Coal is back (well, it never left...)

Posted by Javier on 12 August 2009

The areas we crossed just North of Bogotá are rich in coal mining...

I think coal makes a very interesting theme, since it is silently gaining more and more market quota worldwide in spite of its bad press: it is linked in the subconscious of many people to the first stages of industrial revolution, to a very polluting and dirty source of energy, and in wide areas of the First World to obsolete economic production. However the coal industry is not only still powerful, it has grown more than the 50% in the last 25 years, and is the second in importance in the world after the petroleum. As opposed to the petroleum industry, the coal industry has improved significantly its environmental performance in the last 2 decades, especially with innovative techniques to dramatically reduce pollution from coal combustion, to capture the resultant CO2 in areas close to the energy plants and/or using it as an industrial sub product. Nevertheless these improvements although promising are still restricted to countries with possibilities for investment in these expensive technologies, and coal combustion is a huge environmental problem in large areas of the World, such as China, East Europe, and the extinct Soviet Union.

The first photo represents my legs full of coal shit after a single pedaling day in China in 2004. Chinese people use coal for heating their houses, for cooking, and of course in the industry. You can barely breathe in many Chinese cities. The current reserves of coal would last more than 200 years, much more than the estimations for petrol or gas. It is more widely distributed, since 120 countries are producing considerable amounts of it. It is also indispensable in a number of industrial processes, such as to make steel. The growing scarcity of petrol will almost unavoidably lead to the maintenance (or more probably increase) of the current strong growth of coal demand in the World, and it is already a growing part of the energy pool of many countries. From a realistic point of view the urgent need for research in renewable energies must go by hand with making coal combustion much more environmentally friendly, since the growing demand for energy may not permit the "economic machine" to exclude coal as an option. A lot of economic resources need to be invested to develop and implement an efficient 100% renewable energy and carbon free economic model, but paradoxically those economic resources will largely rely in economies sustained by old-fashion carbon fuels. Probably the most important one will be again the coal. Just as 150 years ago, coal is back.

Meanwhile coal has apparently become the main export product of Colombia, which has the second-largest coal reserves in South America, slightly after Brazil. The coal industry of the country grows at a double rate than the rest of the industry, and it supposes more than 90% of the mining rights paid to the Government. Colombia is the fifth exporter of the World. During 2007-2008 its prize doubled, passing from 52 USD the tone to about 100 USD. The Colombian coal is of high quality since it is relatively clean burning, with a sulfur content of less than 1 percent, and hence Colombia is greedily targeted by the main brands of the sector. Within the current positive attitude towards foreign investors of President Uribe the North American company Drummond is creating the bigger open cast coal mine, covering 20.000 ha, the biggest in the World and very clearly an environmental disaster. For a country that struggles to forget the recent Civil War and that looks the future with optimism coal seems a true blessing. It is so for the large amount of Colombian coal miners, which inhabit remote mountainous regions that otherwise would offer little opportunities. The photos 1 and 2 represent a medium sized coal mine where mechanized processes are accompanied with important use of hand work. It is apparently the only source of employment in a large valley close to Lenguazaque. Photos 3-8 show one of the hundreds of small "artisanal" coal mines in the area. In the one depicted there are 4 workers, although when we passed by there was only one. He works from 8:00 to 17:00, and rests in the weekends. He told us that he was happy with his job and his boss. He has the basic equipment (helmet, a hut to cover in case of rain, radio, stored food and water etc…). Nothing fancy, but it looked good to me. Still we were relieved when seeing him going out from the tunnel alive…

11 comments. Tags: coal, energy, javier. Location: El Ejido, Argentina