Where is the U.S. failing miserably in the climate fight? Look no further than the development and bungled deployment of advanced coal technology, namely carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Why is coal technology so important? Simply, coal remains the world’s leading fuel for electricity generation and the world has never used more. Global coal use set a record in 2023 and could well eclipse it this year.

As Bloomberg’s commodity editor, Javier Blas, just calculated, every six hours the world consumes enough to build a coal replica of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) which has predicted peak coal demand multiple times – and keeps getting it wrong – now admits, under current trends, coal use in 2050 is going to be higher than it was in 2000.

While IEA now expects a peak for demand in 2025, Blas isn’t so sure. “Maybe. But I remain skeptical about the next few years, and even the coming decade. At best, the story of the next five to 10 years is one of a plateau; the cliff-like drop that some analysts anticipate remains a fantasy,” he writes.

Coal is here to stay. Irreplaceable to energy security, affordability and for meeting rapidly rising energy demand, coal is the cornerstone of global electricity generation as well as steel and cement production.

The West doesn’t appear to be leading anyone else away from coal. The U.S. and European pivot has only come as a lesson of what not to do if you’re concerned with energy security and grid reliability.  

Asian demand for coal has now swallowed Western efforts to move away from it. Asia accounted for 82% of global coal use last year. China alone consumed 56%.

And now as the world moves to electrify everything — consider the rapid uptake of electric vehicles, heat pumps and air conditioners — demand for power is soaring and so too is demand for coal in many places.  

Coal demand in India is up 10% just this year. Coal demand in Indonesia has doubled in the past five years. Despite enormous additions of wind and solar power, China is also adding 200 gigawatts of new coal capacity by 2030. That’s more new capacity than the entire existing U.S. coal fleet.  

EPA is Scuttling Effective CCS Policy

So how should this reality shape U.S. energy and climate leadership? The back-of-the-napkin math says we should be putting far more effort into developing and deploying technologies for the fuels the world actually uses, not what some policy leaders hope they use.

While expanding incentives for the development and deployment of CCS found bipartisan consensus in Washington over the past few years – with significant investments included in the Inflation Reduction Act – the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has completely bungled the opportunity to turn that promise into actionable global leadership by imposing impossible timelines and currently unachievable capture rates.

The so-called Clean Power Plan 2.0 requires existing coal plants and new baseload natural gas plants to deploy CCS at a 90% capture rate by 2032. There’s not a power plant in the world currently achieving that.

As the National Mining Association wrote challenging the EPA’s unlawful rule, “since no power plant has ever achieved the 90% CCS that the Final Rule would mandate, and few plants can afford to attempt it now, the Rule functions as a mandatory deadline for coal-fired power plants to shut down.”

Instead of encouraging investment when the world needs the U.S. to lead on CCS – and specifically on deployment with coal – EPA is scuttling efforts to do so.

The CPP 2.0 is now being challenged at the Supreme Court. Should it hopefully be found unlawful, it might well be the climate leadership course correction the U.S. so desperately needs. It’s past time to make advancing replicable solutions for the fuels the world uses and will continue to use a policy priority, not an afterthought.