Energy Secretary Chu Endorses "Clean Coal"

DesScorp writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Energy Secretary Steven Chu is endorsing 'clean coal' technology and research, and is taking a pragmatic approach to coal as an energy supply. '"It absolutely is worthwhile to invest in carbon capture and storage because we are not in a vacuum," Mr. Chu told reporters Tuesday following an appearance at an Energy Information Administration conference. "Even if the United States or Europe turns its back on coal, India and China will not," he said. Mr. Chu added that "quite frankly I doubt if the United States will turn its back on coal. We are generating over 50% of our electrical energy from coal."' The United States has the world's largest reserves of coal. Secretary Chu has reversed his positions on coal and nuclear power, previously opposing them, and once calling coal 'My worst nightmare.'"

Comments

"Clean Coal"

[gringofrijolero]

Oxymoron of the century.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[gringofrijolero]

(Score:0, Troll)

The president of North American Coal has mod points today. Fine, let's put you downstream from the mine, and then you can tell me how "clean" your coal is.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[gnick]

Clean coal is clearly an oxymoron - There's no such thing as clean coal.

Just like there's no such thing as clean nuclear (gotta do something with that waste), clean wind (service roads are a bitch and transporting energy requires infrastructure), clean sun (break-even on solar panels just sucks, but ovens and water-heaters are OK), etc...

We've got tons of coal that's (relatively) easy to mine and (if not clean) not nearly as bad as it used to be and its environmental impact isn't all that much worse than a lot of the "green" sources. It's not as nice as nuclear (assuming you're not scared of the waste) or wind (if you happen to have a consistently windy back yard), but it's cheap, plentiful, and efficient. If you have that big a problem with it, find a better solution and then do the leg-work getting it approved, funded, and implemented. I'll applaud you when you're done.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Thelasko]

Just like there's no such thing as clean nuclear (gotta do something with that waste)

Actually, the French have been recycling their spent nuclear fuel for years.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Propaganda13]

A family member lives downwind of a coal plant and she says the roughly the same thing "Come live here and tell me how clean your coal is"

Re:"Clean Coal"

[bjourne]

We've got tons of coal that's (relatively) easy to mine and (if not clean) not nearly as bad as it used to be and its environmental impact isn't all that much worse than a lot of the "green" sources.

Bullshit.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[The Grim Reefer2]

Oxymoron of the century.

I guess you never heard of "Military Intelligence".

Re:"Clean Coal"

[resonance378]

From the recycling article regarding the US and reprocessing. "In October 1976, fear of nuclear weapons proliferation (especially after India demonstrated nuclear weapons capabilities using reprocessing technology) led President Gerald Ford to issue a Presidential directive to indefinitely suspend the commercial reprocessing and recycling of plutonium in the U.S. This was confirmed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. After that, only countries that already had large investments in reprocessing infrastructure continued to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. President Reagan lifted the ban in 1981, but did not provide the substantial subsidy that would have been necessary to start up commercial reprocessing."

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Smidge204]

Perhaps if you understood what's "dirty" about coal power, the term "clean coal" would make more sense.

=Smidge=

Re:"Clean Coal"

[QuantumPion]

We should put nuclear waste on rockets and shoot them into space.

Why? By weight, 90% of the spent fuel is natural uranium, which can be used as fuel in fast reactors or other commercial purposes. 5% of the weight is high-level radioactive waste, which decays to safe levels in a few decades. The rest is trans-uranics, which can be recycled to use in new fuel.

The only reason why we have a "waste problem" in the US is because the government won't allow separating the dangerous-part-which-decays-quickly from the very-long-half-life-but-reusable-as-fuel parts. The reason why we can't do this separation is because we don't want to encourage rogue nations like Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[interkin3tic]

When did the "troll" moderation come to mean "Opposes a marketing campaign I'm in some way allied with?" I'd expect it on political issues, I'm not optimistic enough to think that everyone with mod points is going to disagree with the politics in a post and not abuse it. I would expect people to be a little more open to disagreement on something like whether or not clean coal is going to pan out.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[TheRaven64]

If you put it into space, it really is a waste. You have something that is so energy-rich you can't stand near it for too long without developing cancer, and you want to throw it away? Putting it in space is even worse than putting it underground and letting all of that energy leak away warming up the soil slightly.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[cats-paw]

its environmental impact isn't all that much worse than a lot of the "green" sources

That's an absurd statement.

You have obviously never heard of "mining" coal via mountain top removal.

Coal is awful on many levels, and the sooner we can get rid of it, the better.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[QuantumPion]

Obama's definition of Clean Coal = raise taxes on regular coal, and claim that selling carbon credits to non-producing third world countries somehow reduces overall pollution.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[blind biker]

We've got tons of coal that's (relatively) easy to mine and (if not clean) not nearly as bad as it used to be and its environmental impact isn't all that much worse than a lot of the "green" sources.

That's bullshit on a stick. Mining coal is extremely damaging to the environment and it releases a lot of pollutants, including radiating ones. The process of conversion into electrical energy is, likewise, very polluting, even with filtration in place. The filters just can't remove all the pollutants from the exhaust, because you need to burn so much coal to produce the same amount of energy that, for instance, nuclear produces.

At parity of energy, coal produces by far the largest amount of pollutants, environment damage, work-injuries, diseases and fatalities.

Yes, coal is evil. Clean coal is just a political stratagem to get the coal-votes.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[pixelpusher220]

to be fair, the French system results in about 10 times less waste than ours, but they still have the waste issue to deal with.

It may even be less radioactive than ours, but its still not something you want to bury behind the house.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Thelasko]

We should put nuclear waste on rockets and shoot them into space.

<sarcasm > Yeah, and we can use the nuclear waste to shoot down all of those defunct satellites floating out there too. Two birds with one stone! </sarcasm>

Re:"Clean Coal"

[MobyDisk]

(service roads are a bitch and transporting energy requires infrastructure),

That would be relevant only if coal plants did not require roads as well.

not nearly as bad as it used to be

Granted that it produces less SO2 than it used to, but CO2 is the real problem. So it is really just as bad as it used to be.

not nearly as bad as it used to be and its environmental impact isn't all that much worse than a lot of the "green" sources

Trying to equate the billions of tons of CO2 emitted from coal plants to the minor environmental impact of wind and solar is silly.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[cayenne8]

"he only reason why we have a "waste problem" in the US is because the government won't allow separating the dangerous-part-which-decays-quickly from the very-long-half-life-but-reusable-as-fuel parts. The reason why we can't do this separation is because we don't want to encourage rogue nations like Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons."

Actually, you can thank the Carter administration for that policy on recycling nuclear waste so it can be reused.

I don't know why we can't do it, hell, look at France, they've done very well using nuclear energy this way. Fsck North Korea. They're gonna try to do what they want to do no matter what example we give.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Greg_D]

And now we know how you were conceived.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[ZarathustraDK]

When did the "troll" moderation come to mean "Opposes a marketing campaign I'm in some way allied with?"

He must be a Coal-Troll... aharh aharh harh....

Re:"Clean Coal"

[LeafOnTheWind]

Why is the parent modded troll? Not only does it produce a huge amount of greenhouse gases, but the very mining process is one of the most environmentally destructive on the planet. It's essentially blowing a mountain apart, which destroys the entire ecosystem in the area.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[DerekLyons]

Recycling nuclear fuel rods isn't like recycling glass or aluminum, you don't just melt it down and reuse. There's considerable processing involved to remove to fission poisons and fission products that have accumulated and to cast and machine the fuel pins.
 
Which processing produces considerable waste, both in radioactive products and contaminated handling/processing equipment.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Socguy]

Actually, the French [wikipedia.org] have been recycling [wikipedia.org] their spent nuclear fuel for years.

... and what do they do with the nuclear plants themselves when they reach the end of their lifespans?

Re:"Clean Coal"

[interkin3tic]

I hate sounding like kids over at gamefaqs forums but

[facepalm]

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Deanalator]

Of course there is no such thing as "clean coal". The word "clean" is an ideal word. It's like having a "clean" house, or a "clean" kid.

I don't understand why people have such a hard time grasping that the word "clean" is being used as a relativistic term for burning fuel more efficiently than we used to. Of course politicians endorse "clean coal", as well as "safe cars", and "secure ports". They are working towards ideal goals, and while admittedly those goals can never be reached, why does everyone jump on their case for trying?

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Anonymous Coward]

"The reason why we can't do this separation is because we don't want to encourage rogue nations like Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons."

And they are developing their own uranium refining capacity anyway, making the restriction moot.

The most sensible strategy would be to "deep-burn" nuclear fuel in a power plant (perhaps using a series of different reactor designs). This extends the fuel supply by at least a factor of 20, reduces the volume of waste by a lot, and eliminated the long term radioactivity of the waste entirely.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[haruchai]

Fact check time - if they are efficiently recycling their spent fuel then why do they need this: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12837958 I've read about nuclear reactor designs that use up 75-99% of their fuel versus the ~25% of the most common ones in use now but I don't hear of these new designs being built, new reactors are very expensive and I think retrofitting an old one must also cost a bundle. Wind, wave and solar first, everything else follow behind, coal bring up the rear

Re:"Clean Coal"

[AK Marc]

They are working towards ideal goals, and while admittedly those goals can never be reached, why does everyone jump on their case for trying?

Because it's a lie. It isn't "clean coal". It's cleaner coal than yesterday, but still not clean. And diverting resources to subsidize still-dirty coal that wishes it was cleaner would have resulted in more clean power if those resources were used on actual clean power technologies. When you can put a cork in the smoke stack of a coal plant, then it's clean. Until then, we have invented a nonsense phrase to justify subsidies to dirty coal.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Sethus]

I thought we had been recycling spent nuclear fuel too? At least I saw an article in the USA Today or NYTimes yesterday about Italy selling us nuclear waste to be processed in Tennessee.

I couldn't find the original article; but here's a related one from Associated Press. http://www.topix.com/forum/city/church-hill-tn/TQEJMTT7JR9FSKEAI

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Idiomatick]

Most of Europe and Canada actually. My old university McMaster has a CANDU reactor which recycles the spent nuclear fuel as well. Really it is kind of pitiful the US can't when 'that wierd tall building near the ABB science building' can do it.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Icegryphon]

Actually, you can thank the Carter administration for that policy on recycling nuclear waste so it can be reused.

I don't know why we can't do it, hell, look at France, they've done very well using nuclear energy this way. Fsck North Korea. They're gonna try to do what they want to do no matter what example we give.

AMEN!!!! MOD THIS UP!

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Maxmin]

We've got tons of coal that's (relatively) easy to mine and (if not clean) not nearly as bad as it used to be and its environmental impact isn't all that much worse than a lot of the "green" sources.

Oh, is that really true?

Coal mining is a major environmental catastrophe, always has been, always will be. Blowing the tops off mountains to get at it, and parking the burn waste right on the edge of rivers, it's hard for it not to be.

Now, if Mr. Chu can turn around those practices, I'll applaud him. But nothing I've heard so far leads me to believe they'll address things beyond cap-and-trade.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[dbIII]

If you actually had read a little more about the reprocessing efforts in France you would not be holding them up as a shining example. Still, it is a start, deals with the worst of the waste, and someone has to make the messy and expensive mistakes first.
For permanant storage there is also things like Synrock - but anyone that suggests the entire waste problem has been solved is either lying to sell something or has been fooled. The answer is that instead of pretending that it all happens by magic and is perfect is to actually do some R&D into civilian nuclear research - a bit of funding and Synrock for example would have been ready twenty years ago since research had been almost completely on hold since then.
Loud advocates also forget that the fuel comes from a rock instead of some magic bean. Toxic runoff from Uranium mining is a frequent and apparently very difficult to solve problem in some mines, so forget about the "clean" label. In fact it's rather stupid to apply the "clean" label to a major industrial process anyway - it's a nasty PR trick whether it is nuclear or coal.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[gringofrijolero]

Oh, I don't know. I bet it would make a pretty handy, maintenance free water heater. If I lived far enough north, I'd put it under the house.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Joce640k]

Mod parent up...

The money would be better spent elsewhere, eg. a pilot pebble bed reactor to show the public what a modern nuclear plant looks like.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[BlueParrot]

In fact it's rather stupid to apply the "clean" label to a major industrial process anyway - it's a nasty PR trick whether it is nuclear or coal.

Agreed, the more accurate way to put it would be:

"As compared to all other energy sources that have been proven practical and economical on a large scale, nuclear power has the lowest life-cycle environmental impact per kilowatt hour of energy generated, and this can with high probability be further improved through careful use of modern reprocessing technologies."

Re:"Clean Coal"

[DrWho520]

This is an insightful and deliciously ironic post. Who would have thought 20 years ago the majority of European automobiles would be highly efficient, low sulfur burning diesels, essentially "clean diesel." And who would have thought that technology would push begin to change the trucking and automobile market and industry, at least in the US. I applaud you, sir.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[Thelasko]

The reason why we can't do this separation is because we don't want to encourage rogue nations like Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

From what I understand, doing this separation would inadvertently violate a section of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Currently, several nations, including the US are looking for a solution. The most promising appears to be a third party (IAEA?) reprocessing facility, in which all nations could send their spent fuel to be reprocessed and returned.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[AndyTheSE]

Nuclear waste can't be shot into space because current rocket-based technology is too expensive and the rocket may explode over populated areas. However if cheaper launching technology were ever developed, such as the 'space elevator', we might have a solution.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[ultranova]

(service roads are a bitch and transporting energy requires infrastructure),

That would be relevant only if coal plants did not require roads as well.

Actually it's very relevant since coal plants require truckloads of coal every day, while windmills or solar arrays require a service van once or twice per year. Of course that's probably not what the grandparent hoped to imply...

Re:"Clean Coal"

[sumdumass]

You have obviously never heard of "mining" coal via mountain top removal.

Evidently you haven't heard of other ways to mine coal like building a mine and carting it out.

Obviously if they are looking to make coal green or clean, they are also going to look into the entire production line of it. Just because something is true today doesn't mean it will continue to be limited by those factors in the future. We don't necessarily need to throw the baby out with the bath water. I'm not sure why people want to think something can't be done or done a certain ways when there is ample opportunity for improvement.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[KovaaK]

And if you got your entire lifetime supply of energy from nuclear power (in the French system) including energy for transportation, you would generate a chunk of nuclear waste the size of a baseball, and it would take 300 years to become radioactively inactive.

Try doing that with any other realistically available source of energy and tell me how much waste you generate and how long it takes to decay into harmless material. I can almost guarantee that it will be many orders of magnitude higher, and it will be toxic for many many years beyond the waste generated by a nuclear power plant.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[dbIII]

Unfortunately in the above statement "modern" means not developed yet :(
Also the "practical and economical" doesn't really fit yet, and consider it takes a lot of digging and processing to get the fuel so "lowest life-cycle environmental impact" doesn't fit either. We need to take the nuclear debate out of magical PR space and into the context of the physical world and examples that exist now. It is worth actually making some improvements to match some of the claims instead of just sitting still and making wilder and wilder claims as the nuclear lobby has done.

Re:"Clean Coal"

[spauldo]

As a citizen of Oklahoma I strongly support this plan.

The cleaner the coal...

[FranTaylor]

The dirtier the fly ash.

Re:The cleaner the coal...

[LoRdTAW]

Clean coal is pretty much analogous to "edible shit". I really would like to know where you got the clean coal = dirtier fly ash from. The whole idea behind clean coal is to have close to zero fly ash exiting the stacks and as little NOx and other oxides as possible through better boiler combustion and steam treatment of flue gases. Also carbon capturing is also a big part too.

Fly ash isn't a big problem as it is scrubbed out of the stacks using water. For years it has been used as a component in Portland cement, this is how the cinder block got its name. From the Wikipedia article on fly ash, 43 percent is recycled though it does contain some nasty stuff. Most of it is used for cement aggregate or land fill (not land fill as in refuse).

Re:The cleaner the coal...

[AK Marc]

I really would like to know where you got the clean coal = dirtier fly ash from

Assuming that "clean coal" doesn't include massive changes to the coal before burning it, it will burn the same. The ash left on the bottom will be the same. Technically, the fly ash will be exactly the same. However, if the emissions out of the stack are cleaner, then the fly ash caught will have to be dirtier. So, I'm presuming that he meant "captured fly ash" when he said "fly ash" and because the exhaust would be cleaner, what's caught would have to be worse.

Given most of what's been proposed for "clean coal" that appears to be a necessarily true statement. It's probably not a theoretical necessity, as catylitic converters make a difference in cars, but in the environment of a coal plant, they talk about scrubbers, not converters, especially for anything near being ready to deploy.

Re:The cleaner the coal...

[LoRdTAW]

I still don't see how it will become more dirty. The clean coal idea is to reduce harmful flue gas emissions. Flue gas and fly ash are two separate things mixed together. Fly ash is particulate matter that was carried off the burning coal bed in the boiler by the hot flue gasses. Fly ash cant get any more dirty and will be just as dirty as the bottom ash. Gaseous emissions are the current problem that needs to be fixed. Clean the flue gas up and we are one step closer to clean coal. The only thing that should be exiting the flue is CO2. Then to get even cleaner we need to capture and somehow store the CO2 to further reduce emissions. Maybe we are misunderstanding each other?

So the components of flue gas are:
Fly ash - scrubbed out by water mist and disposed of or recycled.
sulfur oxides - cause acid rain, majorly harmful gas that needs to be removed.
Nitrogen oxides - principal cause of smog and harmful. Controlled by limiting oxygen during combustion.
carbon monoxide - caused by incomplete combustion and harmful. Again controlled through better combustion.
Carbon dioxide - harmless to us in the atmosphere but is the primary cause of global warming. Needs to be captured and somehow stored or processed. Some processing ideas have special farms next to the power station that will use plants and other CO2 absorbing life to break down the CO2 into oxygen.

Once the above problems are addressed coal can be clean. The idea is to stop the nasty stuff from ever making it out of the stack.
   

This is what happens when...

[ivan256]

...ideology meets reality.

Re:This is what happens when...

[TheMeuge]

Ideology is all well and good... but the whole concept of a "progressive" president having an energy secretary that claims to oppose nuclear power as well as coal, is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.

Renewable energy is all well and good, but the fact is that at the moment, it's not going to provide us with all the energy that we need. So while we should be adapting our infrastructure to support more renewable resources (solar, I am looking at you), we cannot afford to forget that it is nuclear power that promises us the quickest (and cleanest) way to combat our oil dependency. Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, burning any petroleum-derived products for electricity generation borders on the criminal, because while we have plenty of other ways to spin the turbines when the oil runs out, we're going to be deeply screwed when it comes to producing something we've come to take for granted in the modern age - plastics.

Re:This is what happens when...

[doconnor]

What's going to happen when the reality of America's dependence fossil fuels meets the reality of climate change?

Re:This is what happens when...

[Shakrai]

What's going to happen when the reality of America's dependence fossil fuels meets the reality of climate change?

We'll fully commit ourselves to nuclear and finally have the ammo we need to silence the anti-nuclear crowd?

Re:This is what happens when...

[wiggles]

We will be forced to adapt. I suggest we start planning for it.

Does anyone still believe anymore that we will still turn climate change around?

Re:This is what happens when...

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Yes, exactly - we're seeing what happens when the ideology of ignorant "Business As Usual" fossil fuel guzzling nimrods meets the stark implacable reality of resource depletion.

Re:This is what happens when...

[lewiscr]

No. This is what I want to happen when ideology meets reality. He could've gone all GreenPeace on us. Then we'd be really screwed.

Re:This is what happens when...

[MightyYar]

What's going to happen when the reality of America's dependence fossil fuels meets the reality of climate change?

The answer is obvious, unless I'm missing something. Rich countries will cope with climate change and poor countries will suffer.

I am not a global warming denier, but I've come to the conclusion that we aren't going to stop it. You'll never get developing countries on board, and the one resource more plentiful than fossil fuel is undeveloped countries.

So what do we do? Try to estimate the burn rate, model what happens when all the CO2 goes into the air, and prepare our infrastructure for whatever comes out of the models. Frankly, it's a self-limiting problem since there is a finite quantity of fossil fuel.

I guess we (rich countries) could also try to suck CO2 out of the air, but I haven't yet seen a proven method.

Re:This is what happens when...

[dgatwood]

We can always produce plastics from other substances, too... like castor oil.

Re:This is what happens when...

[TheMeuge]

We can always produce plastics from other substances, too... like castor oil.

Certainly we can. But at what cost, and on what kind of scale?

The fact that you can do something in the lab, doesn't make it feasible for global adoption.

Re:This is what happens when...

[dc29A]

I guess we (rich countries) could also try to suck CO2 out of the air, but I haven't yet seen a proven method.

Trees?

Re:This is what happens when...

[worthawholebean]

If you RTFA, the summary is pretty inaccurate. His shift on coal was at most relatively minor, from "I don't know if this can happen" to "If it can happen, it will take a long time to develop." On nuclear, his opinions haven't changed at all. I think his statements contain a remarkable amount of sense.

Re:This is what happens when...

[geekoid]

As well as Industrial Solar thermal, which can produce are electrical needs for as long as the Sun is operational.

Re:This is what happens when...

[MightyYar]

Nice snark, but where are you going to grow all of these trees? I doubt that even irrigating the deserts of the world would lock up enough carbon.

I've read about this "bio char", which can then be plowed under - but until some studies can advance the science a bit, I'll remain skeptical.

Re:This is what happens when...

[TheRaven64]

I don't think the pro-nuclear crowd has been short of ammo since a little after August 9, 1945...

