IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/asiaec/v4y2005i3p30-58.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Conundrum of Sustainable Energy: Clean Coal as One Possible Answer

Author

Listed:
  • Klaus S. Lackner

    (Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, 500 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027, USA)

Abstract

Access to clean, cheap, and copious energy would allow the entire world to enjoy a standard of living taken for granted in developed countries. This paper identifies technologies for sustainable energy infrastructures, emphasizing that fossil fuels are amply sufficient for the next 100-200 years. However, today's fossil fuel technology will be inadequate to sustain a future world population of 10 billion. Pollution and greenhouse gases from unfettered fossil fuel use far exceed the environment's capacity to cope. Alternative forms of energy are presently either expensive or unsuitable for largescale energy production. Reliance on coal, in combination with carbon capture, carbon storage, and zero-emission technology, could break the world's dependence on petroleum and natural gas while providing environmentally acceptable energy for centuries. By also developing nuclear energy and renewable energy sources, it is possible to pursue a path characterized by plentiful and sustainable energy. Copyright (c) 2006 The Earth Institute at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Klaus S. Lackner, 2005. "The Conundrum of Sustainable Energy: Clean Coal as One Possible Answer," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 4(3), pages 30-58, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:asiaec:v:4:y:2005:i:3:p:30-58
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1162/asep.2005.4.3.30
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:asiaec:v:4:y:2005:i:3:p:30-58. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.