Meanwhile, coal power plants are being built at a quick rate in China and India, the IEA said. The Chinese ones are for the most part built with the latest technology to capture polluting particles, while the picture in India is more mixed, said Laszlo Varro, head of IEA's Gas, Coal and Power Markets Division.
Current climate regulations have had no effect on coal production or coal use, van der Hoeven said.
"It will take a lot of time and a lot of regulations to really see coal consumption turn around," she said. "A higher carbon price would play a role to change the competitive picture."
"The U.S. experience shows that a more efficient gas market, with flexible pricing and fueled by indigenous unconventional resources that are produced sustainably, can reduce coal use, CO2 emissions and consumers' electricity bills without harming energy security," she added.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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10 Comments
Add CommentWind and solar are no help as they produce with low efficiency gas backup run inefficiently, more GHG's than an all gas solution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact, if the money spent on wind and solar in past decade had been spent on nuclear, the world would be coal free, millions of dead from air and water pollution would be alive, and the AGW precipice would have been moved many years into the future.
Shows you how effective this fossil fuel funded renewable energy and anti nuclear campaign has been, in diverting a conversion from coal to nuclear.
As coal-fired generating capacity will continue to be purchased and built, requiring the World Bank and IMF to fund (guarantee loans for) only the newer high efficiency designs would moderate the problem somewhat.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Coal capacity will dwindle and renewables will replace coal in the U.S. and Europe"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot in Europe. No where near replacing coal. coal as a percdent has increased in Germany, Poland, etc. Where are these 'renewables' replacing anything of signifigance in the USA...natural gas has had an impact but not renewables.
"Regulations...A higher carbon price would play a role to change the competitive picture."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCripes. NO and NO give it a rest with the taxes.
The USA is hardly competivie as it is. Shifting industry to China and India where they have fake reulations only harms the environment.
Reply to fossilnut:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are exactly correct. CO2 put into the atmosphere in China or India is no different than CO2 put into the air here in the US.Except as you say there will be more of it.
Mankind is a freight train going downhill with very bad brakes. The crew spends more time finger pointing than trying to bring it under control. We'll be living in increasingly interesting times.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe cure for the human race is coming.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNice analogy - and the fireman keeps shoveling coal into the boiler! [my folks were long time railroad men]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWay to reduction in coal consumption lies in reduction in electricity consumption by individuals. In India, electricity is rampantly misused and wasted by both the super-rich and the poor people for their mindlessness. They need force for getting disciplined.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEasier, simpler and better to just rapidly expand Nuclear Energy. Beware of fossil fuel vested interests who will do anything & everything to block the growth of Nuclear Energy. In India, they are now financing the Catholic Church to organize protests against Nuclear Power plants in India. This is after the Indian gov't traced funding for a number of anti-Nuclear protests to big super-rich Oil Family Foundations in the USA and Europe to ENGO's operating in India. These ENGO's are nothing more than paid agents of Big Carbon.
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