No More Coal!

Bryan Hopkins has written to the Star.

Rod Hutchinson’s letter advocating more coal mines (Star 10/10/23 see below) is at best wrong and at worst dangerously misleading.

He claims scrubbers in coal power stations mean emissions are 0.01% pure but he does not say pure what! These scrubbers actually just remove sulphur dioxide from the gases that are emitted, a very nasty pollutant which causes heart problems, bronchitis and asthma. Sulphur dioxide was also responsible for creating acid rain which in the 1980s was devastating forests in northern Europe.

But these scrubbers do not remove carbon dioxide, which is always produced when you burn coal, oil or gas. There has been much talk of how it might be possible to capture this CO2 and store it underground but this technology does not yet work, and if it does is bound to be extremely expensive and full of pitfalls. But most importantly it is unnecessary, as we can produce all the power we need with extremely clean renewable energy from the wind, sun and waves.

Coal power stations also emit huge quantities of nitrogen oxides, as well as fine ash and soot particles, contribute to smog formation, and are the largest source of arsenic and mercury emissions in Europe. This is despite significant advances in end-of-pipe pollution controls, such as scrubbers and particulate filters. While the coal-fired power plants of today have lower emissions than those of last century, they continue to exact a heavy toll on people’s health.

It is also not true that there was not “much talk about climate change” in the 1980s. A well-known industrial chemist who also happened to be the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, one Margaret Thatcher, made speeches about the dangers of carbon dioxide emissions. Sadly, her obsession with market economics meant that she never did more than talk. The oil giant Exxon Mobil created a team to research the potential effects of burning fossil fuels, but when they reported back saying that major climate changes were likely, their report was suppressed and the team disbanded. So, Mr Hutchinson, people were talking but not enough people were listening.

We urgently need to reduce our emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Find more statistics at Statista

These continue to rise, despite all the hot air at international conferences like COP. If we do not reverse this trend quickly we will destroy the life support system we all depend on.

This letter was in response to a letter that Graham Wroe responded to here.