On this day, 1st August 2015, the World Coal Association tried once again to distract people from coal’s civilisation and eco-system destroying nature. That’s (part of) its job, that’s what member companies expect in return for their subscription.
The World Coal Association (WCA) called on the World Bank to recognize the vital role of coal in bringing electricity to people in developing and emerging economies
Anon, 2015. WCA Calls on World Bank to Recognize Coal’s Critical Role. Engineering & Mining Journal, Volume 216; Issue 8, 26 1 August.
This has been going on for decades, of course. Smear competing technologies (nuclear, renewables), say you’re indispensable etc.
My personal favourite of the genre is Peabody’s brazen “Advanced Energy for Life” effort from the previous year. They must have been delighted when Australian wrecking ball turned Prime Minister Tony Abbott had parrotted that line (saying “coal is good for humanity”) when opening a (what else) coal mine later that year.
This, from the Australia Institute in 2014, is useful
“Ahead of the G-20 meeting in Australia later this week, a new report by an Australian think-tank convincingly punctures coal industry claims that coal is an essential part of the solution to lack of access to electricity in the developing world.
Zeroing in on Peabody Energy’s “Advanced Energy for Life” global public relations campaign, which contends coal-fired power is a cheap, effective way to provide power to the large impoverished areas of India, Pakistan and elsewhere that now have none, the new study by the Australia Institute states that, “Peabody’s only contribution to energy poverty is maintaining a website and social media page which promotes coal as the solution to the problem…. Despite extensive searches and contact with companies and mining lobby groups, we could not find a single example where coal companies have supported coal-powered energy poverty alleviation projects.”
Meanwhile, billions of people need reliable cheap electricity, and if we had got on with developing decent sources of renewables, with storage, instead of allowing our “best minds” to make missiles, surveillance and marketing algorithms and assorted nonsense, we’d probably be a lot closer to that. Oh well.
As per this website, on this day the atmospheric CO2 ppm was 399.11
Now it is 421ish- but see here for the latest.
Why this matters.
We need remember that threatened technologies rarely go down without a fight, and that for coal, playing the “we’re indispensable” card.
What happened next?
They keep at it. Personal favourite is the recent claim that coal is a “transition” fuel in light of the war in the Ukraine sending gas prices through the roof.