Reliance on coal-fired plants bucked

CONTINUED RELIANCE on coal-fired power will only worsen the ill effects of climate change, even with the existence of so-called high efficiency, low emission coal technologies, according to a group of leading climate and energy scientists.

Unless these new coal fired power plants will allow carbon capture and storage (CCS), such facilities will still generate “unabated” coal. These coal plants cannot therefore be considered a low carbon technology as the emissions coming from the burning of coal are not captured, scientists explained in a statement posted on the European Climate Foundation website.

These scientists also stressed that “new unabated coal is not compatible with keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.”

“Even the most efficient coal fired power plants emit more than about 15 times the amount of carbon dioxide per unit of electricity compared to renewable energy (RE) systems and more than twice the amount of efficient gas fired plants. It is misleading to speak about high efficiency low emissions coal combustion technologies unless equipped with carbon dioxide capture and storage,” the scientists said in the statement.

“Only coal fired power plants that are equipped with CCS systems can incur emissions levels below those of unabated gas plants and therefore be considered a low carbon technology. The only way the coal plants can be part of a low carbon future is for all new coal plants to include CCS from the outset,” they said.

“Building new unabated coal plants will extend the period during which coal continues to be converted into atmospheric carbon dioxide as each coal plant is expected to operate for 40-50 years. Improvements in plant efficiency are not significant in the face of clear scientific evidence that carbon dioxide persists in the atmosphere for many hundreds of years,” they added.

Scientists noted that to keep global warning to less than 2 degrees Celsius, the use of unabated coal has to go down.

“There is no room in the remaining carbon budget for building new unabated coal power plants, even the high efficient ones, given their long lifetimes. Nor is there much room for upgrading existing coal plants with high efficiency technologies since they will consequently have even longer lifetimes…Upgrading existing coal plants to high efficiency without adding CCS and thereby extending their economic life by another 40 to 50 years, is also directly at odds with the need to reduce the capacity of unabated coal,” the statement read.

Such findings by globally renowned scientists are critical to the Philippines, which has committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent up to 2030.

This commitment is part of the landmark international climate accord signed in New York earlier this year.

This climate agreement was adopted by 196 countries that participated in the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change held in France in December last year.