Despite global warming alarm bells, Asia turns to coal By dpa correspondents

dpa German Press Agency Published: Thursday April 26, 2007

Bangkok- Asia, home to more than half the world's
population, can expect its fair share of climatic-related
catastrophes in the coming decades of an increasingly warmer globe, a
development blamed primarily on rising carbon dioxide emissions.
By 2020 some 50 million people will face hunger as a result of
less rainfall in Asia, and by the end of the 21st century a
40-centimetre rise in sea levels will impact up to 94 million,
according to the latest report of the United Nation's
Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in New
Delhi earlier this month.

Another 750 million people who rely on the glacier melt from the
Himalayan mountains for water supplies would also be "seriously
affected."

Despite such dire predictions, much of Asia is going full steam
ahead with massive plans to invest in coal-powered plants to fuel
their booming economies, primarily because the fossil fuel is cheap
and abundant.

Coal, like all carbon-based fossil fuels, emits carbon dioxide
(CO2) into the atmosphere when it is burned. Coal has the added
demerits of emitting sulfur and nitrogen particles, causing health
hazards and acid rain.

While there are technologies available to rid coal burning of
sulfur and nitrogen particles, nothing is yet on the market to stop
CO2, so Asia's contribution to greenhouse gases can only go up in the
coming decades.

According to the latest figures compiled by the International
Energy Agency (IEA), CO2 emissions from China are now 4,732 million
per year, India's 1,102.8 million, Thailand's 206.9 million,
Indonesia's 104.1 million, Malaysia's 78.8 and the Philippines' 48.7.

China, which burned 2.33 billion tons of coal last year (35 per
cent of the global total), should become the world's top emitter of
greenhouses gases by 2009, surpassing the United States.

India's coal consumption will jump from 460 million tons a year
now to 1.5 billion tons by 2031, when it will become the world's
third largest greenhouse gas contributor.

Most South-east Asia countries, with the exception of oil-rich
Brunei and land-poor Singapore, are also heading towards coal power
as a growing component in their energy mix. The region is expected to
set up 30,000 megawatts of coal generation over the next 10 years.

With high oil prices, limited reserves of natural gas,
well-founded fears about nuclear power and the high-cost of renewable
energy alternatives, coal seems to be the best answer to governments'
developmental requirements, despite the growing concerns about the
climate.

"There is pressure on India with the climate change argument but
it will not cut much ice," said Indian energy security analyst Sudha
Mahalingam. "The logic to tell people to have dark, unlit homes for
clean air just wouldn't work."

That logic might become clearer when it is a toss-up between house
lights and water, however.

India is lagging behind China in introducing clean technologies to
its coal plants and allowing imports of cleaner coal from abroad, but
then China is way ahead of India in coal use.

China has set a cap on annual coal production of 2.6 billion tons
by 2010, according to the National Development and Reform Commission
(NDRC), and set a goal of producing 16 per cent of its total energy
consumption from renewable energy sources by 2020.

But whether such goals are realistic and enforceable is another
matter.

"We are concerned about the ability to achieve the targets," said
Kishan Khoday, the United Nations Development Program's assistant
representative to China.

South-east Asia, although no longer enjoying the double digit
growth rates of the 1980s and early 1990s, is also heading towards
coal power to stay competitive and diversify its energy mix.

Thailand is reliant on natural gas for 70 per cent of its energy
production, with about one third of that the piped overland from
neighboring Myanmar, not the most reliable bed-fellow. With its own
gas reserves on the decline in the Gulf of Thailand, energy planners
are looking towards coal power to fill the gap over the next decade
until nuclear power can come into play.

Solar makes sense for Thailand, which has as much solar potential
as the US, but it is currently the most expensive renewable energy
out there, and prices are going up as the rest of the world goes
solar crazy.

What is needed is a regional push to mass produce solar cells to
bring down the costs, but until that happens, "coal is the answer,"
insisted Sittichai Wantawin, executive director of the Thai
government's bureau of energy policy and planning.

Even Malaysia, a leading producer of natural gas, is diversifying
into coal for both price and security reasons.

"While the environmental impact is of course a concern, we also
have to look at the economic and stability of supply of a power
source," said Mohamad Hariffin Boosroh, deputy dean of graduate
studies at Malaysia's University of National Energy.

Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, all of which have
considerable domestic coal reserves, are increasingly turning to the
fossil fuel in an effort to reduce oil dependency and imports.

While the coal rush makes economic sense, rising international
concerns about the environmental costs means Asian governments will
inevitably be coming under more pressure in the future to reduce
their coal dependency.

"They have seen the writing on the wall, and personally I think
they will not be able to escape from making commitment at the next
round of the Kyoto Protocol, but unfortunately at this stage the
economic practice as far as energy is concerned is fundamentally
dishonest and skewed in favor of fossils," said Shailendra Yashwant,
Greenpeace's regional climate and energy expert.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency

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