Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
BP’s latest figures on developments in the energy sector in 2012 show that once again coal has been the fastest growing fuel outside renewable energy. In 2012 its consumption grew by 2.5%, in comparison to 2.2% for natural gas.
This is not surprising. As one of the most affordable energy fuels, coal is the main source of energy in a number of developing and developed economies. Coal has fuelled China’s economic growth for the past three decades and is still a major source of energy with over 6% growth in consumption last year.
Calls to phase-out coal have been proved ineffective every single year of the past decade – coal consumption continues to grow much faster than that of any other fuel outside renewable energy. Coal has also provided half of the incremental energy demand globally since the beginning of the 21st century.
Instead of modelling an alternative world without coal, let’s do what is technically feasible to reduce GHG emissions from coal.
In this week’s special report on climate change the IEA calls for a global effort to improve global average efficiency of coal power plants by 3.3 percentage points by 2020 to ensure that the world stays on track with the 2°C target. This can be easily achieved by replacing old coal plants with state-of-the art technologies which reduce the carbon footprint of coal by up to 40%.
Coal bashing does nothing to address the problem of GHG emissions. Technologies do.
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