We're cool... I appreciate that you can have the discussion without it being personal. Not many people these days can. Progress is a good thing. We all aren't still burning whale oil for lighting. We don't put lead in the gasoline, we don't play with mercury anymore, we don't put asbestos in siding and insulation.... Coal is yesterday. Clean coal will never happen... It's like your argument about using the compost for heating... It's just not worth the cost and hassle.
This is where you and I disagree. When I did a tour of Black Thunder Mine in Wyoming; the largest Coal Mine in North America; at the time of my visit in 2000, I asked the guy giving the tour how long coal would last at the rate they were mining it (over 100,000 tons per day). He said the seam of coal extended up out of Wyoming, across Montana and into Canada. At that rate of production, it would last 400-500 years!! There is no way, that much energy resource is going to go unused over the course of 500 years. There is just too much potential energy at 31 million btu's per ton.
I have a hard time with the term "Never" because I do not think people can predict the future. Rudolf Diesel is a prime example. He was tasked with the job of building an engine that ran on coal dust, and ultimately invented the Diesel Engine that today bears his name. Too bad he could not see how successful his engine design was, for he committed suicide feeling he was an utter failure. Brilliant man, but limited thinking. The aspect of unintentional consequences can both be bad and good as attested by Alexander Fleming, as it was through him, an open window, and the making of mold that led to penicillin saving millions of lives! Even then, few people had faith in that man that he was onto something, yet if they had, a decade of saved lives would have resulted. As a farmer I see this a lot; people in the organic world unable to scale their operations up, and a refusal to change ride their farms straight into bankruptcy basing it all on a marketing concept they are adamant about. And yet I have seen conventional farms do the same thing, doing the same thing year after year and never adopting new farm practices that would improve their production and viability. Stagnant thinking gets a person and society nowhere, just as banking on one type of energy is NOT going to get the job done. There may come a time when compost heat for my home does make sense, or a Stirling Engine powered by compost might work, but just not yet. The key is to keep the idea in the background, but not forgotten. An engine driven by coal dust still sounds viable to me. 500 years of coal...wow!
There's a lot of coal worldwide. Just because it is there doesn't mean that you have to use it. It is dirty to mine, releases a huge amount of methane in the process, produces toxic ash and particulates when you burn it, and on top of all that, you blow up the planets' carbon budget in the process because it can't sequester the carbon fast enough. Even ignoring the climate impact its more expensive than natural gas and solar... And neither pollutes the way coal does. I used to feel like you did... We've got these resources so we are secure on energy. We should use this and not foreign oil. My views have changed dramatically over the years as I have learned more about coal, and energy in general.
pts. well taken on waste and include health. not often discussed is disposal of solar waste? many articles out there. the comments in this one is pretty direct. not really a lot of easy answers when looking at all sides of box all these things are delivered in. Are we headed for a solar waste crisis?
Yep, you are right and many of those arguments I cannot protest. It is one reason I wish we would see nuclear power make a come back. Coal has more fatalities in one year then all the loss of life from nuclear power plants since their inception, and yes that counts Chernobyl. A lot of people do not realize how few people actually died from that disaster (28 people), and while there is no doubt it was a disaster, it was nowhere near the devastation they thought it would be. Near and dear to our hearts is trees, and the one thing they said would be affected the most, yet trees are growing right up in the nearby city, formerly of 50,000, has trees 8 inches thick growing in the center of the soccer stadium there. Small in size, packing a powerful punch, gobs of power from very little fuel and waste, what is not to love? Not to mention the designs of 2017 are vastly improved over what was built in the 1970's. And of course the Russian graphite reactor design was junk from the start...flawed if you will. I know, I know...NIMBY's (Not in my back yard people) will stop any building in the USA, but they complain about windmills, solar arrays, coal power plants, and anything they want to whine about, including the grid when it goes down due to a wind storm and they can't run their dish washing machines!
Nuclear is not dead. Watts Bar 2 just got turned on last Fall and there are plans for 5 more new plants in the US alone. California feeds its well oiled media pablum regarding its "green" power resolutions while secretly building out a massive fossil fuel digesting natural gas power generation infrastructure. The sheeep buy into the media's misinformation and spew the same misinformation as fodder from their Green Gods.
Both sides have disinformation providers. To say it's the media is frankly crap, because both sides have huge media outlets. The problem is the fact that we have sides. Both sides poison the water to the point where there can be no discussion, no honest debate because we are so polarized. One side wraps itself in the green banner, the other plays the patriotic nationalistic part and wraps itself in the flag. We need to pay less attention to the propaganda and more to science.
I would definitely be in favor of more nuclear, like the salt reactors, and definitely fusion if we can get it to sustain the reaction. But you are right about the NIMBY effect. Id prefer a modern reactor in my neighborhood over a Walmart.
Sides ? Seriously ? You're fighting some kind of disinformation war ? I'm glad I'm not on that planet.
You are on that planet. We both get fed information that has been picked and tweeted to elicit the most outrage. The right whips up a frenzy about the greens spending your precious tax dollars on frivolous things for rich elitist liberals... The left plasters the message that all business is evil and ruining the planet. There's no middle ground. Regardless of who is in office.
We got to be careful that this thread does not get too political or it will get locked up, and that is too bad. It was a really informative thread and I would like to see it continue. I was not aware of any Nuclear Power Plants being put online, but am glad to hear it is happening. I wish it would occur in New England. The big push here is to get power from out of Canada, and while they have been decent neighbors, I would rather our power come from good old USA so that we have better control of it.
I have strong convictions on this deeply dividing issue. But I like this place. I like the friendly laid back atmosphere and the helpful attitude people have towards one another. So as Kevin says on Shark Tank: "For that reason, I'm out."
this might be a great example of one side taking advantage? below is a tweet thead from Dr.ryan maue, click twitter pic.com for full thread
Wood pellets: Renewable, but not carbon neutral Wood pellets: Renewable, but not carbon neutral "It makes no sense to have Europeans embracing wood pellets as carbon neutral, while overlooking the carbon dioxide emitted during shipment and the losses of carbon storage from forests in the United States."
But politicians get to pat each other on the back praising their non-reliance on that nasty coal. We're also supposed to turn a blind eye on who is profiting from the change.
Shipping trees to Europe to be turned into pellets and burned to generate electricity just seems wrong. I can understand shipping oil and coal across the globe, those are resources that are extracted from wherever they were deposited. But can't they grow tree plantations closer to where the electricity is generated? Europe is pretty densely populated, but what about Russia?
I'm sure it's more the fault of some opportunitistic businesses trying to cash in on the pellet market by promising hardwood pellets at a price unobtainable in Europe. I'm sorry but if you have to cut down a healthy forest to make the pellet it completely defeats point of the pellet heat...making use of the cast off and waste saw dust, chips, etc.
The coal is pretty nasty. That part is hard to dispute. And the coal in Europe is mostly imported also from Poland and Russia. Imported pellets sure are not the solution for Europe. Anyone seen how they harvest peat? It looks simpler than CSS, albeit a bit muddy. I think it's really only the northern UK still doing it.
