Dirty, Filthy, Rotten Coal... We Still Want You

SEARCH BLOG: ENERGY

These from Benny Peiser:

Abu Dhabi (largest of the seven UAE emirates) has announced that it will switch to coal-fired power plants. Dubai (the second largest) is already building four of them - with a combined output of 4,000 megawatts - as a first-phase investment in coal. Apart from the United Arab Emirates, Oman (widely regarded as "the next Dubai") has signed a contract with South Korea for the construction of several coal-fired plants. Beyond the Gulf, Egypt proposes to build its first coal-fired plant on the shores of the Red Sea. Russia has announced plans to build more than 30 coal-fired plants by 2011.
--Neil Reynolds, The Globe and Mail, 18 July 2008

The Kyoto Protocol, incidentally, classifies the Gulf states as developing countries - meaning that they are under no obligation, oil revenues notwithstanding, to reduce CO2 emissions. They have opted for coal for a single compelling reason: cost. One of the ironic differences between Germany and the Gulf states is the absence of solar energy investment "in the sun-baked Gulf states." Germany produced 1,300 megawatts from solar installations in 2007; the Gulf states combined produced 36 megawatts. As impressive as its commitment to solar power appears, though, Germany has its work cut out. It has promised to generate most of its electricity by renewable energies (largely wind and solar) by 2020 - when it will phase out its nuclear power. Germany has thus opted for the world's most expensive electrical power even as other countries simultaneously opt for the cheapest.
--Neil Reynolds, The Globe and Mail, 18 July 2008

China added more coal-burning power plants in 2007 than Britain has built in its history, said Gerard McCloskey, a coal market specialist with Cambridge Energy Research Associates in London. A few years ago, China was exporting the equivalent of Colombia's current annual exports. But by next year, the U.S. Department of Energy forecasts, it will become a net importer.
--Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times, 20 July 2008

Here in Michigan:

New coal plants in Michigan draw fire

Environmental groups say the sudden rush to build coal plants calls on a 19th-Century technology to solve 21st-Century problems.

They oppose the plans, arguing that new coal plants will add global-warming gases at a time when the state and nation are under pressure from other countries to reduce those gases.

Just who are those "other countries?"

Seems like that 19th-Century technology still has a few years in it.

And it also seems that those Gulf-state countries flooded with oil, dollars, and sunshine [where's the rush to solar power?] recognize that an abundance of cheap energy means more than the remote possibility of their average temperature increasing from 100° to 101° because they are burning coal.

We can accuse the Chinese and the Arab countries of being political or religious ideologues, but when it comes right down to it, they are ultimately practical and rational. It is the U.S. that is filled with impractical, irrational global warming ideologues.

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