Dealing with the coal plant menace
Dealing with the coal plant menace
Red Constantino, Climate and Energy Campaigner, Greenpeace Southeast Asia
There is no such thing as "clean coal", a fact Southeast Asia is slowly coming to terms with. Recent years witnessed a decline in the position traditionally occupied by the global coal industry due to the growing evidence of the role that coal-based power generation has played in displacing communities, wrecking host environments and subsequently destroying the climate.
Coal, the most carbon intensive among fossil fuels, emits 80 percent more carbon per unit of energy than gas and 29 percent more than oil. Combustion of coal releases tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.
Along with other greenhouse gases, massive man-made CO2 release creates an artificial greenhouse effect, thickening the natural canopy of gases in the atmosphere and causing more heat to become trapped. Consequently, global temperature increases, throwing the world's climate off its natural balance and into chaos; thus the term climate change, which is often used interchangeably with global warming.
Sea levels are projected to rise in alarming rates due to the thermal expansion of oceans and loss of mass from glaciers and ice caps, posing direct threats to archipelagic countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines.
Scientists project that in the 21st century, total increase in sea levels may go as high as 89 cm, a figure which seems small until one realizes that increases of as little as 30 cm can cause a retreat of shoreline by 30 meters.
A distressing spread of diseases including malaria and dengue borne by insects thriving in warm temperatures are also anticipated with the projected increase in the severity and intensity of extreme weather events. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, impacts of global warming will be greatest among developing countries in terms of loss of life and its effects on investment and the economy.
Despite the enormous amount of resources spent in packaging and re-packaging coal-based energy production, the global coal industry has been largely unsuccessful in erasing the stigma caused by coal-fired power plants on unfortunate victim communities, darkening skies, widespread lung disease and other health problems, and severely degraded environments.
All coal plants, without exception, discharge amounts of pollution significant enough to seriously affect the health of surrounding communities and environmental well-being. This is not surprising given the polluting material coal plants regularly release.
Coal burning releases cadmium, for instance, a toxic heavy metal listed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) as a hazardous air pollutant which tends to stick to fly ash and is the source of a wide range of ailments associated with heart, kidney and liver disease. Coal plants are also notorious for releasing cancer-causing hexavalent chromium.
Coal plants emit gases like nitrogen oxide (Nox) and sulfur dioxide (Sox) that are responsible for acid rain and constitute toxins deadly to humans. Chronic exposure to SOx emissions causes diseases similar to chronic bronchitis. Coal-fired power stations are also hugely responsible for releasing hazardous and carcinogenic substances such as lead and arsenic.
But a more lethal substance the world is only beginning to understand, One which poses direct risks to communities hosting coal-fired power plants is mercury. Mercury is a toxin so deadly, exposure to it has been associated with serious neurological and developmental damage to humans, ranging from subtle losses of sensory abilities and delays in developmental milestones to birth defects, birth tremors and even death.
A fact largely ignored by the Southeast Asian governments is that coal plants constitute, according to Carol Browner, a former administrator of the U.S. EPA, "the greatest source of mercury emissions" in the United States. The EPA and groups such as the U.S. National Wildlife Federation (NWF) have long contended that coal-fired power plants in the U.S. are the single largest source of mercury pollution responsible for 33 percent of the total mercury emissions from all known manmade American sources. Emissions of the neurotoxin in the U.S. are reportedly over 50 tons/year. Its impact is projected by the United Nations Environment Program to be greatly exacerbated by a warming world.
Mercury is so deadly all it takes is 1/70th of a teaspoon to contaminate a 10-hectare lake to the point where fish from the lake are not fit for human consumption. While mercury emitted from coal-fired power stations has a deposition rate of up to 600 miles, a single 100 megawatt (MW) coal plant produces approximately 25 pounds of mercury a year.
Notwithstanding all its other pollutants, the toxicity and the amount of mercury regularly emitted by coal plants is enough to jolt the public and our government agencies into thinking hard before falling for self-serving assurances of safety emanating from coal plant pushers.
When corporations tell us their facilities are safe and operating within legal standards, do we believe them? Communities and governments should realize such assurances of safety become meaningless, especially when one knows most governments in the region are virtually incapable of monitoring such emissions facilities constantly.
It is the height of arrogance, here defined as ignorance backed by overconfidence, for government agencies to start dispensing their power to permit when such authority is not matched with the power to protect the people from hazards associated with these dirty projects.
It is high time to phase out coal along with all the subsidies that it has for too long enjoyed undeservedly, not tomorrow but today. It is time to phase in the wide-ranging support necessary for the uptake of clean energy. The survival and sustainable development interests of Southeast Asia demands it. The abundance of renewable energy resources in the region warrants it. The future of the entire planet requires it.
The writer was among the speakers at the 9th Annual CoalTrans Asia Conference from June 9-11 in Nusa Dua, Bali.