Congress is about to confront the challenge of coal, and much of what we hope to do to reduce the threat of global warming hinges on these decisions.
There's a useful test to use whenever the challenges of fossil fuel dependence and global warming come up: We must reduce the threat of global warming without worsening our dependence on foreign oil; and we must reduce the threat of oil dependence without worsening global warming.
When it comes to coal, it's that second part of the equation that brings up some sticky issues.
Coal has been a big part of our energy mix, providing the majority of our electricity since the invention of the electric light. It has been a principal source of energy since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution -- a revolution that provided the basis for our economic prosperity, but also produced exponential pollution growth that was the genesis of the global warming issues we face today.
Now is the time for a new Green Revolution. We must combine the economic reforms of a new industrial revolution based on clean energy development with the moral imperative to protect the planet.
But where does that leave coal? Can our reliance on these carbon-packed nuggets of energy survive while we try to ensure the planet survives as well?
There are two main issues at play here: "coal-to-electricity" and "coal-to-liquids." Capturing carbon pollution from coal and sequestering it deep underground would make it possible to continue to use coal as a major electricity source; turning coal into liquid to replace gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel would, according to the EPA, make global warming worse.
The process of turning coal into liquid transportation fuels is not new. It was first adopted on a large industrial scale by the oil-isolated Nazi Germans in World War II, and later by an embargoed apartheid South Africa.
Without carbon capture and storage, liquid coal fuel contributes more than double the total heat-trapping pollution produced by a simply burning conventional petroleum-based fuels. But even when carbon capture systems are added, it is still worse for the environment than regular gasoline. When scientists tell us we need to be making massive, not minuscule, cuts in global warming emissions, it's clear that liquid coal would carry us in the wrong direction.
Liquid coal is also incredibly expensive and resource-intensive to create, with small returns compared to the amount of energy and the immense number of new industrial plants needed to create it. Even setting aside the environmental impacts of coal mining, the water resources needed for this sort of undertaking would be staggering: 4.6 billion gallons per year of liquid fuels from coal would require between 21 and 60 billion gallons of water per year. To give some perspective, 60 billion gallons could fill 90,850 Olympic sized swimming pools.
This is why China has reportedly backed off of liquid coal fuels. Instead, they are relying on strong fuel economy standards. Certainly our own country would benefit from much stronger fuel economy standards as well, which is why I have proposed bipartisan legislation -- the Markey-Platts bill -- to mandate a fuel economy increase to 35 mpg by 2018, and 4 percent a year after that. This legislation would reduce America's oil dependence by 10 percent. And, unlike liquid coal fuels, that's without having to build a single new industrial plant.
And compared with the potential of cellulosic ethanol, made not just from crops grown by farmers, but also grasses that grow wild on the American plains and garbage that piles high in America's cities, liquid coal just doesn't stack up. Cellulosic ethanol's total heat-trapping emissions can be as low as a quarter of those from conventional gasoline -- even further below those from liquid coal.
The other important emerging coal technology is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a process that will allow the heat-trapping pollution from burning coal for electricity to be captured and stored underground. We should never build a power plant we don't need, and both renewable energy and improved efficiency will continue to allow us to avoid many new expensive, polluting power facilities. But we have a huge stake in solving the CCS problem, because without it we are unlikely to convince China and India that they can grow while still controlling global warming pollution.
In the end, we need to enact real policies to create the market for cleaner fuels instead of dirty ones, and for advanced technology like carbon capture and storage. That means a robust market-based system for capping heat-trapping emissions and giving businesses flexibility to meet those targets -- often referred to as a "cap-and-trade" system -- is needed. But to really push carbon capture and storage, we'll also need new standards to ensure coal-fired plants are using this new technology.
