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Climate change and the need for wholesale greenhouse pollution reduction
When coal is burnt, it creates carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is an unavoidable consequence of burning coal. Meanwhile, all coal burnt now and into the foreseeable future will end up as greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, the more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the hotter the atmosphere and oceans become, and the more climate patterns shift. Coal burning, primarily for electricity generation, is emitting so much carbon dioxide into our atmosphere that the global climate is changing dramatically.
There is general consensus among scientists that unless we begin to make immediate and wholesale reductions in our carbon dioxide emissions, and therefore coal-burning, dramatic changes in climate patterns are likely to wreak havoc with life on Earth, including human life[1].
The coal industry has spent a lot of money promoting a technology called "carbon capture and storage", which aims to allow the continued large scale burning of coal without warming the planet by burying the carbon dioxide underground. Unfortunately, there are many problems with this technology:
- CCS is unproven technology. No storage or capture operations exist that approach the capacity required. Recent experiments have shown unexpected results, with the gas dissolving the rocks that are meant to contain it[2].
- Australia has few suitable storage sites. 80% of NSW's power comes from coal fired power stations in the Hunter Valley. The nearest storage sites are over 500kms away[3].
- The cost of CCS would double the cost of the electricity where storage sites are distant[4], this would bring coal fired power with CCS to at or above the cost of many clean and renewable energy sources.
- Assuming it can be made to work and that it is commercially viable, it is at least a decade, likely more, away from large scale use. It is estimated that if fossil fuels with CCS were used to meet energy needs in the Asia Pacific by 2050 emissions would still rise by over 70%[5]. Such growth in emissions would condemn the world to catastrophic climate change..
- Fourth Assessment Report "Climate Change 2007", Summary for Policy Makers, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007.
- Frio Brine Pilot Experiment, Texas, 2006
- Mineral Policy Institute, Australia, website, 2006, http://www.mpi.org.au/campaigns/climate/ccs/
- Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage, Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2006
- Transistion Institute, Australia, 2006
