Greensboring.com | Greensboro, NC

Re: Clean Coal

2011-11-06T18:32:10+00:00

Liv wrote:
This seems to be the nail in the coffin to me:

“CCS cannot deliver in time to avoid dangerous climate change. The earliest possibility for deployment of CCS at utility scale is not expected before 2030. TO avoid the worst impacts of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions have to start falling after 2015, just seven years away.

http://www.dasolar.com/alternative-energy/clean-coal

There's the rub. With science denying being a political/religious point of doctrine on the right, no action will be taken by the right wing. China is outproducing the US in CO2. And the world population is 7 billion, 3x it was when I was born. Contraception is a moral necessity and yet the Christian Right and the Catholic Church are actively campaigning to eliminate birth control and refusing to fund any programs that promote it.

We're screwed. Global warming is happening and we won't do anything about it until it's far too late - we needed to have started a decade ago. Get used to warmer weather and don't buy real estate in Holland, Texas or Louisiana

Statistics: Posted by A Person — Sun Nov 06, 2011 6:32 pm

Re: Clean Coal

2011-11-06T18:23:13+00:00

That is referring to a practice called 'mountain topping' in the Appalachians. The coal seams are largely horizontal and extraction involves removing the mountain top down to the coal seam (600 feet) and filling the nearby valleys. This fills the headwaters of many streams with acid and iron producing rock

I agree, it's very destructive of the local habitat and permanently alters the geography. There are little or no attempts at reclamation

The 'more explosives than Hiroshima' is a bit misleading. Every week the combined total of all mine blasts in the Appalachians is about equal to the first Hiroshima bomb. No individual blast comes close. The difference between an hour long firework show - or setting them all off at once

Most coal mining in the world is less destructive and is a more temporary use of the landscape. You can see from this Satellite view that this Saskatchewan coal mine (in operation for over 30 years) the reclamation is following close behind the active mining area (the green areas to the left/west). Much of the land is only out of farming production for 5 years or so

PoplarRiverMine.jpg

Sufficient bonds have to be posted so that if the company goes bust the government can pay for outstanding reclamation.

Statistics: Posted by A Person — Sun Nov 06, 2011 6:23 pm

Re: Clean Coal

2011-11-06T18:18:44+00:00

Oh wait...

According to this video, all the coal on earth was created by Noah's flood.

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Sun Nov 06, 2011 6:18 pm

Re: Clean Coal

2011-11-06T17:57:53+00:00

This seems to be the nail in the coffin to me:

“CCS cannot deliver in time to avoid dangerous climate change. The earliest possibility for deployment of CCS at utility scale is not expected before 2030. TO avoid the worst impacts of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions have to start falling after 2015, just seven years away.

http://www.dasolar.com/alternative-energy/clean-coal

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Sun Nov 06, 2011 5:57 pm

Re: Clean Coal

2011-11-06T17:39:09+00:00

There was an article in the local paper this last week how entire mountains are dissappearing in the Appalachian mountains due to coal.

script

According to this video, a 1 million dollar charge bigger than Hiroshima was set off to harness the coal from property neighboring this guy's land.

I find this video even more intriguing as Wells Fargo, which was unheard of in NC prior to the bank catastrophe, is now everywhere here, and almost every street has a re-branded Wells Fargo bank on the corner.

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Sun Nov 06, 2011 5:39 pm

Re: Clean Coal

2011-10-23T19:19:13+00:00

Well the issue has been in their minds since the mid 90's. Like many, the initial reaction was disbelief and skepticism, then grudging acceptance and recognotion that the industry has to do somethnig or there will be no industry

Many companies do want to do things for altruistic 'good corporate citizen' reasons, but if one company cannot afford to if their competition gets a free ride. Take mine reclamation for example. It costs an enormous amount of money, companies may want to do a full environmental reclamation - but if that makes their product 20% more expensive than their competitors they will go out of business if they go it alone. If the regulations are absent, weak or not universal then no company will do it.

The companies I've worked with seem to be well aware that regulations are needed because if they leave a mess, public opinion will prevent them from being granted permits for the next mine.

