A simple choice

Are we willing to accept global warming in exchange for cheap energy? 15

According to the Washington Post, Midwesterners are building a raft of new coal plants because they "see no alternative."

That puts in fairly stark terms the way energy debates proceed here in the U.S. It goes like this:

Rising demand is non-negotiable. Low prices are non-negotiable. Energy alternatives that accommodate sharply rising demand without raising prices are acceptable. Energy alternatives that rely on reducing demand growth or raising prices are off the table.

As long as those are the terms of the debate, coal is inevitable. Rising GHG emissions are inevitable. Global warming is inevitable, along with rising sea levels, droughts, and the rest.

Americans need to face the problem squarely. Are we so averse to difficult or expensive short-term decisions that we're willing to consign the world's poor and future generations to climatic chaos?

Every one of these coal plants will be belching CO2 in the atmosphere for 60 years. Together they will render moot any other emissions reductions we make. Is that really something we're willing to accept?

David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

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  1. sunflower's avatar

    sunflower Posted 3:35 am
    10 Mar 2007

    Do coal and die.Just one example -- Clothes lines accommodates sharply rising demand and costs much less than coal power purchased for clothes dryers.
    The same thinking works for window shutters, air to air heat exchangers, swirl light bulbs, solar thermal hot water, biomass district heating, and maybe just maybe biomass thermal power plants.  
    Do coal or die is just plain stupid, and criminal.

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  2. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 3:56 am
    10 Mar 2007

    Coal WinsCoal can be used cleanly in fuel cells by Fuel Cell Energy"
    http://www.fce.com/

    The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.

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  3. GreyFlcn Posted 4:48 am
    10 Mar 2007

    Except thatExcept that CLEAN isn't the top prioriety.
    Is it Carbon Nuetral, or Carbon Negative?

    Yes, or No?
    No? Then No.
    _
    So far all the fuel cell offers is "half as bad as coal is now"

    Which is twice as bad as natural gas is now.
    However what the fuel cell does offer is the potential to use biomass.  Which is indeed carbon negative.
    One other alternative may also be using Algae based "Charcoal"
    _
    But the coal that is in the ground, should stay in the ground.  Sequestered.

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  4. GreyFlcn Posted 5:00 am
    10 Mar 2007

    But second thoughtGood find on the fuel cell

    Didn't know this was commercialized yet.

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  5. GreyFlcn Posted 5:04 am
    10 Mar 2007

    Third thoughtTo hell with it :P
    Even if they put in coal burning fuel cells now

    They can always just switch the fuel used later on.

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  6. Laurence Aurbach Posted 5:17 am
    10 Mar 2007

    stasis, pleaseAre we so averse to difficult or expensive short-term decisions
    As Sunflower points out, often the solutions aren't even difficult or expensive. They're just diferent -- different than business as usual.
    So it seems that what we're averse to, first and foremost, is change. Somehow, the nation that invented the modern environmental movement, the nation with the largest GDP, is now the most hidebound and reactionary when it comes to energy policy. Now we are the "can't do" nation, hamstrung by NIMBY wailings and industry FUD, relegated to the sidelines while the other nations of the world zoom ahead with substantial, effective policy decisions to decarbonize, and the attendant business opportunties.
    Or so the fossil industry would have us believe. I don't buy it.

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  7. sunflower's avatar

    sunflower Posted 5:19 am
    10 Mar 2007

    Coal fuel cells? There is scant Hydrogen in coal.

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  8. GreyFlcn Posted 5:22 am
    10 Mar 2007

    Fourth ThoughtStill a good find, but

    Looks like it needs natural gas as it's input.
    So technically you could use coal, but it would need to be cleaned up, and turned into a syngas first.

