Europe Turning to Coal, Despite Global Warming Worries

[Frodo]

Looks like Europe has lost whatever moral authority it ever had (if any) to judge the United States on its refusal to abide by the Kyoto Protocol:
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Despite Climate Worry, Europe Turns to Coal

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: April 23, 2008

CIVITAVECCHIA, Italy — At a time when the world’s top climate experts agree that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming, Italy’s major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its massive power plant here from oil to coal, the dirtiest fuel on earth.

Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.

And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are slated to build about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades.

In the United States, fewer new coal plants are slated to go on line, in part because it is becoming hard to get regulatory permits and in part because nuclear power remains an alternative.

The fast-expanding developing economies of India and China, where coal remains a major fuel source for more than two billion people, have long been regarded as among the biggest challenges to reducing carbon emissions. But the return now to coal even in eco-conscious Europe is sowing real alarm among environmentalists who warn that it is setting the world on a disastrous trajectory that will make controlling global warming impossible.

They are aghast at the renaissance of coal, a fuel more commonly associated with the sooty factories of Dickens’s novels, and one that was on its way out just a decade ago. There have been protests here in Civitavecchia, at a new coal plant in Germany, and one in the Czech Republic, as well as at the Kingsnorth power station in Kent, which is slated to become Britain’s first new coal-fired plant in more than a decade.

Europe’s power station owners emphasize that they are making the new coal plants as clean as possible. But critics say that “clean coal” is a pipe dream, an oxymoron in terms of the carbon emissions that count most toward climate change. They call the building spurt shortsighted.

“Building new coal-fired power plants is ill conceived,” said James E. Hansen, a leading climatologist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “Given our knowledge about what needs to be done to stabilize climate, this plan is like barging into a war without having a plan for how it should be conducted, even though information is available.

“We need a moratorium on coal now,” he added, “with phase out of existing plants over the next two decades.”

Enel, like many electricity companies, say they have little choice but to build coal plants to replace aging infrastructure, particularly in countries like Italy and Germany that have banned the building of nuclear power plants. Fuel costs have risen 151 percent since 1996, and Italians pay the highest electricity costs in Europe.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

But what about all those carbon credits Europe is going to buy?   Surely that will let them put as much CO2 in the air as they want.

[Person Man]

So that's why the EU ambassador has been licking Sen. Barraso's asshole. Gee. Looks like the grassroots of scientists and activists in America are on their own.

[tik 🪀✨]

Nuclear, people! Gah!

[dead0man]

If it's about Europe and it's negative there HAS to be a reason it's false.  A Ha!  It's an American paper, they're all rubish.  We can ignore this.

[Jens]

Looks like Europe has lost whatever moral authority it ever had (if any) to judge the United States on its refusal to abide by the Kyoto Protocol:

The Americans still has a much higher emission per capita.

What this article completely fails to address is that focus on energy saving measures could greatly reduce the need for new power plants. During the decade from 1996 to 2006 Denmark managed to keep the energy consumption at the same level despite an average economical growth rate of about 3 %.
The US energy consumption would drop enormously if the average suburban American bought a bicycle and stopped using their cars for the short trips.

[Јas]

Italy ≠ Europe

[Michael Z]

I suppose a week on this board wouldn't be the same without a Bash Europe thread.

[jeron]

Italy ≠ Europe

No, but it doesn't just happen in Italy. Some energy companies over here in the Netherlands are planning to build new coal power plants. The government supports this because of the new technique to store CO2 underground. Unfortunately it has not been proven that this technique works at all.

[dead0man]

I suppose a week on this board wouldn't be the same without a Bash Europe thread.

Right, because no other region or nation gets bashed.  You should hang out with Harry, you guys could get together and compare notes.

[Michael Z]

I suppose a week on this board wouldn't be the same without a Bash Europe thread.

Right, because no other region or nation gets bashed.

Except I didn't say that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman_argument

And even so, last time I checked two wrongs didn't make a right.

Besides, if you have a genuine point to make, cool, go for it, let's talk, but all I see guys like you or Frodo doing is venting your prejudices by picking up anything just to have a go at them "Europeans".

[dead0man]

Yep, that's all I do.  Everyday I wake up and Google "what stupid thing did Europe do today?".

[Michael Z]

Yep, that's all I do.  Everyday I wake up and Google "what stupid thing did Europe do today?".

See? I knew it!

[dead0man]

I got todays lined up already!





(this is nothing of course.  Us 'mericans have been getting our fat asses buried in sports team coffins for over a decade now.  link)

[Јas]

Yep, that's all I do.  Everyday I wake up and Google "what stupid thing did Europe do today?".

I just googled that just to see what the top link was...turns out it was this. Unfortunately not related to Europe at all, or indeed particularly interesting.

However, when you google "what stupid thing did America do today?"... you get The Psychological Appeal of Prostitutes.

[Michael Z]

I got todays lined up already!

Hey, if you're gonna go out, go out in style! Er, or in a silly rainbow coffin.

[dead0man]

However, when you google "what stupid thing did America do today?"... you get The Psychological Appeal of Prostitutes.

Or as I refer to it, opebo's bible.