Coal posts, articles, and infographics

British Columbia Aims to Sell Cleaner LNG

February 8, 2012 by Geoffrey Styles
with 75 views

I just ran across British Columbia's new provincial natural gas strategy, which includes a specific strategy for expanding liquefied natural gas (LNG) production as a way to mitigate global climate change. That might sound odd to those who are worried--unnecessarily--that gas might be even worse than coal, emissions-wise, but the... [read more]

Sierra Club admits taking money to promote natural gas over coal

February 7, 2012 by Rod Adams
with 374 views

On February 2, 2012, the Sierra Club allowed a Time magazine blog to break a poorly kept “secret” whose existence had threatened to get out of hand. In a post titled Exclusive: How the Sierra Club Took Millions From the Natural Gas Industry—and Why They Stopped Bryan Walsh described how one of the oldest, largest, and best endowed... [read more]

Why the shale gas glut won’t last

January 31, 2012 by Michael Giberson
with 411 views

Ken Silverstein has a good article in Forbes on the business prospects for shale gas developers (and I’m glad to see him there, having followed his work for a very long time). Since he asks in the title whether low shale gas prices are a mirage, I think it’s useful to go through the underlying economic analysis that’s embedded in his... [read more]

Is Warren Buffet’s Utility Betting On Clean Energy?

January 27, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 600 views

Warren Buffet’s utility subsidiary, MidAmerican Energy Holdings, has made a number of large investments in renewable energy over the past few years. But the famed investor doesn’t exactly make environmentalists jump for joy. Buffett’s take on climate change has been schizophrenic, to put it kindly. [read more]

U.S. Government Downgrades Projections for Coal. Again.

January 26, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 327 views

Current proposed and forecasted coal-fired capacity in the U.S., as projected by the Energy Information Administration’s scenario in 2011. In 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected that coal would drop to 44% of America’s electrical generation by 2035. Actual generation dropped to that level in 2011. This week, the... [read more]

Applying Innovation to Oil & Gas

January 23, 2012 by Geoffrey Styles
with 365 views

This Friday at noon Eastern Time I'll be participating in a webinar on The Energy Collective covering the application of innovation to the emissions from oil and natural gas. The topic is timely, not just because of the current debate over the fate of the Keystone Pipeline, but because despite the growing importance of renewable energy,... [read more]

A Surprising Call From The Investment Community

January 20, 2012 by David Hone
with 265 views

A recent report from a UN session on climate risk and energy solutions had a leading speaker at the event argue that "Putting a price on climate-warming carbon emissions, which has been instituted in parts of Europe and elsewhere with limited success, would be “nice to have” but not essential. . . .". It may be the case that this reflects a significant level of frustration in the investment community, driven by weak carbon prices, inaction in several major economies and uncertainty with policy implementation where action is underway. Nevertheless, to argue that an issue such as climate change can be addressed without government action is a worrying development. [read more]

Climate Pragmatism in Action: New Mercury Regulations To Trigger Less Coal Use

December 22, 2011 by Jesse Jenkins
with 157 views

The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled new (and long-overdue) regulations today to rein in mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal and oil-fired power plants. The new mercury rules, designed to save lives and protect children from the potent neurotoxin, are likely to trigger the closure of many of America's oldest, dirtiest... [read more]

32 US Coal-Fired Power Plants Headed for Closure

December 21, 2011 by Jim Pierobon
with 397 views

The hotly debated Air Toxics Rule and Cross State Air Pollution Rule now slated for enactment in three years by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are destined to close at least 32 coal-fired power plants throughout the U.S. each with an average age of 51 years. This according to a survey of 55 power plant operators and EPA data by... [read more]

Fracking In The Mountain State Leaves A Community Scarred

November 26, 2011 by Rocky Kistner
with 694 views

Photo by ForestGladesiWander via Flickr, Creative Commons

West Virginia is home to one of the most destructive coal mining practices in the world--mountaintop removal--a process that blows up pristine mountains to lay bare the bituminous coal below. But a new fossil fuel Gold Rush has hit the Mountain State; fracking for natural gas trapped deep in the Marcellus Shale... [read more]

Success Slipping Away?

November 18, 2011 by David Hone
with 135 views

Very recently the US Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) released new estimates for global and national emissions for the years 2008, 2009 and 2010 – i.e. the key years in terms of the drop in emissions and first signs of recovery. The US figure is a real good news / bad news story. The rise from 2009 to 2010 was over 200 million tpa, which on the one hand indicates some recovery in the economy, but on the other puts significant pressure on the ability of the US to reduce emissions by 17% by 2020. [read more]

Study: Cheap Coal Isn't Worth It

November 3, 2011 by Jim Pierobon
with 414 views

Each additional study and court ruling read more convincing than those that preceded them. The cost of burning coal is doing even more harm to human health, the environment and worker safety than was previously documentable. But will they — together — persuade policymakers to quicken moves toward a lower-carbon energy future? The latest... [read more]

Sierra Club’s Brune: We’re Stopping Coal

October 24, 2011 by Marc Gunther
with 458 views

Michael Brune

“We are starting to create the ecological U-turn that David Brower talked about, decades ago. On coal, it’s dramatic. We’ve seen a halt to the coal rush.” “Primarily because of regulations (from) the Obama administration, we can now project a future where our oil consumption will decline.” “It’s not sufficient to address the... [read more]

Will Coal Get A Warning Label?

September 21, 2011 by Tyler Caine
with 673 views

The drive to stem the use of coal for power production in the U.S. has gained considerable traction over the past decade. According to some sources, coal power holds the title of the single largest source of air pollution in the country while its supply chain contaminates every resource that it touches. Removing coal from our energy... [read more]

3 Studies Confirm Shale Gas Is Not Worse Than Coal

August 31, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 1,383 views

For most of this year the enormous potential of shale gas has been clouded by controversy over its alleged climate impact. This began with the draft and later the leaked pre-publication version of a paper from a Cornell professor suggesting that the greenhouse gas emissions from gas were no better than those from coal and might even be... [read more]