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March 19, 2008

U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS DIVIDED ON "CLEAN COAL"

By Ben Block

At a Senate press conference held last week to urge national action on
climate change policy, 16 major U.S. environmental organizations
shared the stage in solidarity. But while it appears the nation's
green groups are united in the fight against global warming, they
remain divided on which technologies would best create a carbon-free
economy. This division may cause major roadblocks as Congress prepares
to debate several climate change policies that could lead to sweeping
changes.

Environmental organizations agree that global warming is a serious
concern and that emissions from coal-fired power plants must be
drastically curtailed. To do so, many support carbon capture and
sequestration, commonly known as CCS. CCS technology is designed to
trap and store (either in the Earth's crust or the deep oceans) the
massive quantities of carbon dioxide spewed from coal power plants.

Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and
Environmental Defense Fund are already lobbying on behalf of CCS.
Others, such as the Sierra Club and the World Wildlife Fund, are more
cautious about promoting CCS. They insist that affordable and proven
technologies, such as energy efficiency and wind or solar energy,
should be more fully implemented before CCS is considered. Greenpeace
specifically opposes the technology.

A divided environmental community is reflective of a still unproven
technology. Although CCS is almost certainly technically feasible,
both the timing and the cost are highly uncertain. A Massachusetts
Institute of Technology report released last year, The Future of Coal,
concluded that the U.S. CCS program is not on track to achieve large-
scale commercial operation for at least a decade.

Carbon liability concerns have led major investors and the U.S.
government to rein in financing for coal-fired power plants. As a
result, the coal industry has embraced CCS as essential to its
survival. Some environmentalists say CCS is critical to creating a
political deal that would dissuade power companies from blocking new
climate legislation. "Congress should require planned new coal plants
in the United States to employ CCS without further delay," NRDC said
in a statement last year.

According to NRDC science fellow George Peridas, as long as China
continues its surge in coal emissions and the U.S. coal industry wants
to build new plants, the coal industry must be presented with an
alternative. "There are cheaper ways and cleaner ways and preferable
ways to meet energy demands, but I think CCS will ultimately be needed
too," Peridas said. "I'd love to be actively campaigning against the
use of coal, but I don't think that's the best way to reduce
emissions."

U.S. Representatives Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of
Massachusetts introduced a bill last week that would ban any coal
plants that do not capture and store at least 85 percent of carbon
dioxide emissions. The Sierra Club supports the legislation because it
places a moratorium on coal plants until CCS is ready. The group's
support, however, does not reflect an embrace of CCS.

"We need to make sure that the technology to capture and store carbon
is feasible and in place," said Bruce Nilles, The Sierra Club's
national coal campaign director. "While we are evaluating the role
coal should play in our energy future, we should continue to move
forward with the clean, affordable energy solutions that are available
today, like wind and solar power."

Greenpeace has taken a hard-line approach against CCS. "We are opposed
to CCS technology," said Kate Smolski, Greenpeace USA global warming
campaigner. "The No. 1 reason is it's a way the dirty polluting coal
industry can prop itself up. It's an unproven technology. And it takes
resources away from solutions that we can use right now."

The main concern with CCS is whether carbon stored inside empty
aquifers would leak and pollute groundwater reserves. "If people think
this is the solution, think again. A lot of research is needed," said
Steven Chu, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at
last week's "Summit on America's Energy Future," sponsored by the
National Academies of Sciences and Engineering.

Researchers are calling for "urgent" expansion of CCS research and
development funding. Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist
Ernest Moniz, also director of the Energy Initiative, said
experimental CCS power plants are needed to improve cost and
performance. The U.S. government's plans for its first large CCS plant
were halted in January when the Department of Energy canceled major
pilot program FutureGen after concluding that the costs had mushroomed
out of control. "What we need is several demonstrations in parallel,"
Moniz said at the Academies' summit.

The World Resources Institute (WRI) has organized a stakeholder
partnership to address CCS liability, permit procedure and site
selection. Participating environmental groups so far have included the
Bellona Foundation, Clean Air Task Force, Conservation Law Center,
Environmental Defense, Great Plains Institute, NRDC, and Pew Center on
Global Climate Change, according to John Venezia, a WRI associate.

"There are groups that agree CCS should be fiercely looked at; other
groups will disagree," Venezia said. "Those discussions are important
to have."

For his part, Worldwatch Institute President Christopher Flavin is
skeptical of CCS. "It will be many years before we know for sure
whether large-scale carbon sequestration is practical and affordable,"
Flavin says. "The only thing that's certain today is that we shouldn't
assume CCS will be a major solution to climate change -- unlike solar,
wind, and energy efficiency, all of which are being deployed on a
significant scale today."

Ben Block is a staff writer at the Worldwatch Institute who covers
everything environmental for Eye on Earth. He can be reached at
bblock@worldwatch.org.

Copyright 2007 Worldwatch Institute