Tag: coal

European businesses and organisations lost five million working days in 2010 because of illnesses, such as asthma and heart attacks linked to pollution from coal-fired power plants, according to a new academic report commissioned by Greenpeace.

As more people are affected by rising energy costs across Europe it is time for EU leaders to finally re-balance the energy debate and put affordability and security of supply on a par with decarbonisation goals, argues Milton Catelin.

Recently discovered gas in Mozambique could transform the country into a major player in the world LNG market, speakers said at a public event in Brussels. But some of them warned against high expectations of prosperity and warned that revenues won’t come fast.

An annual European Investment Bank (EIB) conference in Brussels on 28 February was eclipsed by colourful protests against a controversial EIB-funded Slovenian coal plant, described by a senior bank source as “one of those projects that tends to haunt you”.

Coal is likely to rival oil as the world's biggest source of energy in the next five years, with potentially disastrous consequences for the climate, according to the world's leading authority on energy economics.

Polish environmentalists say that they are operating in a ‘climate of fear’ involving harassment by the country’s security police, and denunciations from government ministers for “working against the public interests of the state”.

EXCLUSIVE: At least one of the coal plants for which Poland is requesting €7 billion of free carbon allowances under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS)’s little-known ‘10c derogation’ does not exist, a EurActiv investigation has found.

Hungarian villagers were scavenging for coal with their bare hands on Thursday (2 February) as a blast of Siberian air killed scores in Eastern Europe and looked set to keep its icy grip on the continent for days to come.

Coal plants in developing countries get billions of euros in climate finance for new projects that do little to reduce CO2 emissions, the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) says in a new report.

Environmentalists have condemned a letter sent by two EU commissioners calling on World Bank chief Robert Zoellick to continue funding for a 600MW lignite coal plant near Pristina.

EU Budget Commissioner Janusz Lewandowski has shocked colleagues by giving an interview in the Polish press questioning global warming, which emerged one day after his home country, Poland, blocked EU attempts to toughen the bloc's climate commitments.

Poland appears to have lost its fight to exempt new coal-fired power stations from paying for European Union emissions permits, an EU document showed on Tuesday (29 March).

The European Commission has cleared Spain's controversial state aid plan to support its domestic coal sector over the next four years, despite warnings that it will scupper the EU's green energy goals.

Europe's unprofitable coal mines will have to be shut down within the next four years before state subsidies are halted, the European Commission said yesterday (20 July).

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has the potential to remove 90% of the CO2 emissions from coal-fired power stations, writes UK State Secretary for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband ahead of December's UN summit in Copenhagen.

More of the world's electricity was generated from coal last year, reveals a new industry report, pointing at the futility of unilateral EU moves to cut down CO2 emissions.

The EU should adopt a strict timeline with mandatory requirements to ensure that all new coal-fired power plants are capturing and storing the CO2 they emit by 2030, says UK Liberal MEP Chris Davies. He spoke to EurActiv in an interview.

Industrial greenhouse gases prevented from entering the atmosphere through the use of so-called carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology are to be credited as not emitted under the EU emissions trading scheme, according to Commission plans to be put forward next year.

Coal is making a comeback as a cheap and reliable source of energy. With global energy demand rising at an unprecedented rate, the world's vast coal reserves are attracting growing interest from governments in Europe, the US and Asia. But while the efficiency and cleanliness of coal-fired power stations is improving, coal remains the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Genuinely clean coal - i.e.: one that emits close to zero CO2 thanks to carbon capture and storage technology - is not expected to become economically viable before twenty years. And with the growing sense of emergency surrounding global warming, coal is simply not the answer, environmentalists argue.

According to Hans-Dieter Schilling (Energie-Fakten), the average efficiency of all coal power stations in the world currently stand at around 31%, leaving a vast potential to reduce coal consumption and CO2 emissions.