Coal power - is it on the way out?

Last week an article was published on the Guardian which discussed the announcement by Canada that they would phase out coal power by 2030. Coal has been one of the key energy sources since the 19^th century, previously having been heavily relied upon by developed countries but now having shifted to the rapidly developing nations, and in particular China. The dirtiness of coal power means that cutting it out of the global energy budget is essential if we are going to curb emissions.

Figure 1. Global energy consumption since 1820. Coal power has continually increased through this period.
Source

The decision by Canada to cease using coal follows in the footsteps of the UK, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Germany, who have all also pledged to move away from it. We are also seeing reductions in the use of coal in China. The country’s coal power tripled between 2000 and 2013, but it has now peaked and has declined by as much as 3% in the last year.

These countries reducing their coal use far from means that coal power is on the way out. China, though decreasing its reliance, is still planning to build new plants, along with both India, Indonesia and other developing nations. Adding Donald Trump into the equation, and the outlook continues to not look so great. Coal power currently makes up 1/3 of the US energy market (USEIA, 2015), and Trump made the promise of increasing “clean” coal production a major focal point of his campaign.

Having previously not had much idea about clean coal I came across the quick video below that explains it, and some of the disadvantages.

It remains to be seen whether coal will again be used more regularly in the US. A number of experts suggest that even if Trump planned on it, the economy could be the major hurdle. As it stands, the price of natural gas is the lower of the two and, with coal-related jobs already lost, further investment would be needed to bring them back.

As detailed in a video from an earlier post, 2030 is considered a key point for when significant emission reductions have to have been started. So much of this is dependent on switching to clean energy, and so the global reliance on coal becomes more imperative, and dangerous, by the day.