Re:This is what happens when...

[kcfoxie]

Perhaps we need to re-evaluate how much energy we use.. that might be part of why the alternatives don't work. After visiting a solar offgrid home (granted the community has a small hydro setup on the creek running thru them), with its 40" Plasma TV and modern kitchen, your argument holds very little weight with me. The investment will pay for itself after the first 10 years, which I think is the minimal time most people with mortgages are going to be staying in their homes now (previously it was 5-7 years, but those days are long, long gone now).

Re:This is what happens when...

[Wildclaw]

What's going to happen when the reality of America's dependence fossil fuels meets the reality of climate change?

It will meet "peak X" first, where X is each of the fossile fuels that the US (and rest of the world) depend on. Oil is already in the peak stage. When it starts dropping we will see oil supply drop a couple of percent per year. And that will cause real panic in the countries that depend on fossile fuel to transport most their goods and employees. And no, you can't just find more oil. We have been finding less oil than we have been consuming for a good many years now. That is all part of the equation.

As for coal. The so called 500 year US coal reserve in the 1970s is less than 200 years of reserve now. Exponential growth in consumption is a bitch. And those 200 years are still estimated based on consumption remaining stagnant. That such misleading estimations are even used and believed shows just how stupid most people are. Coal won't last very long, especially if oil runs out.

The real reason for investing heavily in clean energy sources, is because the countries that does such investment before fuel prices rocket because of limited supply, will have a huge advantage.

Also, most people seems to think that prices will slowly go up as supply decreases. That is a complete misunderstanding of how the economy works. A small gap in the supply can easily double or triple the cost of a goods, if the demand is urgent enough. And oil is definitly quite urgent, considering how much the world rely on it for transportation. (the US more so than others)

While I have read many "fall of the US empire" stories, I personally think that the thing that the biggest bane of the US may very well be the large distances between work, shopping and home. Cities constructed in such a way are very sensititve to a drop in fossile fuel supply.

Re:This is what happens when...

[Dan Ost]

Trees are carbon neutral, not carbon negative. If you made charcoal from the trees and not burn it (perhaps bury it somewhere) then you've made them carbon negative.

Re:This is what happens when...

[Dasher42]

Ideology meets money, you mean. There is absolutely no such thing as clean coal. The mining process itself does enormous environmental damage that we presently shove down the throats of the Appalachian poor. If we redirected funding from expensive military toys along the lines of the F-22 into remodeling our energy production and usage, we could easily leave coal behind. Hell, even nuclear is a cleaner and safer alternative to coal, and that's actually saying something.

But, let them mouth off about "clean coal" if it keeps Big Coal pacified; green energy is gaining momentum and nobody's going to want coal in the coming paradigm.

Re:This is what happens when...

[jamstar7]

Really? The truth of the matter is, the US winning the 'atom bomb race' was a near thing.

Re:This is what happens when...

[lewiscr]

We'll fully commit ourselves to nuclear and finally have the ammo we need to silence the anti-nuclear crowd?

We'll have tons of depleted uranium rounds.

Re:This is what happens when...

[TheMeuge]

After visiting a solar offgrid home...

Or perhaps you should think of something other than your own energy consumption. Here's a pop quiz - what percentage of overall electrical energy consumed is residential. And for extra credit - how much of the remainder is at night?

I don't know where your hostility is coming from... except perhaps from inadequate understanding of the situation and a case of inflamed self-righteousness. It's the industrial consumption that is the main reason for why solar won't do. Hydroelectric power physically destroys nature, and wind power destroys the look of whatever is still untouched. That's why we need fission... and eventually fusion - to provide the lion's share of the industrial electricity for plants that do not shut down their machinery overnight - the same plants that will be making parts for the solar panels that the rest of us will use to distribute the residential electricity generation, and feed our 40" plasmas.

Re:This is what happens when...

[initdeep]

that's great
now how much electricity and power was used by that "off-grid" home DAILY that you aren't taking into account.

you know, the power to run the pumps that supplied the water to it from the municipal water system.

the power to produce the food that the people inside consumed.

the power to do such simple things as create the paper they write on.

stop with the "off-grid" bullshit.
it's not real.
it's not accurate
and it's total bullshit.

the day someone really goes "off-grid" is the day they go back to doing EVERYTHING themselves and are totally self-sustaining without ANY outside interference.

producing your own needs for electricity is great
but its a VERY SMALL amount of the world's total energy consumption.

Re:This is what happens when...

[dbIII]

we cannot afford to forget that it is nuclear power that promises us the quickest

I think you need to consider how a solution where it takes a decade to build a power plant even if you already have a design can be the "quickest". It appears the expense in PR worked, unfortunately there has been almost nothing spent on R&D for two decades to match even the most conservative promises. The nuclear lobby just wants to build TMI painted green and with a smaller containment vessel while a far more sensible approach would be to learn from the successes in China, India and South Africa where R&D did not stop.

I suggest learning about nuclear power before advocating it.

Re:This is what happens when...

[falconwolf]

What's going to happen when the reality of America's dependence fossil fuels meets the reality of climate change?

We'll fully commit ourselves to nuclear and finally have the ammo we need to silence the anti-nuclear crowd?

"Climate Change Briefing 'Nuclear power is no solution to climate change: exposing the myths'".

Falcon

Re:This is what happens when...

[colinrichardday]

Not according to the Wikipedia article. Also, what would nukes have availed the Japanese? They could neither hit the US nor prevent massive American bombing of Japan.

Re:This is what happens when...

[atraintocry]

That's pretty optimistic. I was going to say, "it already has, and people are perfectly fine with ignoring that."

In any case it takes years to get a nuclear plant online, even if you account for the time the town and counties spend in meetings nitpicking every little thing in an attempt to derail the project.

If we want more nuclear plants in the future, we need to start negotiating them and building them today.

Re:This is what happens when...

[atraintocry]

I like how that article argues that nuclear plants are bad when it comes to greenhouse gases because you have to mine uranium, even though you have to mine coal as well. The difference of course is that afterward we burn the coal.

Then they say nuclear isn't sustainable because it's "seeing its role in the world's energy mix diminish". That's a prime example of begging the question, and they even spend the next seven paragraphs backing up this "argument".

Then there's this gem: "The nuclear industry argues that the problems in the former Soviet Union are different to those in developed countries, but the United States itself had a serious accident at Three Mile Island in 1979."

I expected the obligatory Chernobyl mention, but TMI and Chernobyl were night and day. Their transparent attempt to imply that the US has had its own "Chernobyl" despite the common knowledge that TMI-2 was contained is the most weasel-ish thing I've heard in a *long* time (and I watched an hour of Kent Hovind the other day). I'm inclined to view TMI's accident as an example of how far we've come and how much we learned from Chernobyl, and I'm far from unique in that assessment.

Friends of Earth (the authors) are dead-set against nuclear power. I'm not...I think we should go back to moving forward cautiously with it. It's not all "China Syndrome", there are benefits as well as risks. You can consider that my statement of my own bias. But even if I was as strongly against nuclear power as they were, I'd still hope to be intellectually honest enough to call that article out for being the complete mess that it is.

Re:This is what happens when...

[Joce640k]

It won't be stopped by asking people nicely. What you need is somebody to step up and take responsibility.

I really don't think the economy would collapse if a law was passed requiring all cars to do 50mpg by 2012. Sure, cars might not be as fun to drive with small engines but I never figured out why a 2-ton SUV needs to be "sporty" anyway.

When they tried to abolish slavery the main argument against it was that the economy would collapse. They wanted to gradually phase out slaves (i.e. let them die off). In the end they just banned it and nothing happened (in fact we invented agricultural machines and entered one of the most prosperous eras in history).

I think it's time to stop messing about, mandate clean cars then let necessity be the mother of invention.

Re:This is what happens when...

[Vexar]

Gosh, how to do you manage to go into work every morning without feeling guilty? Or... do you feel bad about buying things at the store? There's "crime" in every item for sale in the stores: trucks, cargo ships, and railroads. I dunno. Maybe you're Amish with internet access. Even those fine automobiles from Tesla Motors are running on grid electricity, which is what percentage fossil-fuel-based?

Re:This is what happens when...

[Vexar]

Was this a veiled reference to the utility of depleted uranium in bullets?

Re:This is what happens when...

[LordKazan]

(disclaimer: i'm a /rational/ environmentalist)

what about off shore beyond 100km wind farms? they'd be more productive than land based ones and out of sight.

that being said I live in the 2nd highest wind power producing state (Iowa) and when I drive past our wind farms i don't go "ugh" i go "cool more generators were put up".

the generators are taking a little land out of farm production, but they're being placed in fields - the land was already altered.

and yes hydro dams alter the area, but they're ecological problems tend to come down to needing to build fish stairs for salmon. they're not destroying unique pristine wilderness.

I'm all for protecting the environment, and having large nature preserves, but you cannot act like every single square kilometer of the earths surface should be protected.

Re:This is what happens when...

[LordKazan]

stand in the halls of the US congress for one day.

you just received more radiation from the granite of the building than the total released at TMI-2. TMI-2's containment vessel WORKED. TMI-2 was not an ecological disaster, just a PR one.

From your other posts in this thread you're generally a pretty rational environmentalist, so much so i sent you an email. However I am disappointed to find that you are in the knee-jerk nuclear crowd. Yes nuclear isn't "perfectly clean" but a proper nuclear energy generation system, with spent fuel recylcing (which is not banned in the US - Ford introduced the ban, Carter approved the ban, Reagan in a rare show of intelligence repealed the ban).

Fission power, per gigawatt, is FAR cleaner than coal. Which would you rather have - some radioactive waste we have to find an already ruined, but geological stable, place to store it in and some limited open pit mining. Or the coal industry.

Re:This is what happens when...

[LordKazan]

there was a discovery program a while back that showed a small scale viable carbon sequester system using lime - it drew 200% of it's own carbon footprint out of the air when running off a diesel generator. Run it off nuclear or clean power and it has no carbon footprint.

Re:This is what happens when...

[jamstar7]

Two words.

Naval action.

Drop a couple nukes into the midst of a carrier group, carrier group is GONE. Same with a battleship group. Remember, at the time, nobody outside of the scientists working on them knew what nukes could (possibly) do. If they could clear the Pacific of the US fleet, they'd own the Pacific. Why do you think they attacked Pearl Harbor? And once they had naval superiority over the Pacific, yes, they could hit the West Coast by plane, carried on a carrier to within striking range, just like at Pearl.

Re:This is what happens when...

[TJamieson]

A point I haven't seen made yet is that of the economic impact. If you just shut down these mines and processing facilities, what happens to all the people who have just been forced out of work?

Re:This is what happens when...

[MightyYar]

I really don't think the economy would collapse if a law was passed requiring all cars to do 50mpg by 2012.

That certainly wasn't my argument. I agree, the economy would do just fine and it would probably help our dependence on foreign oil quite a bit.

But it won't do jack for greenhouse gas emissions, since you can't enforce the standard outside of the US.

Re:This is what happens when...

[MightyYar]

There's lots of this stuff that sounds good, and has even been tested on a small scale. But how much lime do you need to sequester all of the world's output of CO2 and how does it scale and what do you do with the waste stream?

Re:This is what happens when...

[falconwolf]

From your other posts in this thread you're generally a pretty rational environmentalist, so much so i sent you an email.

I try to be rational. I started calling myself an ecologist instead of environmentalist because I disapprove of some of the antics other environmentalists use. I understand but disapprove. As for emailing me, unless you put slashdot in the subject line I'll probably delete it without reading it.

However I am disappointed to find that you are in the knee-jerk nuclear crowd. Yes nuclear isn't "perfectly clean" but a proper nuclear energy generation system, with spent fuel recylcing

I guess you didn't read enough of my posts on nuclear power. Yes, I oppose it but I can change my mind if it can be shown it can be cleaned up, and here's a big one, Wall Street will finance it NOT the government. The article "Nuclear Energy: Risky Business" published on the Libertarian Free Market CATO Institute website says that even in France, India, and Russia businesses don't find nuclear power profitable. And they don't have the laws and regulations the US does. Here's the quote:"
"Given all of this, how do France, India, China, and Russia build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Government officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Either these governments build expensive plants and shove them down the market's throat-or they build shoddy plants and hope for the best."

Fission power, per gigawatt, is FAR cleaner than coal. Which would you rather have - some radioactive waste we have to find an already ruined, but geological stable, place to store it in and some limited open pit mining. Or the coal industry.

Though I haven't seen any life cycle analysis for coal and nuclear I do believe nuclear can be cleaner than coal, but it needs to be cleaned up. As I said in my reply to the post above yours American Indian tribes have had to suffer from nuclear power. Uranium mines are located on reservation land, the test site for nuclear bombs is by treaty rights part of an Indian reservation. And the proposed nuclear waste storage site is Western Shoshone land, and they oppose storage there.

which is not banned in the US - Ford introduced the ban, Carter approved the ban, Reagan in a rare show of intelligence repealed the ban

Ah, someone who knows the truth, I hear or read so many people blame the ban on reprocessing on Carter when it was Ford who banned it. Another thing they don't know or admit is that Carter had training in nuclear power, though not credited, while in the Navy. He was involved in a cleanup of a nuclear meltdown.

Which would you rather have - some radioactive waste we have to find an already ruined, but geological stable, place to store it in and some limited open pit mining. Or the coal industry.

I'd rather have neither. I'll first start with nuclear power. I would go along with building nuclear power plants that can use the "nuclear waste", perhaps like CANDU, we already have so long as the two points I list above are done, clean it up and have Wall Street finance it. But otherwise no new plants. Next I'd boost geothermal, solar, wind, and other alternative energy sources. There's more than enough of the first three to power the US, and though I don't know how quickly geothermal can come online both solar and wind can do so quickly.

Falcon

Re:This is what happens when...

[colinrichardday]

If the Japanese had nukes in 1941, they could have made trouble. But 1945? Nuke a carrier group? Gee, the US only had 100 carriers in the theater. How many nukes could Japan have built? And even if the US had no surface fleet, the Japanese would still have to clear the US subs between the Dutch East Indies and Japan (for the oil). After the first nuke, the US would step up patrols. Also, better hope those manufacturing sites are underground, or Curtis LeMay will bomb them.

As for Pearl Harbor, the Japanese victory still left it unable to control the Pacific east of Hawaii, although a few subs hit the west coast. Unless the nukes could be submarine launched, it would have been difficult for them to get through.

Re:This is what happens when...

[LordKazan]

don't listen the CATO institute, they're not very trustworthy. i find it extremely doubtful that nuclear reactors are unprofitable. I grew up less than 20 miles from one.

Yucca mountain is no longer a viable storage site if that is what you were talking about. They found a fault ran underneath it that they didn't think did.

The general impression I get from your post is that you think nuclear power is somehow really dirty. It's not, especially not with fuel reprocessing. The "uncleanliness" of nuclear power plants has been immensely exaggerated. All you need for long term storage is a geological stable site that is isolated from the water table. I was not aware of mines on native lands, most of the best mines are in Canada from my understanding.

A CANDU reactor would be a good thing as well. But the impression I get is you vastly exaggerate the risks of nuclear power, and the costs (in USD). As for "government funding" it's just government loans that I've heard of no grants - banks are wary to lend out the kind of money to make a reactor because of the bad PR of nuclear power.

Change? Change?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwahahaha.. where's your change now!

Re:Change? Change?

[Red Flayer]

Bwahahaha.. where's your change now!

Dude... we had change from pro-coal to anti-coal. Now we have change back to pro-coal from anti-coal.

Maybe my math sucks, but that's 200% of the change we expected.

Why you hatin'?

Re:Change? Change?

[geekoid]

You mean where they said clean coal was what they were looking at, and then did it?

I.E. doing exactly what they promised.

Re:Change? Change?

[atraintocry]

If you say it's 360 degrees of change, it sounds like there's 160 more change going on.

What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[Tibor the Hun]

I understand that there is no such thing as truly clean coal, but what is so bad about trying to produce cleaner coal for electricity generation?
Yes I do support nuclear, but we are pretty efficient at digging up and combusting coal. Why not work harder to scrub it better and deliver more electricity for the plug in hybrids?

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[DrMrLordX]

One of the problems is mining of coal. That isn't as clean or safe as it could (or should) be. The mass strip mine operations have given way to mountaintop removal which gets really ugly if the mining company can't (or won't) control runoff from the site. That's a very good way for people's water supply to turn orange if they use local wellwater for anything.

The other problem is the amount of energy it takes to store up CO2 somewhere. Realistically speaking we're going to need lots of dense (preferably mineral) carbon in the future for when carbon nanotubes (and similar carbon nanomaterials) take off, and burning coal sort of makes it harder to utilize all the raw carbon locked inside. Anthracite can be up to 98% pure carbon. Converting all that into CO2 + energy and then attempting to produce nanotubes from all that CO2 is sort of backwards. Better just to harvest all the raw carbon and throw the rest away.

Understandably that is a different application than energy production but coal will be one of the most attractive sources of carbon for nanotubes in my opinion (up there with graphite).

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[flaming error]

If "clean coal" is not an oxymoron, I can't imagine what is. But given the sad fact that coal powers the world, and that change comes incrementally, some R&D on the subject seems like a good thing.

I'll go on the record as a supporter of clean coal, if it ever comes into being. And cold fusion, too. I'd even support perpetual motion.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[ComputerInsultant]

The problem here is that utilities are currently trying to build new "Clean Coal" generating plants that have no carbon capture at all.

The "Clean Coal" phrase as Chu used it in the article is very different than the "Clean Coal" phrase used by my local utility trying to build a new plant. I would not mind Chu's "Clean Coal", but I do not want what the utilities are currently calling "Clean Coal".

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[Thelasko]

Why not work harder to scrub it better and deliver more electricity for the plug in hybrids?

I don't think scrubbing the exhaust of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate emissions is the controversial part, it's the carbon. At the end of the day, coal is nearly pure carbon. As you likely know, burning carbon produces carbon dioxide. This is very alarming to those who are concerned about global warming.

Unfortunately, the coal industry only has one solution for the global warming crowd. They suggest we bury the carbon dioxide underground. This in itself is controversial, because nobody knows if it will work on such a massive scale.

Personally, I don't see how they will store it underground without it leaking to the surface. If you are going to store carbon, it's best to store it as coal, or in some sort of plant matter.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[doconnor]

One the problem with "clean" coal is the radioactive waste. For the amount of energy produced, coal created more radioactive waste then nuclear. The difference is it is mixed in with tons and tons of chemically toxic ash, so there is no way of ever disposing of it safely. For nuclear energy the waste is conveniently concentrated and small enough it can be disposed of safely in stable rock.

Perhaps if we mixed the waste from our reactors with coal ash, people won't be so worried about it.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out images of mountain top removal mining in Kentucky. Very efficient at the removal of coal from the earth. Very destructive too.

I'm not "anti-coal" per se, but just for reference here's a link to "United Mountain Defense", a Tennesse anti-mountain-top-removal-mining organization.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[greg_barton]

For the amount of energy produced, coal created more radioactive waste then nuclear.

Funny you should mention that: linky

Step 1: Mine coal
Step 2: After burning the coal, take the thorium from tailings
Step 3: Use liquid fluoride thorium nuclear reactors to provide energy for a few thousand years
Step 4: Profit...for everyone...

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[jbeaupre]

To make something like nanotubes, you need very pure precursor chemicals. 98% pure isn't nearly pure enough. To get a really pure carbon source, you need to do some sort of fractional distillation. Methane, ethane, etc. So you're looking at sourcing from natural gas, oil, or a synthetic made from coal. Alternately, you can capture CO2 and work a bit of chemical magic there. But anthracite doesn't offer any advantages.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[sunking2]

Does it really matter if it leaks to the surface if the rate is significantly less than we are currently releasing? And I'd have to imagine that you could control it to a rate of 100s of times less per ton of coal than we currently do. If we wait to achieve perfection we will go nowhere.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[Jherek Carnelian]

Unfortunately, the coal industry only has one solution for the global warming crowd. They suggest we bury the carbon dioxide underground. This in itself is controversial, because nobody knows if it will work on such a massive scale.

I suggest a space elevator with a tube running along the length of the cable.
Then we can just pump the CO2 into outer space.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[Red Flayer]

Personally, I don't see how they will store it underground without it leaking to the surface.

It will get into the water table.

I don't see the problem. Imagine -- well water that is pre-carbonated.

Think of the reduction in cost of producing Mountain Dew!

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[jamstar7]

That depends on the chemical changes it goes through as it rises to the surface. AFAICT, nobody's done anything like a study on this.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[DrMrLordX]

Well, it does offer the advantage of having more carbon per pound than other forms of coal. Even if processing is necessary to remove impurities, you're buying less impurities per unit mass when you acquire the coal in the first place. That was the point I was trying to make.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[Attila Dimedici]

So, turn off your computer and stop using electricity. That way you can do your part to reduce CO2 emission.

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[falconwolf]

we are pretty efficient at digging up and combusting coal. Why not work harder to scrub it better and deliver more electricity for the plug in hybrids?

That efficiency is one of the reasons coal is so dirty. Mountaintop removal is quite destructive of the environment, as is breakage of slurry containment ponds.

Falcon

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[Vexar]

How hard is Step 2? And don't you mean the fly ash, not the mining tailings?

Re:What is so bad about "clean" coal?

[jbeaupre]

But anthracite costs twice as much, so your paying about more per unit mass of carbon.

I'll believe it when I see it..

