For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2570 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 10:51 pm Post subject: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says MIT
Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says MIT report
Quote:
Coal is a cheap and widely available energy source that will be continue to be used in the future despite its impact on global climate. For this reason, says a new report by MIT, it is essential to develop cleaner technologies for harnessing coal.
The report states that China and India will only agree to binding limits on carbon dioxide emissions if the United States does as well. As such, the authors argue that the "U.S. government should provide assistance only to coal projects with CO2 capture in order to demonstrate technical, economic and environmental performance."
mongabay _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:41 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
"clean coal" ...ahhh, it sounds so nice. Maybe we can all get jobs as "eco-miners" in the clean coal mines to pay off our "sub prime" mortgages? I'm sure if a war breaks out over coal resources there will be lots of "friendly fire" and maybe even some ethnic "cleansing."
We just need to rename everything and we'll feel a lot better. I know I do.
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:05 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
Yes, it seems to be every day now in Australia that we are bombarded by politicians from both sides uttering the mantra of clean coal. Maybe if they say it often enough we'll all start to believe it. I might become a bit less cynical if they actually managed a trial: took all the CO2 from a power station for a year and demonstrated that, yes, it's all safely locked up for EVER. Surely this is analogous to the nuclear waste disposal issue. At least after 100,000 years most of the radionuclides will have decayed away. But it will only take a small earthquake and BUUUURRRP. Clean coal is just a bullshit excuse to keep on with business as usual, while claiming that exciting advances are being made with research into geosequestration.
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 1:10 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
In the 90's it was "dirty" coal.
Now it is clean coal., interesting. _________________ ___________________________
WHEN THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND...GET OUT OF THE WAY!
Using evil to further good makes one evil
Doubt everything but the TRUTH
This posted information is not permissible to be used
by anyone who has ever met a lawyer
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:10 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
There is much evidence, that coal (clean or dirty, does not matter) will provide most immediate solution to oil shortages by CTL.
I only wonder, how long it will last under this setup?
Someone suggested that it may only be about 20 years more before total peak FF arrives under that scenario...
Energy experts from MIT have released a long-awaited report on the future of coal. The report recommends that much more be done to develop technology for decreasing the impact of burning coal on global warming. The report also challenges some conventional thinking about the best way forward. It criticizes current efforts by the Department of Energy (DOE) and calls for an approximately $5 billion, 10-year program to demonstrate technology for capturing and storing carbon dioxide released by coal-fired power plants.
Quote:
The report challenged the idea, argued by some energy experts, that a new type of coal plant--one that converts coal into a gas before burning it--will make it easier and cheaper to capture carbon dioxide, compared with collecting it from the smokestacks of conventional power plants. The MIT experts say that several factors make the picture more complicated. Such coal gasification doesn't work well with low-grade coal, for example, and both the new and the conventional plants will require major changes to capture carbon dioxide, according to the MIT report.
As a result, the MIT researchers recommend that governments not support the new gasification plants over conventional plants. Instead, they say that governments should focus on large-scale demonstration programs that would, for the first time, capture carbon dioxide from coal plants, transport it, and store it at a large scale. The project would need to handle a million tons of carbon dioxide. Such demonstrations would make it possible to compare different technologies, increase policymaker and public confidence that capture and sequestration technology can work, and pave the way for quick adoption of the best technologies in response to a price on carbon dioxide.
Without such a demonstration, warns the report, a rush to cut carbon emissions would lead to spiking costs and further delays, and that would make it difficult for power producers to meet energy demand.
Does sound a bit different, I would say. We are nowhere close to viable clean coal technology. _________________ The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:39 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
coal is back - big time
Even eco-leaning German energy giants (e.on, vattenfall etc.) are expanding their generation capacity with additional coal fired plants - from what I have gathered with some sort of CO2 sequestration scheme.
Countries with large coal deposits are all in a hurry to return to coal for their energy needs.
CTL plants are on the drawing boards all over the place.
This is something that will not be stopped - GW or not
I believe with a waning energy base, Chinese growth will slow dremendously over the next couple of years, in the US we will see a prolonged recession which is accelerating its downhill slope as we speak, and thus dragging the rest of the world with it down a slippery slope. Effects are not immediate on the global economy. We will still see growth in some areas of the globe for years to come.
With larger amounts of unconventional oil, coal, biofuels and other alternatives coming on-stream with the current flurry of activities globally, we will be able to buy some time and keep the world in a meta stable state.
Considering global dimming as a dampening factor to GW, we should not categorically be against the further burning of FF's. If we would stop now, I think the world would certainly going heat up within a few years to such a degree, that the consequences are not managable anymore.
