Coal's growing role is good news for the energy poor | World Coal ...

Milton Catelin, Chief Executive, WCA

Today the International Energy Agency released its annual ?Medium Term Coal Market Report? (MCMR) which forecasts a growing role for coal in the world?s energy supply over the next five years, potentially surpassing oil as the world?s biggest supplier of primary energy.

In earlier reports, the IEA has already highlighted that coal has met almost half of the increase in the world?s energy demand in the past decade. They?ve also shown that coal will provide more than half of the on-grid electricity needed to meet its ?Energy for All? scenario ? helping to lift 1.3 billion people out of energy poverty. So coal?s growing role in the global energy mix can only be good news for meeting one of the developing world?s most pressing challenges.

It means developing countries will have access to an abundant, affordable and reliable fuel source to meet their growing energy needs well into the future, powering homes and businesses and lifting millions out of poverty. The huge achievement in China of lifting 600 million people out of poverty since the early 1980s has been fuelled by coal.

Unfortunately, many still only see coal use through the lens of climate change. They lament the increasing role coal has in meeting the world?s ever-growing energy needs because of the associated carbon emissions. From today?s launch of the MCMR it seems the head of the IEA, Maria van der Hoeven is firmly within this group. While her comments highlight the need to reduce carbon emissions to meet global climate objectives, she appears to ignore the importance of coal to meeting global energy access objectives.

These two global challenges, energy access and climate change, should be treated as integrated priorities. Governments, the international community and the IEA need to recognise that the increasing demand for coal means they must treat it as part of the solution, not part of the problem.

As Ms van der Hoeven says, we need to get serious about deploying carbon capture and storage, but we can take much more effective, affordable and immediate action by supporting the deployment of high-efficiency low-emission coal-fired power plants. Another IEA report published earlier this month, highlights the role these plants will play in dramatically reducing the emissions from coal. Deploying modern, highly efficient coal plants can reduce CO₂ emissions by as much as 30% from coal-fired power generation and it can do this at a much lower cost than renewable energies. That means there are huge economic and climate benefits from building more efficient coal-fired power stations.

It?s time to add a development filter to the climate lens when looking at coal?s role in the global energy mix. This report from the IEA is good news for the developing world when it comes to meeting their energy access challenges. But there is good news too when it comes to coal?s role in meeting global climate ambitions.

Source: http://www.worldcoal.org/blog/coal%E2%80%99s-growing-role-is-good-news-for-the-energy-poor/

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