Coal is one of the toughest aspects of any energy and climate legislative packages. If Congress is going to spend scarce tax dollars to burn coal cleanly, let's not waste them on "coal-to-liquids" -- a global warming loser -- when the world is waiting for American ingenuity to demonstrate one of the most critical global warming winners -- carbon capture and storage. Because if we do not solve this challenge, our fight to protect the planet from global warming will be lost before it even started.
Not all green jobs are created equal
Mountaintop removal defenders disrupt July 4th music festival in West Virginia
Comments View as Flat
Elliotte Posted 11:26 pm
20 Jun 2007
Coal's Other Problems
But aren't you neglecting to consider the environmental damage caused by coal mining? The Appalachians are being raped by mountaintop removal coal mining. It seems like we as a nation can do better than to continue to rely on a dirty and damaging source of electricity.
Permalink
sunflower Posted 11:39 pm
20 Jun 2007
Break the cycle
I know you are too busy to research the state-of-the-art so to be brief:
Coal is used as an industrial process heat input, like cooking and distilling ethanol. That must stop.
Tax carbon (damn the swift boat torpedoes)
Cap and auction, not cap and trade.
N. American innovation created the need for coal 100 years ago (Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla) and was industrialized by JP Morgan. Those industries now control our N. American government and they vigorously resist industrial change. You are a part of that government.
I filed a patent application for a solar heliostat last night. I am a part of American innovation. There are thousands of American innovators that represent industrial change.
Supporting the sequesture of coal carbon emissions is like flogging a dead dinosaur. Tax carbon, support visionary American innovators, and go far beyond the coal of old industrial fossils.
Permalink
Jon Rynn Posted 11:47 pm
20 Jun 2007
There may be less coal than we thought...
...according to the National Academy of Sciences, as reported in an article in the N.Y. Times today entitled "Science Panel Finds Fault With Estimates of Coal Supply":
But consumption of electricity continues to go up, so it is quite possible that coal use could go up, meaning that at current rates of growth we would have much less than 100 years left, and therefore the peak of coal in the U.S. could be a few decades away. And this is before using coal to make liquids.
So coal may no longer be the path to long-term energy independence -- only free sources of energy, such as wind/solar/geothermal, tied together with an updated electric grid, would lead to energy independence.
Permalink
Nucbuddy Posted 1:19 am
21 Jun 2007
Energy-independence and uranium
Jon Rynn wrote: only [...] wind/solar/geothermal [...] would lead to energy independence.
How did you dispose of uranium as an energy-independence-option?
nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistribution
Permalink
Erik Hoffner Posted 1:52 am
21 Jun 2007
coal ash and cancer
We ought to consider the other impacts of coal, too, when looking at how/if to use coal. Besides air pollution and climate impacts, plus mining and mountaintop removal, there's the enormous problem of what to do with what's left over after coal's combustion.
Coal ash is the US' second largest industrial waste stream (129 million tons/yr). EPA's failure to limit pollution from coal ash has poisoned surface and groundwater supplies in at least 23 states. It's contaminated with mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, chromium and selenium. There are currently about 600 existing coal ash landfills and surface impoundments in the U.S. This number will only grow with more coal combustion.
The risk of getting cancer from coal ash lagoons is 10,000 times greater than government safety standards allow, according to an Environmental Protection Agency draft report released March 6, 2007.
http://lowbagger.org/hiddencostofcoal.html
The Orion Grassroots Network: 1000+ grassroots groups working for conservation & more
Permalink
Charles Barton Posted 1:52 am
21 Jun 2007
Coal as a source of Uranium
The annual fly ash output from the average coal fired steam plant, reportedly contains enough U235 to produce 3 atomic bombs. And the worry about nuclear proliferation from reactors. The earth's crust contains 4 times as much Thorium as Uranium, and Thorium makes an excellent raw material for breeding fissionable U233.
Charles Barton
Permalink
eutopianow Posted 2:15 am
21 Jun 2007
Coal's Future
Please have a look at the New Coal Techonologies section at www.eutopianow.org for some interesting ideas plus the MIT study on Coal to Liquid. Washington is going to have a hard time figuring this all out in two weeks.
