Clean coal? Go underground, Alberta

THOMAS HOMER-DIXON AND JULIO FRIEDMANN

Alberta appears to be in a box – an energy box – that constrains policy options in every direction. The province’s wealth is critically tied to exploitation of its vast hydrocarbon resources. But faced with declining reserves of conventional oil and natural gas, it has been forced to turn increasingly to the tar sands, which pack a huge carbon punch. And in a warming world, carbon is seen as a menace. The strategy could severely crimp Alberta’s ability to sell energy at home and abroad, even make it a pariah.

There is an alternative: coal.

What? Impossible, you say – measured in carbon emitted per unit of usable energy generated, coal is as dirty as the tar sands, or even dirtier.

Coal’s many problems are well known. They start with the damage caused by mining. Mountaintops are sliced off in coal-rich zones in the United States. And burning it creates pollution from sulphur, ash and heavy metals. Although we can sequester coal’s greenhouse-gas emissions underground with a technology called carbon capture and storage, it sharply boosts costs.

But can we get coal’s energy without the carbon, ash and ruined landscapes? Yes – if we don’t mine it.

Globe and Mail