Steven Chu Backpedals on Coal-fired Power

14 January 2009

One of President-elect Barack Obama’s otherwise superlative team of science advisors has caused a ripple of unease to spread among those concerned for the speed with which a global climate crisis is approaching.

During the US Senate hearing for his confirmation as Secretary of Energy yesterday, he appeared to backpedal from the position he held in 2007 – “Coal is my worst nightmare.” Instead, he says now ”two-thirds of the world’s coal reserves are concentrated in the United States, Russia, China, and India, and even if we stopped burning coal, it’s doubtful the other three countries will abandon it.” So, he argues, it’s “imperative to use coal as cleanly as possible,” and says that he is optimistic as a scientist that it is possible to develop the technology to safely sequester carbon emissions.  No word on whether carbon sequestration could be more cost-effective than other clean-energy sources, which is really the key question here. 

Chu also says he opposes a moratorium on new coal-fired plants that can’t sequester their emissions, something both Al Gore and NASA scientist James Hansen have explicitly called for as a necessary step to prevent a dangerous rise in emissions. Click New Republic’s The Vine for more on Chu’s confirmation hearing.

We at West Coast Climate Equity agree with Al Gore, James Hansen and Bill McKibben: there is no such thing as “Clean Coal.”

We have another concern for Chu’s apparent lack of true understanding of the severity of the global climatic disruption we face. Along with Obama, he also supports “cap and trade” as a solution for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

“Cap and trade” may be the easiest solution, as it allows industry to continue emitting GHG’s into our atmosphere. But it is not the best solution, and it may turn out not to be a solution at all, because “cap and trade” will take precious time, time we do not have. See the story “Climate Change Models” – A Shocking Graphic from the UK Met Hadley Centre.

“Cap and trade is the wrong way to go. Cap and dividend is a much better proposal. It has 3 attributes, none of which this proposal has. Cap and dividend can respond to the scale and urgency of the problem, is easy to understand, and is fair. Cap and trade is too complicated, too difficult to make fair, and is too open to gaming and political influence.” West Coast Climate Equity Advisor Cliff Stainsby

For more on “cap and dividend,” see the article Cap and Dividend, Not Trade: Making Polluters Pay by Peter Barnes in the December 2008 issue of Scientific American.

Noted NASA climatologist James Hansen has made public a letter to President-elect Obama, copied to Chu, which criticizes plans to implement a “cap and trade” scheme to limit CO2 emissions. “There is a profound disconnect between actions that policy circles are considering and what the science demands for preservation of the planet,” says Hansen.

Instead Hansen recommends a three phase approach that would close down coal-fired power stations that do not capture their CO2, secondly a carbon ‘tax’ at source, so that high carbon emitters such as aluminum smelters would pay more, and low carbon users would get rewarded with financial credits; and finally he suggests investing more heavily in fourth-genration nuclear power plants that would burn highly radioactive nuclear waste.

John Holdren, who has been nominated as Obama’s science adviser promised to deliver the letter to Obama. Click here for story on Obama’s science team.

Dorothy Cutting