IEA Clean Coal Centre

This article is part of the Climate project of Spinwatch.

The International Energy Agency's Clean Coal Centre is a London based research and support organisation for the world coal industry and the world's number one resource for Carbon Capture and Storage and other coal 'clean coal' tehnologies. It provides reports, research and networking which promote coal and advance its 'sustainable use'. It also provides advisory services to governments and industry and support for relevant R & D. The groups annual turnover is around £1.75 million, generated by membership fees and spent mostly on employing 25 staff, most of whom are engineers, technologists and 'information specialists' (PR agents).

Their website claims:

IEA Clean Coal Centre provides unbiased information on the sustainable use of coal world-wide. Funded by member countries and industrial sponsors IEA CCC products include in-depth topical reports and online databases of coal information. IEA CCC also provides direct advice, facilitation of R & D and networks.

Rationale

The IEA Clean Coal Centre's company brochure entitled 'Providing unbiased information on the sustainable use of coal worldwide' opens with the title 'the world needs coal' and justifies the continued and increasing burning of coal as essential to world energy security. It promotes coal as affordable and necessary for our current level of economic generation and repeatedly affirms that this is 'unbiased' information, despite being an overtly pro-coal group. For example it claims that two thirds of steel production currently depends on coal and 'will remain so for decades to come'.

Their publications use scaremongering spin tactics such as comparing the costs and potential for coal or wind power to provide for projected world energy needs. These figures assume that energy demand will rise in a business as usual scenario, and deny the necessary option to cut down on consumption and heavily increase efficiency of business and industry. For example:

'IEA CCC says worldwide coal reserves represent almost 200 years of coal production at current rates, compared with 36-44 years of oil reserves and 66 years of gas reserves.'

'IEA's World Energy Outlook 2004 predicts a 60% energy demand growth worldwide during 2002-30, with almost 90% of that from fossil fuels'

History

According to their website:

IEA Clean Coal Centre is a collaborative project established in 1975 involving member countries of the International Energy Agency (IEA). The service is governed by representatives of member countries, the European Commission, and industrial sponsors. The IEA Clean Coal Centre programme of work contains studies of considerable significance for all countries involved in the use or supply of coal.

The IEA was established in 1974 within the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A basic aim of the IEA is to foster co-operation among the twenty-four IEA participating countries in order to increase energy security through diversification of energy supply, cleaner and more efficient use of energy, and energy conservation. This is achieved, in part, through a programme of collaborative research and development of which IEA Clean Coal Centre is by far the largest and the longest established single project.

Investments

In 2002 the IEA CCC invested Cdn $238,000 into Canada's first Carbon Capture and Storage Coal power station in Calgary, Alberta.

People

Managers

• John Topper managing Director. Formerly Commercial Director of the Coal Research Establishment of British Coal.
• Colin Nathan Company Secretary.
• Geoffrey Morrison Programme Manager.
• Robert Davidson, Head of Information Services and an expert on coal science.

Researchers

• Lesley Sloss specialises in legislation and technologies to reduce emissions and represents the UK on several international standards committees.
• Irene Smith has been studying the effects of coal on the environment and prepared one of the first reports on the role of carbon dioxide in climate change.
• Rohan Fernando worked for the UK’s CEGB/National Power (now RWE Npower) for nearly 20 years before joining IEA CCC in 1997.
• Paul Baruya is an expert on the economic aspects of coal and an author of several coal market reports.
• Herminé Nalbandian has 18 years of experience in writing on key environmental issues and was a visiting lecturer at Imperial College, London.
• Colin Henderson is a senior technology analyst. He was previously with British Coal’s Coal Research Establishment for more than 20 years working on techno-economic assessments of major power generation technologies.
• Gordon Couch has written more than 20 reports for IEA CCC concentrating on coal markets, coal preparation and low rank coals.
• Riccardo Ambrosini, a chemical engineer, joined IEA CCC in 2004 as a technical author. He previously worked for LITGC, Spain.
• Stephen Mills, previously an independent consultant working for a range of commercial clients, academia and consultancies, joined IEA CCC in 2003.
• John Kessels is a senior advisor on carbon abatement and management issues pertaining to emissions trading, international agreements and frameworks that could accelerate the use of clean coal technologies. He has also been an advisor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Funding

The groups annual turnover is around £1.75 million, generated by membership fees.

Members

Contracted members listed on their website:

(members are 23 major players in the global coal industry, including governments and industries)

• Austria
• Canada
• EC
• Germany
• Italy
• Japan
• Korea
• Spain
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Anglo Coal, South Africa
• Australian Coal Industry Consortium (ACIC), Australia
• Beijing Research Institute of Coal Chemistry (BRICC), China
• Coal Association of New Zealand (CANZ), New Zealand
• Danish Power Group (DPG), Denmark
• Schlumberger, France
• Siberian Coal and Energy Company (Suek), Russia
• BG Group, UK
• Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL), India
• Eletrobras, Brazil
• ESKOM, South Africa
• Netherlands Power Group, Netherlands
• Swedish Industry Group (SIG), Sweden

Contact

Address:

Gemini House, 10-18 Putney Hill, London, SW15 6AA

Tel +44 (0)20 8780 2111 Fax +44 (0)20 8780 1746 mail@iea-coal.org.uk

http://www.iea-coal.org.uk

Notes

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