[tjstork]

This is all political posturing at best motivated by some poll taken in a coal district. There's NO way this administration would ever actually do anything to support coal. Anyone connected to coal or coal mining who supports Obama would be about as foolish as a gay guy supporting Pat Buchanan.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[gringofrijolero]

There's NO way this administration would ever actually do anything to support coal.

Nonsense. They follow the money, just like any other. What is there that's convinced you otherwise?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Mr. Underbridge]

There's NO way this administration would ever actually do anything to support coal

Care to make it interesting? They said that about wiretaps too (among other issues Obama's reversed himself on).

Fact is, there's no other energy technology available that can be widely implemented during Obama's administration, even if he's re-elected. You can't build nuclear plants that fast. Solar and wind aren't ready for wide-scale connection to the grid.

So guess what? You're back to good old coal, with a few twists to make it more palatable to environmentalists.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Shakrai]

You can't build nuclear plants that fast

Why can't we? Would it have anything to do with the fact that the enviro-nazis and NIMBY bastards successfully stymied the construction of new plants back in the 70s and 80s and in so doing left zero incentive for American industry to retain the plant and equipment to build reactors?

I read somewhere that there's only one steelworks in the world that's capable of forging the reactor containment walls and they have years of back orders on the books. Of course it didn't used to be that way but the various anti-nuclear movements drove down demand to the point that it wasn't profitable for other steelworks to retain the equipment to produce them. Other parts of the supply chain have been equally impacted.

Congratulations environmentalists -- you ripped the heart out of the only energy source that could have weaned us off carbon in our lifetimes. Seems a bit shortsighted in retrospect, doesn't it?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[maxume]

They are going to tacitly approve of it for at least 4 years (or do you think that the EPA is going to go a-knocking?).

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Mr. Underbridge]

Why can't we? Would it have anything to do with the fact that the enviro-nazis and NIMBY bastards successfully stymied the construction of new plants back in the 70s and 80s and in so doing left zero incentive for American industry to retain the plant and equipment to build reactors?

Ha! I think those nutcases have been put out to pasture, long overdue. At this point, I think it's more that nuclear plants are kind of complicated and aren't something you slap together in a year. Retrofitting existing combustion facilities, on the other hand, might have a quicker impact. If that sort of thing matters to you. And if you happen to be a president with one eye on the polls and one eye on the calendar, it does.

There's also problems in that running a nuclear plant requires immediate access to large amounts of water for cooling towers, which limits where they can be placed.

Congratulations environmentalists -- you ripped the heart out of the only energy source that could have weaned us off carbon in our lifetimes. Seems a bit shortsighted in retrospect, doesn't it?

It's funny, actually, the environmentalists have started falling over themselves lately to support nuclear. For very much the reasons you state.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[frank_adrian314159]

There's NO way this administration would ever actually do anything to support coal.

Actually, Obama has lots of ties to the coal industry.

Illinois has a fair amount of coal underneath it (see Kidder and Peabody companies) with almost half of the counties having some exploitable coal deposits underneath them (An Illinois State Geological Survey study that mapped the coal deposits in the states funded part of my graduate school at the University of Illinois. In fact, the ISGS is one of the many recipient of federal DoE funds studying carbon sequestration).

But to get back to my original point, Obama took mucho money from the coal firms, both during his Senate and Presidential campaigns. This is why in each of his energy speeches he makes sure to mention "clean coal" technology. It's pretty obvious that Obama political operatives forced Chu to change his stance on the matter.

Now, more importantly, why do you think that Obama and his administration would oppose clean coal? I know you right wingnuts always assume that Democrats == environment => hate coal, but anyone with half a brain to do research knows that this isn't the case with Obama. Don't you idiots bother to do research? Or are you too blinded by Obama Derangement Syndrome to do that anymore?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[ScentCone]

There's NO way this administration would ever actually do anything to support coal.

Sure there is. Unionized minors are right up their alley, vote-wise. His party is all about pandering for those votes, and that's fertile ground for more of them. Just watch.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Shakrai]

Ha! I think those nutcases have been put out to pasture, long overdue.

I don't think the NIMBY bastards have been put out to pasture, given the response we've seen in some communities to wind farms. My favorite was seeing all the rich liberal snobs out on Cape Cod/Martha's Vineyard whining about the proposal to build a wind farm there. I guess their scenic view takes a back seat to reducing carbon emissions and they should build them in some poor slobs backyard instead.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[ArcherB]

Congratulations environmentalists -- you ripped the heart out of the only energy source that could have weaned us off carbon in our lifetimes. Seems a bit shortsighted in retrospect, doesn't it?

Yes, it's the environmentalists that got us into this mess. Back then, they were saying that nuclear will kill us all. The debate was over.

Now they are making the same arguments about carbon while adding "but THIS time, we are right!"

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[dwiget001]

Actually, there are at least two companies that could make such containment devices, both are engaged in building nuclear subs for the United States.

Sure, a submarine environment is different than land based, but the engineering and construction technology could be modified to make land based reactor containment vessels, pretty easily.

Little bit of money here and there and the equipment to do so, could be pretty rapidly and easily done, IMHO.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[CrimsonAvenger]

Unionized minors

Kids don't have a union in this country.

Or did you mean "miners"?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[dgatwood]

What do you mean solar and wind aren't ready? Solar and wind are already being used heavily on the power grid. Last year, about 2.5% of California's power came from wind energy (6,802 GWh). Solar was only about 0.3%, but PG&E just started a new program to add 500 MW of solar capacity (times say 7 full-sun-equivalent hours is 3500 MWh per day, or about 1,277.5GWh per year, give or take), which means by the end of that five year program, that will be up to about 0.8% even if nobody else in California adds any solar installations at all. That's not exactly small scale power generation....

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[pluther]

Unionized minors are right up their alley, vote-wise.

You got it backwards.

There are no unionized minors. Once the unions get involved, there are no minors among the miners.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[winwar]

"Would it have anything to do with the fact that the enviro-nazis and NIMBY bastards successfully stymied the construction of new plants back in the 70s and 80s and in so doing left zero incentive for American industry to retain the plant and equipment to build reactors?"

Nope. It's the cost thingy. It costs big bucks to build a nuclear plant. As a result the power is expensive. So you have to be sure you will need the energy and the price will be competitive in decades to come. And there still is that annoying waste issue.

It's cheaper to pay people to use less energy (efficiency), build coal plants or add wind or solar in small increments.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[dgatwood]

Why can't we? Would it have anything to do with the fact that the enviro-nazis and NIMBY bastards successfully stymied the construction of new plants back in the 70s and 80s and in so doing left zero incentive for American industry to retain the plant and equipment to build reactors?

The NIMBY folks were actually right. The current U.S. nuclear power plants are very expensive to operate because of all the safety systems that are needed and because they can't rapidly adjust to changing energy needs, making further construction of such poor designs a relatively poor solution to our energy problems. Unfortunately, a side effect of the protestations of the NIMBYites was that the U.S. stopped approving new power plant designs, too, so there's a lot of bureaucratic red tape in the way of any company building a more modern reactor design such as a pebble bed reactor.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[winwar]

"I don't think the NIMBY bastards have been put out to pasture, given the response we've seen in some communities to wind farms."

Try the same thing with any power source near the people who use it. There are the local NIMBYs and BANANNAs and there are the industry specific NIMBYs and BANANAs.

BANANA=Build abolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[kcfoxie]

The NIMBY crowd are the same ones who won't let me put solar panels on my roof, and keep wind turbines off the Staten Island and the islands off the Carolinas... both of which would do an enormous amount of good. I live in a nuke county. I fear the day it blows. I trust man's abilities to maintain things about that much. At least solar seems like magic. Hydro just makes f-ing sense, as does wind.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[blackfrancis75]

What proof is there that they were wrong last time?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[shutdown -p now]

Your question is worded wrongly. What proof is there that they were right?

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[shermo]

I find it hard to believe that a capital intensive project like a nuclear power plant would have been economically viable in the 70s but isn't now. Of course this is assuming nuclear plants in the 70s were economically viable, and weren't subsidized.

To be economically viable basically means cheaper than base load coal, since both stations produce inflexible base load supply. Short run marginal cost is a far larger component in long run marginal costs for coal plants than nuclear plants.

So in a world of falling technology costs and increasing commodity prices, nuclear is going to become relatively cheaper.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[diegocgteleline.es]

In 2007, 10% of all the power used in spain came from wind (with peaks of 40%). Don't listen those who say that the grid can't handle it.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[cdrguru]

Rather late in the campaign Obama stated that it would be difficult to build a coal-fired plant in the US were he president. He would tax them at such a rate as to make it unfeasible to build such a plant. This has

Appears to have been carried by lots of newspapers, such as http://www.heraldstaronline.com/page/content.detail/id/511265.html

I'm not sure I believe this is a retraction of this position.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[cdrguru]

Base load demand has increased in the US. It continues to increase. No amount of conservation with energy efficient appliances and such is going to reduce that base load demand. You might shave some of the evening peaks down a bit, but it isn't going to make much difference.

The time has past for building new power plants. It would take at least five years to build a large coal-fired plant and probably more like 10 years to build a nuclear plant. Ten years is probably about right for a coal plant with lots of fancy technology that nobody has working today on a large scale.

Long before the next five years are up we are going to be consistently exceeding the capacity of the electric power system in parts of the US. This means people are just going to have to get used to remote-controlled electric power that is turned off at times by either the utility or a local government. Like in parts of Florida today, already. It is possible we could build our way out of this, but it is very unlikely to happen at a rapid enough pace.

This means that for the first time in over 100 years parts of the US that are heavily populated will start to see electricity being unavailable at times. This is already true of plenty of places in the world today, so it should surprise no one. It will surprise people in California, Texas, Florida, New York and lots of other places as well. It will demand lifestyle changes such as not counting of being able to buy food for two weeks and having the refrigerator keeping it fresh. Plenty of places in the world work like that today already - the US will just be joining them.

I seriously doubt we will be going back to 100% reliable electric power. The lifestyle changes will be accepted, one way or another. And the base capacity of electric generation will not increase.

Solar? Wind? Sure, it might help. If you put $25,000 worth of PV cells on your roof you could keep your refrigerator running. This will certainly be an option for some rich folks. But the average Joe is going to see solar and wind replacing coal plants, not supplmenting them.

Change is going to come up and smack you, whether you believe it or not.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[evilsofa]

No, really, we actually can't build them that fast:

"To get 10 terawatts, less than half of what we'll need in 2050, Lewis calculates, we'd have to build 10,000 reactors, or one every other day starting now."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/189293

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[TheSync]

It costs big bucks to build a nuclear plant.

Recent AP1000's cost about $5 billion to get you 1 GWe. On average, the US uses ~3,000 GWe. The 10-year cost of the Obama Stimulus plan is $3.3 trillion, so we could have 660 1GWe nuclear plants built for that cash (probably more given economies of that scale), which would take us up from 20% to 40% of electricity generated by nuclear in the US.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[dbIII]

Why can't we?

Because they are built of real steel, concrete and specialty alloys which are used to fabricate fairly complex parts. Once you have that it takes years to build a turbine for even a mid sized unit for a coal fired power station and there are not many places that can do it so there is a waiting list.

Doing real things takes real time. Unfortunately the nuclear debate is stuck in the fantasy world of PR. Your blame is also misplaced, hippies are just the smokescreen hiding complacency that gave us a nuclear lobby that decided that nuclear was good enough in the early 1970s to scam the taxpayer and make a fortune. If R&D hadn't halted we might have progessed to the point where private enterprise would find nuclear would give a return without fleecing the taxpayer - give it a few years and the Chinese may even be able to sell something to US companies that does exactly that.

Don't blame the hippies - they don't manage Westinghouse.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[ArcherB]

well that's not terribly fair. Nuclear proliferation WAS a serious concern during the cold war, and still is to a degree. They weren't wrong about that, they just didn't have enough research yet suggesting that CO2 was going to be a problem. Hell, there are still a lot of self-deluded sociopaths who think we need to gather even more evidence before they'll believe we're actually harming our planet.

The difference is, the environmentalists have society's best interests in mind, while the others (anti-environmentalists?) are so self-absorbed that, when pressed, they can only offer half-thought-out superficial arguments to stymie their own cognitive dissonance.

Oh the irony! Nuclear proliferation deals with nuclear WEAPONS. We are talking about nuclear POWER. Two totally different things!

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[blackfrancis75]

Congratulations on avoiding answering the question even slightly.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[kayoshiii]

No the environmentalists didn't get us into this mess. We got ourselves into this mess by becoming addicted to and dependant on electrical energy.

The environmentalists have been pointing out that nuclear has a lot of issues surrounding it and humans + long time frame + nuclear = bad idea.

Environmentalists are now pointing out that for different reasons Coal might also be a bad Idea perhaps even worse than Nuclear in the short term.

This is like me saying that heroin is a bad idea and you saying but before you were saying that cocaine was a bad idea and those are the only two drugs that give me a big enough fix.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[falconwolf]

Fact is, there's no other energy technology available that can be widely implemented during Obama's administration, even if he's re-elected. You can't build nuclear plants that fast. Solar and wind aren't ready for wide-scale connection to the grid.

I don't know about solar but there are already large wind farms hooked to the grid. Currently the US has more than 9 Gigawatts of wind power installed. California leads but Minnesota and Kansas, Texas, and other states have wind farms in operation. And using 5 Megawatt wind turbines, if 20 are erected a month in 1 year you'll add 1.2 Gigawatts of generation capacity a year.

Falcon

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[atraintocry]

Now all we have to do is take a survey and make sure that it's the same "they" both times. Then global warming will be irrefutably proved wrong, and we'll all be able to rest easy.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Shakrai]

No the environmentalists didn't get us into this mess. We got ourselves into this mess by becoming addicted to and dependant on civilization

Fixed that for you.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Shakrai]

Why would Westinghouse continue to invest in nuclear R&D when it was obvious that no new plants were going to be constructed? If you were the CEO of a private concern would you pour money into R&D for a product that you can't produce?

The hippies destroyed the market for nuclear power, thus removing the incentive that Westinghouse had for investing in R&D. I'd say I placed the blame squarely where it belongs. Granted, 'hippies' and 'Westinghouse' doesn't tell the whole story but I think you get my drift....

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[dbIII]

The point is really that they pretend they have dome something when all they have done since the 1970s is spend money on PR. They are still there screaming "buy American" when they have nothing worth buying.
My other point is it isn't worth blaming people that really had no power to influence matters no matter how loud and annoying you may have found them. The reality is two well informed nuclear power advocates, Carter and Thatcher, had to shoot the dead horse that civilian nuclear power had become in each of their respective countries instead of increasing the tax burden to expand it. Unfortunately in the USA instead of private enterprise stepping up to the plate and making something that would sell the nuclear lobby just stood there screaming to have their large handouts back while surviving on a smaller handout.

In a year or two those same hippies conveniently blamed for the failure of nuclear power will be loudly calling for it, and once again they will have no real influence and just be a group to blame by those looking for a convenient scapegoat.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[dbIII]

I should add that that while the free handout from the taxpayer was really all that vanished - Westinghouse et al were free to attempt to produce economicly viable plants that corporations could operate at a profit without putting a burden on the taxpayer. They chose not to even attempt to do so.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Beezlebub33]

They were right that we do not have a workable solution to nuclear waste, where workable means both technically and politically. The environmentalists were not the ones who killed Yucca mountain, it was entirely political.

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Vexar]

>Nope. It's the cost thingy. It costs big bucks to build a nuclear plant. As a result the power is expensive.

Excuse me, but the cost of nuclear power, even with the annualized construction, operation, mining, and supply management averages at or slightly less than coal (not clean coal). Here's a lovely article to add to the mix: Nuclear Cost Per Kilowatt Hour

Re:I'll believe it when I see it..

[Dread_ed]

I thought I had read the same thing once and I found the article.

From USA Today article http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2009-03-29-nuclear-power-energy-return_N.htm/.

Only one company, Japan Steel Works, builds the 600-ton steel forgings used to make reactor vessels. It can make only five or six a year.

There's more to coal than just burning it

[gringofrijolero]

Will "clean coal" provide health care for the miners? Will it eliminate those nasty, dangerous sludge ponds that occasionally break through their retaining walls? For some reason I doubt it.

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[the_humeister]

You could say the same about almost any energy capture technology we have right now. Dams destroy river ecosystems. Solar panel production requires nasty chemicals, and their disposal is even worse. Wind farms kill birds. The list could go on.

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[gringofrijolero]

There's more to solar than photovoltaic. In fact, that form will be a niche market for a long time.

The bird thing is pure BS. Besides the turbines can be placed far offshore.

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[MightyYar]

Will "clean coal" provide health care for the miners?

Probably more than abandoning coal and thus eliminating the mining jobs.

Will it eliminate those nasty, dangerous sludge ponds that occasionally break through their retaining walls?

There's probably an engineering solution to that, and I doubt that stopping the maintenance of the existing ponds (when the plants are closed) will make them stop bursting.

I'm not a big fan of coal plants, mind you - but I don't buy into your arguments. Issues with employee benefits and waste management are completely separate issues and will affect any power-production industry. Solar panel and turbine production involves all sorts of nasties, not to mention employees who can be exploited just like miners can.

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[maxume]

Wind farms don't kill nearly as many birds as I do.

Take that nature!

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[geekoid]

Industrial Solar Thermal as very little environmental impact..very little.

Modern Nuclear power generators such as IFRs produce very little waste. The waste it does create has a half life of 90 years. Meaning in about 200 years it's back to background radiation levels.

So we do have an answer available now.

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[2short]

Every method of energy production has downsides. Clearly, they are all equivalent, and there is no point in trying to asses whether any are better or worse.

"Wind farms kill birds."
Not significant numbers of them.

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[Quiet_Desperation]

Is it supposed to?

Will hydrogen fuel cells prevent car accidents?

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[Vexar]

The bird thing is pure truth. I read up on it at an information center at a park outside of Twentynine Palms, which isn't too far from a reasonably large wind farm in California. Something like 30,000 birds a year for that state, many of them raptors. None of them geese, I'll bet. Those California birds, huh? Bunch of thrill-seekers, trying to thread the needle down a steep canyon, with whirling blades of death at every turn. So typical. No sense of safety or responsibility.

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[ShortRound]

"The bird thing is pure BS. Besides the turbines can be placed far offshore."

Won't somebody please think of the flying fish?!

Re:There's more to coal than just burning it

[rigpig]

Has anyone on this post researched underground coal gasification? I believe it addresses all of the previous issues and pilot projects are ongoing in Australia at the present time.

Global warming

[mangu]

what is so bad about trying to produce cleaner coal for electricity generation?

In one formula, CO2. Coal is the fuel that produces more CO2 per joule than any other energy source.

Re:Global warming

[wjousts]

See Carbon sequestration

Re:Global warming

[Shakrai]

In one formula, CO2. Coal is the fuel that produces more CO2 per joule than any other energy source.

I guess you missed the part where he said we need to invest in carbon capture and pointed out that even if we abandon coal (not likely but let's assume so for the sake of the argument) that the Chinese and Indians won't? Seems to me that if we can make carbon capture work we can sell it to them and get some exports going once again. What's not to like?

Re:Global warming

[homer_s]

I guess you missed the part where he said we need to invest in carbon capture and pointed out that even if we abandon coal (not likely but let's assume so for the sake of the argument) that the Chinese and Indians won't? Seems to me that if we can make carbon capture work we can sell it to them and get some exports going once again

You're assuming that we Indians would want the carbon capture technology. Al Gore is not a huge box office draw in India.

Re:Global warming

[plague911]

Don't be pedantic. The term clean coal is just as accurate as the term dirty nuke. No a dirty nuke doesn't mean your going to have to wash your dishes for a week to get them crud free it means your going to die of radiation poisoning. Just as clean coal means that you hopefully wont die from fine particulate matter inhalation. The same goes for those who complain about there being no such thing as clean coal. Fine maybe it should be called "cleaner coal" but than again even solar/wind/hydro/nuke etc all generate emissions of some level. "There is no black and white only shades of brown".

Re:Global warming

[Shakrai]

You're assuming that we Indians would want the carbon capture technology. Al Gore is not a huge box office draw in India.

He will be when you have massive famines and can't feed your population. Most of the studies I've read suggest that India won't make out very well if we encounter runaway global warming.....

Re:Global warming

[Thelasko]

See Carbon sequestration

I think the problem with carbon sequestration is that most of the schemes don't pass a sense check. Perhaps if someone were to present a detailed proposal about how it works, I might buy it. However, all of the proposals I've read don't make any sense.

Examples:
Bury the CO2 - Why won't it leak back up to the surface?
Bury Plant Matter - Why not burn the plants instead of coal?
Convert CO2 into some other chemical, and bury that - The laws of thermodynamics would like to have a word with you.

Re:Global warming

[TheReaperD]

Well, here's why CO2 is a problem. We are using more energy than ever before. From our current sources of energy, that means more CO2 created. On the other side, the largest source of CO2 to O2 (oxygen) conversion, trees, are being removed in great numbers. Sufficient higher quantities of CO2 in the air cause a "greenhouse" effect, warming the planet. None of these facts are in dispute.

The only arguments are over is how much additional CO2 is required to be in the air before the planet becomes warm enough that it will no longer support human life. (Note: Human. Other life on the planet can likely survive warmer temperatures.) Many environmental groups believe we have put too much additional CO2 in the air and human life is in danger if we do not make dramatic changes right now. Many industrial groups contend that no amount of human industrial activity can possibly make enough of a change to affect human life. Others contend that humans will be able to adapt no matter the environmental changes.

