• Print
• E-Mail

Aggressive near term fostering of energy efficiency and climate friendly technologies is an imperative for mitigation of the looming climate crisis and optimization of the economic pathway to the eventual clean energy world, James E Hansen, Director of NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies wrote in a letter to Australian Prime Minister.

Hansen further wrote that coal caused fully half of the fossil fuel increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air today, and on the long run coal has the potential to be an even greater source of CO2.

Due to the dominant role of coal, solution to global warming must include phase out of coal except for uses where the CO2 is captured and sequestered. Failing that, we cannot avoid large climate change, because a substantial fraction of the emitted CO2 will stay in the air more than 1000 years, he added.

Or see the following reports that appeared in New York Times: Xcel Energy has told Colorado officials that it plans to close two coal plants and add 1,000 megawatts of wind and solar power, in addition to a new natural gas plant. The company wants to cut its carbon dioxide emissions 10% by 2015.

In Nevada, Sierra Pacific Resources delayed construction of a coal plant and moved up the schedule for a natural gas powered plant instead.

The Tennessee Valley Authority decided in August to add a $2.5 billion unit to a nuclear power plant rather than construct a new coal facility the other main option because of the uncertain economics.

Altogether, 53 coal fired plants were canceled or delayed in 2007, according to Global Energy Decisions, a private consulting firm that tracks power plants for the Department of Energy.

China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined. And it has increased coal consumption 14 percent in each of the past two years in the broadest industrialization ever. Every week to 10 days, another coal fired power plant opens somewhere in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego, according to a New York Times report.

To make matters worse, India is right behind China in stepping up its construction of coal fired power plants and has a population expected to outstrip China's by 2030.

In the circumstances what Tata Power Co and the World Bank needs to do is create awareness about the technologies involved, whether that is the best available so far. Or perhaps, the technology that Kensen talks about in his letter to Australian Prime Minister.