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Coal Argument Essay

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Globally coal plants are in production to meet the energy demands in countries that have lower standards of living when compared to the fully developed European and North American countries. The United States has aligned itself with the strictest coal regulations to attempt to single handedly lower the emissions associated with fossil fuels. Coal fired power plants serve about one third of the global energy market and in the United Sate’s political perspective, associated with the largest pollutant emissions. While in other parts of the world are looking to coal to meet their growing energy demands, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and politicians aim to limit new power plants thru rules and regulations.
The recent projection by the US Energy Information Administration guess that no coal plants will be built between 2018 and 2035 per the current political climate. This is an attempt to shrink the carbon space that the US is currently occupying. The carbon space refers the amount of carbon emissions produced from various countries created during activities compared globally. The argument is that India and China have an untapped amount of carbon space to grow into due to their expanding population while the US has reached its capacity some time ago. With the reaching of this capacity in mind, …show more content…

Worldwide the construction of coal power plants has increased by 5.4% and three quarters of that is in China and India. These are countries that cannot sustain their own coal consumption with domestic resources, meaning that a portion of their coal has to be imported. International coal trade increased by 13.4% in 2010 of which China contributed largely to the demand. In 2011, China burned over four times the amount burned in the US. It is reasonable to say that the largest contributor to carbon emissions should be targeted before a ban of coal plants in the US be

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