Permalink
Sean Casten Posted 3:21 am
21 Jun 2007
Don't forget efficiency
I agree with the sentiment, but let's add a few more wrinkles to the coal issue. CTL simply isn't viable. If history shows nothing else, it's that the only time you can get enough political support for the kind of subsidies necessary to fund a massively expensive, massively inefficient CTL process is if you are subject to global embargoes on other choices. Germany did it in WWII, South Africa more recently... but I have a hard time seeing the US getting to that point. I'm actually of the opinion that we ought to give the coal industry CTL for precisely this reason - gamble that we give them a card they're highly unlikely to play, in exchange for their political support for carbon control down the road. It's a gamble, but the odds are in the good guys' favor.
But this is not to suggest that coal isn't a part of the equation. We have lots of it, and we have a huge potential to use it more responsibly. The vast majority of current coal use is in 33% efficient power plants - and this efficiency is rapidly falling due to CAIR and CAMR compliance (farther still if we start sequestering carbon in IGCCs). Inefficient coal use not only means excessive carbon release, but also excessive costs from mining.
But it can be used more efficiently. As I've pointed out elsewhere, the power industry today is only half as efficient as it was in 1910. Go back to 1910 efficiency levels, and you approximately cut coal use in half. Presto, GHG emissions go down, energy costs go down. (OK, not precisely presto, because it would take massive regulatory reform, but the cost certainly seems worth the gain).
On another tack, coal gasification could actually be a rather good idea. Gasify it, upgrade it to pipeline quality and blend it with gas. Not quite as good on the carbon front as natural gas of course once efficiencies are taken into account, but this would enable vastly more efficient uses of the energy locked in coal for local heating needs and for locally-sited combined heat and power plants. Local coal is obviously problematic from a NIMBY perspective, but most of these issues go away once you get it into a pipeline.
Neither of these goes to zero carbon of course, but would lead to significant carbon reduction at a much lower $/ton cost than CCS, and without the economic inanity of CTL.
Permalink
sunflower Posted 3:56 am
21 Jun 2007
Clean coal only looks good from a distance
We can only double the efficiency of power production by using more hydro, solar, wind, and geothermal. Wouldn't that be nice? We can only cut 80% carbon emissions by not burning coal.
Sequesture of carbon emissions is not a proven technology, and would be both expensive and dangerous. Solar thermal cogeneration is inexpensive, safe, and scalable everywhere. It works in my backyard (Seattle) producing heat and power. Carbon-free energy is simple and easy to do.
Do not protect the future of coal interests. Protect the future of civilization, the future of humanity.
If Congress does not take global warming seriously then the people will not like Congress. We need hope -- now.
Tax carbon.
Permalink
Nucbuddy Posted 4:08 am
21 Jun 2007
Saving fuel, vs. saving things that matter
Sean Casten wrote: As I've pointed out elsewhere, the power industry today is only half as efficient as it was in 1910. Go back to 1910 efficiency levels, and you approximately cut coal use in half.
You wrote that here, where you discussed combined heat and power.
- That scheme is only efficient in terms of thermal-potential of the fuel. As the world ramps up to 10-trillion-fold its current energy-use rate, HVAC will become decreasingly relevant in terms of power demand. However, electricity -- because of its versatility -- will be king.
- Fuel is cheap. Human resources are expensive. Schemes to save fuel at the expense of human-resources are economically nonsensical.
- Fuel resources become worthless as new resources are created by the application of human-resources and the liberal burning of cheap fuel. The most notable example of a newly-created resource is uranium: worthless a century ago, now the 40-trillion-tons of it in the earth's crust can power the world for five centuries into a continuous 10-trillion-fold-per-millennium (a mere 3.04% per year) scaling of world power-consumption.
nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/UraniuamDistributionThis 40-trillion-tons of uranium might allow us to develop hydrogen (via fusion) as an energy resource, but only if we burn it rapidly enough.
