ERMUSR Misc Notes 04-11-2006 - Laserfiche WebLink

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When you turn up the AC, think of Gibsan and the grimyfuel it dev®urs at the rate of three 100-car trainloads a day. WHO HAS COAL? The world has more than a trillion tons of readily available coal. The U.S. has the largest share, but other energy-hungry countries, such as China and India, are richly endowed as well. U.S. RUSSIA CHINA INDIA AUSTRALIA SOUTH AFRICA OTHER WHO USES COAL NOW? Global coal consumption is roughly five billion tons a year, with China burning the most. Western Europe has cut coal use by 36 percent since 1990 by using available natural gas from the North Sea and Russia. MILLIONS OF TONS [.~ry~ CHINA EUROPE" U.S. INDIA RUSSIA OTHER WHO WILL USE IT TOMORROW? China's coal needs will more than double by 2025 to satisfy factories and consumers. The country also plans to convert coal to liquid motor fuels. Worldwide, consumption will rise by 56 percent. MILLIONS OF TONS CHINA U.S. EUROPE" INDIA RUSSIA OTHER "Excluding Russia push up the U.S. appetite for power by a third over the next 20 years, according to the Depart- ment of Energy. And in the developing world, especially China, electricity needs will rise even faster as factories burgeon and hundreds of millions of people buy their first refrigerators and TVs. Much of that demand is likely to be met with coal. For the past 15 years U.S. utilities needing to add power have mainly built plants that burn nat- ural gas, a relatively clean fuel. But a near tripling of natural gas prices in the past seven years has idled many gas-fired plants and put a damper on new construction. Neither nuclear energy nor alternative sources such as wind and solar seem likely to meet the demand for electricity. Meanwhile, more than a quarter trillion tons of coal lie underfoot, from the Appalachians through the Illinois Basin to the Rocky Mountains SUPPLY AND DEMAND I A coal train rumbling across Montana is a mile and a half long yet carries barely a day's fuel for a large power plant. The U.$. burns more than a billion tons of coal a year but has the world's richest deposits (above-, enough to last 250 years. -enough to last 250 years at today's consump- tion rate. You hear it again and again: The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal. About 40 coal-burning power plants are now being designed or built in the U.S. China, also rich in coal, could build several hundred by 2025. Mining enough coal to satisfy this growing appetite will take a toll on lands and communi- ties (see following story, page 104). Of all fossil fuels, coal puts out the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy, so burning it poses a further threat to global climate, already warming alarm- ingly. With much government prodding, coal- burning utilities have cut pollutants such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides by installing equipment like the building-size scrubbers and catalytic units crowded behind the Gibson plant. But the carbon dioxide that drives global warm- ing simply goes up the stacks-nearly two bil- lion tons of it each year from U.S. coal plants. Within the next two decades that amount could rise by a third. There's no easy way to capture all the carbon dioxide from a traditional coal-burning station. "Right now, if you took a plant and slapped a carbon-capture device on it, you'd lose 25 per- cent of the energy," says Julio Friedmann, who SOURCE: ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION. DOE NGM ART THE HIGH C 0 $ r Q F CHEAP COAL t~t