I want to thank Jeremy Carl of Stanford's Program on Energy and Sustainable Development for dropping by and making the case for coal -- or rather, the case for holding our nose, accepting that coal's growth is inevitable, and working to make it cleaner (Jeremy's posts are here and here). I hope the conversation will be ongoing.
As I see it, the core case has still not been made. Lemme try to clarify what I see as The Coal Question and the range of answers on offer.
Jeremy is absolutely right that the question is ultimately about China and India. To me, this is the nut of the issue:
As anyone who has dealt seriously with either country knows, the Indian and Chinese governments are, for the most part, deeply corrupt -- there's little we can do to change that. Powerful entrenched interests benefit from the existing system and they care about money, not climate. Second, even if corruption were eliminated, the people in these countries tend to be poor, at least by western standards. While some would certainly be willing to pay a little additional money to have cleaner energy, few would be willing to make the substantial investment that a transition away from coal would entail, even with the substantial attendant environmental benefits.
Jeremy has stipulated that no one in China and India -- not the government, not entrenched interests, not the people -- will accept higher short-term energy prices or a slower economic growth rate in the name of sustainability.
If that's a true and immutable fact, we're screwed. Period.
If China and India build as many dirty coal plants as they're now on track to build in the next 10, 20 years -- if they develop along the same fossil-intensive path of the West, only faster -- global average temperature will rise between 2 and 6 degrees C this century, around 40 of all species will go extinct, and we'll see a massive global economic depression. And that's the hopeful case. If we hit one of the fabled tipping points, we could be looking at Lovelock scenarios.
Ultimately, China and India are in the same boat we're all in. The Stern Report is as true for them as it is for us: when it comes to climate change, the costs of inaction far outweigh the cost of action. To believe that the Chinese and Indians are immune to this reasoning, we must believe that they feel no obligation to humanity, or to future generations. They are incapable of sacrificing today for a better tomorrow. Their sole focus is on maximum-speed economic development, even if it means taking a course that dooms their grandchildren to immiseration.
I don't buy it. I can't believe that developing countries will knowingly doom the world, and with it their own descendants, to chaos. (I don't believe it about us, either.)
So they're going to have to change, just like developed nations are. It may not be as soon as would be ideal (i.e., now). There will be plenty of debate on what kind of change, at what pace, and to what extent developed nations should pick up the bill. But change must and will happen. I guarantee in ten years no one in any nation will be saying otherwise.
What kind of change? Retrofit the coal economy with scrubbers and sequestration? Make a more fundamental shift to renewables and efficiency? Or both in sequence?
The crucial thing to note is that every green alternative would mean higher short-term energy costs and slower short-term economic growth (at least by current means of accounting). That's just as true for clean coal as it is for solar panels -- they're both more expensive than the status quo. If the Chinese and Indians "care about money, not climate," they won't shift to clean coal any more than they'll shift to wind turbines. The fact that clean coal is coal doesn't set it apart in that respect.
(I should note that this entire post is just a prolix way of phrasing apsmith's succinct comment.)
So, which choice should developing countries make? More on that in part two.
Obama will go to Copenhagen—if he can seal a deal
Comments
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GRLCowan Posted 5:15 am
26 Nov 2007
If China and India build as many dirty coal plants as they're now on track to build in the next 10, 20 years -- if they develop along the same fossil-intensive path of the West, only faster -- global average temperature will rise between 2 and 6 degrees C this century ...
Roberts is neglecting, as almost everyone here almost always does, the less unpleasant path we would take in that case of centrally capturing the CO2. Look up my many previous mentions of silicate-to-carbonate capture. Man, am I tired of typing catprue and having to fix it.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, boron internal combustion fan
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html
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apsmith Posted 6:42 am
26 Nov 2007
GRL - that's the whole point - "dirty" coal plants aren't designed to capture CO2. If we have to add it on as an afterthought, it's going to be very expensive. Why not put that money into renewables and efficiency investments instead?
The whole question boils down to where we're most likely to get the biggest energy supply (or effective use of energy) and reduction-of-CO2 return for the buck. There are lots of good suggestions out there, and I certainly don't think "clean coal" should be completely thrown out as a solution a priori; maybe it'll really provide the best "return for the buck" of all the solutions out there.
But I am a little disturbed by Jeremy Carl's comment in his second post: "a global Apollo Alliance-type approach, with substantial revenue going to clean up sources like coal, would have been a much better solution than chasing after the failed strategy of Kyoto".
Sounds like another strand of anti-cap-and-trade argument, but in fact cap-and-trade regulations are one of only 2 ways (carbon taxes being the other) we know of to ensure the market actually pushes for biggest "return for the buck" on reducing CO2 emissions.
In fact, that's one of the arguments that Shellenberger and Nordhaus have against "cap and trade" - that it would promote only the cheapest solutions and not push investment dollars into options that are more expensive now but may in the long run prove best (like solar PV). Which is why I agree with them we need more government R&D money focused on a range of long-term solutions.
But if Carl's argument is that CO2 sequestration is going to be very cost-effective, he should love cap-and-trade.