To me, the extra few dollars a megawatt it costs for renewable energy sources verses even the slightest chance of human extinction is a no brainer. By the time we would figure the latter out, it would likely be too late. It's not worth the risk. People who believe "it's not my problem" ARE part of the problem!

Re:Global warming

[Gospodin]

Most of the studies I've read suggest that India won't make out very well if we encounter runaway global warming.....

No problem: they can just invade Russia, which will be practically depopulated by then.

Re:Global warming

[dwiget001]

All we need then is the following contraption, would kill two birds with one stone:

A coal powered CO2 removal and conversion device!

You just tune ot, design wise, to generate more than enough power to easily remove more CO2 from the air than it produces, the excess energy is then distributed as electrical power. PROBLEM SOLVED!

Re:Global warming

[Tyr.1358]

Absolutely right. CO2 is the one chemical that can't seem to be scrubbed out. I work for Babcock Power, and I can tell you that Alcoa Is working with us on some technology to handle that. But the guys I know working in that department say that the technology is at least 7 years away. Management won't task more of us on the project either. We sell systems that we can guarantee will remove 98% of mercury, several SOX, carbon, sulfur and Sulphuric Acid, aluminum, but not CO2. It's the one thing left coming out of smoke stacks in america. I love how we sell 90 of these things every year but people keep complaining that there is no clean coal. After we get rid of the CO2 I swear I expect them to complain about the water vapor next. And no that was not a joke. I would like to point out that the real problem is in how the government classifies a station as "clean". Lets say that power company a has 30 stations. They each generate "points" on a point system developed by the feds. There is a chart that says they must have a certain number of points, depending on the number of stations, that will qualify them to be clean. These companies will invest in our systems to the minimum extent possible to qualify, and then leave the other stations dirty. It is usually less than half of their systems. There is so much I could tell you guys, I had no idea you were interested in clean power. I thought this was a technology site, but I guess it is more broad than that. BTW those wikipedia articles are almost completely wrong, the systems I am working on don't work anything like how they describe, not even close. The ones from our competitors don't work that way either. If those articles are what slashdot is basing it's opinions on I can understand why there is so much confusion. The funny thing is that we are based in MA, and we are selling more of these in the middle east than we are here in the US. They pay us in gold. Real gold. They have so much money floating around over there that they can invest in hundreds of these systems every year, and that is where the real innovation is happening. The power industry in India far outpaces our own, it's actually amazing how much work they have done in the last two decades. If the point system went away, if a legislator grew the balls to do it that is, then all of the power grid in america could be clean within 5 years. The problem is they don't have to buy any more than they need to qualify for the tax credit. That is equivalent to Toyota only putting in enough seat belts to qualify for a tax credit, instead of putting them in every seat because it is the right thing to do.

Re:Global warming

[winwar]

"Bury the CO2 - Why won't it leak back up to the surface?"

The same reason the oil or gas doesn't. Now it doesn't mean it won't or can't-you just have to do good research.

"However, all of the proposals I've read don't make any sense."

Pretty simple. You either take the gas from the stacks, compress it and pump it underground. Or you extract the CO2 and concentrate it before the compression and pumping.

It just requires a place to store it (reservoir rock), a method to get it there (pipeline) and energy.

The technology exists and is in use at one coal gassification plant (sent to an oil field in Canada). The reason that nobody else is doing it? The energy part-you use about 25% or so of the energy you produce to sequester the CO2. Until it is economic nobody will do it unless it is mandated.

Re:Global warming

[wjousts]

I'm not saying there aren't problems with it and a lot of the currently proposed solutions aren't entirely practical, but that's no reason to throw in the towel.

Re:Global warming

[TheReaperD]

If it was that easy to achieve, we likely would not be having this conversation. It would be nice if it was that simple. Hopefully someday, someone will invent technology like that.

Re:Global warming

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I guess my point is if you look at coal you immediately see its dirty, and can understand why burning it could make the air dirty. So to make it clean, one would think, you'd have to prevent all of the dirty suit from getting in the air with filters. I'm not saying that global warming is not real or not man made, just that I don't think you can have a proper argument without agreeing to the terms. Of course, that doesn't stop politicians.

Re:Global warming

[Shakrai]

Historically speaking, invasions of Russia rarely end well for the invaders. They also have nuclear weapons. Notwithstanding all of that, it isn't really an option for India anyway -- India is surrounded by the largest mountain range on the planet. That type of terrain doesn't lend itself to mass invasions.

If I was Russia I'd be more worried about China than I would be about India. India doesn't really have anywhere to go.

Re:Global warming

[drinkypoo]

He will be when you have massive famines and can't feed your population.

When did you think that would be?

Re:Global warming

[Shikaku]

Plant trees on skyscrapers.

http://gizmodo.com/5149860/co2-skyscraper-scrubs-away-smog-with-400-trees

Re:Global warming

[SydShamino]

When I think of something being "clean", I do not immediatly think of a substance being free of C02.

That's your mistake. While we occasionally have tried to get the smut and heavy metals and mercury and radioactive bits out of our vaporized coal byproducts, we didn't realize or ignored the more likely danger that the CO2 waste will eventually decimate our species.

Re:Global warming

[hedwards]

And can you point to anywhere in the world where they're actually doing that to a substantial degree? I know there's a few plants in China that are doing trapping some for use in soft drinks, but nobody is doing in on the scale that's necessary to make it clean. And even then the savings are mainly the amount that would be released creating the gas.

Other forms of power plant are doing so, but I'm not aware of any large scale trials, let alone actual use, of this particular technology. And I'd go so far to say that as long as it's not in use and not even being trialled that it doesn't exist. I'd put it in the same category as fusion power, sure it may happen, but not in the next few decades. Which in terms of coal makes it basically worthless to pursue as even at that point it's not particularly desirable anyways.

Re:Global warming

[TubeSteak]

Seems to me that if we can make carbon capture work we can sell it to them and get some exports going once again. What's not to like?

What makes you think India and China give a shit how clean or dirty their coal plants are?

It seems that China has finally gotten a clue. Some of the measures they put in place for the Olympics are still in effect. They're taking hundreds of thousands of cars off the road every day and they haven't reopened a lot of the really dirty heavy industry that was closed.

But assuming that China and India are willing to require "Clean" coal technologies, you still have to consider that they'll pull a USA and grandfather in as many coal plants as possible.

The reality is that the coal & power industries do not want to spend money to make their dirty industry clean, at least not without enough subsidies and tax breaks for them to make a profit.

Re:Global warming

[mzs]

You realize that the CO2 in soda pop comes from the air so ignoring the energy expended to get it into the can that is carbon neutral. On the other hand CO2 sequestered into a soda can is not sequestered the moment the can is opened.

Re:Global warming

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

No man, I'm not saying global warming doesn't exist, or C02 from coal isn't a major factor. Just that they are using the wrong dang blasted words! I just want honesty from people, regardless of their positions on issues.

Re:Global warming

[Albinoman]

See Carbon sequestration

I think the problem with carbon sequestration is that most of the schemes don't pass a sense check. Perhaps if someone were to present a detailed proposal about how it works, I might buy it. However, all of the proposals I've read don't make any sense.

Examples:

Bury the CO2 - Why won't it leak back up to the surface?

Bury Plant Matter - Why not burn the plants instead of coal?

Convert CO2 into some other chemical, and bury that - The laws of thermodynamics would like to have a word with you.

Bury the CO2. For example, recycled paper takes more energy to make than the original wood paper. And let's face it, the recycled stuff isn't as good or it would come that way the first time. The USs paper all comes from tree farms. Bury the paper and you bury the carbon and grow another tree. Granted, nothing we do will make a bit of difference, but it will make people feel better.

Re:Global warming

[falconwolf]

You realize that the CO2 in soda pop comes from the air so ignoring the energy expended to get it into the can that is carbon neutral.

In a sense it does but then again how the soda is made has to be taken into consideration. Commercial manufacturing of soda has the CO2 injected into syrup. Old fashioned methods didn't do that though. Naturally sparkling water comes out of the ground carbonated so the favoring would be added to it. Or soda can be carbonated by the same process beer and wine are made, add some yeast to the drink. That's how I've made my own soda. I used to brew my own, beer, wine, and soda and would like to start again.

Falcon

Re:Global warming

[nicklott]

I think you maybe on the wrong site. As you point out, people here like to base their discussions on the "facts" they just inserted into to wikipedia. Actual facts from actual people who work in the actual industry are right out.

But thank you anyway.

Re:Global warming

[seanthenerd]

Holy cow - thanks for writing this! That's really something. I hope the other post (about you being on the wrong site) was being fascetious - consider me among the Slashdotters genuinely interested in what you're saying here. Keep it coming.

Re:Global warming

[wjousts]

How about this:

Dealing with CO2

From the article:

TWO LEADING chemical companies, Dow Chemical and Air Products & Chemicals, have signed agreements to test competing technologies for capturing carbon dioxide emitted by coal-fired power plants. The advances come as geochemists find that most CO2 sequestered underground is likely to dissolve in deep-formation brine.

Re:Global warming

[Vexar]

Has anyone done calculations on the energy cost of this carbon capture? What is the overall impact to the energy efficiency of the plant? The idea that it is captured to be added to soda pop just distributes the problem elsewhere. I don't know about you, but that CO2 is going to come out of me in the form of a gas, one way or another. I can't really consume it. It might be cheaper for the teeth-rotting industries to harvest CO2 this way, but they can't account for a noticeable quantity of CO2 removal.

Re:Global warming

[serialband]

. BTW those wikipedia articles are almost completely wrong, the systems I am working on don't work anything like how they describe, not even close

Maybe you should go fix it. After all, that's the whole point of Wikipedia.

Why don't you provide a link to the technology? I'd like to know what it should be. I found your company website. http://www.babcockpower.com/ What the company claims to achieve is pretty good, but I'd like to see some sort of independent review and I also like to know how long it's been in business.

Re:Global warming

[Tyr.1358]

Sorry for the wait. There is only so much I can tell you, you know? Here is a link to a company we own. This PDF details our CO2 removal process, and why it is better than General Electric's.

http://www.thermoenergy.com/userfiles/File/Clearwater%20Conference%20TIPS%20Paper%204-19-05.pdf

General Electric has a system where they cool the flue gas down to a temperature where the CO2 condenses, and then they extract it and put the mixture in a landfill. It is complicated and adds a lot of cost per watt. Most of this is related to pumping and cooling the glycol down to a low enough temperature.

Our system increases the pressure of the flue gas using latent water trapped in the flue gas. We use roughly 1200psi (as you will read) to allow the CO2 to condense at roughly 303 degrees celcius. We then collect it and sell it as dry ice. By using the latent heat already in the flue gas to increase the pressure we remove the cost of cooling the gas, thereby simplifying the whole process and cutting out a lot of systems that add cost. The power company actually makes money off of the dry ice, which pays for the cost we charge them for retrofitting the plant.

A lot of companies do what we do, but our goal is to eliminate the need for landfills. For example, we have an absorber system that extracts sulphuric acid from the flue gas. So do our competitors. The difference is that we do it by spraying limestone slurry into the absorber tower, and recycling the mixture. This creates gypsum which is non-radioactive and can be sold to drywall manufacturers. The system actually makes money, helping the power company to gain back the cost of design manufacture and installation. Our competitors just put the chemical gook in a landfill.

We can guarantee a 93-95 percent removal rate for every chemical in flue gas, even CO2. We usually do that by making the system multipass, ie we will circulate the flue gas through our systems until the sensors say we have achieved our gurantee point and then release the 98% pure water vapor into the atmosphere.

Now, this whole industry is run by private companies, so whenever we make breakthroughs in technology it never hits the news. I think that it is sad that people like http://www.thisisreality.org/, for example, don't know what the fuck they are talking about. And trying to talk to those people is so hard because they already think they know everything. Every summer some environmentalist-hippie kids from the college come door-knocking with pamphlets. They don't listen to me either. I had to call the police on a few of them last year; once I told them who I worked for they started to tear down the picket fence in front of my house. Idiots.

But in case you guys were wondering why the government isn't concerned, that is why. Because you guys are pretty much complaining about a problem that doesn't exist. If every coal burning system was equipped with our systems, they would actually be cleaner than nuclear. Go figure *laughs*

We have enough coal for ourselves here in the USA, so the cost of retrofitting the existing plants compared to building brand-new reactors all over the place is a no-brainer.

Clean Coal

[Vainglorious Coward]

Jumbo Shrimp
Military Intelligence
Civil Disobedience
Evaporated Milk
Fresh Cheese
Political Science
Reality TV
White Chocolate
Clean Coal

Re:Clean Coal

[ausekilis]

you forgot "Microsoft Works"

Re:Clean Coal

[Clandestine_Blaze]

Jumbo Shrimp
Military Intelligence
Civil Disobedience
Evaporated Milk
Fresh Cheese
Political Science
Reality TV
White Chocolate
Clean Coal

Slashdot Editor

Re:Clean Coal

[invisiblerhino]

Microsoft Genuine Advantage

Re:Clean Coal

[ArcherB]

Jumbo Shrimp
Military Intelligence
Civil Disobedience
Evaporated Milk
Fresh Cheese
Political Science
Reality TV
White Chocolate
Clean Coal

I suppose you are comparing all those items to the last one, "Clean Coal". Well, they all exist, even though their names seem to be oxymorons. Is that argument you are trying to make?

Re:Clean Coal

[Demiansmark]

*Chuckle

*Chuckle

"Political Science"

*Look over at my BA in Political Science

*Sulk

Re:Clean Coal

[drinkypoo]

Change You Can Believe In

Re:Clean Coal

[DNS-and-BIND]

Christian Scientist Journalistic Ethics Accurate Horoscope

Re:Clean Coal

[master_p]

Brave Frenchman

Cleaner than 30 years ago

[NaCh0]

By today's standards, anything they build will be cleaner than the 25+ year old plants. Cut some of the nuclear lawsuit shit and maybe we'd have options other than coal.

Bad dreams

[CopaceticOpus]

It turns out that coal lobbyists were his worst nightmare.

Chu who?

[Tibor the Hun]

Pfft... call me when one of the big-wigs endorses it, not their secretary.

Radioactive too!

[denis-The-menace]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=coal+radioactive+emissions

Re:Radioactive too!

[DesScorp]

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=coal+radioactive+emissions

Why mod the poster down? I support coal technologies, but at the present, Steven Chu himself has said that burning coal actually releases more radiation into the atmosphere than nuclear power plants. The parent poster was simply stating a fact, not trolling.

Re:Radioactive too!

[hey!]

Sure, but you don't create new radioactivity by oxidizing the carbon atoms in coal. It was there already.

The problem isn't fly ash per se. Every non-renewable energy source is going to have its equivalent of that. Even certain renewable energy sources have their environmental issues associated with them. Whatever the issue an energy source has, that issue should not come as a surprise when usage of that source is scaled up.

The problem is looking for a quick fix. Don't have enough petroleum? Coal is a quick fix. Worried about carbon emissions? "Clean coal" is a quick fix. But even "clean coal" has its issues, and they shouldn't come as a surprise if we attempt to create that technology and scale it up. If you view it as part of a range of strategies we might combine, you don't have to stick your head under the blanket about clean coal's problems, because you've got more than one arrow in your quiver. You can decide whether to scale coal up more and use the savings to pay to deal with its issues, or you can adjust the mix of sources you use. The same applies to nuclear.

Lesser of two evils

[WestFuego]

In my opinion its more of a "as long as we use coal we might as well try to make it as clean as possible". "Clean coal" is better than dirty coal... Even if its still dirty.

Nuke, baby, nuke

[Gizzmonic]

It's the only way to get off the energy teat.

Let's nuke! I enjoy! Give nukes to everyone, no coal. Real terrorist-free energy!

Re:Nuke, baby, nuke

[TheRaven64]

While nukes could reduce energy demand a lot, fuel-air bombs would be easier to clean up after.

Re:Peak Oil

[MozeeToby]

A major political figure completely reversing his stance a subject and is able to provide straightforward and logical explanations for the change? Maybe I'm used to the previous administrations policy of "what we say goes, no matter what" but, yeah, this does kind of surprise me.

Say what you will about clean coal, but he is right about one thing. China is going to keep burning coal until there's no coal left to burn or something cheaper is found. Why not research the hell out of the subject and sell it to them in 10 years when they realize that they're killing their population with pollution? And if they somehow work out a way to have truly clean coal (burning coal with no particulates and no release of CO2) then why shouldn't we use it here at home?

Personally, I like nuclear, solar, and wind for our energy needs. But I think we should be researching every possibility, including clean coal and biofuels. Having a diverse set of energy sources means that when when resource becomes scarce we can more easily shift our focus and continue on.

Reality hits

[thule]

Well, well. Some truth about energy! Amazing. Lets take this a bit further and say that if certain groups haven't scared the hell out of people about nuclear, we wouldn't have so many coal plants in the US. We could be selling the coal to other countries. :)

Re:Reality hits

[Thelasko]

Lets take this a bit further and say that if certain groups haven't scared the hell out of people about nuclear, we wouldn't have so many coal plants in the US.

Certain Groups?

While I agree that we should take another look at nuclear, I think nuclear did the scaring all by itself.

Re:Reality hits

[Tyr.1358]

Now that is a good idea. I second this.

Re:Reality hits

[CrimsonAvenger]

While I agree that we should take another look at nuclear, I think nuclear did the scaring all by itself.

Once upon a time, in the mid 90's, I read that when we got a chance to look in the KGB's files after the collapse of the USSR, we found that the KGB heavily funded anti-nuclear movements in the West. Not because they were anti-nuclear power, mind you, but because "nuclear" was equated with "bomb" in much of the West.

Alas, they didn't quite achieve their objectives - they convinced a lot of people to be anti-nuclear power (which they didn't care about), and not so many to be anti-nuclear weapons (which they did care about).

Re:Reality hits

[thule]

How many people died from the Three Mile incident? Chernobyl didn't have to happen. They purposely overrode the safeties to test a turbine. Chernobyl did not have secondary containment.

How many people die in coal mining every year? Based on those numbers alone, nuclear is an easy choice.

Clean coal doesn't seem that great.

[Hemogoblin]

From reading the Economist, I've the impression that clean coal isn't actually that great. Check out these two articles:

The illusion of clean coal

Trouble in store

Despite all this enthusiasm, however, there is not a single big power plant using CCS anywhere in the world. Utilities refuse to build any, since the technology is expensive and unproven. Advocates insist that the price will come down with time and experience, but it is hard to say by how much, or who should bear the extra cost in the meantime. Green pressure groups worry that captured carbon will eventually leak. In short, the world's leaders are counting on a fix for climate change that is at best uncertain and at worst unworkable.

Aside, the WSJ isn't really giving us any new information, is it? Obama was advocating CCS during the election, so is it really surprising that his secretary is now advocating it?

Re:Clean coal doesn't seem that great.

[mckinnsb]

Aside, the WSJ isn't really giving us any new information, is it? Obama was advocating CCS during the election, so is it really surprising that his secretary is now advocating it?

A little offtopic, but I stopped reading the WSJ soon after it was bought out by News Corp - repackaging old information and re-distributing it to produce FUD seems to be their new penchant.

Obama mentioned his support of CCS several times during the election (although notably late in the election), and his position is pretty clearly stated in his Energy Plan, available at:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy/.

Go to page 6 - the second paragraph from the bottom is clearly titled "Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology".

It does, however, amaze me how the media can restate old information and rattle the chains of the watchdogs. Selective memory is a hell of a thing- and it seems to be a pretty powerful advantage in the media to understand when the populace, or certain sections of it, employ it.

Re:Clean coal doesn't seem that great.

[Firethorn]

I've also read a number of similar articles.

Now, the articles I've read seperate 'clean coal' and 'carbon capture sequestration'(CCS). Clean coal is a plant that does far better at capturing elements that are traditionally considered pollution - mercury, lead, arsenic, the various other nasty things present in coal.

CCS is the carbon capturing part.

The problem, as I've seen it, is actually simple. Building a clean coal power plant is Expensive. How expensive? It's in the running with the expense of building a nuclear plant. CCS adds another 10% or so to the construction cost, generally making it MORE expensive than a nuclear plant of the same capacity.

At this point in time, and for the forseeable future, uranium is cheaper than coal per GWh. So if you're not going to save money building the plant/infrastructure, why would you select the more expensive fuel?

Adding insult to injury, CCS costs energy - sapping the efficiency of the plant. I've seen figures between 7-10%. This, of course means that you have to burn MORE coal in order to power the capture operation. The loss of efficiency might not be a big deal if you have a commercial concern willing to buy the CO2(such as an oil well looking to pressurize wells in order to extract more), but otherwise, well, it just adds another fraction of a cent to the cost to generate a kwh. In a business where that fraction of a cent can add up to millions, and existing nuclear plants, on average, beat coal plants in cost per kwh. Newer plants are supposed to be more efficient and even cheaper due to modern techniques that simplify a plant's design.

Once you add all that up, nuclear power beats 'clean' coal most of the time, especially under a CO2 constrained market.

Re:Clean coal doesn't seem that great.

[ducomputergeek]

Don't forget that Obama is from Illinois and Southern Illinois has a lot of coal.

So basically he says...

[sunking2]

Everything is hard and complicated. Excellent leadership! So kidding everything is hard and complex. Which is why somebody has to make a decision and point us in the direction to accomplish it.

Re:So basically he says...

