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Yahoo!Clean coal, one of those terms we're hearing regarding our energy future, is, sad to say, still an oxymoron. Though a noble goal and, according to an important MIT study, a necessary future, right now it barely exists.
Coal is a fossil fuel, albeit still plentiful, and still really dirty. Burning it in power plants generates a third of the world's CO2 emissions, plus sulfur and nitrogen oxide (acid rain), and mercury (really bad stuff). Mining for it is, and has been, tremendously destructive to surrounding ecosystems, and it's not so great for the workers either, as recent mine disasters reflect. China builds a new coal plant every few days. They have coal and they need the energy now. To imagine the effects of their future emissions is frightening indeed.
Clean coal is technology that captures the plant's emissions and sequesters them, pumping them into underground cavities. This process, called carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), is not commercially available yet, and when it is, will be very expensive to implement. Nevertheless, the MIT study indicates that the technology is viable, that there is adequate underground capacity for the storage of the millions of tons of CO2 produced daily, and that there is no foreseeable danger in doing so. Whether or not you believe them, this partial solution to the problem of coal will not be happening anytime soon.
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Is anyone even aware that plants NEED CO2 for photosynthesis? Look it up. Startling revelation I know.
AShaw (anonymous profile)
October 7, 2008 at 9:16 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't mean coal plants, I mean the green kind. Stop denuding forests for biofuels and maybe we can burn more coal and drive more (burn more oil) so the trees and plants can breathe. The best of both worlds.
AShaw (anonymous profile)
October 7, 2008 at 9:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Sorry Ashaw, but there is far more CO2 than the trees and plants can use! THAT is the problem. Take away all of the human built infrastructure in the world, let the plants take over, and maybe eventually, hundreds or thousands of years from now, the earth will recover.
But yes, not clear cutting more forests would help a bit...
barbhirsch (anonymous profile)
October 7, 2008 at 10:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Ironically, systematic deforestation in the Amazon is the direct result of demand for biofuel as farmers clear land to grow the stuff. I've read that biofuel is in fact an incredibly inefficient way to create energy because it takes so much energy to produce the biofuel in the first place. And it too generates CO2. Nuclear, anyone? Wind (hello Solvang)?
RCMeltzer (anonymous profile)
October 8, 2008 at 8:52 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I don't care what system is proposed for what climatic disaster. The problem is too many people. If we don't decrease our population, Mother Nature is going to do it for us.
byronsnake (anonymous profile)
October 8, 2008 at 9:24 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Bingo byronsnake! But don't mention that to the Latin world you will be accused of being a racist. And who says there is "far more CO2 than the trees and plants can use" is that something Al Gore told you? So let's grow more trees and plants. Oops then there would be no room for solar panels. Don't you see the hidden anti-capitalism agenda in all of this? The crippling of the economy by taxing businesses who emit CO2 etc.? Dig a little deeper than the movie you saw.
AShaw (anonymous profile)
October 8, 2008 at 10:15 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Here's an interesting link on how using more wood helps with Climate change (as if climate change were an unnatural bad thing, or never happened before we started buring fossil fuels) So the answer is to cut down more trees, build houses and grow more....using wood as a storage place for carbon.
http://www.cwc.ca/DesignWithWood/Sustain...
How about putting those windfarms at Vandenberg where nobody can see them anyway? gets pretty windy up by Jalama...
AShaw (anonymous profile)
October 8, 2008 at 10:32 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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