One of the U.S.’s largest electric utilities has agreed to close three coal-fired power plants in the Midwest, the latest sign of how the U.S.’s electricity supply is shifting away from coal to natural gas and renewable energy.

American Electric Power (AEP) will shut down the three plants in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky by 2015 — retiring a total of 2,011 megawatts of coal-burning (more…)

Coal is somewhat notorious for not being the cleanest of fuels. Similarly all combustion systems release a good deal of carbon dioxide. A new form of clean coal technology reached an important milestone recently, with the successful operation of a research-scale combustion system at Ohio State University. The technology is now ready for testing at a larger scale. (more…)

Here’s an article by Peter Lehner, Executive Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), who writes on the levels of air pollution in Beijing, which last week reached a level of 755–on a scale of 0 to 500 (the scale on which our Environmental Protection Agency here in the U.S. rates anything over 300 as “hazardous.”) The Internet is littered with (more…)

Coal could rival oil as the world’s largest energy source within five years as consumption continues to climb in most regions of the world, a trend that could have profound effects on the climate, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says.

While coal consumption is expected to decline in the (more…)

Here’s an overly simplistic article that questions the validity of electric vehicles as “green” transportation, suggesting that charging EVs can require more coal to be burned. I note the comment: “I power my electric car totally from solar PV panels. This article should be citing coal-fired power plants, not electric cars.” He has an excellent point, but, since most EV (more…)

A decline in U.S. carbon emissions in recent years is unlikely to continue over the long term unless there is a significant shift in how the nation produces and uses its energy, according to a new analysis.

While several factors have triggered a 9 percent decline in annual carbon emissions in the U.S. (more…)

Global carbon dioxide emissions reached record levels in 2011, driven largely by a 9.3-percent increase in Chinese emissions, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). According to preliminary estimates, worldwide carbon emissions climbed to 31.6 gigatonnes in 2011, a 3.2-percent increase from 2010. (more…)

If you were to fly over the great continental expanse of China at night, you would find clusters of bright lights hugging near the eastern coast — sprawling, populous cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. But the farthest west you travel, the fewer such illuminated megalopolises you would encounter. To be sure, China also has (more…)

Over the years, I’ve learned that the most productive way to deal with climate change deniers is to point out that global warming is only one of half-a-dozen reasons to knock off our dependence on coal and oil. “Just pick you favorite,” I smile.

How about the obvious and growing damage to (more…)

There are at least two kinds of “EV deniers” (as I call them), i.e., people who doubt that electric vehicles represent an improvement for the environment over gasoline. The first concept is that for the foreseeable future, an increase in the electric load means burning more coal. I.e., coal plants that would otherwise have been tamped down during off peak (more…)