COAL:
- Despite its poor environmental credentials, coal remains a crucial contributor to energy supply in many countries.
- Coal is the most wide-spread fossil fuel around the world, and more than 75 countries have coal deposits. The current share of coal in global power generation is over 40%, but it is expected to decrease in the coming years, while the actual coal consumption in absolute terms will grow.
- Although countries in Europe, and to some extent North America, are trying to shift their consumption to alternative sources of energy, any reductions are more than offset by the large developing economies, primarily in Asia, which are powered by coal and have significant coal reserves.
- China alone now uses as much coal as the rest of the world. The continuing popularity of coal becomes particularly obvious when compared to the current production figures with those from 20 years ago.
- While the global reserves of coal have decreased by 14% between 1993 and 2011, the production has gone up by 68% over the same time period. Compared to the 2010 survey, the most recent data shows that the proved coal reserves have increased by 1% and production by 16%. The future of coal depends primarily on the advance of clean coal technologies to mitigate environmental risk factors.
- Today Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCS/CCUS) is the only large-scale technology which could make a significant impact on the emissions from fossil fuels. It is, however, still at the pilot stage and its future is uncertain, mainly because of the high costs and efficiency penalty.
- Coal is playing an important role in delivering energy access, because it is widely available, safe, reliable and relatively low cost.
- One of the major challenges facing the world at present is that approximately 1.2 billion people live without any access to modern energy services. Access to energy is a fundamental pre-requisite for modern life and a key tool in eradicating extreme poverty across the globe.
- Coal resources exist in many developing countries, and this report demonstrates that many countries with electricity challenges, particularly those in Asia and southern Africa, are able to access coal resources in an affordable and secure way to fuel the growth in their electricity supply. Coal will therefore play a major role in supporting the development of base-load electricity where it is most needed. Coal-fired electricity will be fed into national grids and it will bring energy access to millions, thus facilitating economic growth in the developing world.
- Coal reserve(top 5 countries): ref.(World Energy Council 2013 World Energy Resources: A Summary)
1-United States of America
2-Russian Federation
3-China
4-Australia
5-India
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