Global Warming In the News

CHAMPAIGN (AP) - A report released Thursday by an Illinois environmental group blames coal-fired power plants for nearly half the country's increase in carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels between 2000 and 2004.

Carbon dioxide emissions increased 22 percent in Illinois and 18 percent across the country during that time, according to the report from Environment Illinois and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The report, which is based on federal data, blames coal-fired power generation for 42 percent of the nationwide increase.

"Unfortunately, in Illinois and across the country our emissions are rising each year," Environment Illinois spokesman David Kanof said. "The good news is that we have the technology at our fingertips to cut global warming pollution."

The report praised many governors, including Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, for state programs designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Environment Illinois recommended that power generators stop burning coal and instead rely more on wind power and solar energy. It also called for stronger federal limits on emissions and increases in energy efficiency.

A spokesman for Illinois' coal industry agreed that emissions regulations should be crafted at the federal level, but he argued that state regulations make little sense, given that pollutants travel across state lines.

Illinois Coal Association spokesman Ron Gonet also said coal should have a place in the energy-generation mix.

"The sun doesn't shine all the time and the wind doesn't blow all the time and we don't have much hydropower in Illinois," he said.

Illinois has about a quarter of the country's reserves of bituminous coal, Gonet said.

Fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal produce carbon dioxide when burned. Most climate scientists say carbon dioxide is the primary heat-trapping "greenhouse" gas that could lead to global temperature increases.

Coal has higher levels of carbon than oil and or natural gas, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Coal-fired power generation increased by 24 percent across the country and 72 percent in Illinois between 1990 and 2004, according to Thursday's report.

The report praised Blagojevich for announcing a goal last year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Emission-reduction plans often use 1990 as a benchmark year.

The governor earlier this year also reached an agreement with power generators to cut carbon dioxide and other emissions by, among other things, shutting down some older coal-fired power generators.

Midwest Generation, a Chicago-based power company, will shut down one unit in Waukegan and two more in Chicago as part of the deal.

"We anticipate about 2 million tons a year cut in (carbon dioxide) from those closures," Midwest Generation spokesman Charley Parnell said.

That would amount to almost 1 percent of all carbon dioxide generated in Illinois in 2004, based on Energy Department figures.

The company has only coal-fired generation now, in Illinois and Pennsylvania, but also is considering projects in which coal would be gasified for use as fuel, Parnell said.

Coal gasification also is at the heart of the Energy Department's FutureGen power-plant project planned for either a site in southeastern Illinois or Texas.

Rather than being burned, gasified coal is broken down into its components, which include a gaseous mixture that can be burned more cleanly than coal.

Environment Illinois' Kanof said the group isn't yet sold on the FutureGen project.

"It's a good idea in theory, but the problem comes in that we have yet to reliably see that we could capture (and store) all of the carbon from a coal-fired power plant," he said.

Thursday's report also accused the Bush administration of lacking environmental leadership, leaving states to act on their own.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokeswoman Enesta Jones defended President Bush's record, saying his programs are on target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by 2012.

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Note: Similar stories ran in the following newspapers:

• The Southern Illinoisan
• The Pantagraph
  
• The Daily Illini