ONE TOWN SQUARE: at the intersection of peak oil, climate change, and land use

No one can seriously dispute that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming. Yet Europe is returning to coal – the dirtiest fuel on Earth.

Cap-and-trade isn’t working. Even though Europe the a price of emissions in the EU is €24.55 a ton ($38/ton of CO2, or $140 a ton of carbon), the price is proving to be insufficiently high to stop new plants.

Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades.

In the United States, fewer new coal plants are likely to begin operations, in part because it is becoming harder to get regulatory permits. Of 151 proposals in early 2007, more than 60 had been dropped by the year’s end, many blocked by state governments. Dozens of other are stuck in court challenges.

The West and especially the U.S. have been blaming India and China for surging emissions from coal. Coal remains a major fuel source for more than two billion people in India and China.

We can probably burn of almost all of the world’s conventional oil and gas without wrecking the world’s climate. We cannot avoid climate catastrophe if we burn any substantial amount of the world’s remaining coal.

Bottom line: We need an immediate moratorium on the construction of new traditional coal plants (without carbon capture & storage), and we need to phase out existing coal plants within 20 years.

In reality this probably means that no new coal plants will ever get built, as CCS will in all likelihood never prove practical. Unfortunately, that reality doesn’t keep a presidential candidate (Obama this time) from pandering to voters in coal states by supporting “clean coal.”

A moratorium on coal is the one essential measure if we are to avert catastrophic climate change – and of a far higher priority than passing cap & trade schemes. Ken Berlin and Robert M. Sussman in a Center for American Progress Report, Global Warming and the Future of Coal: The Path to Carbon Capture and Storage (summary here), conclude that in the U.S. a cap-and-trade system is likely to result in a market price for CO2 around $30 per ton (Obama’s energy advisor is calling for a price of only $15/ton) – not nearly high enough to ensure that all coal plant developers adopt CCS systems.

As we are seeing here in the Northwest, getting a cap-and-trade scheme passed is requiring huge amounts of effort sustained over years and years to overcome opposition from entrenched interests. Why bother, if in the end the price of emissions isn’t high enough for cap-and-trade to actually work? Why not get at the solution directly rather than indirectly?

Opponents of two power plants proposed for western Kansas won a stunning victory Thursday when the Kansas House failed on a 80-45 vote to overturn Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ veto of two 700-magawatt coal-burning power plants. 85% of the electricity from the two Sunflower Electric Power Corp. plants would have gone to out-of-state users.

After a state regulator rejected the project last year because of concerns about global climate change,  leaders of the Republican-dominated legislature vowed to strip his powers and allow the project to proceed.

The Senate has twice voted to override Sebelius’ vetoes, but this was the first formal override attempt in the House, which had not passed pro-coal legislation with a two-thirds majority.

But plant supporters said they would keep trying until the legislative session ends. Lawmakers had hoped to adjourn Saturday, but the fight over coal could upset those plans.

Ken Levenson at Climate Progress observes that despite the horrific ramifications of climate change, our progress in combating it is dangerously slow – “retarded by an inertia composed of mighty fossil fuel interests, our wanton personal habits, an indifferent press and short sighted political leadership.”

James Hansen insists that coal plant construction must be halted and that all existing coal plants be shut down – ominously, no later than 2030.

A moratorium is what is required. Levenson points out the mechanism for getting such a moratorium at the requisite global scale is lacking. He suggests a Coal Power Non-Proliferation Treaty.