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Oregon Set To Become First Coal-Free State (huffingtonpost.com)
New submitter daubney writes: Oregon lawmakers have approved legislation to eliminate coal from the state's electrical supply by 2035, the first U.S. state to do so. The bill, called the Clean Electricity and Coal Transition plan, commits the state to doubling its use of renewable energy, including solar and wind, to 50 percent by 2040. The bill, passed this week by both legislative branches, now heads to Gov. Kate Brown. Brown said in a statement that the legislation "equips Oregon with a bold and progressive path towards the energy resource mix of the future." Today, roughly one-third of Oregon's power is produced from coal, according to the Oregon Department of Energy. The measure makes Oregon the first state to eliminate coal by legislative action, The Associated Press reports. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Oregon is matched only by Hawaii, with a 100 requirement by 2045, Vermont, with a 75 percent target by 2032, and California and New York, with 50 percent goals by 2030.
Designs do not a power plant make. And frankly, I doubt the designs reflect anything real-world-buildable at a price anyone is willing to pay in the time frame in which they'll be useful.
The fact is, if coal plants had to meet the same standards for radioactive emissions that nuclear plants do (which they don't), they'd have to be shut down. (They're burning so much coal per plant that even the traces of radon, radium, thorium etc in that coal are significant. Not to mention other fun thinks like arsenic.)
Even if you processed the coal until was 100.00% carbon (at what cost?), so that the plant really is only emitting CO2 ... CO2 is what you don't want if you're worried about it as a greenhouse gas. And what do you do with all the crap you scrub out of the coal and/or smoke? That arsenic has a toxic half-life of infinity (or until the protons decay, effectively the same thing).
-- Alastair
Hydro doesn't have enough capacity to provide base load. Try getting permits to build a new dam in Oregon. The environmentalists will flambe you and eat you for breakfast.
Hydro's ability to quickly throttle up or down as needed makes it the best power source for dynamic peaking load.. That's why hydro's capacity factor is only around 40%. There's a fixed amount of water every year, and they save it shape the power generation profile to match peaking load. Using hydro for base load would just create a new problem - what power source do you use for peaking load? Right now the best alternative is gas plants, which is a fossil fuel.
Geothermal still needs to be proven. The one place geothermal has worked out well (Iceland) is blessed with shallow geothermal vents. In the rest of the world, you have to drill deep into the ground to make it work. In fact, it's almost exactly the same procedure as fracking since you need to maximize the surface contact area between the rocks and the water you pump down there.
Headline should be Oregon set to be the first HIGHEST UTILITY RATES IN THE NATION state.
Oregon has electricity rates below the median for America. Their rates are much less than I pay in California. Although in California we are almost coal free, at 0.5% of production.
Most of the real nasties are collected in the bottom ash. Which is rich enough in Uranium is would be 'ore' if it wasn't so loaded with mercury etc. Loopholes in EPA regs specifically for bottom ash or coal would be non-viable today.
Bottom ash was used as a substitute for road salt when the conditions where right. Didn't melt snow, but provided traction and was free to small coal plant owning cities. Yet another case where having government run industry doesn't clean up the industry and further corrupts the government.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
there are designs available for coal plants* that don't emit anything but CO2?
Emissions are only one concern. There is a lot of environmental damage caused by mining the coal. Better scrubbers don't fix that problem. Coal emits twice as much CO2 as gas, and gas is just as cheap, is cleaner to extract and transport, and has no sulfur, mercury, or cadmium. Gas turbines are also more responsive to fluctuations in demand, so are a better match for wind/solar.
That's going to take a lot of mining.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Oregon already has half their electricity production from renewable. It's the advantage of living in a place with lots of rain, hydro gets a lot easier. So it's likely Oregon can actually achieve this.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."