When it comes to global climate change, there's no greater (or more respected) expert than James E. Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In today's Washington Post, Hansen spells it out about as clearly as anyone can: we have to wean ourselves off coal, and fast.
"We simply cannot burn the coal and put the CO2in the atmosphere and avoid having serious changes in the atmosphere," he said. "The scientists are beginning to realize we have to have a much more dramatic change in direction."[...]
...Hansen took aim at two of Duke's planned power plants, in Cliffside, N.C., and Edwardsport, Ind., telling [Duke Energy's James] Rogers: "Your suggestion that new, more efficient coal-fired power plants, which do not capture CO2, can be part of a solution ignores the basic facts and urgency of terminating coal emissions."
Those words could have been spoken just as easily to Dominion Virginia Power or to Gov. Tim Kaine, for that matter. So could Al Gore's words, from the same article:
Former vice president Al Gore said in an interview last week that he backs Hansen's approach, with one modification: Because carbon capture and storage technology is still not widely available, he said, "I think we ought to have a moratorium on any coal-fired power plant that doesn't have the capacity to capture carbon."
That's about as clear as you can get. Either our leaders are going to bite the bullet and deal with the global climate crisis or they aren't. If they are, they will have to face the fact that coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel and that it is, at best, an extremely problematic fuel source from an environmental perspective. If not, they will continue to blabber on about "clean coal" and "carbon sequestration," neither of which exist or are likely to do so in the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, what IS likely to exist in the foreseeable future is melting polar ice caps, dying polar bears, rising sea levels, and climate-change-induced political instability across the planet. Faced with this, are we going to listen to the James Hansens of the world or the James Rogers? The answer to that question will largely determine what kind of planet we leave for future generations.
What is the short-term alternative, if we put a moratorium on coal? In the last ten years, new coal-fired plants have grown at a small rate. It is true that about 2,100 MW of new coal was installed in the U.S. in 2007, the most in at least ten years. Wind installations last year were 5,244 MW. Natural gas was 7,500 MW. The 1,144 MW nuclear unit at Brown's Ferry in Tennessee was restarted in 2007, after 22 years offline.
Now, old coal-fired plants remain a real problem. So, what if new coal that came online, let's say a 1,000 MW coal plant, replaced a 500 MW coal plant, but the 1,000 MW coal plant was required to emit less CO2 than the 500 MW coal plant that it replaced? What if then, we limit the amount of coal that is placed online to have a negative net-carbon contribution, because of the retiring of old coal?
I guess that isn't enough for the climate crisis, but that is what I would suggest as a law, rather than an outright ban.
The amount of new coal could be capped to 2,000 MW per year, with required replacements of old coal, and a required net-emissions loss.
At present, we seem to have no other short-term option. Natural gas is not acceptable if it rises cost out of control.
MAYBE, there is one other option, but it may take a bit longer. That is demand-response programs. What could be done is that a utility will designate to the State PUC a need for a certain amount of new capacity. Rather than build new fossil fuel plants, they can meet some of that new load through renewables, but they have to enact demand response/energy efficiency policies sufficient to offset the need for new fossil fuel generation.
*Energy efficiency (by far the lowest of the "low-hanging fruit") on a massive scale (think Apollo program)
*Concentrated solar thermal (amazing potential there, truly incredible)
*Wind
*Other renewables like wave, tidal and geothermal
*Nuclear power (if we resolve the long-term waste storage issue)
We have a lot of coal resource in the US. We will use it. If you want a solution you had better hope we get carbon sequestration happening and soon because Americans have shown no will to cope with the alternative - conservation and higher prices. There is no unity on this issue, and without unity there will be no political leadership.
The solution will have to be some form of market price pressure that causes people to cut back on their consumption. Mandated carbon taxes and resulting (expensive) sequestration technology is one good way to do that. And if we can avoid the Chinese stealing the technology, we may even be able to create a foreign trade business of it.
P.S. I've also said many times that I'd prefer a carbon tax as the most economically efficient means of getting the price signals right. It can be "revenue neutral" if need be for political purposes, but it would be best to take some of the carbon tax revenue and invest in all the things mentioned in my first paragraph, plus mass transit like the Metro system.
P.P.S. There's a bill on the Hill right now, by Representatives Markey and Waxman, "calling for a moratorium on any new coal plants that do not capture and sequester their greenhouse gas emissions."
Markey and Waxman would be smarter to demand that USEPA enforce CO2 regulation as per the SCOTUS decision. As it is they will just get played as the guys determined to cause brown-outs and higher electric bills. And yes I understand that this a cynical outlook.
We've had the American consumer acting as the motor of the world economy and that is what is coming to an end... [We] need a new motor. And I believe we have a tremendous challenge with global warming, where you need to make tremendous investment to reduce carbon emissions... The investments necessary to avoid global warming could replace the excess consumption by the U.S. consumer as the motor of the world economy.