Coal not the answer for energy
PRIME Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad recently declared during his special address at the Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry (CEPSI 2018) that Malaysia would explore full utilisation of domestic coal reserves for baseload power generation.
While this seems fairly reasonable given our heavy dependence on imported coal, the suggestion actually contradicts our commitment to mitigating the climate change trend.
This is because burning coal is not environmentally-friendly. This is very obvious from the greyish thick smog that arises from chimneys of coal-fired power plants.
The smog pollutes surrounding air and water, adversely affecting the health of the neighbouring communities.
In addition, ash from coal burning is also dumped into ponds. These ash-ponds are somewhat radioactive, surprisingly of higher dosages than that of nuclear power plants.
Furthermore, open exposure to coal at storage yards and in-plant silos also contaminates the food chain.
What is more worrying though is that the burning of coal emits enormous amounts of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere.
Even the “clean coal” technology, per guidelines of International Finance Corporation and the World Bank as subscribed by Tenaga Nasional Bhd, is not really clean as it still emits carbon, albeit at a reduced amount.
In response, the industry proposes the carbon sequestering and storage (CSS) method to thoroughly capture and contain poisonous particulates and chemical compounds from coal burning.
While CSS is technically viable on paper, it is still at a demonstration stage.
However, the coal CSS flagship project in Kemper County, Missouri, United States, recently proved to be impractical as its carbon capture technique has been declared too costly and problematic.
Therefore, despite our substantial domestic reserves, coal is not the answer to our cleaner energy needs.
We have only one earth. It is thus wiser to strategically reduce our dependence on coal so as to assure a greener future for Malaysia.