Is it truly possible to replace the world's number one source of electricity?
Coal Must Be Phased Out to Avoid Dangerous Warming, Hansen Says
Jim Hansen, a U.S. climate scientist who in 1981 warned that the planet was heating faster than expected, repeated in an interview his call for phasing out coal-fired power plants as crucial to avoid destructive global warming.
Burning coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere where it remains for decades, trapping the sun's energy and helping warm the planet. The gas now comprises about 385 of every million molecules of the atmosphere, more than the level of 350 that Hansen considers perilous, he said in an interview in London after testifying at a trial.
"The dangerous level of atmospheric CO2 is so low that we're going to have to phase out existing coal generation,” said Hansen, who heads the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "That's the only practical way" to curb climate change.
Six Greenpeace volunteers began trial in the U.K. for trying to paint a global-warming slogan on a smokestack near London, arguing the attack was necessary to prevent even greater harm to the environment. They were protesting plans by the plant's owner, E.ON AG, Germany's largest utility, to replace an existing power station. The demonstrators called Hansen, whose scientific opinions are not universally shared, to testify on their behalf.
Unbridled coal combustion may almost double the atmospheric CO2 content and "head us toward an ice-free planet," Hansen said in the interview. Every hour, fossil-fuel combustion generates 3.5 million tons of emissions worldwide, helping create a warming effect that already affects the climate, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said in a report.
Capturing Emissions
Coal could still be used to generate electricity if CO2 emissions are captured and stored underground, a technique known as carbon sequestration, Hansen said. Research needed to introduce carbon capture on a large scale could cost $20 billion and may take 15 years to develop.
"We have already passed the level of atmospheric CO2 that we can afford to leave in the air in the long run," Hansen said earlier this year. Carbon can be reduced below "the dangerous level this century, but only if, over the next few decades, we phase out coal plants that do not sequester their carbon dioxide."
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and the Republican candidate John McCain support government spending on ways to make coal from electricity cleaner, said Christine Tezak, an energy analyst for Washington-based Stanford Group Co. Obama, a U.S. senator of Illinois, wants the U.S. Energy Department with private partners, to build five coal generators that capture CO2, Tezak said in an August report. McCain, a U.S. senator of Arizona, wants the government to spend $2 billion a year through 2024 for clean coal projects, she said.
Agriculture, Forestry Improvements
Improvements in agriculture and forestry practices might compensate for greenhouse-gas emissions from burning the remaining reserves of oil and gas, though they won't be able to counter emissions from known coal reserves, according to Hansen.
That means coal-fired power plants must either be closed by 2030 or fitted with carbon capture and storage technology that would cut their emissions by 90 percent, he said.
Hansen said Obama and McCain are likely to make more progress on tackling climate change than President George W. Bush. At the same time, neither has yet been strong enough in condemning coal, he said.
"Surely it's an improvement on the Bush administration, but whether it draws this line in the sand which needs to be drawn - and that is no new coal unless it has captured CO2, it's not yet clear that anybody has the guts to do that," Hansen said. "If we could just get one person, one leader to stand up and say it, then maybe we could get a domino effect."
In a letter to U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown that he copied to Queen Elizabeth II, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Hansen said using more coal without the emission- reducing technology may accelerate floods, droughts and heat waves.
Burning coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere where it remains for decades, trapping the sun's energy and helping warm the planet. The gas now comprises about 385 of every million molecules of the atmosphere, more than the level of 350 that Hansen considers perilous, he said in an interview in London after testifying at a trial.
"The dangerous level of atmospheric CO2 is so low that we're going to have to phase out existing coal generation,” said Hansen, who heads the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "That's the only practical way" to curb climate change.
Six Greenpeace volunteers began trial in the U.K. for trying to paint a global-warming slogan on a smokestack near London, arguing the attack was necessary to prevent even greater harm to the environment. They were protesting plans by the plant's owner, E.ON AG, Germany's largest utility, to replace an existing power station. The demonstrators called Hansen, whose scientific opinions are not universally shared, to testify on their behalf.
Unbridled coal combustion may almost double the atmospheric CO2 content and "head us toward an ice-free planet," Hansen said in the interview. Every hour, fossil-fuel combustion generates 3.5 million tons of emissions worldwide, helping create a warming effect that already affects the climate, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said in a report.
Capturing Emissions
Coal could still be used to generate electricity if CO2 emissions are captured and stored underground, a technique known as carbon sequestration, Hansen said. Research needed to introduce carbon capture on a large scale could cost $20 billion and may take 15 years to develop.
"We have already passed the level of atmospheric CO2 that we can afford to leave in the air in the long run," Hansen said earlier this year. Carbon can be reduced below "the dangerous level this century, but only if, over the next few decades, we phase out coal plants that do not sequester their carbon dioxide."
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and the Republican candidate John McCain support government spending on ways to make coal from electricity cleaner, said Christine Tezak, an energy analyst for Washington-based Stanford Group Co. Obama, a U.S. senator of Illinois, wants the U.S. Energy Department with private partners, to build five coal generators that capture CO2, Tezak said in an August report. McCain, a U.S. senator of Arizona, wants the government to spend $2 billion a year through 2024 for clean coal projects, she said.
Agriculture, Forestry Improvements
Improvements in agriculture and forestry practices might compensate for greenhouse-gas emissions from burning the remaining reserves of oil and gas, though they won't be able to counter emissions from known coal reserves, according to Hansen.
That means coal-fired power plants must either be closed by 2030 or fitted with carbon capture and storage technology that would cut their emissions by 90 percent, he said.
Hansen said Obama and McCain are likely to make more progress on tackling climate change than President George W. Bush. At the same time, neither has yet been strong enough in condemning coal, he said.
"Surely it's an improvement on the Bush administration, but whether it draws this line in the sand which needs to be drawn - and that is no new coal unless it has captured CO2, it's not yet clear that anybody has the guts to do that," Hansen said. "If we could just get one person, one leader to stand up and say it, then maybe we could get a domino effect."
In a letter to U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown that he copied to Queen Elizabeth II, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Hansen said using more coal without the emission- reducing technology may accelerate floods, droughts and heat waves.
However, what would be the best fuel to replace coal with?
posted by Charltonmedia.com @ 2:26 AM
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