Permalink
Sean Casten Posted 4:35 am
21 Jun 2007
Not sure I understand your point, but will try...
Are you suggesting that all paths point to nuclear? History may prove you right, but I think it's dangerous for any of us to purport to know the right path forward. What I do know is that efficiency has to be a part of the way forward, and is in ever competitive business. Nuclear is clearly a part of that path, and actually has an interesting story to tell: one of the things that happened when we started deregulating wholesale power markets is that the capacity factor on nukes crept up, as generators suddenly had to care about dispatching low-cost generators first. Markets work. I also do not disagree that nuke ought to be part of the solution. I don't think anyone can convincingly say that we have a storage solution to the waste guaranteed not to cause a problem 10,000 years from now, but the time constant on climate change is more urgent, so I figure we ought to focus on 100 year problem first, then worry about the 10,000 year one. Pick our battles.
That said, if I understand your points, I think you overstate the ability of nukes to solve all our energy problems. Taking each of your points separately:
"That scheme is only efficient in terms of thermal-potential of the fuel."
Is there another potential that matters? Electricity is a very high value form of energy, for basic thermodynamic reasons. We would be fools to use electric power to make heat, for the simple reason that heat is less valuable. Moreover, there is no getting around the fact that as a society, we are always going to be dependent on carbon. Certainly for food, but also for lots of chemicals - and this is a big chunk of our energy consumption. Extracting the maximum value of our input fuels requires that we maximize our useful extraction of the thermal energy in fuel. Our current model of throwing heat away in cooling towers (regardless of the input fuel) is uneconomic, bad for the environment and flat out foolish. But this is not an anti-nuke point (indeed, every nuclear sub is a cogen plant, and there's no technical reason why we couldn't think about a world with smaller, more distributed and more efficient nuclear plants that approach the efficiency we already know how to hit in a much more physically demanding in-ship environment) - simply a point that we ought not throw away energy only so that someone else can burn more fuel to recreate that same waste.
"Fuel is cheap. Human resources are expensive. Schemes to save fuel at the expense of human-resources are economically nonsensical."
Not sure your point, but I hope it is not to suggest that governments are the best arbiters of economic efficiency. When markets deploy capital, they take all costs into consideration - and when that happens, they universally chase energy efficiency. The reason we don't is not because someone figured that this was a good use of human capital (indeed, it's not at all clear to me that the job-creation inherent in a retooling of our power grid is a bad thing). Rather, it's because we haven't exposed the power sector to competitive markets. Indeed, if you look at the way we regulated power (a half dozen smart commissioners sit in a room, figure out what makes the most sense and then make massive allocations of public capital) sounds an awful lot closer to Marxism than capitalism. It shouldn't surprise us that we make power at the efficiency of a Russian bread line! But again, this is not a fuel-specific problem.
Your last point would seem to argue that we should assume fuel is free. When that happens, I will concede that there is no economic reason to pursue efficiency. Until then, my preference for fat wallets is going to keep me focused on using as little of it as possible.
Permalink
Colin Wright Posted 4:38 am
21 Jun 2007
Is car-culture sustainable?
I'm no expert, but I think we need to be prepared for the possibility than carbon-capture technology may not pan out. (Can we find enough sites located close to population centers with sinks to store safely vast amounts of CO2?)
And as James Hansen reminds us, we must phase out unsequestered coal plants by mid-century. CTL is a nightmare, we are all agreed.
Thus, as we peak in oil, gas and coal, we need to simulataneously find new clean energy sources and change the emphasis to conservation, which entails changes to lifestyle.
Thus the current energy bill does not even come close to addressing the kinds of infrastructure changes and renewable energy investment that will be needed to avoid disaster in this country.
