Forbes: Environmentalists: Hold Your Noses But Deal With Carbon Capture And Shale Gas Drilling

It didn’t exactly stop the presses. But at least it made the back pages: China will cut its coal use to 65 percent of its electricity generation by year-end instead of by 2017, which is nearly 1 percent less than in 2013.

Regardless of China’s energy diet, it still has an insatiable appetite for the fuel source, consuming 47 percent of all coal and as much as the rest of the world combined, says the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And, for sure, China is trying to industrialize its economy and coal is its path of least of resistance. But it’s not its only choice.

For its part, China also has a goal of generating 15 percent of its electricity from green energy by 2020 and 30 percent by 2030. But it will still need other carbon-intensive fuels, which include coal and natural gas. To this end, the United States is well positioned to lend a hand — “solutions,” by all accounts, which are imperfect but which take the sting out of burning fossil fuels straight up. MORE