Perpetual Innovation

Category: clean coal

  • Inside the war on coal

    Inside the war on coal:

    Wow, this is a very thoughtful and well presented article on Coal.

    The real demise of coal is too fold: raising costs of trying to make coal a little cleaner (less dirty); and the increase of cheaper alternatives.

    Number 1 in all of this is the dirty cheap costs of NatGas which is a by-product of much oil production. We in the US flair about half of the NatGas we produce because it gets in the way of the valuable oil production process.

    NatGas is soooo much cleaner to burn and produces only half the CO2 emissions.

    As people and communities realize the real costs of burning (dirty) coal, the political will to back coal simply because it is cheap is seriously waning. As the externality costs start to mount, people are less inclined to have the plants in their back yard.

    But, the Sierra club can not take that much of the credit. Basic economics is ruling. The EPA wants cleaner coal, which makes it more expansive at the same time that NatGas, wind and solar are all getting better and cheaper.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Falling Chinese Coal Consumption and Output Undermine Global Market – WSJ

    Falling Chinese Coal Consumption and Output Undermine Global Market – WSJ:

    Finally, Finally, Finally…

    China has finally started to cut back on it’s production and use of dirty coal. China now consumes far more than half of the world’s coal.

    It’s a perfect time for them to do so, with all energy prices so low, the Chinese economy growing slow(er) and the costs/consequences of pollution from coal becoming more and more conspicuous.

    It is also interesting that this article talks about peak coal. It seems that peak oil and peak coal have been pushed back with the overwhelming supply of cheap(er) oil and gas from new technologies (fracking, horizontal drilling, etc.)

    In China’s case it may be peak pollution, where the health costs, environmental costs and quality of life costs are are starting to overpower the perception of coal being a cheap energy source.

    Doing non-sustainable stuff, especially for long periods of time, has its costs and unintended consequences.

    Sustainable Growth…

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Clean Power Plan | TBO.com, The Tampa Tribune and The Tampa Times

    Why I support the EPA’s Clean Power Plan | TBO.com, The Tampa Tribune and The Tampa Times:

    This July 28, 2014 article by Lynn Ringenberg (Professor Emeritus at USF) discusses the horrible health and wellness impacts of burning coal.

    “There is no such thing as clean coal.”

    The good news is that Natural Gas is so plentiful in the states and so very very cheap, that it is seriously supplanting coal in power plant production. NatGas is so plentiful and contain in oil, that 40% to 50% of all US NatGas produced is flared into the atmosphere as an oil byproduct.

    Of course the EPA is pushing this conversion along to NatGas. In the absence of an energy policy in the USA, the EPA is the very last stop in this decision process as to produce power, short term and long.

    But here is the BIG problem. As we cut back on energy and oil and coal usage in the USA, we move the coal power production to other countries. Our exports are way up. And other countries don’t use the same cleaning technologies as we (scrubbers and such).

    Here’s a great discussion of our coal usage and export-imports at The Energy Collective by Meredith Fowlie on July 29, 2014.

    No matter what you feel about the EPA stepping up and getting involved in coal power, greenhouse gas emissions, etc. The EPA is the last, and arguably the worst way to address energy policy, health issues from fossil fuel consumption and global warming.

    Some would argue, the EPA actions are better than doing nothing at all.

    The EPA is the wrench used to hammer the square nail. Coal has huge impact on health and wellness, so let’s export all we’ve got. We take make the green, they take the black.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Pain in the Ash: Spill spews tons of coal ash into NC Dan River – CNN.com

    Spill spews tons of coal ash into North Carolina’s Dan River – CNN.com:

    Oh what a pain it is! … A Pain in the Ash, so to speak.

    One of the dirty little secrets of Coal is the ash!. The massive 2008 spill in TVA should have been a bit of a wakeup call. But this phone has been ringing for centuries. There’s impurities in coal, including sulfur and heavy metals like lead and arsenic. See the EPA letter on the TVA spill. And coal power releases 100 times as much radiation into the environment as a nuclear power plant. High concentrations of uranium and thorium are released into the environment around a plant from the fly ash. See APA on this ash issue.

    The other secrets are that about 10,000 people die in mines per year, most of them coal, and often in China. There’s the impact to air and water that many estimates impact the health of hundreds of millions of people.

    The bull in the China closet, of course, is — well — China. They burn more than half of the world’s coal right now. PRC is still opening still are opening 1 to 2 coal power plants per week, unless that has changed. And they are much less worried about how much pollution escapes into the air and water. The summer Olympics were distinctive for the air pollution, and athletes trying to compete in smog.

    This smog and pollution is “shared” with neighboring countries, and the world at large. Even the Americas on occasion get a beautiful sunset, complements of the Peoples Republic.

    As well, coal is a huge greenhouse gas producer of CO2, something that is invisibly shared with the whole of the planet… and no one knows what the true costs and full consequences are. But we do know that CO2 as a greenhouse gas lasts about 100 years, so whatever the impacts are, they will be very, very, very long lasting.

    Many economist suggest a tax on something that has distinctive, negative externalities. Maybe coal would be a candidate!? Taxes on cigarettes are an example. A gradual tax domestically seems logical. Maybe the rest of the world should tax all the coal that gets exported to China, as well. How about an import tax on those products that are primarily produced by dirty Chinese electricity?

    The dirty little secrets of coal are getting out. It’s been 2 centuries that coal has ruled the power infrastructure. It is time to seriously address this “open” secret.

    If you are a stockholder or a customer of Duke, it is time to give the Duke a nudge, and elbow, or even a brisk kick in the ‘ash!…

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Clean Coal Might Really Be a Possibility!!! WOW!

    Energy | Homeland Security News Wire:

    Clean Coal Might Really Be a Possibility!!! WOW!

    It may take me years to take back all the trash talk I have had about Coal.

    Dirty, Dirtier, Dirtiest Coal… But no such think as Clean.

    Dr. Fan at Ohio State has pioneered the technology called Coal-Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL). This lab project has contained 99% of the carbon dioxide from coal. 

    Well maybe. This will bear some watching as it moves forward out of the labs and into the power plant.

    Coal, of course, is still not a renewable resource (unless you count charcoal — good for my Kamado grill, but not so much so for mainstream energy production!-)

    Wow, if we could find a cure for coal, that would put us 30-40 years ahead. Of course, it would have to be cheap, or we (China, US and India) wouldn’t use it. And then we’d be back in the same dirty boat, right up to our coal ash.:-(

    ‘via Blog this’