Clean Coal Woohoo!

Nuclear Power (0.00 / 0)

It keeps coming back to nuclear is the one thing that can actually work and provide the amount of power we need now. It would be nice if solar/wind/wave could produce at the levels we need - but it's not even close yet. And clean coal seems to be totally bogus.

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by: DavidThi808 @ Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 09:06:30 AM CST

Realistic words from a PA coal plant manager (0.00 / 0)

I sent the This is Reality link to a good friend of mine, who manages a coal plant in PA.  He's no dummy, no company stooge, just a guy who is doing an exceptional job of making the best of what we have.  Pay particular attention to the part about the Nukes.  I tend to believe the guy when he assures me that we will be burning coal for a very long time...

From his email of 12/4/08:

I would like to see us not burn fossil fuels but there is no easy solution, unlike what many propose as they run for [office].  Keep an open mind...

Ok.  Clean coal - it has come a long way in the past decade.  My plant is as clean as it gets.  Particulate - 99%+, NOx 99%+, SOx 85%+, and 90% heavy metals removed.  Every large addition to our plant over the past 10 years has been environmental related equating to about $1.3 billion total (the whole plant only cost $250 million to build in 1970).  Our chimney (tailpipe) essentially has a large catalytic converter (NOx, metal removal), followed by a huge electromagnet (particulate removal), followed by a wet scrubber (steam cleaner - SOx, metals and almost everything else) which results in a very clean emission.  We use about 5% of the power we make to make our emission clean!  Imagine any other industry doing that with their product that they could be selling....

However, this doesn't touch the CO2 greenhouse gas problem.  That technology is still being developed to become feasible...it will sure cost a lot and will increase your power and light bill accordingly.

Nuclear is the way to go but it will cost about $10 billion and 10 years to build a nuke plant to displace the power my plant produces.  Finding a location for the nuke plant is not as hard as it used to be - maybe NIMBY!!  Not sure about the waste - still an issue.  So, I am guessing that in PA alone, you would need about 15 of these nuke plants to displace the existing coal plants.  That is $150 Billion.  And there is not a work force large enough to build these all at once.

...based on the increasing power usage trends, if we build nuke plants in the country as fast as we can until 2040, we may be able to not burn any more coal than we are burning today.  The reality is we use a lot of power and thirst for more all of the time.  Until that changes, we will need to burn coal and other fossil fuels.

-- de omnibus disputandum

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by: SadSackSuperman @ Fri Dec 05, 2008 at 07:22:15 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Nuclear is DOA (0.00 / 0)

Nuclear costs too much and nobody wants the waste.

There is no such thing as clean coal outside of PR departments.  It's a clever frame that too many people have bought into.  Carbon capture and sequestration remains in early research phases - nowhere near large-scale deployment.

Renewables can and will eventually generate more power than we currently consume.  The technologies available today can go a long way towards removing greenhouse gas emitting fuels from use.

It's important to note that renewable portfolio standards are being met and exceeded across the country.  More aggressive targets need to be set.  That will allow future technologies to enter the market more easily.

A Responsible Plan for Iraq: endorsed by Jared Polis

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by: WeatherDem @ Fri Dec 05, 2008 at 12:40:27 PM CST

[ Parent ]

No nuclear means more coal (0.00 / 0)

Today those are the only two feasible choices for the majority of our power generation. There's no way around that trade-off today.

I think Nuclear is the better of the two, but you are right that it's harder to move forward on nuclear and so we may be stuck with more and more coal.

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by: DavidThi808 @ Fri Dec 05, 2008 at 18:56:56 PM CST

[ Parent ]

"Clean Coal" (0.00 / 0)

I'd like to know who paid how much to which PR forms to engineer this phrase.

There is no elite, so take your place in the driver's seat.

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by: Stagarite @ Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 11:02:57 AM CST

From the Google (0.00 / 0)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind...

There is no elite, so take your place in the driver's seat.

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by: Stagarite @ Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 11:12:20 AM CST

[ Parent ]

If there's no such thing as Clean Coal (0.00 / 0)

How is Joe Biden going to bankrupt it?

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by: redstateblues @ Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 11:14:59 AM CST

I'm no expert (0.00 / 0)

but why can't we focus on capturing and recycling energy at home? esp solar in Colorado?

Oh, right, because that would make a very rich electric company irrelevant. sry

And I can hear Xcel now "you don't want all of those people to lose jobs, do you? we can't green the economy or else it would make people lose jobs."

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by: sufimarie @ Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 23:48:40 PM CST