Letter to the Editor: The Future of Coal

March 2011

by Steve Caldwell

This Letter to the Editor originally appeared in The Atlantic [1]

In “Dirty Coal, Clean Future [2]” (December Atlantic), James Fallows draws attention to the important role that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology can play in dramatically reducing the coal-related greenhouse-gas emissions that contribute to man-made global climate change. Mr. Fallows claims that his article is “an argument for recognizing that China has faced reality, in launching an all-out effort to ‘decarbonize’ coal—and for recognizing America’s difficulty in doing the same.” China has built more advanced facilities that use coal more efficiently than has the U.S. “Coal without carbon,” however, requires not just more-efficient coal use but CCS, and the data on CCS projects in the U.S. and China do not support the author’s main argument.

The read the full Letter to the Editor, click here [3].

Steve Caldwell is a technology and policy fellow at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.