Coal Combustion's Contribution to Global Warming

The scale of CO2 emitted by coal plants is staggering, particularly when compared to the cost and scale of existing efforts to reduce emissions.  If all of the 100 currently proposed plants were built the capital investment (not including any carbon reduction measures) would be approximately $90 billion and the plants would add over 800 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.  As a practical matter, the US response to global warming is being determined right now, each time a state agency issues a permit for a new coal plant. And that response is to increase rather than reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, adding to CO2 levels already far higher than any time documented in the last 400,000 years. 

• The Numbers