Despite global warming alarm bells, Asia turns to coal

Apr 26, 2007, 9:26 GMT

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.