Comments on: The Dilemma Over Coal Generated Power

60 Minutes: Coal Power Plants Supply Power To Millions, But Cutting Carbon Dioxide Could Take A Long Time

[batymahn]

The only reasonable way to capture carbon in to pump it through beds of Algea. That way you can produce biodiesel for fuel and biomass for feed. What's the Earth going to do with CO2 except fart it out some day when it has indigestion.

[cacgrant]

Jim Rogers is the proverbial snakeoil salesman. He sounds great but he only has one thing in mind - quarterly profits. We can't afford to turn our energy policy over to people who think on a quarterly basis when we are faced with the monumental task of addressing global warming in a financially viable manner.

Rogers insinuated that coal is affordable and clean. It is neither. The health care costs and lost job hours associated with diseases related to particulates from coal are nearly 200 billion dollars per year. New coal plants can only be built if taxpayers and ratepayers are held as collateral. Dozens of coal plant cancellations since 2007 is evidence of that. As alluded to in the story, Rogers plan is to make sure that he doesn't have to pay for carbon capture and sequestration R&D, either. He, himself, estimated last year that CCS would add 70% to the capital costs of a new plant and stated that he wanted all of his coal plants (existing and planned) grandfathered under any carbon regulation.
Guess who he wants to pay for his business plan?

Dan Kammen said it all when he posed this question: "Whether we can build enough of them to preserve the coal industry as we know it today I think is a question." The idea here and Rogers idea is to keep coal going to maintain the mining industry and allow Rogers to continue to support the most expensive options to meet electric demand. Coal and nuclear plants is where he makes most of his money and that's what he is going to push for.

Rogers said, "We can't abandon coal." He must have been referring to Duke Energy because there is no study I'm aware of that suggests that coal is a must 40 years from now. However, there is plenty of evidence that both coal and nuclear power can be phased out economically within 40 years with increased end-use energy efficiency investments, renewable power, and storage technology. After all, in the 1890s I'm sure people thought that the horse and buggy would be a primary mode of transportation well into the future. But, as we know, they were replaced by the car in a relatively short amount of time.

[DrCharbonneau]

One of the things many may be unaware of is that there was a period between the 4th and 13th century AD that was warmer also. It really was beneficial to man because the growing climates flourished. Iceland didn't dissolve or the polar caps though, so this time it could be worse on the planetary average. It was likely this was the result of increased volcanic action around the 1st century AD, so carbon certainly has its part in a greenhouse effect.
One thing we seem to ignore is that ANY gases generated from liquids or solids expands the lower atmospher and thins the inert ghas layer, thus changes the lensing effect. This likely has a great effect on GW as well. Consider that and that helium is not as plentiful as we would like. (This is some of my own research area conjoined with the same as it applies to the constituents of stars and other celestial bodies...)

Dr. Charbonneau

[pepperwood2]

What I'd like to know is what is the big deal about these expensive Fluorescent bulbs that contain deadly mercury & phosphorus and you need a special permit to dispose of them properly.

What a joke! I've had several quit on me. However they do last a lifetime if you consider that they will lay around your house forever because you can't get a permit to properly get rid of them. Something that was conveniently overlooked by the brilliant PR & GW folks that made a bundle $$$$$$. Don't believe me ehhhh call DER and explain.

Since Coal is our most abundant energy source and the technology has progressed to make it affordable & safe. The Wind Mills, Solar Cell Manufacturers, Hydrothermal, Etc are getting all the bucks to promote their expensive solutions. Just how is the average Joe the Plumber going to be able to afford these. When you consider all the destruction of wildlife habitat & endangering the spotted owl & other species it is just not the way to go.

If these clowns are so convinced that there is a CO2 problem and they are serious about saving this trillion year old planet. I'll be more than happy to be a witness if they want to hold there breath for as long as it takes to make an improvement. So Sad this nonsense being perpetuated in the Media by Al Gore & His Band of thieves. Money talks $$$$$$$, it don't sing and dance and it don't walk.

[awesomeBLT]

Look folks I think we need to consider one more option. Question: why is the guy from Duke energy talking out of both sides of his face.? Answer: because he's going to make lots of money from his coal fired plants. He's building the generating plants because of DEMAND from us folks out here in TV land.

The answer is simple. We ALL need to change our life style a little so we can cut about 25% of our overall power consumption. Thing is it's easy to do. I read that 40% of all the power used in the US is for lighting. OK, so what happens if everybody throws away their 60 watt incendescent bulbs and replaces them with 12 watt fluorescent bulbs? Or better yet 3 watt LED bulbs.? That alone would account for at least an 60% of the 40%. When the LED bulbs are more commercially available the energy consumption takes another exponential leap down. The LED bulbs would last a life time as well.

In summary: everybody goes to LED's and Mr. Big Duke Energy will be CLOSING his coal fired powerplants long before 2020.

Smells like victory to me.

PS: be advised I'm going to send Andy Rooney some LED light bulbs so he can be the first person in our regular folks revolution.

