Tom Friedman of the NYT gets a lot of love around here as the green movement's great popularizer, someone whose plain-spoken pronouncements can convince politicians and plain folks alike to act on climate change, etc.
So what's up with the so-called Mustache of Understanding puffing vigorously into his rhetorical trumpet (sub. required) in favor of that fantasy, clean coal?
Here's Friedman:
All environmentalists have their favorite "green" energy source that they think will break our addiction to oil and slow down climate change. I've come out to Montana to see mine. It's called coal.
He goes on to prattle about "clean" coal technologies, and how the government should subsidize them.
And here is our own David Roberts, writing on Tom Paine:
Meaningful commercialization and deployment [of clean-coal technologies] are likely decades away. Even if that bright day arrives, "clean coal" still involves the environmental devastation of coal mining, the generation of substantial mercury and particulate pollution, and a per-kilowatt energy costs no better than wind and far worse than energy efficiency.
Sounds like Friedman might do well to consider scrapping his coal boosterism in favor of something a bit more practical: say, mustache-based ethanol?
Comments
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Sam Wells Posted 10:33 am
10 Jan 2007
Several groups have sued, claiming that synthetic gasification (syn-gas) is the appropriate technology for the future, as opposed to power boilers permitted under old regulations. I am all for that, syn-gas, but still shake my head in disbelief - what are they supposed to do with all the coke left over from the spent coal?
I have worked with "clean coal diesel" and it was a monsterous failure. Anything even remotely dealing with coal is dirty, greasy, and messy. To combine the words "clean" and "coal" ought to be against the law. /Sam
Onward through the fog
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Ron Steenblik Posted 10:53 am
10 Jan 2007
I don't see any inconsistency with his position on coal. From what I've read of Friedman's views, energy security (or, at least, his notion of it) trumps the environment any day.
As for subsidies for clean-coal technologies, the European experience is salient. What happened there was that they quickly became diverted to serve the interests of local coal producers, whose coal was generally more expensive to produce, and higher and sulphur and ash than imported coal.
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sunflower Posted 10:57 am
10 Jan 2007
We do not have an global energy shortage (unless Israel nukes Iran), we have a global warming disaster.
I'm beginning to think future energy supply worries the wealthy, like billionaire Freidman, more than future climates. Why?
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David Roberts Posted 2:33 pm
10 Jan 2007
He's talking about green, so that puts him in dangerously hippie territory. To compensate, he's got to talk a lot about security and profit and other such manly preoccupations. Real men like Schweitzer dig in the ground for coal. Only sissies want to keep their hands clean.
www.grist.org
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:42 pm
10 Jan 2007
I think this is what the most of the rich and powerful fear more than any consequences of global warming. That is why many who are not deniers push so hard for things like emissions trading and greatly increased nuclear power that are unlikely to minimize climate chaos, but are likely to maintain or increase their own power and profits.
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:43 pm
10 Jan 2007
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Ron Steenblik Posted 3:33 pm
10 Jan 2007
Deeply capitalist countries like New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, for four, would be regarded by many people as faring pretty well in the environmental stakes compared with many other countries. Their economic systems are the same as in the USA; their social welfare systems and government systems (parliamentary) are slightly different. The big differences are in how decisions are taken, the economic and environmental literacy of their citizenry, the vigor of their press, and their (low) thresholds for corruption and incompetence. I'm not suggesting there could not be better economic and social models, but let's get more concrete, please.
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Ron Steenblik Posted 3:52 pm
10 Jan 2007
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mgembol Posted 9:14 pm
10 Jan 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 10:57 pm
10 Jan 2007
Has the NYT become the flagship of mass delusional media? It was always Time magazine, but I think the NYT is surpassing that bastion of conventional "wisdom" (lies).
Fuel farming and "clean" coal and "new safer, waste recycling" nuclear power. Does NRDC support this agenda too now? I wouldn't be surprised.
Condi "mushroom cloud" exxonmob was just on the teevee touting the "surge". What a crew.
These neorats couldn't think their way out of a black (plastic)bag o' cash. Cash borrowed from china in the name of future US taxpayers.
Add the mustache to the list of neorat apologists and theoriticians. He might as well let Kristol write his columns.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 11:13 pm
10 Jan 2007
Monopoly capitalism or corporate feudalism? It started with the Royal British East India Tea company. remember them? They were in the news only a couple of hundred years ago, a blink in time considering the long dark history of tyranny ruling human lives.
Capitalism as practiced by halliburton or the exxonmob is not capitalism at all. It is global corporate feudalism. Multinational corporate socialism?
Real capitalism is fighting for its life against the ruling class of the evil lord cheney of halliburton and bonnie prince duuhbya. Small business and family farms, the growth engine of competitive capitalism bled dry by corporatist governance and multinational monopolies.
Denied capital and technological advances that would move US beyond these oil wars and global climate disaster. Stuck in the same old oily corrupt mess of lobbyist lead bribery and propaganda.
