China, India – Coal as main energy source
China and India are having major economic growth recently and they own it almost all to coal. However coal is highly ecologically unacceptable fossil fuel and will contribute to the global warming problems because of its release of CO2 when burning. We all know that CO2 is very dangerous greenhouse gas, but unfortunately knowledge isn’t the key factor in many of the countries as many of them sacrifice environment to boost their economic growth. Despite the fact that China and India are under great pressure from the international community to reduce their carbon emissions this is very unlikely to happen. This is the conclusion that energy executives and government representatives at an energy conference in Rome agreed Wednesday, on 14th November 2007.
The officials pointed out the need of international community to help these two large countries find methods of coal purification which would ensure cleaner coal and less dangerous greenhouse gases. Some hope still exist because these countries will eventually get richer and hopefully invest in more cleaner alternative technologies like it was the case with United States and Western Europe countries. One of the cleanest technologies is definitely nuclear energy and nuclear power plants will be highly ecologically acceptable compared to the coal-powered plants but nuclear energy requires extreme safety measures and highly trained crew so this could be the big problem. Another problem is of course the nuclear waste and its storage and disposal, but nuclear energy has great potential and these questions should be really answered very quickly.
Indian officials at the World Energy Congress pointed the fact that coal remains the most affordable source for their country and that they are in the need of cleaner coal technologies and how they’ll stick with its coal production whether the rest of the world likes it or not. This isn’t that hard to understand, because India (and China too) practically owes its entire economy boost to coal and they won’t give it up that easy because quite frankly they’re lacking funds to invest in some expensive and cleaner technologies. So the only real solution is the coal purification, although here must be said how India is investing some funds into wind and nuclear power. But coal still remains dominant force in these countries despite of the horrible environmental effects caused by its use.
Coal is the cheapest energy source and practically ideal to boost economy of poor countries so really you can’t blame these countries for sticking with coal. Only possible solution would be coal purification methods which would have to include financial aid as well as sharing technology. But will it come to this it remains to be seen. Hopefully, it would.
