Clean Coal - Pipe Dream Or Next Big Thing?

(CBS)  Much has been made about the skyrocketing price of oil lately, with some saying that drilling in environmentally sensitive areas is a possible solution.

But, as CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports, utilities are testing technology to make one of America's most abundant fuel source - coal - a cleaner alternative.

Coal is, by far, the dirtiest way America makes its electric power, but a new ad campaign funded by the industry promises a future where clean coal is a viable option.

And it's not just the industry. Both presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, are pushing clean coal.

But exactly what is the technology?

The cleanest coal plant in North America is operated by Tampa Electric, in the middle of rural Florida. They call it clean because they don't burn coal exactly - they mix it with water and oxygen and convert it into a gas.

According to company president John Ramil, gasifying coal allows the company to remove pollutants like sulphur, nitrogen and soot, which virtually eliminates acid rain.

"And you can do it much cleaner than with the conventional coal technology," says Ramil.

That's the good news. But here's the problem.

"There is no such thing as clean coal," says James Hansen, NASA's expert on global warming, who says all coal plants, even TECO's, still emit millions of tons of carbon dioxide - the most threatening greenhouse gas.

"There is no coal plant that captures the carbon dioxide and that's the major long-term pollutant," says Hansen.

But if carbon dioxide pollution is the problem with clean coal, many scientists believe there is a solution. They believe it's possible to recover most of the carbon dioxide and store it underground.

The idea is called "capture and sequester," and a global race is on to learn how it should be done. One Norwegian firm is storing tons of carbon dioxide in rock caves beneath the North Sea. America's efforts to sequester carbon have stalled. The Department of Energy planned to fund a plant, but pulled all funding when the price grew too high.

"They took seven years just to decide where they were going to make a pilot plant - and then they decided to cancel it," says Hansen.

And now, the failure to solve the carbon dioxide problem is a threat to coal itself. In the last five years, at least 63 coal-fired power plants have been scrapped or defeated by public opposition.

Florida Governor Charlie Crist helped pull the plug on the two clean coal plants because he says without a carbon solution, clean coal is not an option.

"Until that time comes, we want to develop more solar, more nuclear, more wind," says Crist.

Which is why the industry needs an ad campaign. Until the federal government funds the research on carbon dioxide, America's reliance on coal is in long-term trouble.

[acolton1]

Its time America stops sitting on the bench and gets into the game. Clean Coal will work, just like anyting else their will be a trial and error phase and we will get it right sooner or later. The USA has more coal then the middle east has OIL. We need to build more Nuclear Plants to replace the Coal Plants and then divert the Coal to Liquify Coal and we will be energy free from the Middle East. The USA also needs to get with the program and build a bullet train from LA to New York and from Chicago to San Antonio and maybe a few other connections or links.

[rf35]

Guess not. Oh, I see, I forgot the "u."

[rf35]

Hey, did CBS finally fix the apostrophe issue? I guess I don''t have to type '' as %u2019 anymore. YIPEE!

[rf35]

The point is, we can get off foreign energy dependence if we use ALL types of power available here. It doesn''t need to be a "one or the other" argument. Use them all! Eventually, the renewables will take over completely, because the tech will be matured, more efficient, cheaper, and able to handle the demand by themselves. Common sense dictates it. Of course, when has common sense stood in the way of sheer stupidity and America%2019s need for partisan bickering?

You know the best thing will be about getting rid of oil? Watching the Arabs slide back to the stone age!

[rf35]

If we did put a man on the lunar surface,..
We Can make ''Clean Coal'' technology work,...there`s an abundance of coal here in our country,..between,the wind,the sun,the water,...and everything else we have,..Surely we can harness enough power to serve our people ,..

Posted by laborsvoice at 01:47 PM : Jun 21, 2008

We sure can, but it doesn%u2019t go to our people. It is more cost effective to export our power production resources than to use them here.
Why are people so dead set against alternative energy used in concert with "dirty" power? Keep burning your coal and build a wind tower in my back yard...the near-constant wind here in E. New Mexico will keep it running. Build a nuke plant next door...ask the French how to deal with the waste. Put solar cells on my roof...let then excess run off into the grid...I won%u2019t charge for it. Hydroelectric won%u2019t work here...no water. Sell me a fuel cell car at a normal price...the algae will produce the hydrogen. Keep producing gas for a decade or so until most of the ICE cars are in the scrapyard.

[terrorislami]

MORE ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING BS GOREBAGE

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth''s temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years." Patterson asked the committee, "On the basis of this evidence, how could anyone still believe that the recent relatively small increase in CO2 levels would be the major cause of the past century''s modest warming?"

Patterson concluded his testimony by explaining what his research and "hundreds of other studies" reveal: on all time scales, there is very good correlation between Earth''s temperature and natural celestial phenomena such changes in the brightness of the Sun.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

[terrorislami]

Scientists respond to Gore''s warnings of climate catastrophe

"The Inconvenient Truth" is indeed inconvenient to alarmists

By Tom Harris

Monday, June 12, 2006

"Scientists have an independent obligation to respect and present the truth as they see it," Al Gore sensibly asserts in his film "An Inconvenient Truth", showing at Cumberland 4 Cinemas in Toronto since Jun 2. With that outlook in mind, what do world climate experts actually think about the science of his movie?

Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore''s circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

[terrorislami]

MORE ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING BS GOREBAGE

The Oregon Institute petition says, in part:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth''s atmosphere and disruption of the earth''s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth."

Robinson noted roughly 35 new signatures are added to the petition every day. Signers include more than 40 members of the National Academy of Sciences. Theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson and atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the prestigious scientists who have signed the petition. Frederick Seitz, the first president of the National Academy of Sciences, signed before his death in early March.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23387

[terrorislami]

Posted by ubrew12 at 06:53 PM : Jun 22, 2008

ummmmmm how many climatologist support al gorebage BS... LOL

Robinson said, "The very large number of petition signers demonstrates that if there is a consensus among American scientists, it is in opposition to the human-caused global warming hypothesis rather than in favor of it."

Added Joseph Bast, president of The Heartland Institute and publisher of Environment & Climate News, "Claims by partisan and extremist organizations such as Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Union of Concerned Scientists that their views represent the ''consensus'' never should have been taken seriously.

"They are not scientific organizations, and in fact they have long records of misrepresenting science to achieve political objectives," Bast said. "This should go down as yet another case in which they were caught lying about science."
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23387

[lightningfro]

Clean coal?!? That''s about as ridiculous as "low tar" and "light" cigarettes.