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GRLCowan Posted 8:24 am
26 Nov 2007
The case I think Roberts is addressing, and I certainly am, is where we don't control what the energy-supply-and-management money is put into; it goes into coal despite us. By doing centralized CO2 capture, we add it on as an afterthought to all CO2 emitters on the planet at once.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, hydrogen-to-boron convert
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?
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bookerly Posted 2:47 pm
26 Nov 2007
As anyone who has dealt seriously with this country knows, the American government is, for the most part, deeply corrupt -- there's little we can do to change that. Powerful entrenched interests benefit from the existing system and they care about money, not climate.
As anyone who has studied either country knows, both China and India have pockets of well off middle classes in major cities surrounded by countrysides full of poverty -- and both are trying to change that. Governments know that they must respond to people's needs to feed their families as a priority over climate.
The word developing means "lacking money and infrastructure". How to build it, what to do?
Look around the world. People with money build beautiful eco-homes. Poor people build what they can with what they have (think coal).
David is correct when he says "I can't believe that developing countries will knowingly doom the world, and with it their own descendants, to chaos.".
Read the press from the developing world. Look at what countries all over the developing world are trying to do.
Americans seem to have this idea that China and India are indifferent to what is happening. Why not make a serious effort to educate yourselves before you criticize.
Invite Chinese and Indian (and African and South American) environmentalists to describe what they are doing and how they see what is going on it their countries.
The coal issue is tough, but first of all, try to understand how the developing countries see it. If folks want to offer alternatives, do it in the form of proposals detailed enough to be responded to.
Merely scolding poor people won't change anything. American environmentalists remind me of middle class people who scream at beggars "Get a job."
patrick in Beijing
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bookerly Posted 11:01 pm
26 Nov 2007
Reading again, more carefully (sometimes I think I should not be allowed near the internet between classes, which is most of the time.... hmmmm...).
David said "Jeremy has stipulated that no one in China and India -- not the government, not entrenched interests, not the people -- will accept higher short-term energy prices or a slower economic growth rate in the name of sustainability.
If that's a true and immutable fact, we're screwed. Period."
I want to address this issue. For both China and India (and a number of other developing nations, which may not be as big, but can cummlulatively make a difference), a very much slower economic growth rate is deadly. They need to create jobs to keep up with growing population and the demands of their people.
But it need not mean we're screwed.
If people in the developed nations are capable of rational thought (not clear at this time), they could recognize the dilemma faced by developing nations and take actions to mitigate it (a nice developed nation word).
They could pay higher prices for goods, say 20% while demanding lower emissions (an amount equal to say, 80% of the 20% higher prices) for the higher prices (and negotiating mechanisms to ensure that their demands are met).
They could insist their governments spend big bucks to help develop alternative power sources not only at home, but throughout developing countries.
And so on.
If we are screwed, we are self-screwed, because we can see a problem and a solution, but we won't solve it, since it involves something that doesn't put quick money in out pockets.
Greed is the enemy of the human race.
patrick in Beijing
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amazingdrx Posted 1:57 am
27 Nov 2007
But I think Jeremy is claiming the short term cost advantage by prescribing add on clean coal technology. Add a CO2 seperation, pumping system, pipelines, and drill fields to pump the CO2 into to the existing coal plants. Surely that will be cheaper than wind? Wrong Jeremy. These added steps are very expensive.
And anyway you forgot coal mining, coal processing, and transport. But that is built into the present cost of coal right? Sure it is, but wind is right at the cost of coal per kwh right now. The price of coal is rising inevitably as all commodities subject to huge demand and shortening supply do.
Even on the shortest term, retrofitting existing coal power plants. Wind is cheaper.
In an economy like China (and the US, come to think of it, due to mining laws favoring corporations) with no cost for the coal deposit, except an industry bribe to corrupt government officials. And almost negligible labor costs, in China, where equipment installed here and in China, will be manufactured. Wind would still be cheaper, given the same deal for wind.
No cost land to install it on, with favorable government policy. Almost no-cost labor, manufacturing wind machines in China. If/when wind gets similar advantages to coal, it will be even cheaper than it is now. And it already beats coal.
The trick here? Comparing the cost of coal in China to the cost of wind in the US and Europe. The fallacious copmparison comes from that other fallacy, that unless we can build renewables cheaper than China builds coal, our economy will falter. Therefore we can't afford renewables.
And anyway, power plants are financed with long term low interest bonds, so the cost of energy devices does not fall on investors short term. The goal with "widow and orphan" utility bonds was low risk for the investor. Has the goal changed to short term hedge fund profits by exploiting traditionally safe long term investments, like mortgages? Look to the mortgage crisis for that answer.
The corporatist monopoly favorable policies that allow hedge funds unrestricted insider trading and market manipulation seem to be behind the argument for clean (actually ditry) coal. These mega crooks have tapped into the economic advantages granted utility companies in the interest of we the people, just like they expolited the advantages to home buyers built into the mortgage system.
Greed is good? Right Gecko? Good for who? The scum that rises to the top of a culture turned into a corporate feudal cesspool of corruption and incompetence.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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