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An important article came out in Nature magazine this week, in "The end of cheap coal" authors Richard Heinberg and David Fridley note that "new forecasts suggest that coal reserves will run out faster than many believe. Energy policies relying on cheap coal have no future." (Full article requires subscription; more coverage at Bloomberg.)
Here's the key summary from the article (emphasis mine):
World energy policy is gripped by a fallacy - the idea that coal is destined to stay cheap for decades to come. This assumption supports investment in 'clean-coal' technology and trumps serious efforts to increase energy conservation and develop alternative energy sources. It is an important enough assumption about our energy future that it demands closer examination.
There are two reasons to believe that coal prices are likely to soar in the years ahead. First, a spate of recent studies suggests that available, useful coal may be less abundant than has been assumed - indeed that the peak of world coal production may be only years away. One pessimistic study published in 2010 concluded that global energy derived from coal could peak as early as 2011.
Second, global demand is growing rapidly, largely driven by China. Demand rose modestly in the 1990s (0.45% per year), but since 2000 it has been surging at 3.8% per year. China is both the world's biggest producer of coal (40% of global production) and its biggest consumer. Its influence on future coal prices should not be underestimated.
Economic shocks from rising coal prices will be felt by every sector of society. Better data on global coal supplies is long overdue and energy policies that assume a bottomless coal pit need rethinking urgently.
Here is Al Gore answering my question on mountaintop removal and coal to liquid technology excerpted from StreamTVs full video recording of the Q&A session this morning at Netroots Nation. If you would like to view their full video of the Q&A session with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Vice President Al Gore (D-THE WORLD) you can do so by clicking here.
We all have got to be proud of the job that the Vice President does on the entire issue of Global Warming as well as the environment. You can help even more by going to the new We Can Solve it Web Site and joining this important effort. Vice President Gore has asked all of us to join and support the effort and to pass it on to everyone we know. The site can be foud here.
We had quite a session with Nancy Pelosi at Netroots Nation this morning as she answered questions from the gathered netroots about a number of important issues actually including impeachment. I will cover more of this later.
The surprise was the appearance of former Vice President Al Gore. Again, more on this later. The fun part was I got to ask a question from the floor regarding mountaintop removal and coal to liquid technology.
The two key things he said were.... "mountaintop removal is an atrocity". and that "coal to liquid technology is insane." He stated unequivocally that squeezing the liquid out of coal was way too expensive, and that the resultant issues of non captured CO2 a real detriment.
Another statement he made that was that mountaintop removal is part and parcel of the problems we face with our current energy system and that any have a moral blindness to the consequences.
I got to talk to him briefly in the "line" afterwards, and thanked him for his comments... he highly recommended that everyone see the movie "Mountaintop Removal" which received an award at the recent Nashville Film Festival. He asked me if I had seen it, which I haven't. He says it is a very important film that all need to see.
While it iwas a great experience to ask a question in front of 2000 people and the press that was answered very well by the Vice President, it was even more important to get more of the message out about the terrible consequences of mountaintop removal as well as the insanity of considering coal to liquidconversion as a solution to our gas crisis.
I will look for the video of the event and try to post his response later today.
(Coal to liquid news from our neighbors to the Southwest. - promoted by Clem Guttata)
From Huffington Post:
(Excerpt)
Converting coal to liquid fuel has not been used on a large scale since the 1930's when Nazi Germany developed the technology because the country had lots of coal but no petroleum of its own.
But the sell-job is well underway right now in Kentucky to re-frame coal to liquid as a miracle answer to America's energy woes.
h/t to Macgregor Thomson for putting this together. Some factual corrections/updates on the candidates statements.
1) Last I heard, China is no longer opening one coal factory a week. China's widespread usage of coal is a huge environmental issue, but with coal shortages and a growing environmental movement, the rate of new plant openings is slowing.
What we should be talking about for energy policy is things like energy efficiency, negawatts, and micro-power generation, not yet another set of large scale centralized energy production solutions that further concentrate corporate power with large-scale high-risk hugely expensive government investments.
Tax reform and teacher pay are hot issues. Worker's compensation will receive attention. Gov. Manchin says the recently privatized system deserves more time. He'll probably get his way, even as Brickstreet undergoes some much deserved scrutiny.
It should be noted that this year's legislative agenda is expected to be light. With Gov. Manchin and 100 legislators up for re-election, don't expect anything controversial to be decided. Merely balancing the budget will be work enough.
Here are a few odds and ends in the news. Click on the links for more details on lists of legislative priorities:
"Coal and coal gasification will be a major issue this year," Chafin said. "We have a major plant coming into the district, but we have to be able to come up with a carbon sequestration plan. Producing gas from coal results in a lot of carbon dioxide, and we have to be able to deal with that byproduct."
* Besides teacher pay, another education-related topic on the horizon is a potential state-wide ban on unhealthy sodas and snacks in schools.
* The W.Va. GOP has a wish list long on tax cuts yet short on any suggestions for making up the resulting revenue short falls. I note with irony that the GOP also suggests -- now they're almost done replacing Dem judges with Republican ones -- we should elect judges on a non-partisan basis. Funny, that... it's like the pundit-class only calls for bi-partisanship after it looks like Democrats are going to have some real power, not during the years of highly partisan autocratic Bush rule.
Event Title: China Shenhua Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) Projects
Date & Time: August 30, 2007, 3:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Description: The Shenhua Group Corporation, the world's largest coal
company, is developing coal-to-liquid and coal-to-chemicals plants in China worth $10 billion (US$). In 2003, Shenhua began constructing the
world's first commercial direct coal liquefaction plant, located in Inner Mongolia, at a cost of $1.5 billion. Scheduled to open in 2008, the facility employs technology developed with US Department of Energy (DOE) support and will produce 22,000 bbl per day of liquid fuel
(primarily diesel) from coal. Shenhua is working with DOE on carbon dioxide sequestration and zero water discharge at the plant, both first-of-a-kind environmental demonstrations. In December 2003, WVU entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with China Shenhua
Coal Liquefaction Co. Ltd. (CSCLCL) to formally establish the commitment of WVU and CSCLCL to research together the consequences of large-scale implementation of coal liquefaction technologies in China.
Since 1986, WVU researchers have been engaged in DOE-funded research on the types of technology now slated for use in China. Web Link: www.nrcce.wvu.edu Location: NRCCE Assembly Rooms, Evansdale Campus
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