THE FIGHT AGAINST NEW COAL, IN THE UK AND AROUND THE WORLD

There is a war against coal going on and the good guys have the coal industry in retreat though the mainstream media has kept the war a pretty off-the-record affair.

Take for example this reported Al Gore 2007 remark: "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants."

Note to everybody, including the former VP: There are committed, idealistic people throwing themselves in the way of the machine all over the world.

Why?

George Monbiot, columnist, UK Guardian, writing about UK protests against a new coal plant at Kingsnorth: “Everything now hinges on stopping coal. Whether we prevent runaway climate change largely depends on whether we keep using the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. Unless we either leave it - [and] the carbon dioxide it produces - in the ground, human development will start spiralling backwards. The more coal is burnt, the smaller are our chances of future comfort and prosperity.”

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The fight in the UK, as in so many places in the U.S., hinges on the concept of “clean” coal.

An otherwise New Energy-oriented UK Labor government wants to build coal plants equipped with carbon-capture-and-storage (CCS) technology. CCS technology would theoretically make it possible to burn coal, an abundant and dense fuel source, without adding to the problem of global climate change.

There are a few problems with the government’s plan.

First, there IS no proven CCS technology. It is an unproven hypothesis, an experiment. It has been used in limited, untested circumstances by the oil industry. It has been under study on a larger scale in a few places around the world for a relatively short time span.

Second, installing experiemtal CCS technology adds hugely to the expense of building coal plants and new coal plants are already – because of the need for equipment to capture the many other known toxins they spew – becoming as expensive per megawat as new wind and solar power installations.

Third, the dangers of storing CO2 are so great that insurance companies won’t insure the storage sites. So taxpayers must indemnify (i.e., subsidize) the plants. And if the unproven technology should allow the potentially harmful gases to leak, say in a quarter- or a half-century, the taxpayers will have to pay for the devastating damages.

That’s pretty much how society has handled the dreadful harm from auto emissions for the last hundred years. Look how well that’s worked out.

The basic point: Coal is no longer cheap. If it isn’t cheap, what possible reason could there be for building new plants to burn it?

Is there a pressing need to destroy mountains and endanger miners to dig the stuff up? A pressing need to consume enormous amounts of emissions-generating energy delivering trainloads of coal to power plants? A pressing need to emit small, toxic amounts of a myriad of byproducts while burning coal?

Perhaps the worst thing about CCS is its promise. Why? Because politicians love promises. Around the world, they are caught between a sincere concern about the harm done by coal plants and the desperate need to build new power generation and give voters a solution to the enormous and growing demand for electricity. Their solution: Promise the promise of CCS. Approve new coal plants but stipulate they must be "CCS-ready."

What is “CCS-ready?” In the UK it may be nothing more than having enough space available to install it, should the technology someday be proven.

House of Commons environmental audit committee: "CCS-ready [could be used] as a fig leaf to give unabated coal-fired power stations an appearance of environmental acceptability."

The urgency of stopping global climate change by stopping the building of new coal plants has driven many to see nuclear plants as an acceptable alternative. Monbiot: “Let [nuclear plant building] happen - as long as its total emissions are taken into account, we know exactly how and where the waste is to be buried, how much this will cost and who will pay…”

In fact, new nuclear plants have also become economically unworkable. (See SOLAR BEST BUYS (AND WIND) – CHEAPER THAN NUCLEAR). As cited by Adrian Heymer, senior director/new plant deployment, Nuclear Energy Institute: (1) New nuclear plant (first 12 to 13 years, until construction costs are paid down): 30 cents/kilowatt-hour. (2) New nuclear plant (after construction costs are paid down): 18 cents/kilowatt-hour. (3) New solar power plant or wind power installation: 14 cents/kilowatt-hour.

Conclusion: It is rapidly becoming obvious the only reasonable option is New Energy.

Yes, technological challenges remain. Energy storage is unsolved. However, solving the problem of storing energy from intermittent sources makes a lot more sense than working on the problem of storing nuclear waste or coal plant spew, doesn’t it?

Monbiot: “Unlike CCS, wind, wave, tidal, solar, hydro and geothermal power are proven technologies. Unlike nuclear power, they can be safely decommissioned as soon as they become redundant.”

All that is lacking is for leaders who have the political courage to turn to New Energy. If the economic and technological logic is not enough, perhaps the very urgency of the matter will inspire them.

Monbiot: “It is not because of polar bears that I will be joining the climate camp outside the coal plant at Kingsnorth. It is not because of butterflies or frogs or penguins or rainforests, much as I love them all. It is because everything I have fought for and that all campaigners for social justice have ever fought for - food, clean water, shelter, security - is jeopardised by climate change. Those who claim to identify a conflict between environmentalism and humanitarianism have either failed to read the science or have refused to understand it.”

The fight against coal is going on all over the world. Here, Greenpeace takes action in Australia. From Greenpeace via YouTube.

The stakes could not be higher. Everything hinges on stopping coal; The climate camp must succeed. In the absence of political backbone, our only hope is an avalanche of public revulsion
George Monbiot, August 5, 2008 (UK Guardian)

WHO
UK Labor Party political leaders; House of Commons environmental audit committee; Malcolm Wicks, energy minister, Labor Party; Gary Mohammed, civil servant, UK Department for Business;

WHAT
A UK columnist passionately presents the case for protesting against the approval of new coal plants like the proposed Kingsnorth facility.

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WHEN
- July 2008: The House of Commons environmental audit committee found CCS technology will be too expensive to implement, given expectations for emissions prices.
- August 9-10: The protest against the proposed Kingsnorth coal plant.
- 2020: A third of UK coal-fired power plants will require retooling or replacement.
- 2020: The EU Directorate requires the UK to obtain 15% of its power from New Energy.
- Someday: CCS technology may be proven practical and safe.
- Sooner: The UK and the other nations of the world will obtain their electricity from New Energy sources.

WHERE
Kingsnorth near Ashford in Kent: E.ON filed an application to build a new “CCS-ready” coal plant, the first such application in the UK in some years.

WHY
- The decision on the E.ON application will indicate the fate of 5 other proposals. The pending coal plants would alone generate the same amount of emissions as the UK needs to cut by mid-century.
- The liberal-leaning Labor Party has ties to coal that go back to the 19th century.
- UK Energy Research Centre and Climate Change Capital estimates adding CCS to existing coal plants will cost €90-155 (£71-£122) per tonne CO2e while the price for just spewing (2013 to 2020) is estimated at €39 (£31) per tonne COe. (Higher estimates go to €50) In other words, it will be cheaper to emit than install.
- There is email from the UK Department for Business suggesting an inappropriate degree of cooperation between the government and E.ON, the utility that would build the yet-to-be-approved coal plant.
- Many believe the resources presently exist to drastically increase the amount of electricity obtained from New Energy if political leaders have the courage to require and incentivize it.

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QUOTES
- Malcolm Wicks, UK energy minister: "The gap between the carbon price and the cost of CCS…is enormous…I hope that the strengthening of carbon markets ... will bring forward a sufficiently good price for carbon that it will provide some of the financial incentive for CCS. Will it be enough? I do not know."
- Monbiot: “A policy like this requires both courage and vision. So look at the current cabinet - Brown, Straw, Darling, Hutton, Blears, Kelly, Hoon - and weep…If fear is the only thing that moves them, we must present them with a greater threat than the companies planning new coal plants. We must show that this issue has become a political flashpoint; that the public revulsion towards new coal could help to eject them from office…”