Cheers

[rheola-2009]

The reality is that coal is one of our most abundant, affordable/secure energy generation resources. Additionally, as we continue to apply cleaner technologies, such as CCS, to new and existing coal-fueled power plants, it will become even more clean and efficient to use. We encourage the public to consider the facts and to recognize that there is more to the discussion than was portrayed in this 60 Minutes report.

American Coal Council
www.americancoalcouncil.org

Posted by AmCoal at 12:45 PM : Apr 28, 2009


With all due respects, would you honestly explain with CCS, what guaruntee you can give, that carbon stored under ground or elsewhere, in the enormous quantity that will be necessary, will stay where it is put.
No matter what spin you wish to put on it, this Earth of ours is an everchanging and fractious place.
There is absolutely no way anybody can be certain that those gases will remain in place and never escape, thereby creating a catrosthophic situation for the world.

It is my opinion CCS is a desperation move to con the community in a last ditch attempt to avoid the demise of a heavily polluting industry by vested interests, who have little or no consideration for the general population, and are only interested in increasing their wealth at the expense of our children and future generations.

[Questionews]

So what is our energy future? It seems every option is off the table.

No coal
No nuclear
No dams
No LNG
No coastal tidal generators.


And there is no way wind & solar will do the job.
I guess we'll be back to kerosene lamps & wood stoves. Ehhh...scratch that....those won't be allowed either. Time to move south.

[Macrophage33]

We need investments to bring new nuclear technologies on line, retire the light water reactor. In the mean time, you can convert the fuel used in them to a Thorium/Plutonium mix that produces very little waste, as Thorium Power Ltd is attempting to do based on a successful pilot run in the 1970's at Shippingport PA. The Thorium cycle produces considerably less long term waste and is proliferation resistant.

[AmCoal]

This 60 Minutes editorial provides comment from both Duke Energy CEO, Jim rogers and NASA climate scientist/global warming activist James Hansen and may, therefore, appear to provide an unbiased review of coal-fueled generation and clean coal technologies. However, after viewing the piece, it is clear that CBS has overlooked some key themes relating to the importance of coal to our economy and energy supply.

Since we cannot determine the reason for these facts being left out of the CBS report, but also realize that they are essential pieces of the total energy debate, we feel it is important to provide some balance to the discussion.

First, we are concerned that the CBS piece has ignored coal's ability to act as an economic stimulus for our lagging economy. As a recent National Mining Association report (http://nma.org/publications/economics/default.asp) on this issue clearly demonstrated, coal is a key component in our country's economic well-being.
- Mining in the U.S. generated 1.5 million direct jobs in 2007
- The total value of the U.S. mining industry from business activity, alone, was over $240 billion
- Each mining job created an additional 2.9 indirect jobs
- The average annual wage in the mining industry was $59,000 (total direct payroll for the U.S. mining industry was $22.1 billion and $64.6 throughout the whole economy)
- Total payroll and personal income taxes throughout the economy equaled $21.6 billion
- All other taxes, royalties, and other inputs to abandoned mine lands and black lung funds totaled approximately $7 billion

Second, the CBS piece has ignored the fact that coal is the only fuel that can currently meet the enormous scale of demand that our society is placing on utility generators, without breaking the bank while doing so. We discussed this issue at length in a recent Coalblog post that answered the question of whether wind can replace coal. (See http://www.clean-coal.info/drupal/answering_claim_wind_can_replace_coal)

Thirdly, the CBS piece did not address the rapid and substantial environmental improvement that the coal industry has demonstrated over the past few decades. As an American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity blog post notes, coal-based electricity has become "77 percent cleaner on the basis of regulated emissions per unit of energy produced" over the past 35 years. On that same theme, the British Wind Energy Agency was recently forced by the UK Advertising Standards Authority to drastically scale back their claims on the amount of carbon that could be reduced by replacing coal with new wind installations. It appears that they were basing their calculations on coal plant emission rates that had been out of date since the early 1990?s. They now claim that new wind installations could reduce emissions by 430 g/kWh, instead of 860 g/kWh - HALF as much.

Fourthly, the CBS piece said nothing about the fact that, if we are actually serious about meeting the intended carbon reduction targets -- at the same time as we continue to supply society with abundant, affordable energy -- coal with CCS is THE low-cost, low-carbon solution. A recent Carnegie Mellon research paper demonstrated that coal with CCS is 15 to 50% less expensive than nuclear, wind or natural gas with CCS.

In fact, even David Hawkins, director of the Natural Resource Defense Council's (NRDC) Climate Center in Washington, DC has recently admitted that,

... the technology to generate electricity from coal and capture the carbon-dioxide emissions "is both needed and feasible"

The reality is that coal is one of our most abundant, affordable/secure energy generation resources. Additionally, as we continue to apply cleaner technologies, such as CCS, to new and existing coal-fueled power plants, it will become even more clean and efficient to use. We encourage the public to consider the facts and to recognize that there is more to the discussion than was portrayed in this 60 Minutes report.

American Coal Council
www.americancoalcouncil.org

[apostasyusa]

Energy created by renewable source stored with recombimed hyrdo kinetic concepts are the future of energy.

Electricity is the future of energy.

We don't need to be burning anything.