    Which isn't a simple process when you got lots of mercury and sulfur to deal with.
    _
    This isn't quite as cool as Direct Carbon Fuel Cells.
    Which can actually take in raw biomass or coal, and then process it directly.
    http://eed.llnl.gov/co2/7.php

    http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=768237

    _
    But yeah, looks like those natural gas Fuel cells are taking off :P

    I'm glad knowing they exist.
    Thanks :)

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  9. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 6:03 am
    10 Mar 2007

    Not necessarilyI posted another link in a different thread on a scientist who created a "slurry" of coal and an acid that would be used directly in a "coal fuel" cell.
    The results were promising.  In fact, he said the prototype could be tweaked very easily to be usable...mostly for stationary fuel cells because of the mass/weight of the slurry.  But that would include power generation.   In that case, no need for "syngas" because it's converted direct from the solid coal-acid mixture.

    The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.

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  10. GreyFlcn Posted 6:56 am
    10 Mar 2007

    HAHAI hope you don't mean that Douglas Weibel guy
    Whoopie a whole 7% effecient energy conversion!

    http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7891&prin ...
    5x more CO2 than conventional coal

    What a breakthrough!
    :P

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  11. Zarkov Posted 1:42 pm
    10 Mar 2007

    Go: -->Business as Usual until....>> coal is inevitable >>.
    YES and desirable... the ghg emissions are necessary to counter the cooling effect of the marine oil.
    >> rising sea levels >>
    no the sea level will not rise, spreading drought yes (the Antarctic will grow)

    but the prognostications of current Greenhouse gas theory are all totally ill informed conjecture. BAD
    There was a forum here re mitigation versus adaption
    Adaption is the only option... the people on this Earth are doomed and they know it, but better to remain in the same world for as long as they can before....

    instead of trying, crying and dying in a vain hope of mitigation....
    Sadly, you might as well end this debate and accept business as usual.
    Personally I think nuclear war will be precipitated by the consequences of a "business as usual" attitude and IMO the effects of this war will be worse than trying to realign the climate controls.
    But in truth how many countries would come to a common ground re mitigation of Global Climate Change...... basically none really.  No one will even face up to the reality of scientific data.
    Metal poisoning has driven the human race so far apart from each other that LIFE will have its way, and the annual option will be realised.

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  12. GreyFlcn Posted 1:53 pm
    10 Mar 2007

    I can't tell>> coal is inevitable >>.

    YES and desirable... the ghg emissions are necessary to counter the cooling effect of the marine oil.
    Zarkov, are you being really sarcastic, or not?

    I can't tell :o

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  13. Zarkov Posted 7:19 pm
    10 Mar 2007

    Truth HurtsNo I am a scientist, I really do say it as it is, like it or not.
    I have no sides, only my mother LIFE  
    People take sides...... not me.

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  14. claxton6 Posted 9:24 pm
    10 Mar 2007

    SpringfieldIt's too bad that the Post didn't mention Springfield until the rock bottom of the article. Not only does the agreement negotiated with the Sierra Club give us a kick in the pants to get moving on global warming locally, it's also likely to pay for itself. The costs of upgrading the emissions controls for the new plant and the older plants, improving the efficiency of the new plant, increasing spending on energy efficiency, and the wind power are all about balanced out by the revenue the city will get from the sale of emissions credits ($37 million v. $38 million, undiscounted). It's a pretty exciting exception to the Midwest coal rush as a whole, and shows that the first steps here are pretty reasonable, even from a strictly business-as-usual perspective.
    On the other hand, the experience in the rest of Illinois is pretty chilling right now. The two regulated, investor-owned utilities pushed to raise their prices in the last couple of months, over a huge uproar, and now that the first bills are in, the uproar has doubled, and may lead the Illinois legislature to revoke the rate increase.
    The saddest part of this is that everyone is arguing over a single point--do rates go up or down--and no one is looking beyond that to (1) what does a better energy system look like and (2) how do we not grind up the poor and lower middle class getting there?

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  15. random vagrant Posted 10:05 am
    11 Mar 2007

    hmmpretty awesome we got lobbyist and industry bloggers posting here any time Grist comes out with something regarding them. who knew corps and their employees knees would start shaking after years of ignoring science. Freaking sweet, only costing us the planet. As a Gen Xer I'd like to thank you for pissing on my future and causing more trouble. Trust me if my Gen had a way to return the favor we would.

    William A. McDonough is my hero.

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