Coal by 2030 will the most widely used fuel worldwide as developing countries electrify burgeoning cities and rural areas where billions of people have had little or no access to power.
When President Obama announced on March 31 that he intends to ensure that the US will slash its greenhouse gas emissions 26% below 2005 emissions levels by 2025 he showed once more his zeal to shut down every coal-fired plant in the US.
As an aside, he failed to mention that such levels would be comparable to what they were in our Civil War, 150 years ago notes Alan Caruba.
At the heart of Obama's program are EPA regulations that will make it impossible to open any new coal plant and will systematically shut down existing plants. "Politically the White House is hesitant to say they're not having a war on coal," explained one of Obama's climate advisers. "On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what's needed."
Under current regulations- not the vastly harsher ones the president envisions- 204 coal-fired electricity generating units in 25 states will be shut down.
Earlier this month, employees at coal plants in West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana received notices that the plants will be closed by the end of May and more pink slips are expected to be issued in the coming months. A slew of preemptive power plant closures across Appalachia and the Midwest have already occurred since 2011. And all of this before the proposed new rules which will further demolish the coal industry.
Yet worldwide, almost 1,200 coal-fired plants are in the planning stages, and over three-quarters are to be built in China and India. To put this in perspective, China and India are planning to build over 60% more coal-fired capacity than the coal-fired capacity that currently exists in the United States. Once Obama's plan goes into effect and another 204 coal-fired plants are shut down in the US, this figure of 60% will more likely be over 100%; double the current coal-fired capacity that presently exists in the US.
The United States has already radically cut carbon dioxide emissions--more than any country on earth since 2006. Emissions today are back down to 1992 levels, and yet at the same time global emissions have gone up. That's because we don't control the energy use of the other 96 percent of humankind while they continue increase usage of coal.