Permalink
Nucbuddy Posted 4:59 am
21 Jun 2007
Bailing a slowly-leaking boat is differently-hard
Colin Wright wrote: Can we find enough sites located close to population centers with sinks to store safely vast amounts of CO2?
Why would one capture carbon near a population-center, and why would one store it as CO2?
Permalink
JMG Posted 5:06 am
21 Jun 2007
Hunh? Which submarine is that?
Sean wrote "But this is not an anti-nuke point (indeed, every nuclear sub is a cogen plant, and there's no technical reason why we couldn't think about a world with smaller, more distributed and more efficient nuclear plants that approach the efficiency we already know how to hit in a much more physically demanding in-ship environment) - simply a point that we ought not throw away energy only so that someone else can burn more fuel to recreate that same waste."
There are no nuke sub designs of which I am aware that make any use at all of the heat being rejected by the propulsion turbines and ship's service turbo-generators. All designs that I am aware of continue to use once-through condensers, where main seawater is sent through in a single-pass and leaves, taking the heat with it and not doing any preheating or other useful work.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 5:24 am
21 Jun 2007
fact of life
What Congressman Markey seems to be telling us, if we read between the lines, is that coal is a fact of life, rather like death and taxes; there is simply no way that the energy future of the US can avoid using coal, so at least let us hope that a practical method of carbon capture and storage will be invented, sooner rather than later.
Whether he is right or not, of course I cannot say. Nor is it clear what specifically political calculations lie behind this message.
Another presumably political tactic, a rather cute one, is how he gives coal-to-liquid a bad recommendation by telling us about its history: it was earlier used by the Nazis and by the apartheid government of South Africa! Talk about guilt by association!
Chickens are our cousins! So are other sensitive animals! Enough is enough! No more factory farms!
Permalink
GRLCowan Posted 6:30 am
21 Jun 2007
They fly through cold water ...
Without several distributed heaters, or maybe forced circulation of heated air, that chill would leak through the hull and make for uncomfortable sailing. Do they use electric heaters?
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
Permalink
JMG Posted 6:46 am
21 Jun 2007
Yes
Submarine design calls for maintenance of positive control of ship's climate. Except in the coldest of waters the problem is that the heat losses to the ambient space that reduce thermodynamic efficiency of the power plant also require that people and equipment in the non-engineering spaces be provided with constant mechanical cooling, a compounding loss of efficiency.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
Permalink
Charles Barton Posted 10:31 am
21 Jun 2007
Are you suggesting that all paths point to nuclear
All paths suggest that if we do not accept the use of nuclear power as a significant part of our solution, we will be very very foolish. Unfortunately there are people on Grist who are advocating this profoundly foolish course. They imagine that they are fighting a largely imaginary evil in the name of environmental purity. We all hope they will find their way to sanity, and learn to hug reactors.
Charles Barton
Permalink
GRLCowan Posted 2:25 pm
21 Jun 2007
Um ...
with existing shielding materials, that will need to be a group hug. So as to get more zaps from the other huggers than from ... please pardon my literal-mindedness.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html --
oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
Permalink
dobermanmacleod Posted 8:04 pm
21 Jun 2007
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) decades away
China, India, and the US are blessed with massive coal reserves. The US generates about 50% of her electricity from coal. China is going on a coal-fired power plant building spree, increasing capacity by about 2 a week. China generates about 2/3rds of her electricity from coal. India is planning to build at least 7 mega coal-fired plants.
Why not? Coal is about 1/6th as expensive than oil or natural gas, and can be mined domestically, saving valuable foreign currency reserves while funding domestic economic activity.
Yet, there is no way the world will substancially cut CO2 emissions without a ban on building polluting coal-fired power plants. The technology to build non-polluting carbon capture and storage (CCS) coal-fired plants is decades away from widespread deployment, and will be very expensive to both build and operate.
