Told to LOVE Coal

Tin Flannery (2007 Australian of the Year) today sates that we must "learn to love coal!" Arguing in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper (20/9/08) Flannery says that the task of combating the climate crisis is far larger than conventional wisdom assumes. The enormous growth in energy generation in China, most of which is coal-fired, adds to the urgency of the need for a clean coal solution. Power generation capacity is projected to rise from 442,000 megawatts in 2004 to 920,000 by 2010 - a doubling in just seven years - says Flannery. He acknowledges that clean coal technologies can never be a complete, worldwide replacement for existing coal facilities. Globally, renewable energy will have to take a significant portion of conventional coal's market share. His point is, he says, that the world, and China in particular, has gone so far down the road of using coal as an energy source that we have little choice but to pursue a solution that involves it.