Statistics: Posted by A Person — Sun Oct 23, 2011 7:19 pm

Re: Clean Coal

2011-10-23T13:44:09+00:00

Out of curiosity, and if you can....

What's the atmosphere (or was) within the industry?

Was it, one in which they were going to try to make these changes out of fear of being shut down? (Loss of profit and investment- (government emissions regulations).

or

Was it, we're going to do our best to make the world a better place?

or

Was it, we need to fit into the new "green culture"?

or was it something else?

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Sun Oct 23, 2011 1:44 pm

Re: Clean Coal

2011-10-23T05:06:50+00:00

There is a huge amount of coal in the world, especially when compared to oil and gas. We've just taken the easy stuff. The benefit is that there is nothing to replace it with yet. Nuclear is the only other source that comes close. We have the infrastructure already

The US has around 240 billion tonnes of recoverable coal and uses less than 1 billion per year. 240 years supply. That's a fairly compelling argument. If we haven't learned how to get another energy source by then we deserve to freeze in the dark

Statistics: Posted by A Person — Sun Oct 23, 2011 5:06 am

Re: Clean Coal

2011-10-23T01:24:28+00:00

Why should we even consider it though (other than being a stockholder in a coal company) when we are basically just trying to adapt a fuel source which will eventually run out? (At least according to Google:250 years.) With booming populations that are expected, it would seem clean coal's only benefit would be short-term profits, a bandage upon the world's energy problems.

Even if we make coal emission friendly, there's been a lot of mishaps with workers, and the extraction process seems to be one the more dangerous fuels sources out there. (Not to mention, isn't there an abandoned town somewhere that's been on fire for like 40 years now?)

According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the burning of coal, a fossil fuel, is a significant contributor to global warming. (See the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report). As 25.5% of the world's electrical generation in 2004 was from coal-fired generation (see World energy resources and consumption), reaching the carbon dioxide reduction targets of the Kyoto Protocol will require modifications to how coal is utilized.[12] -Wiki

Found the above interesting. Of course, since clean coal, technically doesn't exist, the label only serves to benefit the coal industry with it's current image. Would they not have been better off calling it "Magic Coal"? Seems like the idea of "clean coal"
is selling "dirty coal"????

Coal-fired power plants are the largest aggregate source of mercury: 50 tons per year come from coal power plants out of 150 tons emitted nationally in the USA and 5000 tons globally.[17] In the USA, neither the combustion products of oil,[18] nor their associated solid or liquid waste streams,[19] are considered to be major contributors to mercury pollution. -wiki

I guess I'm having a hard time seeing any advantage of this technology for anyone other than an investor. I mean if we suddenly stumbled upon the answer, it was cheap to employ, and happened now.... sure a 200 year band-aid would be nice, but the risks still seem to outweigh any gain, and likelihood of success seems unlikely from what I'm reading.

Statistics: Posted by Liv — Sun Oct 23, 2011 1:24 am

Re: Clean Coal

2011-10-23T00:39:35+00:00

Well this is something I know about. People have been working on 'clean coal' for a long time - unfortunately the goal posts have moved.

Originally clean coal meant burning it while capturing the sulphur and fly ash - and burning it much more efficiently using fluidized beds and combined cycled energy capture - with maybe some cogeneration on the side.

Burning it more efficiently is a good thing - less CO2 is released per Joule of energy generated, but coal is still mostly carbon and the energy comes from oxidizing (burning) carbon to carbon dioxide C + O2 -> CO2 + ENERGY. So even with 100% efficiency the main product is CO2

So the focus now is on capturing and sequestering the CO2. One advantage is that, unlike petroleum, coal is mostly burned in a relatively small number of concentrated locations (power stations) rather than distributed amongst millions of mobile vehicles.

The problem is really how to sequester it in such a way that it stays sequestered for a few hundred years. But it isn't insoluble - the problem that is - CO2 is very soluble and under pressure and low temperatures stays in solution - think beer cans.

There's a huge incentive for coal companies, power companies and governments around the world to make this work. The US response has been to fund Global Warming Deniers but other governments are taking it seriously,

Here there are some first attempts to use it for greenhouses, oil/gas well stimulation and underground water sequestering. Early days, but people are taking it seriously

Statistics: Posted by A Person — Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:39 am