[sunking2]

Should be "No kidding ...." :)

Corn

[snspdaarf]

I know, I know. One should not burn (or transmogrify) one's food. I am just saying corn can be used to make plastic.

Re:Corn

[NeoSkandranon]

On a small scale it might not be so bad. Those regulated-feed corn stoves seem pretty awesome for room heating

Re:Peak Oil

[SatanicPuppy]

Who's reversing his position? Everyone talked up so-called clean coal during the election.

I agree however; even if we don't use the technology, we can make money selling it to other people.

Jesus tapdancing christ

[Taibhsear]

Stop burning coal. This isn't the industrial revolution. It's 2009 for pete's sake. Breeder reactors. Pull your superstitions out of your brain and your heads out of your asses. B-R-E-E-D-E-R R-E-A-C-T-O-R-S!

Re:Jesus tapdancing christ

[xlotlu]

Stop burning coal. This isn't the industrial revolution. It's 2009 for pete's sake. Breeder reactors. Pull your superstitions out of your brain and your heads out of your asses. B-R-E-E-D-E-R R-E-A-C-T-O-R-S!

Exactly. This is 2009, not the 1950s.

Between then and now all incentive for technological advancement has been swamped in a mess of corporate interests, patents and environmentalism.

Re:Jesus tapdancing christ

[Paperweight]

If only there was a country where a company could set up major nuclear power generation facilities without excessive red tape, and export it to the rest of the continent...

Re:Jesus tapdancing christ

[dbIII]

Forget the dead end of the 1970s, the world has moved on. Pebble bed and accelerated thorium are worth a look. If you are interested in advocating nuclear power at least catch up - Superphoenix showed us what a full scale fast breeder does a long time ago and why other things are worth looking at instead if the aim is civilian use (and the USA has plenty of easier ways to get nuclear materials for military use already).

Re:Jesus tapdancing christ

[Taibhsear]

Oh, I was under the impression that pebble bed and accel. thorium were types of breeder reactors. My whole point was that nuclear technology has gotten out of the dark ages and needs serious reconsideration for the future.

In short, he's saying...

[Rycross]

In short, he's saying that we can't just drop coal and switch over to alternate sources at the drop of the hat, and we can't make other countries do so, so investing in carbon sequestering technologies is necessary. It seems like a perfectly reasonable position. I don't support coal, and greatly support wind, solar, and nuclear (in that order), but I can't reasonably expect our entire power infrastructure to switch over in years, much less decades.

Not here yet.

[pavon]

There is definitely nothing wrong with funding more research. The fact is that we have tons of coal plants that aren't going away any time soon - it would be great if we could retrofit these plants. Furthermore, even if people lost their fear of nuclear power, we still couldn't build them fast enough to keep up with demand due to the longer planning and approval processes required. So even with wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear, we are going to have to build more coal plants to keep up with demand.

The problem I have is the coal companies and politicians keep talking about Clean Coal as thought it is a viable alternative to other clean fuels today, when in fact carbon sequestering is a complete joke so far. It's as bad as claiming that hydrogen powered vehicles are just around the corner. Nuclear waste storage is a much more mature and "solved" problem than CO2 storage, as is nuclear reprocessing.

this reminded me

[nimbius]

of my co-op at a refinery. there was an entire block of the plant that just sat idle, did nothing, and smelled horrible. my boss told me it was
an old coal-tar extraction plant designed to extract the oil from coal circa 1980. it never panned out to anything more than $4 a gallon gas in 1980, and
was scrapped conveniently keeping the federal funds injected to bring it to fruition.

they had also tried "steam assisted flares" to reduce ozone depleting emissions around that time...which of course made the smoke go away but not the pollutants. federal funding firmly in hand.

clean coal through carbon sequestering is just one more of these technologies energy companies push when an administration critical of fossil fuel shows up, and cant be bought.

Re:Peak Oil

[ControversialMatt]

Why not research the hell out of the subject and sell it to them in 10 years when they realize that they're killing their population with pollution?

That of course, would require that China give a damn about their population.

Re:Peak Oil

[Tackhead]

Who's reversing his position? Everyone talked up so-called clean coal during the election.

Of course they did. They wanted to get the electoral votes in swing states like OH and PA.

Your mistake is in thinking that it had anything to do with energy policy.

Re:Peak Oil Until now, probably nobody wanted to,

[davidsyes]

since it would be a long train and a long row to hoe.

Wouldn't it have been better...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Secretary Chu has reversed his positions on coal and nuclear power, previously opposing them

Wouldn't it have just been better to have been right in the first place?

Dead end

[BlueParrot]

Clean coal is a dead end for two reasons:

Firstly in order to capture and sequester the CO2 you make the energy much more costly, approaching wind power and surpassing nuclear by quite a bit.

Secondly, the period of time the CO2 needs to be sequestered securely in order to avoid having a large impact on the climate is on the order of magnitude of ten thousand years, which is longer than properly reprocessed nuclear fuel. Also, the fly-ash remains toxic indefinitely.

So basically you have to ask yourself if clean coal is worth it, seeing that it will likely be much more costly, and involve greater waste storage problems, than nuclear power. It might be worth it to research retrofitting existing plants with scrubbers and filters, but in terms of our future energy supply coal seems like a dead end.

Re:Dead end

[Tyr.1358]

It might be worth it to research retrofitting existing plants with scrubbers and filters, but in terms of our future energy supply coal seems like a dead end.

It is worth it, and many companies have already done it. Most of the work is not made public, so I don't expect anyone to know about it. Scrubbers that clean flue gas cost effectively have been sold since the 80's. CO2 is the only chemical left to clean up, and that is what is holding everyone back today.

It wasn't just the enviros on this one..

[tjstork]

I generally agree that environmentalists have screwed the planet pretty good on nuclear power, but I think charging them with the crime of driving some steelworks out of business might be a bit off.

I think the deal is really more that steelworks that could make really thick plates just aren't used that much anymore, and I'd bet principally because the world's warships don't use thick steel plates. While, granted, I would feel a lot safer behind a very thick armor belt as found in an Iowa class battleship, than in a different ship, current naval protection doctrine eschews passive protection in favor of active protection. Instead of armouring ships, you build loads of anti-missile system, electronic warfare, and you also try to avoid detection.

But once Navy's made that switch, they didn't need the uber thick plates, and really, they were the only really big customers. Other people that use armor of some kind, such as tanks, tend to layer it up with different things - like composites.

Without the military driving the creation of foot thick plates, who really needs to do it? I really do try and think, just why I would a foot thick steel plate...

Re:It wasn't just the enviros on this one..

[Shakrai]

I didn't say they drove the steelworks out of business. I said they left them with little incentive to retain the equipment needed to build reactor containment walls. Now there's only a single supplier for those containment walls and they cost a fortune and have a huge backlog. Hmm.....

The point about warships is well made and something I hadn't considered. Still, you can't deny the fact that the suppression of new nuclear plants in the 70s and 80s contributed to the problem. The containment walls aren't the only bit of equipment that was affected. We gutted an entire industry because of a handful of very loud people and probably gutted whatever chance we had of averting runaway climate change in the process. It infuriates me to even think about it.....

Re:It wasn't just the enviros on this one..

[CrimsonAvenger]

I think the deal is really more that steelworks that could make really thick plates just aren't used that much anymore, and I'd bet principally because the world's warships don't use thick steel plates.

No. We stopped doing heavy armour on warships better than 50 years ago (the last battleship was commissioned in the late 40's). Any effect of that loss would have been felt decades ago, back when we were still making reactor vessels.

Note also that a reactor vessel is much thinner than the armour belt of a battleship. More like the armour on a tank, but with different alloys.

Re:It wasn't just the enviros on this one..

[tjstork]

No. We stopped doing heavy armour on warships better than 50 years ago (the last battleship was commissioned in the late 40's).

That's the thing... see, the question really is, have we and when. The problem that I keep coming back to is the Nimitz class aircraft carrier, and, its predecessor, USS Enterprise. Enterprise is said to have an 8" armor belt... not battleship grade for sure, but, something. I agree that today's ships aren't built that way, but was the cutoff at the end of WWII, or was it really more like the 1970s.

Re:It wasn't just the enviros on this one..

[CrimsonAvenger]

I agree that today's ships aren't built that way, but was the cutoff at the end of WWII, or was it really more like the 1970s.

Well, the Enterprise was built in the 50's (commissioned in 1961), not the 70's.

And 8" armour is, well, more like a tank than a battleship. And the armour belt on the Enterprise is aluminium, not steel. So it'd make for rather light tank armour (we put more armour on the M26 Pershing, which was a WW2 tank).

In other words, the cutoff for heavily armoured ships was the end of WW2.

Cooling towers

[mangu]

There's also problems in that running a nuclear plant requires immediate access to large amounts of water for cooling towers, which limits where they can be placed.

Nuclear plants can be placed anywhere. If they are water cooled, cooling towers are not needed. If they use dry cooling towers, water is not needed.

Re:Cooling towers

[dbIII]

If you want them to actually work you need quite a lot of water to get a temperature difference - we're not talking about a Volkwagen Beetle here. There are a lot of places with a lot of water (and the water passes through) but you can't expect to just put a big thermal plant of any kind anywhere. Some large thermal plants are sea water cooled - there are extra problems which drive costs up a bit but they still run.

With respect I suggest removing the sig until attempting Engineering 202, although it sort of implies by it's simplicity that economics or naturopathy is your field :)

Re:Cooling towers

[mangu]

If you want them to actually work you need quite a lot of water to get a temperature difference - we're not talking about a Volkwagen Beetle here

These things have a lot more area in contact with the air than a Beetle. They don't need water to operate.

With respect I suggest removing the sig until attempting Engineering 202,th respect I suggest removing the sig until attempting Engineering 202,

I graduated in engineering thirty years ago, having studied both mechanical and electronics engineering and worked in both fields. I worked for five years at a company that operates three different nuclear power plants, so I know what I'm talking about.

Re:Cooling towers

[dbIII]

With respect Sir it appears you have no idea what it is that flows through the cooling towers pictured - which look a lot to me like evaporation cooling towers. Correct me if I am wrong and tell me what magic liquid flows through them (or real liquid if it's sodium or something). They are precisely why you need access to large amounts of water for thermal power plants.
I too was in the power industry, but merely coal and hydro. I suspect the difference was that I occassionally worked inside peices of equipment on the cooling water side during shutdowns so perhaps have a bit more of an insight into it's operation. Either that or there may be a difference of opinion between what I mean by large quantities of water - I'd call a small storage dam a large amount and I probably live in a dryer country than you so "anywhere" to me would imply a lot of desert instead of somewhere near a river with 1000mm+/year of rain or right next to the sea.
I suspect it all comes down to a simplistic definition of anywhere and the whole pile of simplistic bullshit that dresses itself up as nuclear "debate" from either side is depressing and contagious.

Re:Cooling towers

[mangu]

there may be a difference of opinion between what I mean by large quantities of water

The difference of water consumption between an evaporative system and a once-through system is about twenty to one. This site has a good explanation about how both systems work, including some basic equations.

Re:Peak Oil

[Thelasko]

China is going to keep burning coal until there's no coal left to burn or something cheaper is found.

True, but there is something to be said for the old adage, "lead by example."

Re:Peak Oil

[geekoid]

OK, so they said they would look at clean coal during the election, then did so after in office, and someone they did something wrong?

Bad summary

[Reality Master 201]

The headline on the original article is kind of misleading, but here's some quotes from the article:

"It absolutely is worthwhile to invest in carbon capture and storage because we are not in a vacuum," Mr. Chu told reporters Tuesday following an appearance at an Energy Information Administration conference. "Even if the United States or Europe turns its back on coal, India and China will not," he said. Mr. Chu added that "quite frankly I doubt if the United States will turn its back on coal. We are generating over 50% of our electrical energy from coal."

So, basically he's saying it's a good idea to pursue this technology because we aren't the only coal burning country, and even if we were, other large consumers of energy would still likely use coal. If your goal is reducing carbon in the atmosphere, that'd make sense.

Then:

Mr. Chu said he didn't want to comment on "any specific proposal." He said that the Energy Department was "thinking of investment in" research projects that gasified biomass to separate out the carbon dioxide.

"When you gasify it, you can capture the carbon and sequestrate the carbon -- that actually becomes a net sink of carbon, meaning that as the plant grows, it takes carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere," Mr. Chu said. "I would be very enthusiastic about anything that goes in that direction."

Mr. Chu said a proposal by oil and wind magnate T. Boone Pickens to use natural gas as a transportation fuel was "a possibility," then declared himself "agnostic" about it, before finally emphasizing the virtues of making more fuel-efficient cars and turning to biomass-based transportation fuels. Mr. Chu said that using natural gas as a transportation fuel "will put a strain on natural gas for industrial uses, for heating, and other things," concluding that it was "a complicated issue."

So really it was just general comments about carbon sequestration research, possible alternative fuels, and future directions for energy technology.

It sounds like the guy is just talking about options, and appears to recognize the problems with many of those options, and the WSJ just decided to put a "clean coal" spin on it all. And then you find in the middle of the article:

As for so-called clean-coal technology, Mr. Chu said "it would take probably a minimum of eight years or more to really have confidence that these technologies will work in a cost-effective way." As a result, "energy efficiency, energy conservation are where the greatest gains will be."

Coal-producing states are lobbying the Obama administration to keep coal -- abundant and cheap -- a part of the country's energy mix. Coal backers have looked to clean-coal technology, which aims to store emissions from coal-burning power plants underground. If the U.S. aims to transition away from coal, a question is whether such technology is worth the investment.

Last week, Baard Energy, which is developing a project to create fuel from a coal and biomass mixture, withdrew from the Energy Department's loan-guarantee program after disclosing that the government said it would consider environmental lawsuits when conducting risk evaluation of a project.

So basically, the government doesn't actually appear to be backing clean coal, cause -look - they're going to not ignore environmental lawsuits in risk evaluation. And Chu is also emphasizing the importance of conservation and efficiency over any specific technological changes to energy production. And finally, the middle paragraph just kind of throws a question in there about the value of investing in technology related to clean coal, without linking it back to what Chu was talking about originally.

Bad summary, not a great article. Chu's also said in the past that nuclear energy will have to be part of any future solution to America's energy needs. The man is a scientist - he wants to evaluate all of the options, not just specific ones, and all the quotes in the article attributed to him bear this out. Mostly it just looks like the WSJ trying to create the impression of political skulduggery.

In Other Words, He Was Just Paid For

[okmijnuhb]

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, brought to you by Clean Coal Technology.

Nuclear power is here

[mangu]

we can't just drop coal and switch over to alternate sources at the drop of the hat, and we can't make other countries do so, so investing in carbon sequestering technologies is necessary

Nuclear power plants have been operating commercially for about fifty years by now. It's a mature technology.

OTOH, there's no coal powered electric power plant anywhere in the world using carbon capture systems. Carbon capture is a theory in the heads of coal industry lobbyists, not a practical reality.

Re:Nuclear power is here

[Rycross]

That's based on the assumption that its quicker and easier to build a nuclear reactor than capture carbon. That may be the case (and as you pointed out, carbon capture is basically a non-existent industry), but I'm certainly not able to make that call. And reading the article, it doesn't seem like Chu is necessarily making that call either. He's simply saying that we need to investigate options that cover a lot of situations (and nuclear is one of those), because its hard to come up with a one-size-fits-all solution to something that involves the daily lives of so many people.

Re:Peak Oil

[dwiget001]

Well, Obama wasn't, quite the opposite in fact.

He was going to, and I quote:

"... So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."

"So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can. It's just that it will bankrupt them."

Nice to see one of his officials finally waking up and smelling the coal dust, so to speak, related to how much of our energy is being generated by coal. Kind of refreshing, really.

Risk vs. Reward on Clean Coal

[sampson7]

The reason we should invest in clean coal is because the potential benefits -- if it works -- eclipse the benefits of just about any other large scale generation resource. Compared to "sexier" renewable resources, Coal is cheap and abundant. If we can get clean coal technology to work, then we have an excellent answer to our energy future.

What is it worth for even a 1 percent chance that clean coal works? I think the answer is it's worth a ton of money -- certainly more than the couple billion we spend today. It bothers me that the naysayers refuse to even consider coal. It's a dogmatic response that rivals the most intense religious zealots. I am not necessary pro-coal. I see its problems. But I'm also not blind to it's potential.

   

Re:Risk vs. Reward on Clean Coal

[kcfoxie]

The problem is that with this country there is no such thing as moderation.
It's all or none.
I want no coal and all renewables, whatever they be.
Nuclear is not renewable.

Re:Peak Oil

[bFusion]

You may have a valid point, but your fuck-off attitude in the first sentence made me gloss over most of it.

Re:Peak Oil

[LWATCDR]

I am glad he did on nuclear. Not so happy about "clean coal" but we will see.
What I don't understand is why there seems to be so little interest in methanol fuel cells.
methanol has a much higher energy density than hydrogen. You can make it from saw dust, and is liquid at room temperature.
It is slightly toxic but no worse than gasoline is.
Seems like it should have a lot of potential.
Oh and you can make it from natural gas, coal, and air and water if you have enough extra energy sitting around.

Chu is not Anti-Nuke

[sampson7]

Chu is not anti-nuke. I don't know where you got that idea, but Secretary Chu has long been a proponent of nuclear power. From a 2005 interview with UC Berkeley's Bonnie Azab Powell:

Question: Should fission-based nuclear power plants be made a bigger part of the energy-producing portfolio?

Chu: Absolutely. Right now about 20 percent of our power comes from nuclear; there have been no new nuclear plants built since the early '70s. The real rational fears against nuclear power are about the long-term waste problem and [nuclear] proliferation. The technology of separating [used fuel from still-viable fuel] and putting the good stuff back in to the reactor can also be used to make bomb material.

And then there's the waste problem: with future nuclear power plants, we've got to recycle the waste. Why? Because if you take all the waste we have now from our civilian and military nuclear operations, we'd fill up Yucca Mountain. ... So we need three or four Yucca Mountains. Well, we don't have three or four Yucca Mountains. The other thing is that storing the fuel at Yucca Mountain is supposed to be safe for 10,000 years. But the current best estimates - and these are really estimates, the Lab's in fact - is that the metal casings [containing the waste] will probably fail on a scale of 5,000 years, plus or minus 2. That's still a long time, and then after that the idea was that the very dense rock, very far away from the water table will contain it, so that by the time it finally leaks down to the water table and gets out the radioactivity will have mostly decayed.

Suppose instead that we can reduce the lifetime of the radioactive waste by a factor of 1,000. So it goes from a couple-hundred-thousand-year problem to a thousand-year problem. At a thousand years, even though that's still a long time, it's in the realm that we can monitor - we don't need Yucca Mountain.

Question: And all of a sudden the risk-benefit equation looks pretty good for nuclear.

Chu: Right now, compared to conventional coal, it looks good - what are the lesser of two evils? But if we can reduce the volume and the lifetime of the waste, that would tip it very much against conventional coal.

Re:Peak Oil

[SatanicPuppy]

Maybe I'll just cite FactCheck.org.

A McCain-Palin ad claims the Obama-Biden ticket opposes clean coal. Not true.

But, by all means, keep believing whatever the voices tell you.

Re:Peak Oil

[mangu]

all that coal and oil in the ground used to be in the atmosphere as CO2 anyway eons before we even got here.

Precisely. That was eons ago and we weren't here. This planet did not support anything like us when all that CO2 was in the atmosphere.

Re:Grammar

[sampson7]

don't know about the merits of clean coal, but anyone who spouts made-up verbs like those must have his head up his ass.

Coal gasification is a common term of art in the industry. You gasify it. That's what you do. He's using a term that we use every day. Sorry dude -- looks like the PhD scientist who's been researching these issues for years is right and you are wrong.

Don't they use it for concrete.

[Colin Smith]

I'm pretty sure the breeze blocks used to build most houses in the UK are largely made out of fly ash.

 

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[DesScorp]

I'm pretty sure the breeze blocks used to build most houses in the UK are largely made out of fly ash.

Perhaps the very process of making concrete with it neutralizes the radiation hazard? Surely the UK wouldn't stand by while the entire country builds radioactive houses, schools, and commercial centers. If someone can elaborate on this, please do.

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[DarrinWest]

Yes. Coal fired plants have huge electro-static precipitators which capture almost all particulates. The captured fly-ash is so fine you can blow it through pipes to the hoppers. They either add water and dump it back into the coal pits, or sell it for filler in concrete (don't confuse it with pot-ash which is also used in concrete).

One irony of collecting fly ash is that the sulfer dioxide leaves the plume more acidic than if the fly ash were left in. But personally, I prefer that to seeing the area around a coal fired plant looking like a moon scape. You should see what the area around a smelter looks like.

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[drinkypoo]

A bunch of people are dying in the USA right now because of some Chinese drywall imported from 2001-2008, because a bunch of the gypsum was replaced with fly ash. Humid conditions cause it to break down prematurely and release its sulfur dioxide.

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[lewiscr]

The radiation hazard is negiligable. The amount of radioactive material per ton of coal is nearly 0. It's only a significant source of radioactive material when you burn a couple billion tons of it a year. Burn a couple billion tons of any solid and it will be a significant source of radioactive material. Coal does have more radioactive material per ton than most solids, but it's still a tiny amount per ton.

You get pretty much the same amount of radioactive material in blocks using fly ash as you would get from a block of stone.

