Barbara Freese: Coal: A Human History

Coming your way right now: thermonuclear energy. Enough power to solve every energy crisis in human history leaves the sun every second, and a small fraction of it makes it to the surface of this planet — and most of that fraction bounces off.

But some of that energy finds its way to those efficient solar batteries known as plants. When they die, they generally rot away, and the energy is scavenged by bacteria and insects, or else it's lost. Very occasionally, this fails to happen. Plants fall into swamps, or get covered over by other dead plants, and the corrosive gas — oxygen — which would normally break them down fails to reach them.

Over time, they are compressed into a hard, black rock.

This rock has a less than glamorous reputation, but it is one of nature's marvels, because all that stored solar energy is still there inside it. Ralph Waldo Emerson said of it: "Every basket is power and civil-isation. For coal is a portable climate ... a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta; and with its comfort brings its industrial power."

As Barbara Freese ably documents in this fascinating study, coal has gone from being the great saviour of humanity to being the great ogre of global warming. And even before the industrial revolution, coal had a rich part in human history. The Chinese — now swiftly turning themselves into the worst coal-smog polluters on the planet, despite stiff competition from America — were burning it efficiently and relatively cleanly centuries before it was discovered in the West. The ancient Romans knew of it, but used it to make jewellery.

Early attempts to use it for heat in 14th-century London led to a commoners' revolt over its smell, and it was banned for centuries.

Freese tells all this in a clear, easy style, helping her story along with anecdotes. In the end, rather than urging us to panic over rising coal use in the face of climate change, she builds a convincing case for positive action.

"If we can make the transition to a safer energy system before we cause more than mild climate change, our coal use won't be strongly condemned by future generations ... The more thoughtful among them may recognise it as an important energy source that, for all its faults, brought us through a sort of prolonged industrial childhood and ultimately gave us the power to build a world that no longer needed coal." 

* William Heinemann, $45