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11/19/12, "More than 1,000 New Coal Plants Planned Worldwide," Damian Carrington, UK Guardian
"More than 1,000 coal-fired power plants are being planned worldwide, new research has revealed.
The huge planned expansion comes despite warnings from politicians, scientists and campaigners that the planet's fast-rising carbon emissions must peak within a few years if runaway climate change is to be avoided and that fossil fuel assets risk becoming worthless if international action on global warming moves forward....
The capacity of the new plants add up to 1,400GW to global greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of adding another China – the world's biggest emitter.
India is planning 455 new plants compared to 363 in China, which is seeing a slowdown in its coal investments after a vast building programme in the past decade....
The WRI report also found that, after a slight dip during the economic troubles of 2008, the global coal trade has rebounded and rose by 13% in 2010. A structural shift has moved the bulk of the international coal trade from the Atlantic, serving Europe and the US, to the Pacific.
China became a net importer of coal in 2009 but the biggest changes are
fast-rising imports by Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which all have
large numbers of coal-fired plants but produce virtually no coal of
their own.
However, Germany, the UK and France remain in the top 10 importers, and coal use rose 4% in 2011 in Europe as prices fell and plants due to close under clean air rules use up their allotted running hours. Indonesia and Australia are the largest coal exporters, with the latter planning to triple its mine and port capacity to almost 1bn tonnes a year....
Most new coal-fired plants will be built by Chinese or Indian companies. But new plants have largely been financed by both commercial banks and development banks.
JP Morgan Chase has provided more than $16.5bn (£10.3bn) for new coal plants over the past six years, followed by
Citi ($13.8bn).
Barclays ($11.5bn) comes in as the fifth biggest coal backer and
the Royal Bank of Scotland ($10.9bn) as the seventh.
The Japan Bank for International Co-operation was the biggest development bank ($8.1bn), with
Guy Shrubsole, at Friends of the Earth, said of the WRI report:
"This is a scary number of coal-fired plants being planned. It is clear that the vested interests of coal companies are driving this forward and that
they will have to be reined in by governments."
"This is a scary number of coal-fired plants being planned. It is clear that the vested interests of coal companies are driving this forward and that
they will have to be reined in by governments."
In January, the Bank of England was warned that fossil fuel sub-prime assets posed a systemic risk to economic stability, because only 20% of the reserves of the top 100 coal and top 100 oil and gas companies could be burned while keeping the global temperature rise under the internationally agreed limit of 2C."
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