ENERGY CHOICE: CHANGE YOUR HABITS OR CHANGE PLANETS

By - - and Mark Sommer Reprint | | Print |

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ARCATA, CALIFORNIA, Jun 19 2007 (IPS) - With temperatures and oil prices rising, energy-hungry industrial nations are seeking alternatives to a petroleum economy, and many find themselves turning back to coal, writes Mark Sommer, who hosts the award-winning, internationally-syndicated radio programme, \’\’A World of Possibilities\’\’. In this article, Sommer writes that although coal remains plentiful, strip-mining and mountaintop removal remain standard industry practices, and greenhouse gases released by the burning of coal are a prime contributor to global warming. As advanced industrial nations start instituting cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes, the rising costs of investing in such a carbon-clogging energy source are becoming apparent even to Wall Street. Renewables are on the way, though many say not soon enough to fill the gap. How much sooner might they come on line if instead of investing in more coal-fired plants we invested today in wind, solar, biomass, methane and wave power? And how much more might we squeeze out of the energy we now use if we applied ourselves to greater efficiency and conservation?

The catch is that when burned, even high-grade coal is one of the most heat-inducing sources of energy. And in the case of China, it is high-sulphur coal, the dirtiest of all, that’s powering its 21st century industrial revolution, casting a pall on Chinese cities reminiscent of the Dickens’ London.

“Our shiny white iPod economy is propped up by dirty black rocks,” writes Jeff Goodell, author of ”Big Coal”. On average, Americans consume 20 pounds of coal per person per day powering their lights, computers, and TVs. Half of all the electricity generated in the US and two-thirds of China’s is generated by burning coal.

Coal advocates are pushing for the rapid construction of hundreds of new coal-fired power plants across the United States and the pace is still more rapid in China. Industry representatives say that dramatic advances in ”scrubbers” and other filtering technologies have vastly reduced the toxic particulates that once blighted industrial cities and still foul the air in developing nations. Strict regulations now curb the most destructive mining practices, whose disfigured and polluted landscapes still fester a century after their operations ceased.

Coal critics say that while progress has been made, strip-mining and mountaintop removal remain standard industry practices and greenhouse gases released by the burning of coal are a prime contributor to global warming. Coal-state Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana advocates a process that captures greenhouse gases and sequesters them essentially forever in underground seams. He promotes clean coal with the fervour of a technological evangelist, but the technology he espouses is still largely unproven and its premium price deters most prospective investors. Keeping coal-generated greenhouse gases securely and eternally sequestered in caverns and finding enough space to hold them remain largely unsolved problems.

At the same time, rising awareness of the risks of climate change is driving together constituencies long suspicious of one another. In oil-drenched Texas, business executives, mayors and governors, environmental activists, evangelical Christians, and Wall Street investment houses are uniting in a common quest to block the wholesale expansion of coal-fired power plants.

This spring the huge Texas power company TXU, which had sought permission to construct eleven new coal-fired power plants in the state, was not only blocked but bought by a consortium of investors promising not to build eight of the eleven and to apply strict environmental safeguards on the remaining three. Laura Miller, mayor of Dallas, a city not formerly known for environmental militancy, threw herself into the fray and brought on board powerful business leaders and fellow mayors. ”The public wants this,” she says.

Mayor Miller and her allies won the first round but they warn it’s going to be a long struggle against powerfully entrenched economic interests.

Given the pressure to find new sources of energy, turning to a resource as cheap and plentiful as coal is hard to resist. Is there a technological solution to the coal conundrum? What if carbon sequestration fails even to a modest degree and some of the CO2 injected into subterranean seams leaks back into an already overheated atmosphere? Are we willing to pay the real price of cleaning up the coal we burn and the costs of restoring mine-ravaged lands to their natural state? Is such restoration even possible?

As advanced industrial nations start instituting cap-and-trade systems and carbon taxes, the rising costs of investing in such a carbon-clogging energy source are becoming apparent even to Wall Street’s profit-seeking investment firms. Renewables are on the way, though many say not soon enough to fill the gap. How much sooner might they come on line if instead of investing in more coal-fired plants we invested today in wind, solar, biomass, methane and wave power? And how much more might we squeeze out of the energy we now use if we applied ourselves to greater efficiency and conservation?

”Light bulb by light bulb, power plant by power plant, we can re-prioritise clean energy and not make continued investments in dirty power that will saddle us with their high cost for decades to come,” says Michael Brune, executive director of the Rainforest Action Network.

Like it or not, coal will be with us for some time to come, in existing plants if not new ones. The question is whether to keep investing in an energy source that runs counter to a carbon-free future. Which would you prefer: changing habits or changing planets? (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)