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Can Coal Be Green?
wap writes "A coal-industry sponsored group, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices thinks coal is green, and has been running television ads to make its point. The ad shows an eagle unable to fly because of smog, and then talks about how much cleaner coal is now and will be in the future, with a sub-title saying that this is because of EPA regulation. Coal burning is much cleaner now than it was due to new scrubbing technologies, but it still emits just as much carbon dioxide as ever. Carbon emissions can be reduced by increased efficiency through gasification, but the only way to stop coal from emitting carbon dioxide is carbon sequestration. Everyone agrees that sequestration is expensive, but not everyone agrees that it's even effective in the long term. Should we instead follow the suggestion of James Lovelock and go nuclear as has been discussed here before?"
Coal *is* a clean renewable resource, it's just got a 100 million year cycle :-)
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
A coal-industry sponsored group, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices
Shouldn't their name be 'Americans for Coal Power'?
Never support a group that needs a mask.
"I only speak the truth"
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Head down the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky and ask the people who live there. Coal mining has done substantial damage to the environment, and to people's lives.
Coal mining today is not about underground mines - it is about strip mines and mountain top removal. Instead of digging holes underground you blast the top few hundred feet off of a mountain and dig straight down. Of course the blast debris - thousands of tons of it - has to go somewhere. Usually into the neighbouring valley, destroying homes and watersheds.
The Industry says that today's coal burns cleaner. Do they tell you how?
That's because the coal is washed before being trucked to users. Where do you think the solvent laden waste water goes? Into large holding ponds, dozens of which are known to be on the brink of collapsing.
One such pond broke in 2002. The Martin County slurry spill, at over 300 million gallons, was the largest disaster of its kind ever in the southeastern United States. The spill released nearly 30 times more liquid than the Exxon Valdez.
You also need to factor in the coal company's history of just abandoning mines, leaving them for local and state governments to clean up. And the ongoing damage and injuries caused by coal trucks hauling grossly overwieght loads - by ten or twenty tons - on narrow highways.
There's more to being clean than measuring smokestack emmisions.
Three Squirrels