Energy Experts Debate Future Use of Coal

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• RAY SUAREZ:

  Coal is a major and relatively cheap source of energy in this country, and its use worldwide is expected to grow. It powers everything, from steel production, kitchen appliances, and brings light to city skylines.

  Nearly half our electricity comes from coal, and that figure is increasing, fueled by the roughly 150 new or proposed power plants on top of the more than 1,500 coal-fired plants already in operation.

  But when coal is burned, it creates carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat and is a major contributor to global warming. These power plants produce about 40 percent of the nation's total carbon emissions.

  Other major economic powers, including China and India, are also harnessing the power of coal and relying on burning more in the future. More than half the electricity consumed in those countries comes from coal.

  To meet future demand here and abroad, President Bush and others have touted the idea of finding ways of making coal cleaner.

  GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: Well, we've got a lot of coal. We've got 250 years of coal. That's a lot. And yet coal presents us with an environmental challenge, and so we're spending quite a bit of money here at the federal level to come up with clean coal technologies.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  There are different ideas on how to make coal clean, but they include one key idea at the heart of most proposals, known as carbon sequestration. Carbon dioxide would be trapped or captured before it escapes power plants and then pumped into fields deep underground.

  So what future does coal present, great promise, or an even greater peril for causing global warming? It's a question that's heavily debated. And to debate for us, Steve Miller, president of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a trade group funded primarily by the coal-based electricity industry, and Jeff Goodell, the author of "Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future."

  And, Steve Miller, given the state of the environment and given the state of the technology, do you think coal can be a viable part of fueling America's future energy needs?

  STEVE MILLER, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices: Not only can it be, it has to be. Coal produces half of our electricity today, and it's going to for decades to come. And the reason is that coal technology is being transformed.

  Coal is not being used in the same kinds of ways that it has been historically. We're finding new ways to generate electricity through coal. The gasification process has great promise, and technology has provided the answers to the environmental concerns over the last decades.

  We have an incredible environmental performance record improvement. We're going to have even more, if our country makes the right investments in clean coal technology, and if we are prepared to exercise international leadership in the research, development and deployment of those kinds of technologies that other countries, like China and India, who are going to use coal, are going to need but won't develop on their own.