Since the Chinese hesitate to even operate scrubbers to clean non-CO2 pollution from their coal emissions (even though the Japanese offered to pay to retrofit the scrubbers for free so China's pollution doesn't drift over to pollute Japan), it is a good bet that the Chinese won't pay the extra money to build and operate CCS technology.
Besides, the massive number of already and soon to be built non-CCS coal-fired plants can't be retrofited with CCS technology-and their lifetime is about half a century. Certainly, China isn't going to dismantle those plants before they wear out.
This is a planetary emergency. Since it is very likely that massive amounts of greenhouse gas are going to be dumped into the air by developing nation's coal-fired plants, and CCS technology is decades away, and will be very expensive when it is available, we need to remove the CO2 from the air after it has been emitted.
I suggest the low cost and technically feasible method of biosequestration. Improve nature's ability to extract the CO2 from the air using genetic engineering-perhaps seed a GMO into the oceans.
"We conclude that a feasible strategy for planetary rescue almost surely requires a means of extracting [greenhouse gases] from the air."
-from a recent paper published by Jim Hansen of NASA
Permalink
Charles Barton Posted 9:26 pm
21 Jun 2007
CCS and Coal
Carbon capture and storage is pure and unmittigated crap. Coal should be banned.
Charles Barton
Permalink
GRLCowan Posted 11:58 pm
21 Jun 2007
Nature's ability to use inorganic chemistry
This is open to doubt ...
Radically changing the ocean ecology? The whole ocean, since a GMO can propagate, and to do useful amounts of CO2 capture work -- a large fraction of a teratonne -- it would have to. This proposal appears be chosen for its unacceptability. No solution = no problem.
Nature's way of pulling CO2 out of air and keeping it out is capturing it as a stable carbonate. Ways of hurrying this up have already been demonstrated, the often-mentioned work of Lackner and others, and are vastly more effective than "biosequestration", whose impermanence means a fairer name would be biofumbling.
This is true in terms of required land area; thus the quote of me above pointing out that a biofuel farm that could support a million CO2-emitting cars could be converted to an inorganic CO2 capture area that could support all the CO2-emitting cars the far East could conceivably ever want. More at http://www.physorg.com/news96732819.html
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
Permalink
WWAGD?! Posted 1:25 am
22 Jun 2007
Congressman Malarky
This shill took a long time to say he supports coal.
John Bailo
You Read It Here First
Permalink
Maia Posted 4:25 am
24 Jun 2007
wise words
wise words. The truth is (as much as I hate to admit it), we aren't ready to exist without coal. All we can do is use it in the least harmful manner possible. This is intelligent policy. Are you listening Obama?
Permalink
Maia Posted 4:33 am
24 Jun 2007
lulling...
The one thing that irks me about CCS is that people will read about it in the papers and say to themselves...
"ahhh...I knew it. Human ingenuity was bound to save us."
Then they'll put climate change in the "problems solved" folder, and go on without a care in the world.
Anyways, to those of you who are criticizing Markey, wake up! To say "coal should be banned!" is not realistic. Until there is a major breakthrough in solar or wind, we're stuck with at least some use of coal.
What gets my goat is that we're still subsidizing it. Those subsidies need to go towards wind and solar.
Permalink
bart laemmel Posted 9:58 am
24 Jun 2007
concerve
could we talk about serious concervation over how we are going to get the next batch of power. The government could give tax credits to people who get home energy assesments. Grass roots bitch.
Never play leap frog with a unicorn.
Permalink
SustainableGreen Posted 11:41 am
24 Jun 2007
Corporate Kool-Aid Available
Hey, all:
Hey, Maia: With respect, I must say that despite your reference to people filing away the problem as solved, you seem to have a very blase attitude about the problem. If you read Markey's words you find an awful lot of weasel words/phrases such as "would", "emerging", "potential", "would make it possible", etc. Entire paragraphs, e.g., "Liquid coal is also incredibly expensive...." are effectively weasel words.
