Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury
We keep hearing about ‘clean coal’ – what an oxymoron this is! Maybe burning coal to produce electricity with the use of ‘carbon capture and storage’ (CCS) could be referred to as cleaner coal with the resulting emissions similar to that of burning natural gas but neither are truly ‘clean’ and carbon free.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the USA is using CCS to justify continuing to burn the dirtiest of fossil fuels at a power plant in Mississippi while still making cuts to the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions needed to avoid disastrous climate change.
CCS is extremely expensive – upwards of £3bn at the Mississippi plant – and is really, on a commercial scale for energy production, unproven technology, although it is already in use in other industries. The captured carbon dioxide from this plant is due to be pumped directly to two nearby enhanced oil recovery companies.
President Barack Obama has a tough job to fight climate change in the USA; the largest source of CO2 is energy production and CCS offers a way to reduce emissions. Surely, the money would be better spent on conserving energy in a country so prolific in its use.
The increase in global temperatures is dangerously approaching the point where it will be too late for any action to have a noticeable effect so it is imperative that something is done quickly. Conservation of energy is an absolute must, whether it is domestic or business use or in buildings themselves.
Victoria Nicholls. Transition Deal.
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