Unfortunately, has been a good week for coal, which is responsible for about 20 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Shares in U.S. coal companies increased on May 6. The leading U.S. coal producer, Alpha Natural Resources Inc. reported a 61 percent increase in its first-quarter profit.
In other mega bad Midwest news, Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson (Muppet depicted at left) offered a deal this week to Sunflower Electric Kansas to build an 895 megawatt (MW) coal plant, enough power to meet the peak demands of 448,000 households. The Kansas State Senate approved a bill for the new coal power plant by 37 to 2. The House will vote on Friday. Little opposition to the bill is expected.
Seventy-eight percent of power from the plant would be sold to two out of state electric cooperatives, one in Colorado, and the other in Texas. The plans for the plant call for two transmission lines to be constructed that will be capable of transmitting 1,000 MW of power into Colorado.
State legislators passed four bills to start construction but former Governor Kathleen Sebelius, now the Secretary of Health and Human Services for Obama administration, thankfully vetoed all of them.
In Kansas the Sierra Club state chapter called the agreement "a giveaway to the coal industry" that is "not part of the solution." The Great Plains Alliance for Clean Energy is also opposed to the agreement, calling it a "bad time to build a coal plant in the U.S."
Canada to Phase Out Traditional Coal Plants
On the brighter side, recently Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced during an interview with the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail that the government is planning to phase out traditional coal power plants. Prentice said coal power plants must have the technology to capture GHG emissions and store them underground. Coal powered electricity accounts for about 18 percent of Canada's GHG emissions. Eight of the ten biggest GHG emitters in Canada are coal powered electricity plants.
"The approach that we've been working towards involves a cap-and-trade system relating to thermal coal, and the requirement of phasing out those facilities as they reach the end of their useful, fully-amortized life," Prentice said.
Prentice added, "The concept is that, as these facilities are fully amortized and their useful life fully expended, they would not be replaced with coal."
Most Canadian coal plants were built in the 1970s. The Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia provinces rely on coal for over 70 percent of their electricity. However, the worst emitter, according to the New York Times, is a plant in Ontario. Ontario's government promised to phase out coal by 2014. It will achieve that goal partly by expanding its nuclear power capacity.
In 2005, Ontario closed the Lakeview Generating Station in Mississauga, its oldest coal plant. Ontario has 6,434 megawatts (MW) of electricity from coal power plants. The province has three power plants: Nanticoke Generating Station (3,945 MW), the Lambton Generating Station (1,972 MW), the Thunder Bay Generating Station (306 MW) and the Atikokan Generating Station (211 MW)
The Ottawa province plans absolute emission caps on coal power plants by creating a market based system that will those plants to buy credits to meet emissions targets.
In 2005, the Canadian government released its Climate Change Plan, which set a target of having 90 percent emission free electricity by 2025. The Plan combines regulatory, negotiated, and incentive based approaches. Canada is the eighth largest GHG emitter in the world.
Coal is a major cause of carbon dioxide
A recent article in the conservative magazine, The Economist, bluntly stated, "Coal is the dirtiest of fossil fuels, producing twice the carbon dioxide that natural gas does when it is burned. That makes it a big cause of global warming." However, coal is cheap, costing between $1 and $2 per a million BTU's (MMBtu) compared to $6 and $12 per MMBtu for oil and natural gas. Approximately 40 percent of the world's electricity comes from coal.
The biggest user of coal to generate electricity is China. Eighty percent of China's electricity is from coal. The country is increasing its coal use at a rapid rate. In 2000 its coal output was 1.3 billion tons, and in 2005 it was 2.23 billion tons. The new coal plants China built in 2006 added about 500 million tons of carbon to its annual emissions.
The U.S. is the second largest user of coal generated electricity. Half of its electricity is from coal power plants. The country's power plants have over 300 gigawatts of capacity. The U.S. emits almost two billion tons of carbon from coal power plants, which accounts for 27 percent of all its GHG emissions, and is projected to increase by a third by 2025. Only twelve coal power plants have been built since 1990. Most coal power plants were built from 1970 to 1989. The bad news is that the U.S. has coal reserves that could last over 250 years at the current consumption rate, but could last as much as 500 years with improved technologies.
In the fast developing country of India, there is an increase in coal output. In 2000, its output was 360 million tons and increased to 460 million tons by 2005. Sixty-eight percent of its carbon emissions are from coal.
In Europe, even more mature economies still use large amounts of coal. Almost half of Germany's electricity comes from coal plants. Germany plans to built 14 coal plants by 2012 with a total of 14,000 megawatts of capacity. Germany is the top photovoltaic (PV) installer, and the second largest user of wind power.
Related features on Celsias:
A List of Companies that Supported Lies About Climate Change
Natives to Congress: "The Oil Sands are Killing Us"
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