Bye, Bye Coal Plants Say Environmental Groups
Environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Council, are staging a coal plant-by-coal plant attack on any proposed new coal-fired power plant in the United States. Using bureaucratic or legal means, such as zoning or water use, environmental groups have stopped 65 coal plants in the last three years. The LA Times explains its really a war about climate change, “Coal puts twice as much temperature-raising carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as natural gas, second to coal as the most common power plant fuel.”
Image: Ohio Citizen
Fantastic. But renewable sources just aren’t enough to replace them. There needs to be some nuclear power in the mix. Without it you can’t have a reliable base load.
Owen — as I understand it (and someone please correct me if I’m wrong), geothermal energy could provide baseload power more efficiently than nuclear plants. A couple of articles:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/2/16/17451/8580
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2007/10/geothermal_the_other_base_load_power.html
Jeff, you are correct, nuclear is not needed. Only Wind, Wave, Water, Geothermal and of course, the big #1 - SOLAR:
Excellent article - Solar can power 90% of US for only $400Billion:
http://gas2.org/2008/03/25/how-solar-panels-could-power-90-of-us-transportation/comment-page-2/#comments
Coal can be burned clean in a gasifier, the “smoke” is burned.
Actually all the gases including CO, CO2, H, C, and it burns even better with steam injection.
Problem is it costs a lot to build such a plant on a large scale.
Even the old updraft and downdraft gasifiers were eficient in WWll, now there are plasma arc gasifiers which reach 12,000 degtees F.
The heat can be used to run steam driven generators and the “smoke” or gases can either be converted to etanol or more heat for steam.
There are extremly little emissions and very little ash.
The ash can be mined for minerals and/or be used in asphalt, building blocks, etc.
Several big gasifiers are being built in this country now they can burn dam near anything.
Tires, plastics, wood waste, brush, garbage, old computors, landfill wastes, even old landfills could be mined to feed a gasifier.
If enough gasifiers were built we could put farmland back to food production instead of field corn for ethanol.
What a waste of good farmland! corn is a heavy feeder which takes a lot of fertilizer and water.
Worse we are footing the bill of billions in subsidies to ADM and other ethanol producers.
Etahnol production has lead to a worldwide food crisis. It was not well thought out.
600,000 acres in the USA has been converted from Rice production to Corn production.
400,000 acres has been converted from vegetable and orchards production to corn.
Farmers are being encouraged to plant from fence to fence by government, taking tens of thousands more acres away from wildlife and wildlife corridors.
I am for the building and operation of more gasifiers large and farm size and methane digesters to convert animal wastes to methane which can replace propane and heating oil.
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