The Dilemma Over Coal Generated Power

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

(CBS)  Rogers' plan of cleaning it up over 40 years involves something the coal and power industries promote as "clean coal technology." In fact they say we can't live without it.

"And we have to advance new clean coal technologies. If we don't, we may have to say goodbye to the American way of life that we all know and love," an ad for clean coal warned.

It is a seductive idea: cleaning up the carbon would solve everything. And during the presidential campaign both candidates endorsed clean coal.

"This is America - we figured out how to put a man on the moon in 10 years. You tell me we can't find a way to burn coal that we mine right here in the United States of America and make it work," then-candidate Barack Obama said.

Well, they did find a way to make it work. The problem is, clean coal makes putting a man on the moon look easy. The technology is called carbon capture and sequestration. We found the only place you can see it in America - the Basin Electric Power Co-Operative in North Dakota. Basin captures half its CO2, but they didn't build this because of climate change.

Long before anyone heard of global warming, Basin was conceived in the Carter administration to prove that America could use its own fuel - coal - and turn it into natural gas. They had to take the carbon out because it was an impurity.

"Before you started pumping it into the ground, and into the pipeline, where did it come out?" Pelley asked.

"That stack right up there," Floyd Robb of the power cooperative explained.

Carbon capture takes the carbon dioxide, turns it into a liquid and pumps it underground. Virtually everyone agrees, industry, environmentalists and politicians, that this is the only way we know to make coal safe for the planet. But consider taxpayers built this for one and a half billion dollars in the 1980’s. That would be $4 billion today.

Dan Kammen says carbon capture would be an enormous national engineering project. He's a Berkeley physicist and top expert on energy.

"Can enough carbon capture and sequestration facilities like this one be built in time to prevent climate change from coal?" Pelley asked.

"I don't think anyone knows the answer to that precisely. We know we have to try. And we know these facilities do work. Whether we can build enough of them to preserve the coal industry as we know it today I think is a question," Kammen said.

Kammen told Pelley that there are hundreds of coal-fired plants in the United States, and that each one would need to be outfitted with carbon caption sequestration plants.

"What are we talking about here in terms of infrastructure?" Pelley asked.

"So, we're talking about hundreds of billions, to a trillion dollars or so, and every power plant needs to capture its greenhouse gases," Kammen estimated.

Joe Romm thinks a trillion dollars might be optimistic. Romm ran alternative fuel projects in the Clinton administration.

He says the amount of CO2 we're talking about is mind-boggling. "If the world did this at scale, it would be the equivalent amount of CO2 going into the ground as oil now comes out of the ground. So you have to recreate the entire oil delivery infrastructure of the planet, which was built up over a century, just to deal with this CO2," he explained.

[SaveMichigan]

Water Fired Power Plants
Summery
This concept for a completely carbon-less power plant is very doable. All the technology is there. What we need is someone who can coordinate these brilliant minds, companies, and concepts into a power house of ideas for the better good of this country. I really wouldn't mind being that person. Getting these groups together to develop these power plants. Just think of where we can go.
These ideas should be put into public domain, and distributed world wide to help stop global warming. Maybe published in world science magazines. It's time to stop putting our own interest ahead of the interest of the entire country or world. If we keep going the way we are, it will be total destruction for this country and the world. I don't want to see that happen.
I would like President Barack Obama & V.P. Joe Biden, Dr. Steven Chue Secretary of DOE, and Dr. Jim Hanson of NASA and others to review my paper an give me their opinion on this matter.
Thanks for listening.
Charles

[SaveMichigan]

Water Powered power Plants
Other Cost Savings
Other cost saving not yet realized would probably be in the field Health Care of our nation and the world. Just breathing would be good. Not to mention the slowing down or stopping global warming. Stopping of the destruction of our oceans. This unseen damage can not be measured, however, we are starting to see some of the effects it is having on animal life dependent on the oceans. Polar bears, penguins, seals, aquatic birds, fish, etc. Don't we understand, this is our greatest food source. Eating would be good too.
Charles

[SaveMichigan]

Water powered Power Plants
Operating Cost Savings
1.Lower maintenance cost, due to lack of carbon build-up.
2.No expensive carbon filters required by the EPA, or turning carbon into liquid and pumping it underground with NO Idea of what kind of damage it might be doing under ground. ( Ref: Scott Pelley's Report. )
3.No heating cost for the building. Heat with electricity or steam produce by the plant itself.
4.Smaller footprint required for the building and land.
5.No land required for storage of coal or trains.
6.No train loads of coal, or tracks.
7.I could going on and on.
This is a win, win situation.
Charles

[SaveMichigan]

Water Powered Power Plants
Well Scott Pelley what do you think of the idea?
Charles

[SaveMichigan]

Water powered power plants.
The problem is that you'll be shutting down the coal, oil, and gas companies if this happens. Thiese guys have deep pockets full of money to stop this movement. The question I ask to youis: Do you to continue paying high prices for oil, or do you want to change to water and continue breathing. If we continue burning oil we are killing ourselves. We have a chance to change things, stop global warming amoung other thing.
Charles

[SaveMichigan]

Water Fired Power Plant
Thanks to TVA ( Tenneessee Valley Authority they have provided some hard numbers.
" for the year of 2008, they purchased 2.11 billion dallars in coal." Now just think of burning water. The water is already there. It can be converted so very easy. After it burns it turns back into water, and can be reburned. Not only could they save 2.11 billion dollars, they could stop global warming. A WIN, WIN! But no one is listening!
Charles

[SaveMichigan]

Financing this Project / Burning Water Power Plant
According to the News Paper accounts the Power Company in Holland, Michigan has $250,000,000 Dollars which they planned on to build this coal plant. The D.O.E. has matching funds for any project dealing with alternative energy. I believe this fits the bill if the power company will build an alternative type plant. I don't have any hard numbers yet, but just think about it, the fuel saving alone will more than pay for this project. According to Scott Pelley's report on CBS 60 Minutes, one coal plant will burn two train loads of coal (each train is a mile long) every day. Multiply by 365 days, that equals 730 train loads of coal a year. In Scott Pelley's report, China is opening a coal fired plant at the rate of one a week. Assuming they use the same amounts of trains per plant, that would be 730 trains times 52 weeks, equals 37960 total trains a year. Then multiply times the tons, then times the amount of carbon in each ton of coal, and so on. You do the math, and wounder why you are having trouble breathing.
Charles

[SaveMichigan]

Did you know one gallon of water (a liquid) = 1833 gallons on HHO (a gas) which can be burned as fuel. Think of it this way, water is fuel concentrate, just add low voltage electricity and you have an enormous amount of fuel to burn. After it is burned it returns to its original state. Unlike gasoline and others which will burn at any time, water will not. Only upon demand will water turn into fuel, and it expands so fast that it will keep up with what ever thing you are using it to burn it. NO CARBON! So why not use it in a power plant. All power plants have a water supply.
Charles

[SaveMichigan]

You can create energy two ways, by separating atoms or putting them back together. Water is H2O liquid can be separated by running a low voltage electricity through it, turning it into HHO a gas. You then take HHO and put it back together by burning it. The exhaust is water. NO Pollution, NO Carbon! What a Great Concept! It really works!

[burtonsd]

WHen fossil fuels combust they produce carbon dioxide. "Clean" energy from fossil fuels is physically impossible. Congratulations to Scott Pelley for calling the coal Tsar on his preposterous claim. He hung himself. Hopefully he won't get the opportunity to hang all of us as well.
S. Burton MA