Slashdot Mirror
Germany Fired Up Over Clean Coal
MIT's Technology Review is reporting on the world's first coal-driven power plant designed to capture and store C02 emissions. "Vattenfall's small 30-megawatt plant burns the lignite in air from which nitrogen has been removed. Combustion in the resulting oxygen-rich atmosphere produces a waste stream of carbon dioxide and water vapor, three-quarters of which is recycled back into the boiler. By repeating this process, known as oxyfuel, it is possible to greatly concentrate the carbon dioxide. After particles and sulfur have been removed, and water vapor has been condensed out, the waste gas can be 98 percent carbon dioxide, according to Vattenfall. The separated carbon dioxide will be cooled down to -28 C and liquefied. Starting next year, the plan is to transport it by truck 150 miles northwest, to be injected 3,000 meters underground into a depleted inland gas field in Altmark. Ideally, in the future, the gas will be carried by pipeline to underground storage, says Vattenfall. "
Because that would be a technological solution to the problem.
That would mean the giant deficit is also a technology solution to the problem?
Great. No, the problem is we, on multiple levels, be it financial, energy, trash & pollution, are living off the future generations, and that my friends, makes us extremely low class. It started with the baby boomers, and they will take this behavior to the grave, making sure all the hard decisions about pensions will pass their generation. Before that, it is said, people actually worked for the futures of their children in the opposite of our ego-centric ways. But seemingly we now get at a stage were these "rights" to live off them are taken for granted and that that is not ok, even forgotten. We -do- have obligations. That said, I know it's naive to expect us to behave otherwise, as many would rather grab what they can out of life with the least effort, and leave a burning planet behind than bore themselves with obligations when they're no longer here. As a species, we're going for the Darwin award.