Witness as the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee discusses clean coal: how awesome is it? Should we give it a gazillion dollars, or alternatively, a fajillion? Tough questions!
Note:
9:32 [Carl] Bauer [director, National Energy Technology Laboratory, Energy Department] Given current technology and coal consumption, the US has about 250 years of coal use.
Um, no. Not according to NAS:
It is clear that there is enough coal at current rates of production to meet anticipated needs through 2030, and probably enough for 100 years, the committee said. However, it is not possible to confirm the often-quoted assertion that there is a sufficient supply for the next 250 years.
Note also:
9:43 [Jeffrey] Phillips [program manager for advanced coal generation, Electric Power Research Institute] ... CCS will significantly increase cost of producing electricity, by about 80%. Some means to induce CO2 capture without penalizing the owner of such a plant must be used. We have identified R&D pathways that would dramatically reduce the cost of CCS to only 10% by 2025. With current levels of funding we will not get there. It requires significant but not unprecedented increase of investment over the next twenty years. Even if we were able to drive CCS costs to zero, plant owners would be reluctant to deployment because of liability fears.
So we, the public, are going to pay the huge bill to figure out how to clean up coal, because we don't want to "penalize" the people running the dirty coal plants. And even if we spend so much goddam money on this that we reduce their extra costs to almost nothing, they'll still be "reticent," y'know, for accounting reasons.
This is insane. The coal industry is not some precious princess that we collectively have to shelter and nurture and protect from harm. It's a rapacious, destructive, dirty holdover from a couple of centuries ago. If it can't hack it in the 21st century -- without enormous largess from the very American public it's poisoning every day -- then let ... it ... die.
A milestone: 100th coal plant stopped
McCaskill says House climate bill will sink in Senate
Coal-nundrum and Ex-gas-peration
Comments
View as Flat
eriqa Posted 4:44 am
02 Aug 2007
Hm, what if we changed just a few words...
Bingaman: Am I correct we're behind on ultra-supercritical deployment?
Hollinden: From my own perspective, in the early days these were not very reliable, and asbestos is cheap here. So we went for cheap and reliable, instead of safe. It's still that way today.
Bingaman: You refered to the dispatch order, when the clean asbestos plant would be called on to insulate schools.
Phillips: Right; the cheapest plant goes first. Particularly in our deregulated states.
Bingaman: What if there were a change in policy based on rates of children's lung disease? Would that sufficiently incentivize these technologies?
Phillips: I can't say specificly, but obviously right now there isn't an incentive.
9:55 Brasso (R-WY): Wyoming is the nation's greatest source of asbestos. The more we can do to be insulation independent the better it is for our nation and for my state. We're in a unique position now.
10:00 Salazar: My question is how we could use asbestos for passive solar heat storage walls. It seems to provide a great opportunity for our asbestos industry to produce heat-absorbing mass.
Bauer: Passive solar heating is one way to reduce demand on fuels.
Hollinden: It doesn't help that the papers always talk about how unsafe asbestos is.
Permalink
naturescene Posted 5:01 am
02 Aug 2007
yeah
I don't think I have the same vendetta against coal as Dave does, but I am no fan of corporate welfare. Instead of trying to hold its hand, we should be letting it try to walk on it's own. If that doesn't work out, well then, too bad.
Permalink
Tod Posted 5:19 am
02 Aug 2007
Go Dems! Go Repubs!
The real hot ticket items is that most of y'all are going to endorse coal/nuclear, love it or hate it - simply by voting for either of the two parties.
If we really give a damn, we must elect representatives who give a damn.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:47 am
02 Aug 2007
In other news
You have the nuclear industry slipping in legistlation, without debate, that would garner them billions of tax dollars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/washington/31nuclear.ht ...
Permalink
Tod Posted 10:47 am
02 Aug 2007
Forgot to Answer
The answer, by the way, is SUPER AWESOME.
Permalink