This story goes to show that the debate on global warming is still raging. Crucial to the debate in many people's minds is not whether the earth is warming, but whether or not man is causing it. That is the notion that four Australian governing party lawmakers are rejecting. Also up for debate is whether or not the lawmakers opinions are molded by the fact that Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal, and that the nation is rather dependent on coal as a natural resource. With the abundance of sunlight, wind and the possibility of tapping into the ocean's waves as potential power sources is not lost on all of Australia's inhabitants. The topic of climate change and coal power is expected to play a role in the upcoming elections.

Specifically, the lawmakers are against the idea of setting up "at least one" carbon sequestration systems at one of their coal-fired power plants. Not even just one? Sheesh.

[Source: Physorg]

Time and time again, from expert after expert, we hear that the nations of the planet must start turning to clean sources of energy, and fast. Vinod Khosla recently suggested that we use solar thermal sources, and he also mentioned that nuclear may be an option for the future. Solar arrays seem to be popping up, many times by individual companies looking to save on their own energy costs. Wind farms have been making the news as of late as well, sometimes we hear more from the people against them, but we hear about them anyway. When was the last time you heard about a new coal fired power plant being built? How about today?

That may just be a reality in the U.K., as Greenpeace reports. It seems that a company by the name of Eon has proposed a few new coal plants, ones that are only able to achieve 45 percent efficiency at that! In case you were wondering, the last new coal plant built in the U.K. 33 years ago. Progress? More like on step forward, two steps back!

[Source: Greenpeace via Hugg]