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[dbIII]

The very process of reality neutralizes the radiation hazard. The whole thing was a PR beatup based on the idea that there are little bits of radioactive material everywhere, whether it is your sandwhich, a sandpit or grains of sand embedded in coal that will melt and become part of fly ash. That is where some of the background radiation comes from.

The important things to consider are concentration and intensity.

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[zenyu]

"gypsum was replaced with fly ash"

Oh Boy! You are aware that the Gypsum in any modern gypsum board plant is made from fly ash, right? It doesn't matter what country it is manufactured in. Gypsum board does not last long when exposed to any moisture and it is hard to avoid things looking a bit boxy when it is your primary wall system. I much prefer plaster myself. But it is difficult to argue with the ubiquitous low cost of a product made from fly ash....

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[Vexar]

Not hazardous? With the notable exception that the 5.2 tons of Uranium per 1000MW per year coal plant goes up into the air.

Clean coal is as much a failure during the Obama administration as it was during Bush Jr.'s re-election campaign.

I'm glad we have a Nobel Prize (in something useful like Physics) laureate for our DOE leadership, but he's not being very cost-conscious. I think Charles Phillips needs to talk to Dr. Chu about cost versus benefit.

Nuclear plants, unburdened by government incentives, will recover their initial investment in 18 months. I think the only thing that big and better than that is a Las Vegas casino.

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[drinkypoo]

But it is difficult to argue with the ubiquitous low cost of a product made from fly ash....

Difficult until it starts killing people, you mean.

To be fair, the modern american house is full of things which are killing you slowly (e.g. new synthetic carpets which offgas something which to your body is indistinguishable from a hormone) and things which will kill you if the house catches on fire (e.g. plywood and PVC jackets on wire which both produce horrible toxics when they burn.)

Re:Don't they use it for concrete.

[lewiscr]

Not hazardous? With the notable exception that the 5.2 tons of Uranium per 1000MW per year coal plant goes up into the air.

Yes, we just said the same thing. I was referring to GPs questions about individual concrete blocks. The amount of radioactive material in a single block, or a whole building built from these blocks, is almost non-existent. At the scale require to generate 1GW of power, the radioactive material is significant.

A quick google says coal ranges from 1 to 10 ppm (parts per million) of Uranium (in the US). Up to 20 ppm is rare, but happens (in the US). Your drinking water contains 2 to 3 ppm of Chlorine, one of the deadliest gases known. It's safe to drink, but I wouldn't want to start evaporating a couple million tons of water.

Re:Peak Oil

[SatanicPuppy]

In a nutshell. Just because you're pro-green, doesn't mean you're completely out of touch with reality. We use coal for a HUGE amount (it's the largest single source) of our national energy production, and it'll be decades before that can change in any meaningful way, so it only makes sense to see if you can make a virtue of necessity.

The thing I liked about Obama was that he wasn't batshit crazy. This is a perfectly sensible move, something he promised to look into during his campaign, and something worthy of study at the least. I am at a loss to explain all the crazy that's leaking out in this thread.

Energy breakeven on photovoltaic is apples/oranges

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Just like there's no such thing as ... clean sun (break-even on solar panels just sucks,...

Photovoltaic cells actually reach energy breakeven (more energy out than it took to build them) after only a couple years (depending on technology). Claims that it took more than the life of the panel proved bogus.

But that's not the point.

The purpose of the panels (and their supporting systems of mounts, batteries, inverters, ..) is to deliver high-quality electric energy to a location. As such the proper comparison is between the costs (energy and otherwise) to do this with the panels versus the alternatives. The main alternatives are grid power and (worse) local fuel-driven generators.

So you don't compare the energy cost of building a panel installation capable of powering your load to what it puts out. You compare it to the energy cost of supplying grid power. Melting and forming metal and other materials for power lines, insulators, wires, support guys and guy anchors, transformers, power meters, enclosure boxes, main breakers, - for the run to the load and the load's share of the generation and common transmission infrastructure. Cutting and chemically treating trees to make poles. Clearing land (and dedicating it to the power line in perpetuity). Shipping the materials, equipment, and workers to (and from) the site. Drilling the holes and setting the poles. And so on.

Then once it's installed, you also have to count the energy cost in raw fuel BTU (or whatever) to MAKE the delivered energy - a cost the panels don't have. For instance: burning fuel to make heat, running it through a heat engine to make horsepower, running that through a generator to make electricity, running that through the generator and transformer coils and transmission lines, etc. You lose in the heat engine, the mechanical friction, electrical resistance in all that copper, hysteresis in the generator and transformer cores, excitation power for the generators, minor loads in the control logic, etc.

So the grid takes FAR more energy input than it delivers. Do you hear anybody claim it should therefore be shut down because it's not some more than 100% efficient perpetual motion machine? Of COURSE not! So why do you hear (and repeat) the "less than breakeven" claim about photovoltaic cells and use it (even if it WERE true, which it isn't) as an argument not to use them?

If someone were fool enough to try to MAKE photovoltaic panels using ONLY the electric output of other photovoltaic panels for ALL the energy of their construction (even getting the raw heat from resitive heaters and eschewing even thermal solar panels), the energy breakeven question might have some merit. (But even in that absurd scenario the panels would more than pay off their own energy cost.)

= = = =

Photovoltaic panels have limited deployment because they're still MORE EXPENSIVE than grid power in many situations - including powering houses in cities and suburbs. But about a 5:1 improvement would bring it to sunny suburbs as well.

Re:Peak Oil

[dwiget001]

Well, I did not get the information their ad.

The quote is from Obama, interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

FactCheck.org addressed the McCain-Palin ad(s).

They did not address the direct Obama quotes at all.

FactCheck.org directed you to Obama's energy policy on his web site, but did not address his words to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Maybe you should get your own facts straight and actually read what FactCheck.org stated and shows.

Change we can believe in

[Monkey_Genius]

Mr. 'Smart Science Guy' has his mind changed for him on 'Clean Coal' after being appointed to a political position. Who would think that such a thing was possible?

Re:Peak Oil

[ovu]

and anyway, they'd be more likely to either:

• steal the techonology
• Reverse-engineer an 80% effective solution using infinite labor pool, and ignore IP issues

Re:Peak Oil

[chartreuse]

You fucking idiots are so fucking funny.

Coal technology is already clean [...]

About 525 million gallons of ash slurry clean, yeah.

You'll disagree, but...

[DesScorp]

" we're going to be deeply screwed when it comes to producing something we've come to take for granted in the modern age - plastics."

I'm a capitalist, free market, generally right-wing kind of guy. That said, I'd love to see less plastic in the world. Not eliminated, mind you... just used a lot less. Yeah, plastic is cheap, and in fact is downright necessary for many things... I wouldn't want a glass shampoo bottle, for instance. But the abundance of plastics in our society has led to the "cheap disposable" mentality of modern economics... things are cheaper to buy up front, but don't last as long, and tend to end up in dumps and landfills more. You don't repair a TV or a radio anymore... you just buy a new one. I don't think its a coincidence that the more plastic there is in a product, the less it will last, which is ironic, since the plastic itself will be around for thousands of years in some cases.

Plastic = cheap and trashy, not just in the cost of the plastic itself, but in the mindset of the manufacturer whenever something has a lot of plastic in it.

Re:Peak Oil

[Colonel Korn]

Well, I did not get the information their ad.

The quote is from Obama, interview with the San Francisco Chronicle.

FactCheck.org addressed the McCain-Palin ad(s).

They did not address the direct Obama quotes at all.

FactCheck.org directed you to Obama's energy policy on his web site, but did not address his words to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Maybe you should get your own facts straight and actually read what FactCheck.org stated and shows.

Yes, you are correct. That quotation is worthless because it is out of context, however. Obama was talking about a fully mature emission-taxed energy market, something that could possibly happen within a few decades due to changes made during this administration, assuming no one changes them in that time period. Several unsubsidized energy sources may reach cost-parity with coal in about 20-30 years, and assuming that coal generation is taxed at a rate sufficient to compensate for its environmental impact, it would be economic suicide to stay in the coal-electric business.

The only thing that can be taken from the out of context quotation that is relevant to this administration is that Obama believes that the market will decide where our energy is generated.

Re:Peak Oil

[drinkypoo]

Why not research the hell out of the subject and sell it to them in 10 years when they realize that they're killing their population with pollution?

Quick, let's give it to them before they kill us all. The acidification of the oceans proceeds apace...

on the research that goes into clean coal...

[Goldsmith]

What is needed to make "clean coal?"

Carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide needs to be reduced back to something which can be stored (a solid or liquid) or burned again (such as methane). This process requires energy, but some of the catalysts which do this get their energy from sunlight. Unfortunately, these catalysts don't work well in normal atmosphere, but they do work in something like syngas (a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen). Research on these catalysts to make them cheaper and capable of operating in more oxidative (normal) atmospheres and work better with CO2 could lead to technology which directly converts CO2 in the air into fuel using sunlight. This is "high risk" research normally (and is not really funded right now), but put under the heading of "clean coal" it is low risk (much easier working with just the coal plant exhaust) and perhaps, maybe, possibly could get private funding.

I would bet that's what the angle is... get power companies to pay for the research that will replace fossil fuels.

(yeah, I know plants already do this)

Re:Peak Oil

[drinkypoo]

Fuel cells are made of heavy metals and have a significant energy cost in manufacture and recycling. Also the efficiencies are nowhere near the theoretical. Meanwhile batteries have recently gotten some serious gains due to "nanomaterials" like lithium "nanowires". (None of this is truly nano-anything, but whatever.) I'm not in love with batteries but fuel cells just don't work yet. Also, the alcohol is so far coming from unsustainable sources, so that's not much of a deal. Making it from natural gas or coal has the same problem as just burning coal and oil, which is say the release of CO2.

One question from Germany...

[Hurricane78]

... is the full name of that guy perhaps Mr. Chu Thulu?

Re:One question from Germany...

[AngrySup]

Dagnamit. I was just about to go there. How could this post go so long????

Re:Peak Oil

[pixelpusher220]

This isn't about pollution because C02 isn't a pollutant, it's the lynch-pin of all life on this planet.

So's water, but drinking too much water can kill you. Too much oxygen in the air can kill you. Likewise too much C02 in the air WILL kill you.

We're certainly not talking about C02 concentrations high enough for asphixiation (sp?), but C02 is a feedback loop gas in the atmosphere. It does cause *some* warming. But when that warming starts to affect the H20 in the atmosphere then things really get interesting. H20 is far more prevalent in the air than C02, but it too has greenhouse effects. Once the H20 starts adding its larger weight to the warming it just keeps getting faster an faster.

Sorta like a small kid on the far end of a really long seesaw. He doesn't need much weight to really upset the status quo. And when the big kid on the short end starts moving its much hard to stop.

Re:Peak Oil

[drinkypoo]

No matter what you do with the coal it's CO2-positive. Even if you capture the CO2 in algae and make biofuel out of it and burn it again you are still releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. Part of the reason why the atmosphere is how it is (which is to say, how we like it) is that the CO2 is "sequestered", AKA buried. Possibly the best thing we could do at this point is grow a bunch of algae and bamboo and bury them.

Re:Peak Oil

[LWATCDR]

Methanol can be made from cellulose it is called wood alcohol for a reason. Right now it is often made from coal or natural gas but it can be made from none food plants.
You still have the problem with recharging time and range. Hydrogen fuel cells are a waste. Methanol may actually hold a lot of promise.
Of course you can just burn it like gas as well.

Re:Peak Oil

[SatanicPuppy]

"As president, as president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America."

--Barak Obama, Acceptance Speech, Democratic National Convention. August 28, 2008.

Seriously man. Seriously. You cite the Drudge version of the Chronicle piece just like a conservative tool. Here's the whole quote:

"So, if somebody wants to build a coal power plant, they can. It's just that, it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing that I've said, with a respect to coal -- I haven't been some coal booster -- what I have said is, that, for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter, as opposed to saying, if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it. You know, that I think is the right approach." Barak Obama, SF Chronicle Interview, Jan 17, 2008 (emphasis mine)

How about you think for yourself just a tiny little bit, eh?

Re:Peak Oil

[edward2020]

In addition, though DesCorps uses the quote from Chu that coal is his "worst nightmare" to imply that Chu has flipped-flopped on the issue, reading TFA the quote is taken from shows that even then Chu was talking about 'clean' coal.

Re:Peak Oil

[dwiget001]

Uh, no, the quotation is spot in, in or out of context.

And, just for the record:

I do not support either of the major parties, they both suck in my book.

Re:Peak Oil

[haruchai]

You and all the others who think we'll be selling clean coal to China are fooling yourselves. By the time they are forced to consider such an alternative, they'll steal the technology if the price is too high. And, up to now, their idea of too high coincides nicely with ours of too low. If China is going to remain the manufacturing capital of the planet, they won't want their costs to rise too much and that means keeping energy costs down.

Re:Peak Oil

[SatanicPuppy]

Agreed. The most efficient way to store the carbon from coal would be to leave it as coal. Of course, if we could make efficient biofuel out of algae, the difference there would be that the cycle would be closed. CO2->Algae->Biofuel->CO2

But if we have to burn the coal (and right now we do), why not see if there is some way we can lessen the environmental impact? It's not inherently a bad idea. Like it or not, barring some game changing new technology, we're going to be burning coal for years to come.

Re:Peak Oil

[haruchai]

H20 is as much the linchpin ( not lynch-pin) of Earth's life but you can still drown in it.

Re:Peak Oil

[dwiget001]

In or out of context, message is the same.

And, I am thoroughly against the idiotic "Cap and Trade" gimmick. It is a farce, in the extreme.

Oh, and for the record, in response to your "...conservative tool..." rant:

I support neither of the two major parties.

They are both are **only** interested in getting and staying in and expanding their power.

They **are not** interested in doing what would benefit the country and citizenry as a whole. They could really care less as they drive the country into the ground with massive amounts of debt, which will result in hyper-inflation and tax burdens that make the current taxes look like change you carry around in your pockets.

Re:Peak Oil

[drinkypoo]

While the things you say are true, they have their own problems. Making it from wood just means we'll cut down more trees, because the sawdust we're using to make things right now just because it's there will be economically valuable as a fuel feedstock. In practice, making it from other high-cellulose sources (like parts of the corn plant) will lead to more planting of varieties most valuable for cellulose production than it will efficient use of waste products. I propose that using algae to make biodiesel (and various aviation fuel trials are progressing as we speak as well) as well as some quantity of ethanol and/or methanol is the answer; I prefer ethanol because of the reduced hazard to human safety.

Re:Peak Oil

[Mozk]

What is this C02 you both are talking about? Dicarbon with an extra zero to spice it up? And what the hell is H20? Icosahydrogen, a molecule made solely of 20 hydrogen atoms?

Re:Peak Oil

[drinkypoo]

But if we have to burn the coal (and right now we do), why not see if there is some way we can lessen the environmental impact?

We have a way already, it was developed at Sandia national labs on the behalf of the USDOE, and you can read a bit about how to deal with the carbon here. We capture 80% of the CO2 and then at least get to use it again. And a percentage of the algae becomes fertilizer. Of course, that assumes that such an approach fits into our national agenda — only time will tell. Is it as good as a complete "clean coal" solution? That very much depends on who you ask.

As for new coal-fired power plants, they are an aberration and should be avoided at all costs. If we must build new power plants which are not inherently sustainable, let us build plants to reprocess nuclear waste, and plants to run on the resulting fuel. Yes, the technology could be used to produce weapons-grade materials. No, this is not relevant, because we already have more of that than we could possibly need.

Re:Peak Oil

[BCW2]

That is exactly what "Cap & Trade" (or Crap & Trap) is all about. Using the resulting tax to bankrupt the coal fired power plants.

Of course the whole shell game with so called "carbon credits" is the same as saying "It's OK if I pee in your pool because I filtered the water in your toilet tank." That is what this foolishness is about, an illusion.

Re:Peak Oil

[LWATCDR]

The problem with ethanol is that it isn't useful in fuel cells. Plus it isn't easy to make from cellulose.
I am not a fan of the idea of one solution. It is the lack of interest in methanol that gets me.
As to the hazard to human safety. Don't drink it is the trick. It isn't much worse than gas right now. It is much safer from a fire hazard point of view than gas is.
Algae as a fuel is interesting but unproven.
As I said it is the total lack of interest in methanol that I don't approve of. But then I think Hydrogen is a waste of effort unless you are going to fuse it.

Chu

[z-j-y]

after allocating lots of money to his friends for the mythical green energy production, he still has an obligation to provide people with real energy.

Re:Peak Oil

[SatanicPuppy]

So it's fair to let them pollute the water and air, and for us to get taxed to clean it up, but it's not fair for them to get taxed for polluting the water and air?

The problem right now is that the government is footing the bill for companies to allow them to keep polluting. That's corporate welfare, which is supposed to be bad, right?

Obligatory

[thatskinnyguy]

Here's Your Clean Coal Technology

Re:Peak Oil

[oldhack]

"The thing I liked about Obama was that he wasn't batshit crazy."

Endorsement of our democracy, really. You never know what's possible.

Re:Peak Oil

[AK Marc]

And, I am thoroughly against the idiotic "Cap and Trade" gimmick. It is a farce, in the extreme.

As are all Libertarians. They believe that all costs should be externalized. Dump toxic waste into public waterways. If someone doesn't like it, then they should have bought the waterway. If it somehow leaks onto private property, that shouldn't be illegal, but if the person who is harmed wants to stop it, it will take suing them because everything will be legal. After all, we wouldn't want the government to get in the way of private enterprise. Libertarians want a repeal of just about all environmental regulations, and the environment will be protected because you sue your neighbor if he harms you. That plan even sucks for the ideal case.

If carbon is listed as a pollutant, then making a coal plant that doesn't pollute will cost more than other available power sources. The plants are dumping tons of carbon into the atmosphere that's polluting the planet (if carbon is a pollutant). And of course, the Libertarian nuts say "they should be able to pollute all they want to, that's freedom." Oh, and the toll sidewalks. That's my favorite thing they want, toll sidewalks.

Whoosh

[dwye]

"The reason why we can't do this separation is because we don't want to encourage rogue nations like Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons."

And they are developing their own uranium refining capacity anyway, making the restriction moot.

To be fair, that was sarcasm, not humor.

closed loop

[falconwolf]

if we could make efficient biofuel out of algae, the difference there would be that the cycle would be closed. CO2->Algae->Biofuel->CO2

It depends, if coal is the source of CO2 for algae growth the loop would not be closed unless the CO2 is captured, By burning biofuels you're still releasing CO2. Now if algae removed CO2 from the atmosphere it may actually be carbon negative. That's because the dead algae can used as a fertilizer and added to farm land soil.

Falcon

greenhouse gases

[falconwolf]

o matter what you do with the coal it's CO2-positive.

So what? CO2 is not the source of global warming.

CO2 is a source for global warming but not the only one. Another greenhouse gas is methane, and lifestock, both cows and sheep emit a lot. Now the amount they emit can be reduced. This is because they are ruminants and naturally eat grass. However many range operations feed them foodstock like corn which their digestive system doesn't process that well.

CO2 is not even the largest (by percentage of content) green house gas in the atmosphere. Water is, and its somewhere in excess of 95% of all greenhouse gas.

But as carbon warms the atmosphere, even if only a little, it increases the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. Another positive feedback system, which is what this is, is that as temps rise more methane from bogs and permafrost will be released as well.

Global temps are falling. They have been for as long as you have been aware of the so-called issue.

Citation needed.

Falcon

Re:greenhouse gases

[icebike]

Citation needed indeed. Like you would be willing to even follow the URL. Its pretty clear your mind is made up on this issue.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10783

Re:greenhouse gases

[falconwolf]

Citation needed indeed. Like you would be willing to even follow the URL

There was no url posted in the post I replied to. If there had been one I would have followed it.

Its pretty clear your mind is made up on this issue.

It's pretty clear you don't want to inform and debate.

Falcon

Re:greenhouse gases

[LordKazan]

how about a REPUTABLE source?

Self-Destruction is imminent!

[alfarid]

We probably going to self-destruct pretty quickly here. Let's not forget this lesson, and store some carbon for next civilization 50000 years from now, maybe they will get a clue.

Re:Peak Oil

[arminw]

...you are still releasing CO2 into the atmosphere....

So what? That is where it all was once upon a time before coal was formed. We call coal a fossil fuel because it was once a living organism, specifically a plant that took carbon out of the atmosphere and stored it in its own body. Therefore, all that original carbon did not make the earth to hot for living things. It will take centuries to burn even a fraction of all the coal that exists, so that we will restore the earth to what it was when coal was formed. I think humanity and all other living things can adapt to this change over such a time span. The burning of coal the emits a number of pollutants, but CO2 is not one of them. Every time you exhale, you emit CO2.

Re:Peak Oil

[JWW]

You know whenever someone spouts this "list carbon as a pollutant" stuff I just bugs me.

Now we're listing the element responsible for LIFE ITSELF as a pollutant. Sure, we may be putting out too much CO2, but last time I checked, plants LOVE that stuff....

Pollutants are things that do _direct_ harm, Carbon isn't one.

Treating Carbon (or CO2) as a pollutant just seems completely wrong.

libertarians

[falconwolf]

And, I am thoroughly against the idiotic "Cap and Trade" gimmick. It is a farce, in the extreme.

As are all Libertarians.

This post is what's a farce.

Falcon

Re:Peak Oil

[2short]

The misleading terminology "invest in clean coal technology" was introduced in the campaign for pandering political reasons. Nobody could very well oppose it, even though "clean coal" is not in any sense a "technology" we can currently invest in.

