The Reality Blog

Coal’s two cents

The coal industry loves to give their two cents on the yet undeveloped technology to capture and store carbon pollution from burning coal (CCS).

They say this technology is the answer to reducing carbon emissions, and while we wait for it to be developed, they say we should just go ahead and keep on burning dirty coal and building new dirty coal plants.

But when it comes to actually investing in this technology, two cents is all the coal industry is willing to give, literally.

According to a recent “60 Minutes” report and an analysis by The Center for American Progress, the coal industry’s investment in CCS technology amounts to a paltry two cents on every dollar of profit — or less.

“60 Minutes” interviewed Jim Rogers, the CEO of Duke Energy, a major producer of coal power:

Asked how much Duke Energy has invested in carbon sequestration technology so far,” Rogers said, “We have not invested any dollars in the technology, per say. We have spent a lot of time and money reviewing and analyzing the various technologies.”

The Center for American Progress analyzed investments by all 48 of the American Association for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) member companies, including Duke, finding:

Like Duke, ACCCE’s other member companies are much more committed to the idea of clean coal than investing to make it a reality—as their research budgets demonstrate. An analysis of their investments found that they spent less than two cents in research on “clean coal” for every $1 of profit.

This year, ACCCE is gearing up to spend an incredible $40 million on ads and PR selling the idea of carbon capture to the American people.

Why is ACCCE spending so much money to sell the idea of a product that doesn’t exist and that they’re not even willing to truly invest in?

It’s all part of the clean coal smoke screen, to keep us burning dirty coal for as long as possible. Of course, if ACCCE has a different answer, we’d love to hear their two cents.

No new dirty coal in the UK

Yesterday, the United Kingdom pledged not to allow the construction of any new dirty coal plants. Meaning, only plants that capture and store a portion of their carbon dioxide emissions can now be built. From the Guardian:

The energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said the new policy balanced three challenges: the need to ensure the security of the UK’s energy supply, the need to build a low-carbon economy and the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Miliband imposed a new requirement that any new coal plant would be forced to demonstrate CCS from the start, with emissions equivalent to 300MW being trapped. He abandoned a previous proposal of allowing plants to be ‘CCS-ready’

“The era of new unabated coal has come to an end,” he said.

The American coal industry insists they are committed to CCS, but in Reality this is exactly the type of progress they have been fighting against. For all their talk about new, clean technology, not a single power-plant in America — or the UK — actually captures and stores it’s carbon pollution.

And despite increasing profits, the coal industry has yet to make a significant investment to develop the technology needed to actually make coal clean.

Instead, groups like ACCCE spend $45 million a year to keep talking about the new technology they haven’t yet demonstrated, perpetuate misleading information about the devastating impact of continuing to burn dirty coal, lobby Congress to block clean energy legislation, and fight to continue building new dirty coal plants — about which the the Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission just said “We may not need any, ever.”

If ever there was an opportunity to be part of the solution, and actively play a part in promoting solutions to the climate crisis, this is it. Now that the UK has said a definitive “no” to new, dirty coal plants, it’s time for the coal industry to hear “London calling” — and answer.