Energy from Coal Is Not Going Away
I know I have a tendency to carp about dozens of issues: Chevron in Ecuador, the lack of an energy policy in the U.S., certain senators who don’t know the difference between methane and carbon dioxide—and others who use certain lines from the Bible to block climate change mitigation, etc.
Here, however, is the mother of all my gripes: the world consumption of coal is going through the roof, and shows no sign of abatement, due to the growing urban population in Asia. We either solve this problem, or we doom humankind to a level of suffering not seen since the Middle Ages.
The best and brightest hope on the horizon for China is the unrest of its people. The urban population is starting to get to a point where they are wealthy enough to start demanding luxuries. As we know from U.S. and European history, the first luxury that is demanded is a more plentiful higher protein diet… the second luxury is cleaner air and water.
The smog problem for many of China’s largest cities is such that the population is going to start really wanting more. It’s not a democratic society, so the will of the people doesn’t manifest in the same way that we’re used to… but the state WANTS to be approved of by the populace, so if the people’s concern is plausible then the state will attempt to fulfill it.
It’s likely that the first step will be a radical increase in scrubbing the exhaust for particulates, heavy metals, SOx, and NOx… But China is working to dam every dammable river and they’re starting to invest in nuclear power, and they are investing more heavily in wind power than we are…
By 2020, they will probably have seen their coal peak as a percentage of their energy (not peak in total energy, not for a while)… After all, they are only at an estimated population growth rate of ~0.45%, and their population should peak by 2025 or so. The slow population growth means a much higher quality of life for the people as energy use expands, which will increase the rate at which the people demand the simple luxury of clean air.
While China’s growth trajectory is sad – insofar as the damage it will inflict on the environment – overall I’m less concerned about it… It’s only a few decades of serious harm, and there is at least there is some light at the end of the tunnel. By 2030, China will see a YOY drop in emissions that will probably continue indefinitely.
The real boogeyman is India. India is FAR poorer and seeing their wealth grow at a much slower rate, so it will be many years before luxuries like clean air and clean water will be demanded by the population. They only have ~100 million less people than China does, but their people are 10 years younger on average, the fertility rate is still well over 2 children per woman, and as a result the population is still growing at 1.3% – they likely won’t peak in population until well into the 2050’s, by which time they’ll have TWICE China’s population (!!!!).
So their quality of life will not rise rapidly – as the growth is absorbed by an ever-growing populace – and the people will still be desperate for simply having whatever the cheapest power they can get for many decades. Furthermore, India has no wind resource and much less potential hydropower than China, so they’ll have an even greater reliance on coal than China. By 2035, India will probably double China’s coal consumption… and there’s no reasonable alternative path that I can see that won’t bankrupt the Western world.
The most significant thing we can do is pressure India to use more !&*#%^ birth control… But they’ve now risen to an economic powerhouse level that our ability to pressure them is limited.
India is going to be seriously affected by rising sea levels (via Bangladesh), so they should be highly concerned about the arc of the future… but thus far they haven’t switched courses. While China gets a lot of the criticism, India is the nation that I fear.
You’re amazing, Glenn. Thanks for the insight.