Climate Change Means Coal

Beyond the price signals discussed in my last post, today's Science Friday discussion generally centered on coal's centrality to the climate change issue. Its appeal as an energy source I have already stated: it is cheap and plentiful. America already derives half of its electricity from coal; with its infamously large coal reserves, China is apparently building a new coal-fired power plant every ten days.

All the guests endorsed far more investment in equipping coal plants with carbon-sequestration technology. Carbon capture-and-storage basically involves trapping CO2 at the point of emission, then drilling it into subterranean storage spaces (such as spent oil wells). Though workable in laboratory demonstrations, there is not yet a single commercial coal plant in existence today that deploys sequestration technology.

Christopher Field of Stanford emphasized the enormous logistical challenges involved in implementing sequestration technology on an industrial scale: to sequester even 10 percent of the world's coal-based carbon emissions would apparently require an infrastructure as expensive as that of the entire global oil and gas industry. Hearing this reminded me of Tom Friedman's insistence that the world hasn't yet comprehended what it will mean to enact climate prevention strategies on a commercial scale.

Steve Rayner of Oxford advocated diffusion of carbon capture technology as a perfect way to bring China and India into the climate change fold. He noted that in China coal emissions impose enormous public health costs - such as acid rain and respiratory illness - and that the prospect of stopping this harm gives China a reason to want to sequester coal emissions even independent of climate change considerations. Maybe. In my understanding Sulfur Dioxide, rather than Carbon Dioxide, is the element in coal most damaging to human health. I also believe it is possible to sequester sulfur emissions without sequester carbon emissions - the U.S. has long had a cap-and-trade system for SO2 emissions but not one for CO2 emissions (which is coal plants in the U.S. pollute far less than their Chinese counterparts). Maybe capturing CO2 emissions entails capturing SO2 as well - I don't know. I'd like to find out.

Steve Rayner also argued that while we work to prevent climate change by reducing carbon emissions, we must also get realistic about adapting to its consequences. Given our current failure to reduce global CO2 (or even slow the rate of emissions growth), it is highly probable that some alterations to the global climate will occur. These range from the spectacular - such as melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, and the inundation of coastal cities - to the less spectacular but no less insidious - such as accelerated depletion of freshwater in the American West and the spread of malaria to areas previously safe from the disease. Though it is difficult to judge the probability of these events, billions of (often very poor) people are at risk. The World Bank has recently become more active in helping countries prepare for climate disruptions, and their efforts are welcome.