But in many cases, government policymakers are focusing on the wrong issues when they should be working to ensure everyone on the planet has access to electricity for their most basic needs—clean water, warmth and light, he said. “I submit the greatest crisis we confront in the 21st century is not an environmental crisis predicted by computer models, but a human crisis fully within our power to solve. For too long, too many have been focused on the wrong end game. There is no sustainability with energy poverty.”
Boyce challenged conferees to commit to greater energy access for the world’s more than 6 billion inhabitants, an estimated 3.6 billion of whom “lack adequate energy access…more than half the global population.
“When you leave this Congress, carry with you the commitment that you will do all you can to endeavor to eliminate global energy poverty and energy inequality by 2050. For every person who has voiced a 2050 greenhouse gas goal…we need 10 people and policy bodies working toward the goal of broad energy access to reduce global poverty.”
Boyce said while alternative energy sources such as wind and solar are important to develop, they cannot come close to matching coal. Peabody alone, he noted, owns seven coal mines that each power more electricity than the solar and wind industries in the United States combined.
“Global coal use expanded nearly 50% in the last decade,” he said. “The world has trillions of tons of coal, which make up 60% of our global energy resources. And we will use them all.”
A major new build-out of coal generation is under way globally, he said. “Global coal-fired generation will nearly double by 2035. China, India and the rest of Asia make up more than 85% of the major global build-out of new generation. If you project this growth out, you can see global demand growing by more than 1 billion tons every three years.”
To meet ever-expanding environmental regulations, Boyce said clean coal technology to reduce carbon dioxide and other emissions must be deployed. At least 100 CCT projects should be developed over the next decade, he said.
“The world has approximately 1,000 gigawatts of traditional coal-fired plants. Replacing these with supercritical plants would drive major global reindustrialization and enormous reductions in carbon dioxide immediately without waiting” for clean coal storage technology to become commercially available. “But all these plants would be CCS ready when the technology is commercially deployable.”
Peabody posted 2009 sales of 244 million tons of coal and had revenues of $6 billion. The company said it fuels 10% of U.S. power and 2% of worldwide electricity.
