The coal industry is planning to replace oil by turning coal into liquid fuels and into feedstocks for the chemical industry. Of course they are also planning to burn ever-more coal to produce electricity. If these plans materialise, green chemistry and renewable solar energy will both be sidelined for the rest of this century.
You may have heard that “coal is dead”. But this is not the case; in its struggle for survival, the coal industry has an ace in the hole. In July, the industrialised nations of the world are going to announce their united support for “clean coal”.
Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US are about to sanction burying today’s global warming problem in the ground, passing it along to our children to manage essentially forever.
There’s one major problem with the coal industry’s plans, and that’s carbon dioxide, the most important global warming gas. Therefore, the coal industry’s plans all hinge on the development of “clean coal” — a clever name for an untested idea, burying billions or trillions of tons of liquid, pressurised carbon dioxide in the ground, hoping it will stay there forever.
The coal industry's ace in the hole
