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Coal — The Other Alt Fuel
This Wired piece is really a round-up about Coal: The Other Alt Fuel. One of the main stories is about an initiative to convert low-grade coal to other uses — like diesel fuel and so forth, but of course that nasty issue of carbon production comes up again.
Seriously, is this how the energy companies are spending their windfall profits? Campaign style fantasies, and 'facts', I just can't wait for the negative advertising, like how wind farms slow down the earth's rotation.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
The issue is whether we can sustain our usage at current levels indefinitely. The answer is of course, no. Can we then sustain current usage until a substitute energy source comes along? Possibly.
I've spent a bit of time reading around this area, and I think you can divide the problem into a couple of areas
1. Depletion of reserves
A big problem. Oil will run out, its really a question of when. If you believe the Peak Oil proponents, we may well be in a depletion phase already. Certainly May 2005 was a peak in production which we have not yet exceeded, and the longer this goes on for the more likely that it was the true peak. Also we are currently consuming reserves at 4 times the rate we are discovering new one sources. It is unlikely that we will ever find another major producer like Saudi Arabia, and so if we haven't hit peak, we will soon enough (in the next 10 years). After that peak, we probably have 20 years or so of decreasing production.
With oil reserves limited, attention is turning to other energy sources. Natural gas and Nuclear Power are the obvious choices.
Unfortunately, natural gas isn't infinite, and while it will last a while, its loss will be accelerated by oil substitution. In other words, it will peak not long after whenever oil peaks.
Nuclear power is contentious, difficult, and actually not in infinite supply. The world would consume all the nuclear power in a couple of decades; and there isn't any easy way to make its energy available for transportation.
2. Ecological Damage
Whilst all this stored energy will run out, the bigger question that we face is: Can we really afford to ever actually use all these sources without damaging the environment too much?
Carbon Dioxide emissions are a big concern. A recent article highlights the rapid rise in CO2 that we are producing right now. Its hard to see how we an avoid terraforming the planet (in a nasty way) with current consumption of fossil fuels. There are options such as sequestration or even shading the planet from space, but its hard to know which country is going to start this process off. Perhaps more economic solutions exist, but for now all these solutions are just theories, and nobody is doing any of it yet to my knowledge.
Environmental damage from renewable resources is still an issue. Wind farms make noise and kill birds, hydro power floods large areas of the environment, solar takes out alot of space and uses a great deal of non-renewable resources to manufacture. Nuclear comes with its own set of environmental problems.
Coal, historically, is the worst offender. Most coal mines have killed more miners individually that all nuclear accidents in the world have done. Coal contains radioactive isotopes, and coal powered stations actually release a substantial amount of radiation. Also, there are a great deal of pollutants in coal - its not a really clean energy source; and in fact causes more CO2 and less H2O release as its mostly carbon - unlike natural gas, which has a lot of hydrogen in it and therefore has water as a waste product of combustion which is much better than carbon dioxide.
Renewable alternatives
The renewable resources all have problems.
Bio Diesel (and/or ethanol) is a really promising alternative, but will require huge amounts of land to be converted to fuel production to support this - perhaps as much as 25% of the surface area of the US would be required to support the US at current rates of usage. In this sense it suffers the same problems as most renewables - environmental degredation. Its hard to know where all the fresh water is going to come from to grow this fuel, let alone the land. On the
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
The issue is whether we can sustain our usage at current levels indefinitely. The answer is of course, no.
Sure we can. It's called Nuclear Fission.
What would you rather deal with? An energy source that dumps massive amounts of CO2 and radioactivity into the atmosphere or an energy source that is carbon neutral and produces nuclear waste that can be reprocessed into more fuel and/or stored somewhere (i.e: it's not released into the atmosphere)?
There's no reason to accept a reduction in our standard of living and there's certainly no compelling reason to use coal over fission. We know that the waste can be reprocessed (the US just chooses not to), we know that the technology works and is safe. We also know that coal dumps massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
With oil reserves limited, attention is turning to other energy sources. Natural gas and Nuclear Power are the obvious choices.
Unfortunately, natural gas isn't infinite, and while it will last a while, its loss will be accelerated by oil substitution. In other words, it will peak not long after whenever oil peaks.
Nuclear power is contentious, difficult, and actually not in infinite supply. The world would consume all the nuclear power in a couple of decades; and there isn't any easy way to make its energy available for transportation.
Have you ever heard of fuel reprocessing? Have you ever heard of breeder reactors that use U-238? How about using thorium? Estimates are that we have anywhere from 10,000 to 5,000,000,000 years worth of nuclear fuel remaining with these technologies that are largely already available. If by "contentious" you mean "NIMBY" then I suppose people will have to consider whether or not they'd rather accept a lower standard of living or nuclear power. I choose the latter.
Geothermal, hydro and tidal power all have much promise, but many parts of the world have no access to any of these options.
Some people think that hydro power winds up dumping almost as much greenhouse gas into the air (mainly methane) as a coal plant does. Why? Decaying vegetation in the reservoirs. In any case hydro and tidal are hardly eco-free options (and we've already used most of our hydro resources in the West) and geothermal spots eventually go cold.
