Future of Coal Must Include CO2 Reductions

John Deutch, Institute Professor at MIT and Belfer Center Board of Directors and International Council member, testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in late March on the recent MIT report "The Future of Coal-Options for a Carbon Constrained World," co-authored with MIT's Ernest Moniz. The report examines how the world can continue to use coal in a way that mitigates instead of worsens the global warming crisis.

The report states that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is the critical enabling technology to help reduce CO2 emissions significantly, while also allowing coal, an abundant and inexpensive fuel, to meet the world's pressing energy needs. Deutch and Moniz advocate for the U.S. to assume global leadership on this issue through adoption of significant policy actions. "As the world's leading energy user and greenhouse gas emitter, the U.S. must take the lead in showing the world CCS can work," Deutch says.

While the scale is daunting and "many hundreds of such plants would be needed worldwide to significantly affect global warming," Deutch and Moniz argue in an oped (Wall Street Journal, 19 March 2007) that the government and the coal industry need to take the necessary measures to support these changes.

The MIT study builds on a report released in January by the Council on Foreign Relations' Independent Task Force on Energy and U.S. Foreign Policy, chaired by Deutch and James Schlesinger of the Belfer Center's International Council, and on which the Center's Graham Allison, Robert Belfer, and Martin Feldstein all served.