America's main coal mining union said on Monday that former Vice President Al Gore's Live Earth concert pledge to fight for a ban on new coal-fired power plants was "short-sighted." Gore urged fans at the concerts held around the world on July 7 to commit to a seven-point pledge to cut carbon emissions and to lobby governments and employers to do more to save the planet. The third point on the pledge states: "To fight for a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store the CO2." Approximately 50 percent of current US electricity is generated by coal-burning plants.

Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), said the union had no official comment on the pledge, but that it supported the concept of carbon capture and sequestration. "We believe it is the way to go, but we also believe a moratorium on any new plant is somewhat short-sighted as it could be years before the technology is developed, while the need for power is now," Smith said. The technology to successfully capture the carbon dioxide in plant emissions has not yet been practically developed, Smith said. "You are not going to be able to stop burning coal to generate electricity. And if you do not build new plants in the next 10 to 15 years, you will be relying on current plants," he said. Smith said current plants were much cleaner than plants built in the 1970s and 1980s.
(Planet Ark, 10/7/2007)