Energy is going to get more expensive. Transportable energy for cars, trucks and planes will be really difficult; and nobody is going to be flying around cheaply in 10 years time.
I liked the idea of the hydrogen economy for transportable energy and nuclear fission/fusion for the backend (i.e: the grid). Whether or not hydrogen would scale (odds are it works for a SUV -- will it work for a 747?) is another matter and outside my area of expertise.
In any case I don't see why nuclear isn't being seriously considered as an option. We know that renewables won't scale. We also know that nuclear technology works and properly used is safe.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Have you ever heard of fuel reprocessing? Have you ever heard of breeder reactors that use U-238? How about using thorium? Estimates are that we have anywhere from 10,000 to 5,000,000,000 years worth of nuclear fuel remaining with these technologies that are largely already available. If by "contentious" you mean "NIMBY" then I suppose people will have to consider whether or not they'd rather accept a lower standard of living or nuclear power. I choose the latter.
I have no great contention with what you are saying. I think nuclear is a good option, if done right.
Conventional reserves will power the world for 50 years, at current usage. If we were to run out of other energy sources, it would last alot less. This is because almost all nuclear reactors rely on U235, which is only 0.7% of all uranium, to maintain the reaction. All the current light water reactors use this technology.
Breeder reactors certainly overcome this limitation, but as I understand it are a much newer technology. I'm not saying they won't work, just that I'm not sure how well they will work in the long term.
Either way, Nuclear is set to be integral to energy in the near future.
Bear in mind, nuclear won't fly planes or probably drive trucks. To store that energy will require a whole technology that doesn't really work yet. One ordinary car engine with the pedal to the metal consumes enough power to light up a small village. People don't really understand that yet - the big issue is not future energy (although its an issue) - it is portable energy in the future. I don't know what the answer to this is; hopefully its biodiesel. Honestly, I don't think its nuclear, but I'd love to be wrong.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
I'm not at all a nuke booster, but this isn't true. If you use breeder reactors you can convert non-fissile U238 to Plutonium, which multiplies your available fuel (U235) by a factor of hundreds. And it's not hard to transport electricity, it's just how efficient it is. Aside from copper cables, there's the possibility of cracking water to make hydrogen. Further out, maybe superconducting cables. Also you can make portable reactors on barges and move them to where they're needed.
I'm very sceptical about hydrogen. All our current hydrogen is coming from fossil fuels, and nobody really knows how to economically make it or store it. It destroys most containers it is in, and it is so light that you cannot compress it to a useful energy density without very strong containers. All of which make it moderately bad for cars and trucks, and exceptionally bad for planes.
I think you could put induction coils under most roads in cities to recharge vehicles there, but I'm not sure that this will work long distance.
Trains will work just fine - I'm expecting to see alot more of them around in the future as electricity works well for them.
If you really think electricity is easy to store, why are people getting so interested in fuel cells for laptops?
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
The "clean coal" industry must be rather pleased with this article. It reads almost like a press release - It's clean! It's efficient! It uses coal we already have! It's good for our military! It's cheap! And what a name, "green fuel". How can it possibly be bad, "green" is in the name!
It's not until the 16th paragraph when then happen to mention that, oh yeah, this "green fuel" process will release "massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere" - four times as much. But don't worry, they'll be able to use a carbon-catching technology that doesn't even exist yet to make sure none of that CO2 actually escapes the factory. Right. There are dozens (if not hundreds) of coal plants operating in the US that aren't using the emissions reduction technology that's available now.
I remember seeing massive pipes in some cities in an East-European contry that were for distributing hot water to all the Socialist era housing blocks. It seemed odd to me until I understood that a hot water heater was a luxury (and probably still is for a large portion of the non-1st world countries).
Every person in the housing block paid a percentage of the hot water bill (including amounts that leaked out) depending on the number of occupants in the individual apartment, since it was only metered at each building. Of course, during the Socialist times, I guess it was cost-effective since no one was technically paying a water bill.
Outside of that kind of economic situation, I think the cost of building the distribution system (economic and impact on established cities) and operating lossses of heat during transportation make it unlikely that we'll stop wasting the heat generated. However, an industrial park located next to such a power plant would probably be reasonable and economical.
There was an article a few months ago about a trash vaporizing plant being built in Florida that was going to sell steam to a nearby Tropicana plant. I imagine that if everyone looked at existing systems to determine where "one plant's trash is another plant's gold", we could reduce pollution and consumption of resources considerably (and enterprising individuals have been making fortunes doing this for decades if not centuries).
However, I think that industry lobbies like the "Clean Coal" people hinder this because they oppose the requirements that would force them to be more effecient in the first place. If you can buy a carbon credit on the international market for less than the cost of installing scrubbing equipment, then you increase "shareholder value" at least in the short term. I wish the markets would come up with a "customer value" and a "downwind resident value" to measure the impact of companies.