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.

Except 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.

Good find on the fuel cell
Didn't know this was commercialized yet.

To hell with it :P

Even if they put in coal burning fuel cells now
They can always just switch the fuel used later on.

I 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.

>> 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.

>> 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

No 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.

It'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?

pretty 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.