Slashdot Mirror
The World Falls Back In Love With Coal
Hugh Pickens writes "Richard Anderson reports on BBC that despite stringent carbon emissions targets in Europe designed to slow global warming and massive investment in renewable energy in China, coal, the dirtiest and most polluting of all the major fossil fuels, is making a comeback with production up 6% over 2010, twice the rate of increase of gas and more than four times that of oil. 'What is going on is a shift from nuclear power to coal and from gas to coal; this is the worst thing you could do, from a climate change perspective,' says Dieter Helm. Why the shift back to coal? Because coal is cheap, and getting cheaper all the time. Due to the economic downturn, there has been a 'collapse in industrial demand for energy,' leading to an oversupply of coal, pushing the price down. Meanwhile China leads the world in coal production and consumption. It mines over 3 billion tons of coal a year, three times more than the next-biggest producer (America), and last year overtook Japan to become the world's biggest coal importer. Although China is spending massive amounts of money on a renewable energy but even this will not be able to keep up with demand, meaning fossil fuels will continue to make up the majority of the overall energy mix for the foreseeable future and when it comes to fossil fuels, coal is the easy winner — it is generally easier and cheaper to mine, and easier to transport using existing infrastructure such as roads and rail, than oil or gas. While China is currently running half a dozen carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects — which aim to capture CO2 emissions from coal plants and bury it underground — the technology is nowhere near commercial viability. 'Renewed urgency in developing CCS globally, alongside greater strides in increasing renewable energy capacity, is desperately needed,' writes Anderson, 'but Europe's increasing reliance on coal without capturing emissions is undermining its status as a leader in clean energy, and therefore global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.'"
Murray Energy, run by a dipwad that poured a huge amount of cash into Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations, layed off miners and other workers the day after Obama's re-election claiming that Obama's war against coal meant that he could no longer afford to keep people employed.
Yet, Slashdot has posted a story saying worldwide demand for coal is up. So, either the numbers are wrong, or Murray made a half-assed political statement that had nothing to do with facts.
Hrmm... Wonder which it could be?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
/sarcasm Yeah, that radiation. The coal plants around Pittsburgh's 3-Rivers have left a nuclear wasteland stretching to long Island.
We all hate moronic talking points - how about we agree to drop them? Chernobyl is an example of radiation problems. 3 Mile Island was a tamer example. And, now, Fukushima. The Greenies talk about all that radiation from coal, but they can't point to one example of a population center depopulated due to radiation from coal.
Try sticking to the REAL drawbacks of using coal.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I have heard coal emits 100x more radiation than nuclear (in normal operation), but that radiation is still is mostly harmless (it certainly doesn't emit less than an uncontained nuclear meltdown, though).
Gee, and all this time we were burning it, when we could just as easily put it directly into our nuclear reactors!!!
Does it ever occur to you that sometime, just sometimes, you should question what you "hear".
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Which "greens" are you talking about?
- I gave enough reference in my comment, are you asking me for more? All greens have socialist demands, they are all talking about 'green jobs' and 'green plan' and they are all talking about price and wage and exchange controls and they are all talking about taxes and regulations. What's wrong with wage controls? Well I wrote plenty on the topic not to have to repeat myself.
In a "free market" nothing changes until prices dictate it. T
- prices that 'dictate it' is people that dictate it. The higher the prices of one product or service the less it will be used or the more alternatives there will be, that's precisely how things change in a free market (no double quotes needed around the term), free market means voluntary market, market free of extraneous regulations, free of coercion forced by threat of violence.
We want the change NOW.
- most people do not want that, if they did, they would be behaving accordingly. People who truly want 'change now' can act upon their desires now, they can go for alternative methods themselves, paying more in the process.
So we have to use political means to do that.
- precisely, you want threat of government violence over everybody now, to get your technocratic goals achieved. But that is precisely my point about the greens being socialists (collectivists, central planners), which I gave references for as well. Greens want totalitarian regime, they want control of other people's lives now, they want all sorts of controls that are not market forced.
Jill Stein is green, I gave enough references to her own words. She says, not I, she says: I want price controls, wage controls, green 'new deal' (job controls via gov't). She says: I want nationalisation of companies, I want draft, I want central planning, I want new taxes. So she is exactly on the path that you are apparently cheering for, what's your question then? I already answered it then, she is a socialist, collectivist, central planner, totalitarian, authoritarian, anti-capitalist, anti-individualist technocrat. I am against every tiny thing she stands for, that's all.
Yes, it is democracy (unfortunately, it shouldn't be, because democracy is tyranny, I explained many times, here is one time I did)
the german economy is thriving ... the environment is superb.
- I don't see the German economy thriving, I am in Germany this very moment, I see a huge collectivist hive, I see huge inefficient collectivist self-destructive system that is chocking, especially since the moment of unification, when Eastern Germany was put on welfare basically and since then huge part of the entire Europe was put on welfare and the German tax payer is forced into this insane slavery, subsidising every socialist around him. Germans were robbed the moment Euro was introduced, Germany is on a path to self destruction with this socialist agenda.
Germany has made another dumb move by deciding to stop all of its nuclear power plants. But hey, that's not my life's problem, it's Germany's problem. You are free to do whatever you want, and implement any socialist scheme there can be, I sure don't want any part of it and you are going to end up just like the rest of the socialist states, which all eventually self-destruct their economies.
Chinese are buying German manufacturing already, I was in one event in Baden Baden dedicated exactly to that.
You can't handle the truth.
Ah, the Alex Gabbard article in the Oak Ridge labs newsletter has got another follower. Note I said newsletter, since that bullshit never ended up in a peer reviewed paper and the guy that wrote it was a manager and not a researcher. It did end up in a bit of lazy journalism in Scientific American, but if you look at the comments on the online version you'll see a few pointing out precisely why it's fictional crap.
We've had the equipment to detect all this radioactive material that is supposed to be going up the stack for well over a century but nobody has seen it yet. I wonder why? Maybe Mr (not Dr) Alex Gabbard can write his first peer reviewed paper in his life about it. He won't be able to put a fantasy about terrorists being able to build nuclear bombs from ash in it if he wants to get past peer review unless he can back it up with more than just hand waving bullshit.