So now the administration is claiming to be fulfilling that campaign commitment by interpreting it to mean something close that actually makes sense:

Regardless of what we might like, any realistic assessment will conclude that coal will be a significant part of our energy supply for quite some time, and that is, and probably always will be, problematically 'dirty'. So spending some money to research ways to try to make it as much cleaner as we can certainly makes sense.

Re:Peak Oil

[jeepien]

They wanted to get the electoral votes in swing states like OH and PA.
Your mistake is in thinking that it had anything to do with energy policy.

Or yours is in thinking that it does now.

nuclear power

[falconwolf]

Just like there's no such thing as clean nuclear (gotta do something with that waste)

Actually, the French have been recycling their spent nuclear fuel for years.

And "France Acknowledges Massive Radioactive Pollution at La Hague".
Or "PRESS RELEASE"
"Vice-President Cheney Wrong About French Nuclear Repository Program, Independent Institute Asserts"
"French Public's Opposition to Nuclear Waste Repositories as Deep as that in the United States"

Then there's the matter of whether nuclear power is profitable. The libertarian free market CATO Institute has this article: "Nuclear Energy: Risky Business". In it it says
"Given all of this, how do France, India, China, and Russia build cost-effective nuclear power plants? They don't. Government officials in those countries, not private investors, decide what is built. Either these governments build expensive plants and shove them down the market's throat-or they build shoddy plants and hope for the best."

Falcon

Re:nuclear power

[petermgreen]

If you erect 20 5 megawatt [metaefficient.com] wind turbines a month in one year you'll add 1.2 gigawatts of capacity in a year.
Afaict wind turbines are rated by thier output under ideal wind conditions. which is MUCH higher than thier output under average wind conditions.

Also relying on wind puts your grid at the mercy of whether the wind blows or not.

Re:nuclear power

[LordKazan]

both of those statements are true

but that's why they build wind farms where the wind is almost always blowing.

in a few years when we get better battery technology or EEStor finally starts selling their product if it's real then we'll be able to store excess generation for slack periods.

Re:nuclear power

[sumdumass]

I'm not going to argue against the study the CATO institute has done but we need to remember, we are on the verge of Government mandating what is built and/or used and where it can be used anyways when it comes to energy. We are already seeing mandated energy purchases for solar, wind, or whatever "other and alternative" sources that someone is claiming to be "green".

So here is the gamble as I see it. We have had solar and wind energy around since the 1800's to some extent. More effort and innovation has been placed into it and we are seeing roughly 5 times the power generation capacity or capabilities as we would in something like the 1970's. Even when oil prices were sky high, those alternative energy sources were just starting to be competitive with traditional sources. You have political vehicles floating around like Cap and tax or cap and trade and comments from Joe Biden or Barack Obama which claims it's going to get real expensive for traditional energy sources. You have a scientific theory co opted by political manipulation that is driving from fear pushing for those "incentives".

The real gamble isn't if the facility will be competitive today in a free market but if it will be competitive tomorrow after the market is fixed in favor of the more expensive crap. I think it's pretty much a given that within the next 4 years, the US is going to have arbitrary programs imposed that will drive energy costs up. Obama already floated his tax cap thing where he plans increasing the cost of energy and relies on giving the "poor" a tax break for something they don't have to pay now but will because of their program and this tax break is only going to cover 2/3rds of the cost expected. None of this BTW will solve or help the Global warming problem and is more or less a means of control and taxation.

But anyways, it is so likely that the energy prices will artificially increase in the next few years, that the gamble should be looking at the manipulated costs instead of now.

Re:nuclear power

[atraintocry]

You're right, that's heartbreaking.

I hope we can honor our treaties in the future. But I don't hold my breath when it comes to such things.

I know that coal is sometimes mined from mountaintops as well. I don't know what percentage of that is or how it compares to uranium.

There are a lot of negatives when it comes to nuclear power but I am convinced that we needed to cut our carbon emissions yesterday, and power plants are the #1 source. We have over 100 functioning reactors (all operating safely), but they're getting older. I would have preferred that we kept building so we could make up for the eventual closings.

What I honestly think is going to happen is that we are going to see some well-meaning CCS programs in terms of taxes and/or incentives and subsidies. Then the coal industry is going to take advantage of loopholes or changes so that (a) they get to go on polluting, (b) the legislators will act like they did something (c) half of everyone will think we "fixed" climate change and the other half will say it was a myth in the first place. The more we can invest in alternatives to coal, rather than just giving the coal industry money for pretending to clean up, the better off we will be.

Re:nuclear power

[falconwolf]

There are a lot of negatives when it comes to nuclear power but I am convinced that we needed to cut our carbon emissions yesterday

I agree carbon emissions need to be cut, but I don't think nuclear does it. Here's an article that questions whether nuclear power cuts emissions. As that one does, this one points out mining and processing of uranium emits CO2 as well.

the coal industry is going to take advantage of loopholes or changes so that (a) they get to go on polluting, (b) the legislators will act like they did something

I'm with you there.

Falcon

Re:nuclear power

[gringofrijolero]

If we were to expose petroleum to real market forces, you can bet it would not appear nearly as "attractive" as it does today. Help from the government don't always come in the form of cash money, though oil still receives plenty of that. So if we are to cut subsidies from the alternatives, let's be sure to do the same for crude and coal. Fair is fair, no?

Re:nuclear power

[sumdumass]

Actually, oil is exposed to real market forces. I don't know what gave you the idea otherwise besides someone attempting to skew the information for their benefit or someone who just doesn't know how the world and markets work.

There isn't a US oil market and a world oil market. We buy our oil from the same market that the world does and outside some special contract that individual companies make, it's all the same. Inside the US, we manipulate the markets to an extent by requiring certain conditions to be placed on the oil. These conditions do end up in tax breaks which are considered subsidies but that because we are making them do something that just isn't profitable for them. There are incentive programs for optional participation in some areas that get tax deductions and is considered a subsidy too but those are actually to the benefit of alternative fuels even though oil companies are getting it.

Of the 15 or so billion dollars in direct subsidies that were in effect in 2008, 11 billion or more is directed at everything except oil. 4.3 billion is for expansion and research into nuclear power, 2.7 billion goes directly to making renewable energy sources, 1.6 billion is for cleaning up coal energy production, 1.3 billion each for increasing energy efficiency and the creation of alternative motor fuels which include electric plug in hybrids and such. only 2.8-3 billion goes directly to fossil fuel production and a portion of that is for being more environmentally sound in extraction techniques and getting oil from places that it's not financially feasible at present.

Now I'm sure your going to come up with something about the war in Iraq being about oil even though we haven't seen any benefit from having access to that oil (actually, the only think about oil in Iraq connected to the oil was UN countries like France which used the Sanctions as bargaining tools in their illegal oil deals that defeated the purpose of the sanctions and cause the situation to progress as far as it did where war was an option). And I'm sure your going to attempt to connect some other military action or whatever to oil. That's ok because we purchase oil from a world market and all that means is the world benefits, not just the US. It's just not an oil subsidy.

Now, I'm not sure where you came up with the idea I was out to cut subsidies from alternative sources of fuel. I mentioned that Nuclear is going to be more competitive once arbitrary costs are forced onto the energy markets by government regulations that amount to little more then taxes. I also mentioned how those taxes are going to be hidden behind some scare tactic as if it will be the cure when it doesn't even address the problem in the first place. If you want to be honest with yourself and the rest of the world, I would be more then happen to debate that with you and explain precisely why it's a scam perpetrated by the government and why it's a waste that does nothing to address the problem. But you can't ignore the facts just to make up your own. You will be expected to know what the hell your talking about.

Re:Peak Oil

[jeepien]

Now that's batshit crazy!

reprocessing nuclear waste

[falconwolf]

I don't know why we can't do it, hell, look at France, they've done very well using nuclear energy this way

France has not been successful at reprocessing nuclear waste.

Falcon

CANDU

[falconwolf]

My old university McMaster has a CANDU reactor which recycles the spent nuclear fuel as well.

According to this "How is high-level nuclear waste managed in Canada?" reprocessing is not done in Canada.

Falcon

Re:CANDU

[Idiomatick]

That is depressing to learn. Stupid politicians pandering to ignorant populace. The CANDU reactor has the ability to use the waste from LWR directly. And the option to reprocess it before using it again (higher efficiency). Well.... atleast CANDU reactors are probably getting used elsewhere in the world :/

Re:CANDU

[Idiomatick]

forgot to add... http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/CANDU_fuel_cycles.jpg

Re:CANDU

[falconwolf]

atleast CANDU reactors are probably getting used elsewhere in the world

According to wiki CANDU designs are being used in several other nations.

The CANDU reactor has the ability to use the waste from LWR directly. And the option to reprocess it before using it again (higher efficiency).

According to the wiki article there's still waste. Looking more I didn't find anything that said the CANDU design eliminates nuclear waste I did find articles that said the amount of waste is significantly reduced. So maybe what can be done is to build more of them to use the spent fuel we already have.

Falcon

Re:Peak Oil

[AK Marc]

You know whenever someone spouts this "list carbon as a pollutant" stuff I just bugs me.

Why? Ozone in the upper atmosphere protects us from radiation, so it isn't a pollutant? Oh wait, get it close to the ground, and it triggers all sorts of respatory problems and such. So is it or isn't it? It's a necessary item that, in the correct place is good. But in the wrong place in the wrong concentrations can actually kill. So it's either a deadly non-pollutant, or a pollutant that is necessary for continued human existance as we know it. Which is it?

The scoop on reactor vessels and guns

[tjstork]

I did some research and we are all wrong. You are right on the dates, for sure, but I'm still right that it is the loss of a military technology applied to the construction of reactor vessels.

It's just that, its not actually the armor, as I claimed. Its the naval gun barrels. The reason the Japanese have a plant that can do it is that they are basically using the same stuff they used to make the 18" guns on the Yamato for make the reactor vessel in one piece. It makes sense, as you figure a gun barrel has to contain some fairly massive pressures in it.

Prior designs used in our existing nuclear reactors were two piece designs welded together and are therefor considered not as safe for modern designs.

I can't find the source for this but I think, and I could be wrong, that US guns were made at the Washington Naval Yard, and that, it was switched over to missile production in the 1950s, and ultimately privatized off. So its doubtful any of that specialized equipment survives in the USA.

Still, there's no reason someone could not make the equipment to make a reactor vessel. It's really just a chicken and egg situation.

Re:The scoop on reactor vessels and guns

[CrimsonAvenger]

It's just that, its not actually the armor, as I claimed. Its the naval gun barrels. The reason the Japanese have a plant that can do it is that they are basically using the same stuff they used to make the 18" guns on the Yamato for make the reactor vessel in one piece. It makes sense, as you figure a gun barrel has to contain some fairly massive pressures in it.

This may be why the Japs are still in the business. It has little to do with why we're NOT still in the business. Our reactors were never made by the people who made naval gun barrels.

The pressures required for a reactor are a minute fraction of those required for a gun barrel, so that is pretty much irrelevant.

What is important is that capabilities can quite easily be lost, when the foundries that do the work stop getting contracts. We made our own back in the day (we still make our own for the US Navy - every carrier and every submarine since the 60's has had at least one in it), but we can't do it anymore. We can start again, but it'll be ten years before we're actually producing reactor vessels.

Unless, of course, we treat the problem like a real shooting war. If we decided we wanted the capability in five years, and money were no object, we could be mass-producing them in five years. But with the NIMBY crowd, and the more specialized anti-nuke crowd, and lots of lawyers to throw at any problem to delay it, it won't happen.

Note, by the way, that we could probably start mass-producing naval-style reactors in just a few years - we still have the expertise and the equipment to make them, they're a standardized design, we have a superb training program to teach people to operate them safely. But that won't happen either, for reasons that will be obvious to anyone familiar with naval nuclear power plants....

Re:The scoop on reactor vessels and guns

[tjstork]

To me this is the ugly downside of free trade and I think that the downside is rearing its head in gradually skyrocketing defense costs. Right now our defense industry is essentially subsidizing what little domestic manufacturing we have left, and at enormous expense. Before, we could leverage consumer manufacturing to have a capable military, or really, any massive federal construction project - such a big nuclear buildout. Now, we can't.

Oblig. Simpsons quote

[scottv67]

Energy Secretary addresses large coal pile:

"I Chu-Chu-Chuse you."

Re:Peak Oil

[OakDragon]

"So, if somebody wants to build a coal power plant, they can. It's just that, it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel, and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing that I've said, with a respect to coal -- I haven't been some coal booster -- what I have said is, that, for us to take coal off the table as a ideological matter, as opposed to saying, if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it. You know, that I think is the right approach." Barak Obama, SF Chronicle Interview, Jan 17, 2008

Context has nothing to do with it, he's talking about putting the screws to power produced by coal.

Gotta love the condescension in his remarks: "...if somebody wants to build a coal power plant, they can..." But only by the grace of Obama!

nuclear power

[falconwolf]

we cannot afford to forget that it is nuclear power that promises us the quickest (and cleanest) way to combat our oil dependency.

The last nuclear power plant commissioned in the US took more than 20 years to build and put in operation. But say you could cut that into a quarter, 5 years to build a 1 gigawatt reactor, it's still not the fastest way to add generation. If you erect 20 5 megawatt wind turbines a month in one year you'll add 1.2 gigawatts of capacity in a year.

As and for cleanliness, nuclear power is dirty. There's the mining and initial processing, reprocessing spent fuel, storage of the leftovers as well as toxic chemicals used for reprocessing, then closure of the power plant.

we're going to be deeply screwed when it comes to producing something we've come to take for granted in the modern age - plastics.

Oil, petroleum, isn't needed to make plastic. Before oil was used to make plastic plastic was made from plant material. The original cellophane plastic wrap for sandwiches was made from cellulose, a part of plant cells. Way back when, before 1951, Kodak made their film from cellulose. The only reason bioplastics lost favor was because DuPont invented a process to polymerize petroleum to make plastic and that was cheaper than bioplastics. Today bioplastics are making a comeback. I don't feel like looking for it now but Kodak had a pdf online showing the process of making bioplastic.

Falcon

Re:Clean is unlikely

[IHC Navistar]

The term "Clean Coal" is the same in meaning as the term "Smart Car".

They are using the terms to basically mean 'better' or 'new and improved, or in relation to coal, coal that does not produce the massive quantities of soot and sulfur emissions as older coal-burning methods.

'Clean Coal' will still leave soot, albeit a very small amount. A 'Smart Car' can't perform quantum physics equations, but can calculate your gas mileage.

However, coal IS technically clean, since it is washed before it is sold for use.....Ok ok ok, bad joke. I know.

Re:Peak Oil

[NeverVotedBush]

Care to cite a source for those "falling" global temperatures?

And even though CO2 is not a major component of the atmosphere, it has a very large effect - and where the water comes in is as a multiplier. As the extra CO2 warms the atmosphere and the surface of the planet, more water evaporates. Since water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, more water drives the equation to more retained heat.

It's sad that so many want so desperately to believe they are not causing problems for the planet and every living thing. Wait - scratch that. Some things will love the warmer temperatures. On the other hand, some things won't and as climate regions change location, it will be interesting to see how well people will be able to follow for agriculture.

It's going to suck when the best region for growing wheat shifts northward into Canada. Well, it will suck for the United States...

There is no such thing as clean coal and Chu knows it. The ONLY reason he reversed his position on it was the politics of being the energy secretary. The guy was the director of Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory and steered it to a mission based on alternative energy which is probably what got him the job as energy secretary.

Anyone who thinks he didn't have a clear enough grasp of the pros and cons or the technology of using coal when he openly opposed it a year ago, but somehow has learned enough now to understand how it can actually be "clean" is pretty damn gullible. Chu knows clean coal is an oxymoron and that the USA and the world cannot continue on a path that includes coal without sentencing itself to disaster.

It is bowing to political reality and the determination of man to crap in his own mess kit until it kills him that has forced Chu to now endorse coal. But it's the only way he can actively push for other technologies - technologies that he knows this country and the world really need. Had he not reversed his public position, he would not have been confirmed as secretary and even less progress would be made in moving to alternative energies.

And it is disinformation by the fossil fuel industry that perpetuates the positions of people like "icebike" above. I wish people that don't have a scientific background would realize that they just might not understand the concepts of how greenhouse gasses trap heat and the multiplicative effects that come from that. I wish they could also tell the difference between political hacks and research organizations and scientists that overwhelmingly state that the planet is indeed warming and that CO2 is helping to lead the charge.

Icebike, I don't know what your education level or background is but I sincerely believe you don't know what you are talking about.

What the fuck?

[drinkypoo]

Okay, now this is pure abuse of moderation. This is a very real issue, going on now, fucking killing people. You don't see how it's relevant? Flamebait doesn't mean "anything people will have strong reactions to" or you would never be able to say anything important. I think it's clear that I've picked up a mod troll today.

Re:What the fuck?

[ultranova]

This is a very real issue, going on now, fucking killing people.

They're just humans. The issue coming out might hurt a corporation. Have some sense of priority.

Flamebait doesn't mean "anything people will have strong reactions to" or you would never be able to say anything important.

Of course not. It means: "Someone is paying me to silence this opinion."

I think it's clear that I've picked up a mod troll today.

No, just a coal shill.

Re:Peak Oil

[drinkypoo]

As to the hazard to human safety. Don't drink it is the trick. It isn't much worse than gas right now.

Wrong and wrong. Unlike ethanol, methanol is absorbed into the bloodstream through the skin. Some of the nasties in gasoline are like this too, but gasoline itself is not. Thus Methanol is more dangerous than either. You can literally ge

What about Fusion

[EEPROMS]

One problem I have with clean coal (always sounds like an oxymoron to me) is there is no "proven" storage method yet (it's all numbers on paper) and it will be another 20-30 years before we can comfortable (if ever) confirm any effects. Now considering clean coal is an unknown and will be for another twenty (20) years "at least" you have to wonder if spending the billions ear marked for clean coal on fusion technology will give everyone a better return. There are test/research fusion reactors going on line (Sth Korea have a research fusion reactor going on line later this year) all over the world. I can't help but feel that the clean coal path is like going down the valve research path in the 1960's because it will keep glass blowers employed when transistors have just been invented as did many US consumer electric companies in the 60's (and got their financial's handed to them by the Japanese who went with transistors). Yes the US does spend a lot on Fusion research but the amount of money invested is a small when compared to the amount of money people spend on mobile phone ring tones.

Diversity?

[l00sr]

Well, when they run out of whatever exotic materials they use to make breeder reactors, I for one hope there will be something to fall back on. Diversity is generally a good thing.

Re:Diversity?

[Taibhsear]

The materials used in one type of reactor make waste. That waste is used in another type of reactor and so on. The waste can be used for quite some time. (ie. not likely to run out in our or our childrens' generation)

stop with the "off-grid" bullshit.

[falconwolf]

BS! People have been building off the grid since the beginning of civilization. Only those who do it today have electricity. Offgridders use various sources of alternative energy including geothermal, solar, wind, and microhydro along with others.

producing your own needs for electricity is great
but its a VERY SMALL amount of the world's total energy consumption.

Today off grid applications are small but it can easily be expanded. Solar, wind, and other systems can quickly be added. Solar panels can be placed of roofs for instance. Farmers can erect, or have erected, wind gennies on towers. They don't take up much space and they'll create a new source of income for farmers.

But the first thing offgridders do though is to reduce energy use, conserve electricity. Instead of using 75 watt incandescent lights, they'll use 15 watt CFLs or LEDs under 10 watts. For hot water, tankless instant on water heaters are more efficient. Solar hot water heater systems can bee used themselves, or can preheat water for instant on heaters. Passive solar designs can reduce any need for heating and cooling of indoor space, and with insulation with high R values heating and cooling can be eliminated. But even if heating is needed or wanted geothermal heating can be used. And by reversing the system when hot it can cool space as well.

There are many things that can be done to reduce energy consumed.

Falcon

Re:Peak Oil

[Cassius Corodes]

That kind of technology is not an mp3 you can just copy without any problems - usually its cheaper to hire people who have experience in working on such projects then to train a native crew at a massive risk of project failure.

CO2 emissions

[falconwolf]

I guess we (rich countries) could also try to suck CO2 out of the air, but I haven't yet seen a proven method.

Trees?

There are two problems I know of to use trees to absorb CO2. One is that some trees have been shown to emit more CO2 during parts of their growth. Another problem is that once the trees die they'll release the CO2 again. What has been proposed is to bury trees deep underground. However others have called those people Envirokooks.

Something I just thought of typing this reply is if burying trees will really work, it may make greenhouse gases in the atmosphere worse. This is because as organic matter decomposes in an anaerobic , without oxygen, it decomposes into methane which is 20 tymes as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2 is.

Falcon

Re:Peak Oil

[kayoshiii]

Why is everybody using the word Need. As in our energy needs.

As a human being you don't NEED much electrical energy in fact you don't need any at all. In fact for most of the time that humans have existed there has been no electrical energy. Having electricity is really nice.You can do a lot of cool stuff with electricity. Our society would be very very different if we didn't have electricity. I personally like having electricity in my life.

Talking about energy NEEDS highlights a very fundamental flaw in our way of thinking on these issues. At least part of the solution needs to be how can we lead satisfactory lives using less energy. Can we please say energy wishes or desires or something of that nature because that is what we are really talking about.

