Coal
in sentence
1278 examples of Coal in a sentence
All energy generators, including coal- and gas-fired plants, make major demands on water resources.
The base-load power, too, is predominantly based on fossil fuels, with around 39% of global electricity generation sourced from burning
coal.
Germany’s solar panels have only made it cheaper for Portugal or Greece to use
coal.
Its authors point out that while the Industrial Revolution caused climate change, reliance on
coal
was actually good for forests, because our forebears stopped raiding forests for wood.
For example, burning a hectare of harvested willow on a field previously used for barley (the typical marginal crop in Denmark) prevents 30 tons of CO2 annually when replacing
coal.
Of course, all of that CO2 was soaked up from the atmosphere the year before; but, had we just left the barley where it was, it, too, would have soaked up quite a bit, lowering the reduction relative to
coal
to 20 tons.
Unless the probability that CO2 is the primary contributor to climate change is vanishingly small, it is wrong to take chances with the future of our planet and the lives of hundreds of millions of people in order to reduce energy costs for Americans and preserve a few thousand jobs in the
coal
industry.
(In fact,
coal
jobs are disappearing because of automation and competition from cheaper natural gas, not because of regulations to reduce CO2 emissions.)
The most important challenge is to reduce, and eventually nearly eliminate, carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas, and
coal.
The answer can be found in one word: “coal” – or, rather, the fact that
coal
is cheap and abundant.
By contrast, burning
coal
yields only C02.
Moreover, compared to natural gas and crude oil,
coal
is much cheaper per ton of CO2 released.
This implies that any tax on carbon has a much higher impact on
coal
than on crude oil (or gas).
Owners of
coal
mines and their clients are thus strongly opposed to any tax on carbon.
In Europe, indigenous
coal
production no longer plays an important economic role.
Indeed, the tax seems to fall mostly on foreign suppliers of
coal
(and to a lesser extend on foreign suppliers of hydrocarbons in the Middle East and Russia).
By contrast, opposition by US states whose economies rely significantly on
coal
production proved decisive for the fate of Obama’s climate-change bill.
If it proved impossible to introduce a moderate carbon tax in a rich economy, it is certain that no commitment will be forthcoming for the next generation from China, which remains much poorer and depends even more on indigenous
coal
than the US.
But rising CO2 emissions constitute what is really happening on the ground: a rapidly growing industrial base in emerging markets is being hard-wired to intensive use of
coal.
Unfortunately, there is enough cheap
coal
around to power ever-higher emissions for at least another century.
Stop Insuring Climate DisasterRIPTON, VERMONT – Last month, the United Kingdom enjoyed its first full day without the need for
coal
power since the Industrial Revolution began.
Just as the fax gave way to email and whale oil gave way to kerosene, so is
coal
giving way to cleaner forms of energy.
By underwriting the development of our industrial society and the
coal
that has powered it, the insurance industry was one of the Industrial Revolution’s crucial but often overlooked enablers.
But one thing is clear: to prevent the planet’s temperature from rising by more than 2º Celsius relative to its preindustrial level, and thereby avoid runaway global warming, we need to leave the majority of our coal, oil, and gas assets undeveloped.
Late last month, the French insurance giant AXA announced that it will no longer provide underwriting services to companies that generate more than 50% of their turnover from
coal.
This is a key step toward making
coal
uninsurable.
The facts couldn’t be clearer: fossil fuels are driving not only devastating climate change, but also so many other threats that, quite frankly, to insure new
coal
power and mines flies in the face of reasonable financial risk management.
As one of the biggest killers on the planet, causing millions of deaths each year through air pollution, sea-level rise, and the increase in extreme weather,
coal
combustion should be unbankable.
Another option is to combine carbon-based energy (coal, oil, and gas) with new technologies that prevent the emission of airborne carbon.
In the words of Tanzanian Minerals and Energy Minister Sospeter Muhongo: “We will start intensifying the utilization of coal....Why shouldn’t we use
coal
when there are other countries where their CO2 per capita is so high?....We will just go ahead.”
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