China is now consuming nearly as much coal as the rest of
the world combined, and other emerging markets, ranging from India and
Indonesia to Brazil, are turning to coal to bring tens of millions out of
poverty and drive economic growth. Europe too is burning more coal to balance
energy costs and improve energy security.
And yet, the U.S., the nation with the world’s largest coal
reserves and energy research capability, is casting aside the domestic use of
coal for power generation. That is nonsensical, given the global need for more
efficient coal-burning technologies.
Coal-generated electricity in the U.S. has fallen in recent
years due to an influx of cheap natural gas, the product of our shale-gas
revolution, and a wave of new environmental regulations. While President Obama
professes to support and all-of-the-above energy strategy, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under his direction, is crafting one
regulation after another to phase out our existing coal fleet and make it
virtually impossible to build new coal plants.
EPA’s latest rule, aimed at greenhouse gas emissions, would
require all new coal plants to equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS)
technology. But CCS technology, for all practical purposes does not exist.
There is not one coal plant in the U.S. using CCS and only a
handful of demonstration projects under development, not one of which is at
commercial scale [SEE: AEP’s unsuccessful attempt in St. Albans, WV.]
Simply put, EPA’s new standard for coal plants cannot be met
with technology that is currently available.
Driving EPA’s anti-coal agenda is the belief that coal is a
fuel of the past and that if the U.S. is to tackle climate change, coal
generation must be phased out. But that approach totally ignores coal’s global
appeal.
The U.S. cannot stop climate change by itself. We are not
even the world’s largest carbon emitter. Abandoning our largest source of
electricity in the misplaced hope the rest of the world might stop using coal
is nonsensical. Unilaterally turning away from coal undermine America’s
economic competiveness.
Instead of taking the wrong path, let’s adopt an energy
policy that helps drive economic growth, reflecting the reality that coal is
more important than ever globally. Rather than phasing out the use of coal in
this country, we should be leading the world in research, development and
demonstration of clean-coal technology. Technology, not overzealous regulation,
is the key to reducing our carbon footprint.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency has pegged the
development and adoption of clean-coal technology, particularly CCs, as just as
important as the growth of renewable power in reducing global emissions. The
numbers suggest why that is. Wind and solar power generate less than (5) five
percent of the nation’s electricity while coal provides 40 percent of the
nation’s power. In China, coal meets 80 percent of that country’s growing
electricity demand. Many other countries with fast-growing economies, including
Indonesia, India and Brazil, also rely heavily on coal.
Let’s move forward with an honest all-of-the-above energy
strategy. We can develop advanced energy technologies in unison. Such a
strategy, by definition, should not mean picking one technology and casting
aside another.
The Obama administration’s anti-coal agenda threatens
hundreds of thousands of jobs, state economies and tens of millions of people
who require affordable energy. Bad policy, void of any pragmatism, is not what
the country needs.
