U.S., China Commit to Coal... and to Climate Change?

[YankeyMCC]

(snip)
Washington, D.C.—Even as state and local politicians strategize on how to diversify the United States’ reliance on fossil fuels, more than 150 new coal-fired power plants are being built across the country, according to Susan Moran, author of “Coal Rush” in the January/February 2007 issue of World Watch magazine. Moran observes that despite generating nearly 32 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide (CO2) output in 2004 and being one of “the biggest culprits behind climate change,” U.S. energy providers still have seemingly reckless plans to bank on “Old King Coal.”

According to Moran, large utility companies like TXU Energy, American Electric Power, and Xcel Energy are expanding coal-fired power plants in part because of growing consumer electricity demands and steep natural gas prices. But another motivation, critics say, is the rising specter of mandatory emissions caps, driven by awakening U.S. fears about climate change. Utilities may hope to see their new plants “grandfathered in” if the federal government imposes strict limits on carbon emissions; meanwhile, the facilities will be emitting vast quantities of CO2 over their 50-year lifetimes. Investments in antiquated coal technologies could end up costing billions of dollars annually, even if the utilities are required to comply with carbon caps, and may not be financially prudent, Moran argues.

AS ITS COAL HABIT WORSENS, CHINA COULD SOON SURPASS THE U.S. IN CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS

In China, a country with more than 1 trillion tons of coal reserves—12 percent of the world’s total—widespread and growing use of coal-fired power plants will likely lead to irreversible environmental damage and costs billions of dollars, write World Watch contributors Hou Yanli and Hu Min in “China and Her Coal.” The authors note that the “air pollution index in one-third of all monitored cities in China is above 100,” and that coal-related pollution is costing China over 3 percent of GDP annually in economic losses. They call for the establishment of concrete reduction targets and policy incentives to improve extraction recovery rates, increase development of clean coal technology, and reduce environmental and safety costs.
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http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4788U.S.,

[hatrack]

1. And if the TXU plan goes through - 11 conventional coal plants . . .

Texas becomes the fourth-largest CO2 emitter on the planet.

Fucking visionaries down there in the Lone Star State, aren't they?

[redqueen]

2. we're still hopeful!

http://jobsanger.blogspot.com/2006/12/business-leaders-to-fight-txus-new-coal.html

things are looking not so dismal as they might, on that one particular issue

[amandabeech]

3. From where do they expect to get all that coal, and on what

rail lines to they expect to ship it.

As I understand it, western coal extraction and transportation is close to being maxed out.

Will these new plants use high-sulfur eastern coal?

Or will many of them stand idle for lack of coal?

My understanding is that many gas turbine generating plants are now owned by banks because fuel is either unavailable or far and away too expensive.

[JohnWxy]

4. Which is why we should push Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCE)

The way to help this technology along is to have a tax on CO2 emissions. these coal plants (hundreds of them in China) are going tobe built. It would be better to have them use IGCC technology than not do anything to prevent the CO2 from being added tothe atmosphere. Of course we won't have any influence at all on China if we don't do it ourselves in the U.S.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=73404&mesg_id=73404

[NNadir]

5. It is unethical to build a coal plant of any kind.

You burn coal, you generate carbon dioxide. Coal apologists wish to pretend that an IGCC (yes the abbreviation for the word "cycle" is, in fact, a "C".)

Saying that you generate less carbon dioxide is sort of like announcing that a person who beats another person to the point of putting them in a coma is less of a criminal than someone who beats a person to death.

The number of IGCC coal plants in the world is uncomfortably close to zero, as is, the amount of solar energy. One sees the same substitution for "could" for "is" for both strategies, solar and IGCC, offered by the same people, but we should state that the coal case is almost infinitely more dangerous.

The same people say "IGCC" and "sequestration" in the same sentence all the time, trying to pretend that coal can be clean, but the number of billion ton carbon dioxide sequestration plants being planned is also zero.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle

A few pilot scale IGCC plants have been built - though notably they don't actually run on coal but on refinery residues - but nobody is actually building these plants for commercial purposes - coal fueled - unless they are planning a "pilot" to cover for the coal plants they are really building.

It's all an imaginary shell game. "Clean coal," is a lie. It's marketing. It's lipstick on a pig. It's part of the game to play pretend in lieu of actually doing something. As usual, it is merely wishful thinking and the same wishful thinkers are here day after day after day buying the same useless crap again and again.