course, is a potent greenhouse gas; the more C0 2 in 

 the atmosphere, the warmer the Earth gets. In 2005, 

 at a conference in Exeter, England, on the dangers of 

 abrupt climate change, 200 leading climatogists and 

 policy makers from thirty countries agreed that if the 

 Earth's average surface temperature should rise above 

 pre-industrial levels by more than 3.5 degrees Fahren- 

 heit (about two degrees Celsius), the risk of danger- 

 ous climate change would increase dramatically. The 

 consequences of such change have been well docu- 

 mented and publicized: among them are higher sea 

 levels, more intense storms, local desertification, and 

 rapid disruption of ecosystems. Right now the Earth 

 is a little past the halfway mark to a rise of 3.5 degrees. 

 The atmosphere has already warmed one degree F, 

 and another degree of warming is stored in the oceans. 

 It the U.S. and China go forward with their plans to 

 build new coal-fired power plants, the C0 2 they will 

 pump into the atmosphere will make it exceedingly 

 difficult to avert drastic climate change. Because the 

 consequences may be severe, now is a good time to 

 take stock of how King Coal regained its throne, and 

 what energy choices remain. 



At the root of the current entanglement with 

 coal is a worldwide energy crunch. Between 

 1950 and 2000 the world's population grew by 

 roughly 1 40 percent. But fossil-fuel consumption in- 

 creased by almost 400 percent, propelled largely by 

 growth in the West. Moreover, by 2030 the world's 

 demand for energy is projected to more than dou- 

 ble. At the same time, the remaining reserves of oil 

 and natural gas appear to be declining, and the fu- 



_ 2.5 r 

 -o 



I 



-2r 2.0 - 



3 

 O 



Natural gas Petroleum Coal 



Source: Natural Resources Defense Council, from data provided 

 by the U S Energy Information Administration 



Amount of carbon dioxide (C0 2 ), an important greenhouse 

 gas, that is emitted into the atmosphere per unit of electrical 

 energy produced is plotted for three fossil fuels. Burning 

 coal emits more C0 2 per unit energy than any other fuel. 

 Nuclear power, as well as hydroelectric and other renewable 

 sources, emits little or no C0 2 . 



ture of nuclear power and renewable energy (solar 

 power, wind power, and the like) remains uncertain. 

 By default, then, coal has emerged as the fuel of 

 choice. Indeed, as oil prices climbed above sixty dol- 

 lars a barrel last year, a long-dormant interest was re- 

 newed in building plants that can transform coal in- 

 to diesel and other liquid fuels — an expensive, inef- 

 ficient process that releases large quantities of C0 2 . 



Of course, coal also has a number of virtues: it can 

 be transported by ship and rail, it's easy to store, and 

 it's easy to burn. But its main advantage over other 

 fuels is that it is cheap and plentiful. The Earth still 

 harbors an estimated 1 trillion tons of recoverable 

 coal, by tar the largest reserve of fossil fuel left. And 

 the U.S. has the geological good fortune to have more 

 than a quarter of it — about 270 billion tons — buried 

 within its borders. As coal boosters never tire of point- 

 ing out, the coal in U.S. ground is enough to fuel the 

 nation's electricity needs, at the current rate of con- 

 sumption, for 250 years. China has less than half as 

 much as the U.S. — 126 billion tons. But that amount 

 will keep China's lights on for about seventy-five years 

 if consumption stays at its current rate. 



In addition to those considerable advantages, sev- 

 eral recent historical factors have also contributed to 

 the coal boom in the U.S. California's rolling black- 

 outs in January 2001 underscored the need for new 

 investment in electricity generation and transmis- 

 sion. The collapse of Enron helped throw the nat- 

 ural-gas market into turmoil, sending prices sky- 

 rocketing and making coal extremely cheap by com- 

 parison. The 2000 presidential election was another 

 turning point. Coal-industry executives knew that 

 if the Democratic candidate, Al Gore, were elected, 

 regulations to limit or tax C0 2 emissions would soon 

 follow. So Big Coal threw its money and muscle be- 

 hind George W. Bush. President Bush reciprocated 

 by staffing regulatory agencies with former coal- 

 industry executives and lobbyists, and by inviting 

 Big Coal to play a prominent role in crafting the 

 nation's new, unabashedly coal-friendly energy pol- 

 icy. Finally, the terrorist attacks of September 1 1 , 

 2001, made many people reconsider the high cost 

 of depending on oil from the Middle East. 



What's most remarkable about America's current 

 coal boom is that, unlike other recent booms, which 

 were driven by a (perhaps irrational) exuberance, this 

 one is driven by overwhelming fear: fear that the world 

 is running out of energy, fear that the U.S. is losing its 

 edge, and, most of all, fear that if Americans don't 

 burn more coal, not only the economic health ot the 

 nation but civilization itself is at risk. "Have you ever 

 been in a blackout?" one coal executive asked me. 

 "Do you remember how dark the whole world gets? 

 Do you remember how scary it is?" 



NATURAL HISTORY May 2006 



