INTERVIEW-Fear of CO2 regime helps spur US coal rush

[jpak]

http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=N30416591

NEW YORK, May 31 (Reuters) - U.S. power companies are rushing to build coal-fired plants, in part because they are hoping to get them on the books ahead of potential U.S. regulations on greenhouse gases, the author of a book on the coal industry said in an interview.

"There's a dawning awareness in the coal industry that it is as good as it's going to get right now," Jeff Goodell, author of "Big Coal," to be published by Houghton Mifflin next month, said in a telephone interview. "Changing politics in America are not going to favor the coal industry," he said.

U.S. companies have submitted plans to build 120 plants that burn coal -- which emits more carbon dioxide than any other fuel -- though even the power industry says costs and permitting could pare that figure.

Unlike the European Union, whose members signed the Kyoto Protocol, the United States has no market for emissions of CO2 and other gases most scientists believe cause global warming.

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