IOP Groups

Coal: the 21st Century Fuel

Milton Catelin (Chief Executive, World Coal Institute)

Abstract

The fuel that drove the industrial revolution in Britain and opened the industrial age globally is far from spent. Sustained high oil and gas prices, limits to the expansion of renewable energy, persistent concerns about nuclear energy, and newer concerns about energy security and poverty alleviation are driving governments to reassess the fuel that has always provided the heavy lifting to modern economies.

Far from being a fuel of the past, this presentation argues that coal will prove increasingly indispensable to the great global challenges of the twenty-first century: poverty alleviation and economic development; energy security; and sustainable development. Most significantly it will remain the essential ingredient in the energy mix of the major economies of this century – China and the USA – and if only because of that, cleaner coal technologies will need to be part of any iteration or successor to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.

In addition to changing cost structures, newer technology is opening a pathway to the more environmentally sound use of coal in power generation. Older technology that enables coal to be transformed into liquid fuel will enable a far greater use of the resource for motor vehicle transport.

^ To the top ^