Will King Coal Be Deposed?

This article is reprinted by permission from Grist. For more environmental news and humor sign up for Grist's free email service.

Climate scientists, key members of Congress, enviros, and the progressive wing of the business world are plotting a coup d'état. Regime change isn't likely to come soon, but this resistance movement could significantly alter the way the pollution-spewing sovereign wields its power.

The ringleader of this uprising is James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the world's top climate scientists. Last week he threw down the gauntlet: "There should be a moratorium on building any more coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the National Press Club.

Coal currently supplies nearly half the electricity in the U.S., and is responsible for more greenhouse-gas emissions than any other electricity source. The Department of Energy reported last month that 159 new coal-fired power plants are scheduled to be built in the U.S. in the coming decade, intended to generate enough juice for nearly 100 million homes.

"If you build a new coal plant, you're making a 60-year commitment -- that's how long these plants are generally in use," explains David Doniger, policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate center. "So we really need to avoid building a whole new generation of coal plants that use the old technology."

Industry boosters tout the prospect of so-called "clean coal," but right now there is simply no such thing. Zero-carbon coal plants -- ones that will gasify coal, filter carbon dioxide from the vapor, then stow the CO2 underground -- are a long way off from commercial application. A handful of coal-gasification plants are in development, and could eventually be retrofitted with carbon-capture and -sequestration capabilities, but for now this pollution-storage technology is years away from even a working pilot phase.

"Until we have that clean coal power plant, we should not be building them," Hansen told his D.C. audience. "It is as clear as a bell."

Then the esteemed scientist raised even more eyebrows by declaring that, come mid-century, any old dinosaur coal plants that still aren't sequestering CO2 ought to be "bulldozed."

Industry reps are scoffing. "Some of Hansen's suggestions are absolutely ludicrous," energy lobbyist Frank Maisano told Muckraker. "There are fast-growing, rural areas of the country where coal is the only affordable option. Hansen's recommendations would put these areas at risk -- they're a recipe for disaster." Maisano added that the NASA top dog "may be a great scientist, but when it comes to energy policy, apparently he has a lot to learn."

Now You Policy It

And yet a growing number of policymakers are thinking along the same lines as Hansen.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is drafting a bill that would "prevent any plant from going forward that uses old [coal-fired] technology," said the senator's spokesperson Vincent Morris. Kerry, who chairs the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation, expects to introduce the bill in the coming weeks, after ironing out the details on performance standards for advanced-technology coal plants.

"Industry leaders know they are operating in a climate of uncertainty, and that is a very uncomfortable climate for them," Morris said. "They need a clear path charted in terms of the expectations for advanced coal technology, and that's what Sen. Kerry is working on."

The most aggressive climate-change bill in the Senate -- the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act, sponsored by Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) -- also includes a provision that would require all coal power plants built after 2012 to emit no more greenhouse gases than a combined-cycle gas turbine electric plant, a type of highly efficient natural-gas plant, by 2016. (A similar clean-as-a-CCGT-plant standard is already in effect in California.) By 2030, the Sanders-Boxer bill would require all power plants to be this clean no matter when they came online.