Our need to phase out coal-fired power stations

8:16am Wednesday 23rd April 2008

The problem with making electricity by burning coal is the vast amount of carbon dioxide it produces.

At least half the extra CO2 in the atmosphere has come from burning coal, either in homes, or from trains, or in steel-making or in electricity production, and it still produces more than from oil and gas combined.

Making electricity from coal is in the news again with the plans to replace the old power station at Kingsnorth in Kent with a larger, more modern one, by 2012.

It will be cleaner than Drax in Selby, or any of the older coal plants, but it will still produce more CO2 than a gas-fired station.

At the moment 40 per cent of global energy comes from coal, with Australia getting 85 percent of its electricity this way, China 80 per cent and the UK about 35 per cent.

Despite the intentions of the coal industry there are no power stations yet in the world that capture and store the CO2, though China aims to have a small one next year.

Despite this, there are plans to build 850 new coal-fired power stations by 2012 with 562 in China, 213 in India and 72 in the United States.

This is very serious news according to top climate scientist Jim Hansen, the director of the NASA Space Institute and Earth Sciences Professor at Columbia University.

He insists that phasing out coal is a global necessity if we are to preserve our coastlines and our economic and social wellbeing.

Previously it was thought that stabilising CO2 at 450 parts per million in the atmosphere would limit global warming to 2 deg C, but recent work suggests the limit must be 350 ppm. The problem is that this year it reached 386 ppm and is increasing by two ppm annually.

A way forward would be to accept a CO2 peak of 425 ppm and then reduce it throughout the century by means of massive reforestation and changes to agriculture that would absorb and trap the CO2.

It will mean developed countries refusing to build any more coal-fired power stations by 2012, and the developing countries limiting new ones by 2020.

All coal-fired stations should stop producing electricity by 2030, unless the CO2 is captured and stored underground where it can't escape.

The struggle between the large coal companies, such as Peabody in the US, which are planning to increase production by 75 per cent in the next 20 years, and the younger generation, will decide the future.

The latter need to demand that from now on, no new coal-fired stations are built if they allow CO2 to escape into the atmosphere.

Editor's choice