I think the only variable that seals our fate is the decline rate in global oil production.
The way I look at current events is, that most governments are PO aware and bank on pursuading the sheeples to increasingly use less energy (due to GW...), bank on a mild slow down in economic activity to further reduce oil consumption, and to expand coal and nuclear as much as possible in order to bridge the widening gap between oil production and consumption as long as possible.
If the impeding decline in production is to steep, the meta stable state of a short lived plateau will not be reached and we will see resource wars on a large scale. It could even mean a hot war between the US and the EU within 10-15 years henceforth.
So bottom line is, governments all over the world will cling to coal as the last resort and we will burn through that stuff too within some 50 years.
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:42 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
Oh, its tough to be a coal miners daughter...
They should just mine the clean coal instead of the dirty coal. _________________ ___________________________
WHEN THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND...GET OUT OF THE WAY!
Using evil to further good makes one evil
Doubt everything but the TRUTH
This posted information is not permissible to be used
by anyone who has ever met a lawyer
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:53 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
Every last bit of recoverable coal will be burned one way or another. How can you subscribe to PO and not believe that? Wouldn't you rather it be done the "least horrible" way possible?
Trapped CO2 wouldn't have to be stored for as long as nuclear waste of course. It could slowly be released over time, and even if there was one great big earthquake that magically ruptures every site in the world, are we any worse off than we would have been without trapping CO2 in the first place?
Clean coal may be misleading, but if you have even seen a coal plant in China or India, you might see how some people can rationalize calling it "clean coal". They don't even consider scrubbers, SCR's or many other applications that can reduce pollution.
And even if you reject any attempts to clean coal as negligible, regulation requirements drive up costs for cheap FF, making other energy sources more compedetive while making the average American Joe's electricity bill higher, both are good in the long run.
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:14 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
lol...
New coal scrubbing technologies do indeed make coal plants much less polluting than traditional methods, (which basically just burning the stuff)
And the dozens of new coal plant proposals in the US will all employ these new techniques.
fine.
But China's 500 new plants won't.
Neither will India's or Africa's new coal plants.
Hundreds & hundreds of em.
Good thing GW is caused by arrogant environmental windbags or we could be in big trouble here. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Coal is king. That's why I'm Kingcoal. It's not that I like coal, it's just that coal is what we have a lot of and it's cheap and versatile. Biofuels, hydrogen, etc - none of the other "alternatives" have any hope of competing and I think that most here would agree, solemnly or not. Coal has a high EROEI and as any well informed Peak Oiler knows, high EROEI wins, every time and conversely, low EROEI loses. That's just how the big machine of world commerce works.
What is strange is that the GWB administration wanted to pull the plug on a $100 million federal loan for this plant. I get the impression that the GWB administration has picked their winner: Ethanol, and want to put all their eggs in that basket. Typically stupid. _________________ "That's the problem with mercy, kid... It just ain't professional" - Fast Eddie, The Color of Money
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:49 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
jbeckton wrote:
Aaron wrote:
lol...
New coal scrubbing technologies do indeed make coal plants much less polluting than traditional methods, (which basically just burning the stuff)
And the dozens of new coal plant proposals in the US will all employ these new techniques.
fine.
But China's 500 new plants won't.
Neither will India's or Africa's new coal plants.
Hundreds & hundreds of em.
Good thing GW is caused by arrogant environmental windbags or we could be in big trouble here.
Not saying that they would necessarily abide by it but China and India are claiming that they will reduce their pollution if we will.
It would be great but I don't count on it. I'd like to see the regulations anyways, I want FF to be as expensive as possible.
Hobbling the domestic energy industry won't make a difference if ChinaMart refuses to play ball.
China has more honor Students than the US has students
China poured a gigaTon of concrete last year... building infrastructure.
China will obviate any reductions achieved by the US.
All you accomplish by making coal more expensive in the US, is lowering the costs for the Chinese.
Oh yeah... CTL is a joke... compared to conventional oil.
Well... it's no joke for the companies who will profit from making transport fuel from coal. But replacing conventional transport fuel... lol. (See my sig) _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 10:17 am Post subject: Re: Clean coal is a vital energy source for the future says
Diesel made from coal contains much less sulpher than dino-diesel. Here in West Virginia Rentech corp. has signed a deal to develop a 30,000bl per day ctl plant. And I recently saw on msnbc an interview with ceo Steven Leer of Arch coal co. about a possible buyout of Arch by EXXON CORP. Arch Coal co. purchased 25 percent of DRKW co. that does ctl last fall. HMMMM.
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