The Greens screwed up by rejecting nuclear, particularly because the waste can be also used for fuel with the right type of reactor. Now nations are resorting to coal- they will use anything, even if "dirty" to provide electricity to their people.
Soaring Global Coal Use Is Obliterating Emission Reductions Achieved in the U.S. Since 2005
The global energy crisis has resulted in a spasm of energy realism and plain talk. Last week, Vaclav Bartuška, the Czech Ambassador-at-Large for energy security, told a group of reporters that “If there is a gas cut out this winter, we will burn anything we can to keep our people warm and to make electricity.”
Bartuška said aloud what has become obvious over the past few months: climate change concerns are taking a backseat to economic considerations. Indeed, all around the world, countries are turning back to coal to produce power and the resulting emissions from increasing coal use will obliterate all of the emissions reductions that have been achieved in the United States over the past decade and a half.
Here are the numbers. In April, China announced it will increase coal output by 300 million tons this year. In May, India said it aims to increase domestic coal production by more than 400 million tonsby the end of next year. According to the Energy Information Administration, burning a ton of coal releases about 2 tons of carbon dioxide. Thus, the 700 million tons per year of new coal consumption in China and India will result in an additional 1.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions. According to BP, that’s about the same volume of emission reductions that were achieved in the U.S. between 2005 and 2020.
The surge in coal use in China and India is only part of the story. Russia has slashed or stopped the flow of natural gas into several European countries via the Nordstream 1 pipeline. In response, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck announced last week that his government is “taking additional measures to reduce gas consumption,” including a big increase in the use of coal-fired power plants. Habeck, who is a member of the Green party, said the decision to burn more coal was “necessary" to lower gas usage and that the move was "bitter."
At about the same time that Germany announced it was reviving its coal-fired capacity, the Netherlands announced it would do the same. Coal plants in the country had been restricted to 35% of their capacity as Holland pushed to cut emissions and use more renewables. Nevertheless, Dutch climate and energy minister Rob Jetten announced that the “cabinet has decided to immediately withdraw the restriction on production for coal-fired power stations” until 2024.
Austria, which has been getting 80% of its gas supplies from Russia, announced on June 19, that it was going to convert a gas-fired power plant to burn coal. According to Reuters, the move was decided by a “crisis cabinet” led by the country’s chancellor. Furthermore, on June 9, Poland’s Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, said his country needs to ramp up its domestic coal production to reduce energy costs in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We will introduce a program of increased coal extraction in Poland’s collieries,” Morawiecki said. According to the Associated Press, the Polish government wants to reduce energy prices before the start of winter and return them to levels that prevailed before the war.