Re:Peak Oil

[TimSSG]

From 'Obama's energy chief announces nuclear waste panel' http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jq77xhDYfMKrP2HM0iPWHdhxqJfA

Chu said he was convening a "blue-ribbon panel" of experts to "develop a long-term strategy that must include the waste disposal plan," after Obama's budget ruled out a proposed national repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

Chu said nuclear power, which currently generates 20 percent of US energy, must take its place alongside clean technologies such as wind and solar to wean the United States off foreign oil and fight climate change. He encountered criticism from Republican senators after the Obama administration stripped 50 billion dollars in loans for new nuclear power plants from a 787-billion-dollar economic stimulus plan.

Tim S

invasions of Russia rarely end well for the

[falconwolf]

invaders

If India tried to invade Russia because Global Warming decimated Indian agriculture they wouldn't have the problems Napoleon and Hitler had. Neither army could handle the cold that well. India'd have another problem though. Currently India and Russia are friendly, and Pakistan and China are friendly, to each other. India does not get along with either China or Pakistan though. The Sino-Indian War was a war between China and India in 1962 and they still have bad feelings between them. Then India and Pakistan were partitioned from British India. And India would have to go through one or the other to invade Russia.

Falcon

Re:invasions of Russia rarely end well for the

[Gospodin]

I'm sure you guys are right, but you're missing an important point: IT WAS A JOKE.

coal and CO2

[falconwolf]

Yeah, if you go to the anti clean coal websites, that seems to be their only legitimate complaint.

Some who oppose may only do so because of CO2 but others do for other reasons as well. Others, like Appalachian Voices and Mountain Justice oppose Mountaintop Removal. And others have other reasons to oppose coal.

Falcon

Re:coal and CO2

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Those are good reasons to cut back on coal, I didn't know about those earlier. Thanks for posting those.

Change of heart?

[SupremoMan]

Pay no attention to this bag of money I received from coal lobby :/

Re:Peak Oil

[neanderslob]

Certain levels of E coli in certain areas of the body are necessary for us to live, but it doesn't stop us from calling it a pollutant when we eat spinach that's loaded with bacteria. The reasoning behind your statement is accurate but trivial outside of a middle school science class. Of COURSE CO2 is necessary for life but I can't think of one harmful substance that doesn't have a positive application somewhere in the biosphere. Instead of getting all caught up in some moral conflict about whether a molecule is innately good or bad, look at the context of the discussion; it is entirely reasonable to call carbon a pollutant given discussion above.

recycling

[falconwolf]

recycled paper takes more energy to make than the original wood paper.

Where's your source? According to the Energy Information Administration there is a "40% reduction in energy when paper is recycled versus paper made with unrecycled pulp." Another webpage answers the question "Does virgin paper use less energy to produce than recycled paper?" as thus: "There can be no definitive statement on which uses more energy because each forest, producer, vehicle, mill and so on will have its own way of working, and the different types of energy-use also have different environmental impacts. Broadly the reprocessed fibre in recycled grades is more efficient in energy terms."

Falcon

carbon sequestration

[falconwolf]

Does it really matter if it leaks to the surface if the rate is significantly less than we are currently releasing?

It can be a matter of live or death for life around a leak. Thousands of people and lifestock died when Lake Nyos, in Africa, released CO2.

Falcon

Re:Peak Oil

[wolverine1999]

Italy is reearching the subject too.. I think other countries should do so too..

Re:Peak Oil

[jandersen]

A major political figure completely reversing his stance a subject and is able to provide straightforward and logical explanations for the change? Maybe I'm used to the previous administrations policy of "what we say goes, no matter what" but, yeah, this does kind of surprise me.

I would certainly hope that a political leader is able to change his or her opinion as a consequence of learning more about a subject; that is a sign of such things as intelligence, adaptability and maturity. Too often, I'll admit, we see politicians that are willing to say whatever people want to hear, simply because they don't have a genuine, insight-based opinion, but I don't think it is the case here. And equally often we see the opposite: politicians who are unable or unwilling to change their opinion about things in spite of new evidence or circumstances.

Re:Peak Oil

[atraintocry]

No, corporate welfare is what the free market wants. A lobbyist told me so!

Re:Crapola!

[jsiren]

...if you are going to put something into the ground (very very deep, no longer in the biosphere) then why the hell not make that nuclear? ...The earth already has a radioactive core (ever see a volcano, how do you think that happened, where did the heat come from?)...gee get some cooling pipes into the ground.....electric generators anyone? What to do with all that waste electricity.... Slashdot anyone? Is this really all that hard, I mean really!

Sounds like what you're proposing is essentially powering Slashdot(?) by means of geothermal energy with some additional heat sources (radioactive waste) sunk in.

Sounds good to me.

Re:Peak Oil

[OrangeTide]

Well if you have a climate like the Cretaceous period, then fine. The rest of us would rather not have populated areas suffer crippling drought while other once arable areas are flooded with seawater and brackish water.

I do believe that most of the global warming coverage is just bullshit that hijacked science to suit a political agenda. While on the other hand, our limited understanding of macroclimates paints a fairly scary picture if we adjust the atmospheric chemistry too drastically. As a capitalist I know it would be harmful to economies if climate changed occurred at a rate faster than business and people can adapt. But there are a lot of things that nobody appears to be able to show conclusively about the scale of the problem, the speed at which it can happen, when it will happen, and if it's possible to halt or reverse the problem before it happens.

Re:Peak Oil

[sunnyflorida]

I like your attitude. CO2 is not a pollutant. Fuck the so-called stupid ignorant "greenies". Man is NOT causing global warming - want proof = the globe is not warming.

Well, duh

[YourExperiment]

"It absolutely is worthwhile to invest in carbon capture and storage because we are not in a vacuum,"

If we were in a vacuum, it would be pretty pointless attempting to burn coal at all.

Re:Peak Oil

[vivian]

Crap is a byproduct of animal life too - and plants love that too - just like carbon dioxide.

I think you can safely argue that it is also a pollutant though, and not something we should just be dumping into the environment all over the place.

Re:Peak Oil

[LordKazan]

nobody is talking about making the earth too hot for all life.

we're talking about melting the ice caps flooding massively populated areas, destroying our economy, and generally ruining the usefulness of the ecosystem to HUMANS.

Re:Peak Oil

[LordKazan]

pollutant? no .. needs a new classification

excessive green house gas production

there you go

Re:Peak Oil

[LordKazan]

Algae. bred for high cellulose instead of high oil.

Re:Peak Oil

[LordKazan]

Gasoline was also interesting but unproven once.

there is an active commercial scale algae diesel and gasoline plant operating in texas right now

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_algal_fuel_producers#USA

Re:Peak Oil

[ResidentSourcerer]

So many ancillary services use petro fuels that even solar power has a carbon footprint.

A better way to look at it is Pounds CO2/kWHr.

I live south of the mine that provides Epcor's Genesee Generating Station with it's coal. (The new permit boundary is 800 yards from my house. It's going to be interesting having a dragline as a neighbour.)

Their newest project is to use a coal gassification technology, burn the syngas in a turbine, use the exhaust gas from the turbine to run a boiler.
The CO2 exhaust from the boiler is separated out, compressed to a liquid, and is to be piped 25 km to an oil field for enhanced recovery. Later, when
the field is depleted, this same area has deep saline aquifers (>2 km) where they can inject the CO2. At these depths, the CO2 shows little tendency to
come out of solution, and eventually forms carbonates with the local rock matrix.

The net result is 85% less CO2 per pound of coal burned. Due to inefficiencies of the process, it's about 75% less CO2 total. (Takes energy to
compress the CO2.)

Coal gassification is a good step.

Another technology on the horizon is solid carbon fuel cells. They promise an efficiency of 70-80% and deliver a nearly pure stream of CO2 for sequesterization. The higher efficiency and cheaper separation technology combine to cut the CO2 a bunch further.

Clean coal is probably the best answer we have, at least until these ultra capacitors become main stream, and
allow the use of intermittent power sources for continuous loads.

Clean-coal mind bomb was planted on Election Day

[presidenteloco]

Was it only me that noticed that the US media coverage of Barack Obama's election victory speech was carpet-bombed with mindf**k ads showing green leaves on a white background and the words "Clean-Coal".

I have to ask, what is it about me that makes me understand exactly what these powerful interests are doing to me when they do it, whereas it seems to escape most peoples' attention. That's bloody frightening.

In any case, I don't care how the US generates its energy as long as it reduces its carbon emission footprint rapidly down to 20% of its current value.

Re:Peak Oil

[jtev]

Um, excuse me, but you are without a doubt a stupid sack of shit. As individuals, no we do not have a great "need" for electrical power, or power of any type. But as a society we do. The numbers of humans we have would be unable to survive without the following. 1. Agriculture. Hunter-gatherers simply require too much space, and there isn't enough room on earth, nor game, nor forragable vegetables for the current population to be sustained as hunter-gatherers. 2. Transportation. Just because we can grow the food doesn't me we can get it where it needs to be. Look at the USSR durring the cold war. Their food production was wonderful, some of the best in the world, and yet in the cities there were still bread lines because there was no way to get wheat to market. 3. Refridgeration. Most food goes bad, and goes bad quickly. Refridgeration retards the spoilage, so that food can be transported from far off parts of the world to your plate. 4. Employment. Farmers work hard, they want to be rewarded for their work, so you must have employment so that you can get the money to pay the farmers to allow them the rewards for their labor, so that they will continue to feed hundreds to thousands of people each. 5. Heavy machinery. Farming takes heavy machinery. Moving food takes heavy machinery. building the roads over which food is moved takes... wait for it.... heavy machinery. It also takes heavy machinery to make heavy machinery. It takes work to design the machiery, to build it, to move it. All of this also takes energy. I could go on, but I'm not going to. The point is that yes, contries have energy NEEDS. Even when energy may be used on what can be considered luxuries for individuals that is an essential part of the production and maintenace of the full population. Yes individuals can restrict their energy usage, but consumer consumption isn't a gnat's fart in a skyscraper compared to the genuine needs of a modern society.

Re:Peak Oil

[Vexar]

That sounds like a Democrat president, alright: use fees, tariffs, fines, and the courts to prevent profitable businesses from succeeding, as suited to the minority agenda amalgam which is the Democrat party.

If his "I'll help our auto companies re-tool" sentence blew by anyone, that would be the auto-industry buy-out, which, surprisingly, they used to get people to buy cars with 0% interest rates. No R&D money that I saw. I still say there's a non-Socialist way to bring about innovation, but we've elected Socialists, so the innovation will not happen in the USA for sure.

Re:Peak Oil

[LWATCDR]

Methanol is not exotic stuff. Yea don't take a bath in it but it is used for freaking camping stoves right now. It has been used for decades as a fuel in racing cars in a number of classes and is mandatory in many because of it is so much safer than gas.

Re:Peak Oil

[LWATCDR]

Interesting but unproven isn't a slam.
But one of the real benefits of methanol is that large commercial production is a well know and easy process.
Algae fuel is still in the pilot project stage.
But It should be investigated as well.

Re:Peak Oil

[dwiget001]

To further clarify:

I am not a member of any political party. Not even the Libertarian party, but I do support many of their party's views. I even support a very small number of Democrat and Republican views.

I do have the viewpoint "you don't sh!t where you eat", so to speak. Nor am I an environmentalist whacko.

I do believe that the environment is the only one we have, and it would be a major error to poison up the environment. Need to keep it as clean as possible for ourselves and future generations. But, I am not convinced, even in the slightest, that CO2 emmissions are causing global warming.

However, to the greatest degree possible, without breaking the U.S. (or other countries and all of their citizens) piggy bank, actions which help prevent and also clean up the environment should be supported.

"Cap and Trace" is just a scheme to put more money into government hands to control, that's it. It is not a solution to global warming or anything like that. It is a control mechanism, plain and simple.

Re:Peak Oil

[dwiget001]

>

No Libertarian I know, and I know quite a few, believes any of that, not even in the slightest.

Re:Peak Oil

[plague3106]

Well, like it or not, we do need it if we want to keep modern society going. So yes, it is a need.. because if we can't figure out better ways to generate energy, our society will collapse.

Now, you may be fine with a return to the Dark Ages, but the rest of us would like to keep moving forward.

Re:Peak Oil

[plague3106]

Global temps are falling. They have been for as long as you have been aware of the so-called issue.

That must explain the growth of the ice caps at both poles! Why, I hear there are ice flows off the cost of FL now too!

Re:Peak Oil

[LordKazan]

with the current prices for diesel and gasoline it is my understanding that it is profitable even at the pilot project stage. the diesel and gas it produce are already proven.

Re:Peak Oil

[AK Marc]

Industries, left to their own devices, do not care about the environment. They shit where they eat, and if it becomes unlivable, they move. This has happened countless times and was only stopped when government regulations stopped it. And somehow, fewer regulations will mean the corporations will be free to make the environment better, and they want to now, but the government is stopping them. Or at least that's how it sounds when the nutjobs talk about how bad all government regulations are regarding the environment.

Is carbon a pollutant? If release of it leads to the destruction of the planet (in the habitable sense, not the blows-up sense), then it is a pollutant. We don't know that answer for sure, but the data seems to indicate that CO2 release is causing negative results. Is it not a pollutant because it's released naturally? Well, that would mean that methane, sulfurdioxide, and all sorts of other things listed as pollutants shouldn't be. Yes, it's necessary for plant life, but they work just fine with a lower percentage of CO2. So what is it, and if it's harmful, what do we do about it? If "Cap and Trace" is bad, does that mean that it doesn't affect US output of CO2? Or does it, but in a manner you don't like? Should we not pass any laws until everyone is happy with them? If so, then we would have anarchy. So you have to state why it's worse than not having it. And no, I will accept no arguments about what any other country will do. The only laws that Congress can pass are ones that affect the US, so that is the only place where I'm interested in results.

Re:Peak Oil

[AK Marc]

Oh, then they have no idea what their party platform is. As the Libertarian platform includes toll sidewalks, as far as I can tell. After all, once you have the government sell off all land, including roads, the only sidewalks will be on private property, and if you want to walk on them, you have to have permission. Since they expect nearly all roads to be operated as toll roads, the only conceivable system for sidewalks would be toll as well.

Re:Peak Oil

[AK Marc]

Libertarians do not want companies to have carte blanche to do whatever the fuck they want.

Sure they do. They want "liberty" to exclusion of the government. If the government isn't there taking away liberty to enforce it, then the companies will take it away and not enforce it. That's been proven over an over in US and world history. Libertarians want to pretend that it won't happen again, but with no reasons why it wouldn't just happen again. Or do you think that Libertarians cheer anti-trust legislation, minimum wage, OSHA, and all those other things infringing on a manager's "personal liberty" and the private employment contract with their serfs, I mean employees?

Re:Peak Oil

[arminw]

....we're talking about melting the ice caps flooding massively populated areas....

Neither of these scenarios would happen of course and even if it did happen, it would take place over many human lifetimes giving people and economies plenty of time to adjust. When the whole atmosphere becomes warmer, that is significantly warmer, it will also hold significantly more moisture. This means that any of that extra water would be suspended in the atmosphere and not put places like New York underwater.

Re:Peak Oil

[LordKazan]

you better go double check your "facts", because they're lacking when it comes to accuracy

I was going to be a climatologist/meteorologist until he learned how to code, and I still know a lot about the subject and have my spotter certification.

nuclear power

[falconwolf]

I expected the obligatory Chernobyl mention, but TMI and Chernobyl were night and day.

Yea, Chernobyl showed how nuclear power can fail but TMI showed how it can work. The control and safety systems prevented a worse incident.

I'm inclined to view TMI's accident as an example of how far we've come and how much we learned from Chernobyl, and I'm far from unique in that assessment.

Except TMI happened before Chernobyl, lessons from Chernobyl didn't help TMI.

even if I was as strongly against nuclear power as they were, I'd still hope to be intellectually honest enough to call that article out for being the complete mess that it is.

Perhaps another one could have been better to use, such as this one: "Nuclear Materials 'Poison' Navajo Land", but that one was one of the first results when I googled. Or this one, " FACT SHEET on Uranium Mining and Nuclear Pollution in the Upper Midwest". Indian tribes and reservations have had to deal with uranium mining, and storage, including having their treaty rights violated. The proposed permanent storage site, Yucca Mountain, is by the Treaty of Ruby Valley part of Western Shoshone land, and they oppose the use of it for nuclear waste.

Of course if it goes through and waste is stored there it'll just be another broken treaty in a line of treaties the US has broken with Indian tribes. That I know of no nation has broken as many treaties as the US has.

Falcon

wind power

[falconwolf]

wind turbines are rated by thier output under ideal wind conditions.

According to howstuffworks "At 33 mph, most large turbines generate their rated power capacity". In places it is windier than that. The Wind Energy Resource Atlas of the United States details by region wind potential.

Also relying on wind puts your grid at the mercy of whether the wind blows or not.

Ah, the use of solar and geothermal can help. I once heard that when the wind doesn't blow it's usually sunny. I'd add that solar and wind energy can be harvested at the same tyme during the day. And geothermal can be used as a baseload.

Falcon

mountaintop removal

[falconwolf]

Those are good reasons to cut back on coal, I didn't know about those earlier. Thanks for posting those.

I knew coal mining was deadly but I was absolutely shocked by the first photos of mountaintop removal. I love mountains and seeing one turned into a parking lot just doesn't sit well with me. As I read more I found other problems also. Do you remember that leak of coal slurry last year at TVA? There have been other leaks. Mountaintop removal also buries rivers and streams, and toxins enter into drinking water.

Falcon

S-H-O-W M-E O-N-E T-H-A-T W-O-R-K-S

[anw]

Name me a commercially successful reprocessing fast breeder reactor. One. Anywhere. Something that would provide good grounds for going "Oh look, those guys over there seem to have nailed it, let's base our energy future on what they are doing!"

Nope, all you got are tiny test systems, colossal government-backed failures, sodium explosions and leaking reprocessing pools, and - hope springs eternal! - product brochures from GE. Well thanks, but no thanks.

"But these new planned systems solve all the problems of the old systems! And they won't run into any unforeseen difficulties, we don't have those any more! Every new technology now runs perfectly, just as planned!"

Right.

Renewables, energy efficiency. and conservation on the other hand, those we can pretty much pop down to WallMart and buy off the shelf. And yes, they can do everything we actually need, and are easily as dependable as coal or nuclear. Double glazing is about as 'base-load' as you can get.

So, since you brought him up, ask yourself ... which energy source would Jesus use?

Nuclear power

[falconwolf]

don't listen the CATO institute, they're not very trustworthy.

First, why do you say CATO is not trustworthy? Do you trust Forbes? That article CATO has is from "Forbes", CATO just reprinted it. As this next one is anti-nukes you probably won't accept it either but there goes. Dating from 2005 " True Costs of Nuclear Power -- Half-a-Trillion Dollars Sunk" says electricity from nuclear power plants cost at "least 9.0 cents a kilowatt-hour, far more than other readily available fuels." But the most important assessment of nuclear power's profitability is Wall Street and Wall Street has never funded nuclear without subsidies.

Yucca mountain is no longer a viable storage site if that is what you were talking about. They found a fault ran underneath it that they didn't think did.

Why should they be surprised? Back in the '70s a building was damaged when Yucca Mountain was hit by an earthquake. Then several years ago another earthquake hit near Yucca.

The general impression I get from your post is that you think nuclear power is somehow really dirty.

Nuclear power is dirty, as are all sources of power we could use. even geothermal energy is dirty.

All you need for long term storage is a geological stable site that is isolated from the water table.

And where will sites like this be found?

I was not aware of mines on native lands, most of the best mines are in Canada from my understanding.

Those mines in Canada are on First Nations's land. "Greenpeace joins First Nations and citizens to oppose Sharbot Lake uranium exploration". "A Violation of Algonquin Law".

And it's not just the US and Canada that mines uranium on Native lands. Australia does it as well as other nations.

As for "government funding" it's just government loans that I've heard of no grants

From January 2007, "Analysis of Nuclear Subsidies in Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2007 [pdf]". It says "Finally, Sec. 323 of the bill enables projects within different technology categories, including nuclear power, to bid for an additional federal grant of as much as $100 million - or more if approved by the Secretary of Energy."

Now those subsidies are just US ones not Chinese, French, Indian, or Russian.

Falcon

Re:Peak Oil

[JWW]

Exactly, this makes much more sense than calling it a pollutant.

Re:Peak Oil

[BCW2]

The expense of the filters and other technology used for cleaning stack gasses has been born by the industry, not the Govt.

Anything that even hints at raising utility bills by 50% in this economy is moronic at best.

Re:Peak Oil

[arminw]

....you better go double check your "facts", because they're lacking...

Anyone who can open a book of maps, such as National Geographic can see that the world's oceans were confined at one time to the deep ocean basins and the areas now called the continental shelves were dry.

Greenland is called that because it was once a "green land" with plant life much as we find it today on the East Coast of the United States. Ice cores from the bottom of thousands of feet of ice show pollen and seeds as well as other microscopic evidence of this fact. There is little disagreement about global warming in and of itself, but its cause and what effect this will have. Warming and cooling of the Earth is a natural cyclic activity that human beings never have had and never will have any significant influence over.

There are those who know full well that if control can be gained over how energy is produced and utilized, they will have effectively gained control over all of civilization. It is mainly in their use and production of energy, that modern industrialized societies depend on.

Re:Peak Oil

[smithmc]

Possibly the best thing we could do at this point is grow a bunch of algae and bamboo and bury them.

And, you know what would happen to the algae and bamboo if you left them buried long enough, right? ...More coal!

Re:Peak Oil

[CommanderIsm]

show me a politician and i will show you a crook