I live in Western Montana where the debate over what energy resource the state should pursue is heating up in a place some have called 'the Saudi Arabia of coal'. Coal is a dirty fossil fuel. It's dirty to mine, it's dirty when it's transported and it's dirty to burn. It's just plain dirty. And until an environmentally feasible way to sequester it is proven and reliable, there's no reason we should allow another coal plant to be built. I don't care how many dirty coal plants are being built in China each week- we can't compete for the rapid destruction of the air we breathe.
And even though this is a wicked-hot topic which is being written about nearly every day with commentary even billowing from the papers of Time Magazine, a sound documentary is still waiting to be made about carbon sequestration and arguably the larger issue- what direction will national policy and research funding be spent- which also remains relatively unexplored.
So I'm looking for good tips from articles anyone sees regarding these topics. Recently the United States federal government disbanded its funding for the largest research facility, FutureGen (which was in Illinois) in favor of much smaller, more cost-effective plans and I've read quite a bit on this subject. I hope you have too. We're making some serious decisions today, which will dictate some serious boulevards in the future. It's important to stay in the game. Tag, you're it.
Here's a grassroots shout of thanks to questions and comments!
Here is a piece I saw yesterday about a promising new crystal for capturing CO2.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/02/17/1444203
It may make burning coal less harmful one day, but it won't do much about strip mines.
A Fact is Always Better Than an Ideal.
"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do". Right away I question the focus of the forum because someone quoted a lacky like Ronald Reagan on an environmental issue. But i was surprised to find the crystal idea intriguing. You know, i really like the ingenuity that is coming out of this. It's like we're propelling ourselves to create something like the atomic bomb, only this time, Americans are tuned into solving problems constructively and greenly. All we need is some capitol.
Anyways from what i gather, the problem with many coal capturing devices (including IGCC) and natural methods (geologic sequestration) is their effectiveness in the large scale.
Here's an interesting read for you, (dig this algae) http://www.greatfallstribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071202/NEW...
Which came first-- The ideal or the fact? Which one spurs creativity? I might argue the idealistic thought comes first (the hypothesis) in the scientific method. But hey, I'm a transcendentalist.
But Ideals can change facts. Science DISCOVERS facts it doesn't invent them unless its bad science. I'm idealistic also which is probably why that quote is a good thing for me to keep in mind.
http://www.progressiveu.org/065925-a-fact-is-always-better-than-an-ideal
A Fact is Always Better Than an Ideal.
Slashdot is one of the largest and oldest forums for computer geeks. Nifty new science and technology is definitely the focus there.
Coal, Oil, and Gas are all the results of photosynthesis that removed carbon from the atmosphere long ago. So theoretically plants could remove all of the carbon we are currently over producing by burning those fuels. Algae or something like it could be a part of the answer.
I put more faith into sequestration as an eventual solution to the greenhouse gas problem than I do reduced emissions. The only thing that will slow the rate of increased energy use will be running out. Maybe a bigger percentage could come from nuclear, solar, wind, or other renewable sources, but the increases in those areas are not happening as fast as growth is.
Seeding the ocean with iron oxide dust, planting forests, irrigating more arid land for crop space all are going to be needed to capture carbon on the scale that we would need to reverse the rise in CO2. Luckily we may have plenty of time considering how fast we are developing technology and economic means. Of coarse were wasting some of that time now.
A Fact is Always Better Than an Ideal.
Any energy resource causes environmental pollution. We have to use most suitable things that cause few damages. But we should consider the price increasing too.
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Nishantha
*edited for spam 08/07/08~ediblewoman*
And within 120 miles of me are several of the largest coal mines in the world including 3 that are just across the border in Montana. These mines don't pose much of a problem ecologicaly, have a miniscule footprint on the vast lands that surround them, are thoroughly regulated and they are extremely valuable to the economies of the towns near them. The land that is reclaimed after mining is more productive than before the mining and is generally among the better places to hunt for big deer.
Coal is a dirty fuel. But carbon dioxide is not the problem. I regularly breath the stuff out of my lungs thousands of times per day as a by-product of my respiration process and I must say that I have never noticed even the slightest adverse effect. It has never caused me to cough, wheeze or gag and I don't believe there is any medical evidence that CO2 is carcinogenic or has any other adverse health effects. CO2 is not dirty and is in fact essential to they symbiotic ecological relationship we share with plants. CO2 in coal is something that was captured by plants eons ago and it is good that it is being released so it can benefit plants in the future.
The worst of other pollutants that are in coal are being stripped out by very expensive scrubbing technology. I suppose it is not perfect but coal remains our cheapest and most abundant source of energy and cheap energy drives our standard of living. The main difference between the American way of life and the poverty of the third world is lots of energy.
I absolutely think we should be on a crash program though to build as many new nuclear plants as we can. They cost 4 times as much as a coal fired plant to build but they use so little fuel that it can practically be considered to be free.
The era of cheap energy is coming to a close. It's time, in my opinion, to be proud of what we're using to fuel our lives. We can make the switch from a hydrocarbon-based economy. Look for Amory Lovins speeches for persuasive arguments on the subject...
my documentary...
Wanna smile on the spot?