The mess we tried to climb above with the american revolution and then with the fight against corporate feudalism waged by Teddy Roosevelt. No one in power has even tried to fight our way out of it since.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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DBLJ Posted 12:24 am
11 Jan 2007
Coal is also a joke, thank you David Roberts for your article over @ Tom Paine and highlighting the fact: Even if "clean coal" technology were implemented via sequestration, gasification, etc. The basic tenet of MINING coal is very destructive. The thing I find so frustrating (from the agricultural point of view) is that coal is nothing more than biomass from thousands of years ago. So why not use dedicated energy crops to provide the biomass from our marginal agricultural lands to provide the same things, i.e. combined heat and power, liqued fuels, chemicals, etc?
Even the argument I have heard from some that coal is plentiful and cheap seams misguided. Were coal to liqued technology be implemented on a large scale what would keep ligued fuels from coal cheaper than liqued fuels from a barrel of oil. I suspect the price of coal across the board would be pegged to a barrel of oil in some way. But then again perhaps I am gettign off track a little, I mean coal is still a FOSSIL FUEL.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:00 am
11 Jan 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 2:10 am
11 Jan 2007
100s of years of relatively clean, high efficiency (in a fuel cell), and sequestration friendly (in algae solar collectors that produce biofuel) backup fuel. And compatible with fuel cells that use biogas from sewage,landfills, and manure and farm waste.
This can work for tar sands and oil as well, no matter the heaviness of the crude.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Sam Wells Posted 2:50 am
11 Jan 2007
I won't address "capitalism" but what seems bizarre to me are concentrated efforts to (1) build more coal fired electric utility plants and (2) invest heavily in imported LNG. By comparison, the discussion of bio-mass ethanol for gasoline and diesel motor fuel is a mere pimple on a mountain.
A more diversified energy policy would explore all kinds of energy sources, while maximizing power output and minimizing environmental impacts. I am not sure about the tour of a Powder River coal mine that Tom Friedman took but I've been out there ... and it is a true environmental disaster.
Maybe it snowed bad that day so everything looked clean & white. /Sammie
Onward through the fog
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Gar Lipow Posted 3:17 am
11 Jan 2007
Except as you point out it goes back a lot further than that. "Real Capitalism" in the sense you talk about, capitalism without large state power cannot exist. You need an extensive state to provide the minimal conditions for capitalism to exist. That means that for your small business to thrive, you need not a smaller state but a large one that is not under the control of large corporations, but acts as countervailing power to them. As you point out this does not mean an end to capitalism, simply some constraints on the bigger players, to forbid their trampling the smaller ones. And of course it means a state that is kinder to the smaller players as well. As I said democracy.
So I'm not talking about eliminating capitalism, something not on the agenda. But I am talking about social democracy, where capitalism is constrained, where the rules are not just for the little people. And yes I am going to use the word "capitalism". Capitalism in its present form is a huge part of the problem. If we keep tiptoeing around the word, we can't talk about how to solve it.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:21 am
11 Jan 2007
I think that real capitalism represented now by small business and family farms arose out of the fundamental nature of the transition of humanity from hunting/gathering to herding and farming.
Tyrants then consolidated power by exploiting it. Ever since humanity has lived under the thumb of one dictatorship or another.
Until our very recent, inperfect experiment with representative democracy. It is now failing under the vicious incompetence of corporate power.
The energy we need to survive and thrive has been monopolized by ever more powerful and deadly groups of liars, thieves, and murderers. Disguised as multinational corporations.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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anduin Posted 5:29 am
11 Jan 2007
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David Roberts Posted 5:42 am
11 Jan 2007
I know the Mustache thinks he's doing exactly what you say he's doing, but he really should do a little more research before giving Schweitzer a reacharound.
www.grist.org
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Zarkov Posted 7:48 am
11 Jan 2007
Well I hope your well is full, because IMO water to grow any crops will become a premium (even in the Northern Hemisphere) and you will be lucky to grow food crops.
>> since coal is abundant and cheap, it's going to get used >>
This is the way to the slippery slide into oblivion.
It seems people just do not understand what dire consequences can come from this loose thinking.
This world must implement a regeneratable energy system that does not emit any waste products, now or in the future.
The answer IMO lies in common salt. A sodium metal (or similar) energy production and storage technology would allow even developing countries to be weaned off coal and OIL.
Coal and oil are raw industrial chemicals and should only be used as such for manufacturing products. Burning them is one total waste.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:56 pm
11 Jan 2007
"since coal is abundant and cheap, it's going to get used. Thus, he advocates investing in clean coal"
The only way to use coal and oil fairly cleanly is to convert it to natural gas underground. 100s of years of backup energy supply for renewables can be obtained in this manner. Bacteria do the conversion underground and leave the mess where it already is.
The natural gas comes up the well into the gas pipeline system already in place.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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