Environmental concerns about Global Warming Cause

However, despite coal's advantages when it comes to energy security, the fuel has numerous disadvantages in relation to climate change. Coal remains the dirtiest carbon-based fuel, already accounting for 40% of global emissions. With coal forming a core part of the next European, US and Asian investment cycle, this places a major premium on developing carbon mitigation strategies, such as clean coal technology and carbon capture and storage (CCS). So far, the signs do not bode well; CCS is not yet technically or commercially viable.

Although there are a number of small demonstration CCS projects in Europe and the US at early stages, most have either failed to make progress or face crippling cost overruns. In January 2008, Washington cancelled the US's largest CCS demonstration project in Illinois on a cost basis. A number of European projects are hitting similar problems.

Nevertheless, the greatest environmental concern is that new coal-fired plants are being built every week in India and China, most of which are not constructed in a way that is amenable to CCS. The same problem is also cropping up closer to home. Adaptable plants cost around 10-20% more to build than conventional plants, with only a handful of such plants in existence today in Europe. For most coal-fired plants, the costs of converting would be extremely high, perhaps too high even once an implied price for carbon is factored in.

An additional problem is where the carbon would actually be stored. Geologists have warned that the number of sites that could be considered safe for storage are limited, and have even gone as far as to warn that carbon storage could, potentially, be just as dangerous as trying to store nuclear waste.

This is not to say that greater investment in clean technologies will not be forthcoming as coal usage increases. However, at this stage, there remains a blunt trade-off between security of supply and greenhouse gas emissions. Indeed, what plays well for one, does not always play well for the other. Given the perilous warnings voiced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regarding the need to tackle climate change by 2020, the need for new technology to be both developed and dispersed is crucial if the black stuff is to be turned green.