I have said this before in response to comments like yours about wind and solar, but here I go again. If we waited for 'breakthroughs' regarding other previous technologies, we would still be using exclusively steam and kerosene. Wind and solar is available on every scale RIGHT NOW. In their best form they are found distributed on roofs across the country and world. Conservation and efficiency have been proven widely to be very effective in reducing demand.
If you accept the judgment that we have to wait, you have bought into a corporate fossil fuel lie. Sorry for the bluntness, but some perceptions cry out for correction.
David
Sustainability For Life
Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!
Permalink
dotcommodity Posted 12:23 pm
24 Jun 2007
Thanks for stopping by
..and consider diarying at dailykos for more input.
Having listened since the new congress took over to about 40 hearings on climate and energy and environment, I really want to thank all of you for pushing so hard against the remnants of the DoNothing congress to change the status quo, and I am impressed with how much effort and persistence you all put into crafting really good climate legislation.
The Senate Energy bill also defeated two nasty coal to liquids amendments, and hope you in the House can keep them out of the final Energy bill.
Please raise the Hybrids Not Hummers subsidy (HR 1331)from $3000 to $7,500 (like the Senate version) for PLUG-IN HYBRIDS when you co ordinate with the Senate Energy bill.
Everyone, call your Rep. to get this bill passed: it means getting 100 MPG by 2015!
It is an excellent way to incentivise the autocompanies to get going on this, same as the Japanese government started hybrids by subsidising early adopters.
Our SolveSomething Congress - 100+ MPG
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/24/143611/302
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 12:36 pm
24 Jun 2007
CCS just isn't real
That would be dangerous.
Who's to say it won't screw over the ocean chemistry and cause it to go too far one way or the other.
If it really were so effective, how do you tell it to stop before we head into an iceage?
Cross your fingers and pray?
Likely that would be something comprable to unmining coal. For instance grow a lot of biomass, heat it with zero oxygen into a charcoal, bury it.
Permalink
Nucbuddy Posted 3:04 pm
24 Jun 2007
Carbon-capture and storage as oil
GreyFlcn wrote: Likely that would be something comprable to unmining coal. For instance grow a lot of biomass, heat it with zero oxygen into a charcoal, bury it.
Or capture carbon with lime, mix it with hydrogen and bury it in -- or pump it into -- the ground.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 4:30 pm
24 Jun 2007
Well yeah but
Well yeah, but thats a CCS tech.
Or basically a
"Don't add more into the air"
Hansen however wants a
"Pull what we already got in the air, down"
Permalink
Nucbuddy Posted 5:57 pm
24 Jun 2007
China gives away free gasoline -- in the air
No, I meant (and as GRL Cowan and I gave explained many times on Gristmill) "take it out of the air." Carbon emissions are not discouraged in this scheme. In fact, they are encouraged. For example, if China wants to emit the US benefits since there is more carbon-resource in the air which the US can easily pull out and use to make gasoline, diesel and jet-fuel.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 6:15 pm
24 Jun 2007
Heh
And by easily, you must mean "not easily"?
If it were "easy" we'd just forget nukes, and renewables all together and just go on spewing on our merry way.
Obviously thats not the case.
Permalink
Nucbuddy Posted 6:45 pm
24 Jun 2007
If not from nuclear, wherefrom societal power?
Why would society neglect nukes in the near term, when they are competitive against coal and natural-gas?
If society were to neglect nukes in the long term, where would it get its power from? Fossil fuels will run out, and solar power is limited at the surface of the earth to 89,000 terawatts (wind is only 370 terawatts):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption#By_country
Permalink
MillerOfReality Posted 3:51 am
25 Jun 2007
Hello...? Anyone thinking outside the Hummer?
"The truth is (as much as I hate to admit it), we aren't ready to exist without coal. All we can do is use it in the least harmful manner possible. This is intelligent policy." -- from another comment here.
