Coal resurgence on a global scale could have a disastrous effect on the climate. What can we do about it?
After decades of decline, Japan's coal industry is undergoing a massive revival. The New York Times reports:
With energy prices reaching record highs - oil settled above $135 a barrel on Thursday - Japan's high-cost mines are suddenly competitive again, and demand for their coal is booming. Production has jumped to its highest in nearly four decades, creating a sensation rarely felt in these mining communities: hope.
"We are seeing a flicker of light after long darkness," said Michio Sakurai, the mayor of Bibai, on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido. "We never imagined coal would actually make a comeback."
Soaring commodity prices have had distorting effects across the global economy, driving up food prices and prompting fears of future energy shortages. But they have been an unanticipated boon to the coal producing regions of countries like Japan that had written off coal mining as a relic of the Industrial Revolution.
Demand for coal in Japan is rising so quickly that mine operators are having trouble keeping up. There are few geologists left in Japan specializing in coal, but the circumstances are so ripe for expansion that operators are relying on "a stack of torn, yellowed maps hand-drawn by company geologists more than 40 years ago."
What does it mean that coal is starting to look attractive even in Japan, a Kyoto-ratifying nation where coal extractions costs are more expensive than elsewhere? Clearly, coal isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It's cheap, it's plentiful, and it's looking more attractive than ever after a series of reports suggesting that world oil supplies may not be able to keep up with future demand.
Coal resurgence on a global scale could have a disastrous effect on the climate. What can we do about it? A favored suggestion of many climate activists is to put a moratorium on coal-fired power plants in the U.S. But such a solution ignores the motivations for turning back to coal in the first place. Higher commodity prices, the violence and volatility of many oil-exporting nations, and a desire for energy independence are all behind the re-emergence of an energy source that might have become a relic of the industrial revolution.
A moratorium on coal in the U.S. would get us a modest reduction in global carbon emissions, but it's not an exportable policy. If we really want to make a difference, there are two major things we need to focus on:
1. Major investments to drive down the price of renewable energy
2. Immediate ramping up of CCS to help mitigate the effects of coal in the meantime
The point about CCS is hard to swallow, for many in the youth movement in particular. Coal mining destroys mountain landscapes and impoverishes communities, they point out. It's "dangerous" to assume, as a IGHIH commentor said recently, "that everyone needs and wants the access to energy resources that the developed world has.
Perhaps. I wonder what Japanese coal worker Takeshi Sasaki would say to that:
At the mine, an open pit cut into a mountainside above Bibai, the mood is noticeably upbeat. Workers say they are working every day of the week, which was not the case even last year.
"We're all really thankful," said Takeshi Sasaki, who wore a hard hat as he checked one of the conveyers that wash and sort newly unearthed coal. "If this keeps going, it will mean a whole new era for Bibai."
I wonder if the issue isn't that the developng world wants energy, it's that they want the things energy brings. Perhaps it just has not sunk in that water treatment, food refrigeration, heating and cooling, etc. have energy requirements and when a lot of people all want these things it means a LOT of power plants. Efficiency is great, but it gets expensive at a certain point too (i.e., CFL is cheap but few people own Sunfrost refrigerators).
Posted by: R Margolis at May 24, 2008 2:18 AM