in the hills nearby. Now two mining companies, BHP Billiton and the Chinese owned Shenhua Corporation, say they want to explore and mine for coal. To show just how serious they are they’ve paid a staggering 400 million dollars for mining exploration licenses to the cash strapped New South Wales government.”I respect the rights and the interests of farmers to have a say, to make a determination, but I don’t admire people who come to the table with a prima facie view that there is incompatibility between mining and agriculture because that is just silly. And that’s because we have such a good record and a good track record of doing that.” (Mitch Hooke; Minerals Council of Australia)
(20 July 2009)
Sent in by EB contributor Stuart McCarthy.
Not under our backyard, say Germans, in blow to CO2 plans
Terry Slavin and Alok Jha, the Guardian
It was meant to be the world’s first demonstration of a technology that could help save the planet from global warming – a project intended to capture emissions from a coal-fired power station and bury them safely underground.
But the German carbon capture plan has ended with CO2 being pumped directly into the atmosphere, following local opposition at it being stored underground.
The scheme appears a victim of “numbyism” – not under my backyard.
Opposition to the carbon capture plan has contributed to a growing public backlash against renewable energy projects, raising fears that Europe will struggle to meet its low-carbon commitments. Last week, the Danish firm Vestas blamed British “nimbies” opposing wind farms for its decision to close its turbine factory on the Isle of Wight.
…The Swedish company, however, surprised a recent conference when it admitted that the €70m (£60.3m) project was venting the CO2 straight into the atmosphere. “It was supposed to begin injecting by March or April of this year but we don’t have a permit. This is a result of the local public having questions about the safety of the project,” said Staffan Gortz, head of carbon capture and storage communication at Vattenfall. He said he did not expect to get a permit before next spring: “People are very, very sceptical.”
The spread of localised resistance is a force that some fear could sink Europe’s attempts to build 10 to 12 demonstration projects for carbon capture and storage (CCS) by 2015. The plan had been to transport up to 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the power plant each year and inject it into depleted gas reservoirs at a giant gasfield near the Polish border.
(29 July 2009)