This seems to sum up the general direction of the 34 previous comments. And that's too bad because there are, oh, about 350 million ways around our poor, unsustainable coal and fossil fuel consumption (sorry, I'm no Census whiz, but this number's supposed to be the # of folks in the US now).
First, admittedly, there's gonna have to be a weaning process. First comes the Prius, then comes the shoe leather express. And that's where ya have ta go.
This is NOT a 'go live in a mud hut and eat grub worms' pronouncement, it's a sensible comment on the idea that people are somehow thinking we gotta find a way to use this coal effectively because there's no alternative.
Oh, but there is. No one's thinking 'outside the Hummer' cuz we've been FORCED to stay inside it.
That's right -- we all think it's our Manifest Destiny to live in a 7000 sq ft palace at the end of a cul de sac and drive our cars to the grocery store to pick up bananas that have been shipped from South America. (unfortunately, and realistically, this is a description of my sister)
This is the way America's been built since WW2 thanks to the big industries who promote this lifestyle.
Al Gore said in the latest Rolling Stone mag (June 28, 2007): "Changing the pattern that causes people to sit in traffic jams for an hour and a half every day is not a sacrifice, it's an enhancement. Changing the assumption that it's perfectly natural to take 4,000 pounds of metal with us everywhere we go doesn't have to be a sacrifice."
So, if you take a quick look around, you'll see that we're the #1 user of said fossil fuels because of this. Do Europeans have any LESS of a quality of life than us? NO. Do they consume a fraction of the energy? YES.
Why? Their cities and towns are more efficient. They obviously don't suffer for fine bread, cheese, and wine... but they simple walk out their front door to the corner to get it -- not drive 27 miles to Wal-Mart!
So to make the discussion of how to make coal "safe" and "friendly" utterly moot, think about:
- re-planning cities and towns (the way they were before the suburban movement).
- moving closer into a city (if you have a 45 minute commute)
- talking to your governments about better, more, and more efficient public transportation
- buying your organics locally at a farmer's market (and riding your bike there)
- and doing all the energy-efficient things you can do (switch to a renewable provider, watch your water use, etc).
If we're sensible, smart, and could actually knock some sense into any of these politicians, it wouldn't be that hard to write coal completely out of the script.Oh, so what about all these fine people who actually make money mining coal (not the white shirts, but the miners and families, etc) -- how about training them to help rebuild our rail systems and to install solar panels and to work on watersheds? That should keep them busy for a while. And no, this is no knock, I'm from Pittsburgh, PA, home of coal and Steelers.
Permalink
Nucbuddy Posted 11:58 am
25 Jun 2007
Lackneresque lime-sequestration costs 14%
GreyFlcn wrote: And by easily, you must mean "not easily"?
GRLCowan kindly looked into the energy costs for us:
gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/6/24/124827/409/#comment14
They amount to 14%.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 1:16 pm
25 Jun 2007
Wasn't terrible clear
Thats 14% to do the sequestration process.
That does not count the process needed to seperate the CO2 from all the other gases.
Or the energy cost to ship it.
The energy cost to "unmine it"
Or give a particularly good place to put it.
Hell, it probably assumes you start with refined silicate onhand too.
Pile all those up, and subtract them all from the effeciency of the plant. And then how much do you have left?
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 1:21 pm
25 Jun 2007
Hrmm
Meh read through the realclimate comment before the grist comment.
Either way when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Pardon me if I'm still skeptical of the process.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 1:34 pm
25 Jun 2007
For instance
What do you bet there are other things in the air that would react to silicate?
For instance lets say you got an average 1/4th correct matches with CO2.
That'd mean you'd need 56% of the plant's electric capacity.
Permalink
ethanol Posted 5:07 pm
05 Jul 2007
Ethanol fuel
I would like to invite all audience to visit a newly lounched site dedicated to biofuels, ethanol and climate issues. Potential writers are wellcome to write to editors@ethanol-news.de
www.ethanol-news.de
Permalink