Posted on 11/25/2016 2:22:05 AM PST by RoosterRedux
It’s been a wild month for the U.S. coal In reality, new technologies mean coal power can be made cleaner than ever. By the EPA’s own measure, emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants released by coal plants have fallen by more than half over the last 40 years. There have been tremendous breakthroughs in clean coal technology, which uses carbon capture and storage (CCS) to remove the vast majority of carbon dioxide from coal power emissions. If this technology were given a genuine chance rather than being written off as a myth, clean energy might not have to mean an economic death sentence for tens of thousands of hardworking Americans. Under President Trump, clean coal looks like it will have its chance.
In this, as in many other things, we are already lagging behind. There are already successful CCS plants in operation overseas: a coal plant in Chennai, India, for example, has adopted what its creators described as a revolutionary new technique that can make clean coal commercially viable for the first time. Using a new solvent that reduces the cost of carbon capture by up to two thirds, the plant captures around 97 percent of carbon emissions at a cost of just $30 per ton of carbon -- cheaper than most renewables. Further adding to the benefits of the process, the carbon is made into soda ash and used to make everything from glass to detergents. The plant in India is not the only successful clean coal project: the W.A. Parish plant in Texas is set become the largest clean coal plant in the world this year. With Trump in office, more are bound to come.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Trump was right. Again. Who would have guessed?
Remember when BJ Clinton sewed up the worlds largest deposit of clean burn coal (Kaipirowits, Utah) for Indonesian campaign cash? Leftist assholes don’t give a flying donut about the environment.
It’s about power, and I don’t mean electric power.
I can see the desire to minimize mercury but there shouldn’t be a single penny spent on minimizing CO2.
What I'd really like to see is President Trump reverse Clinton's executive order that put all those thousands of acres of a national park off limits to coal mining as a pay back to his Indonesian backers.
CO2 is not a pollutant.
Coal exports is what will save the industry from further decline. Many American coal fired electric generation plants have already shut down or are in the process of closing. Plus do not forget that relatively cheap natural gas was gaining ground against coal as the fuel of choice.
And do not think for a moment that the enviro-wackos will not fight Trump tooth and nail in the courts. Trump will save coal from collapse but not be able to make it King again.
After Thanksgiving dinner and playing with the little kids, the subject of Trump and the environment got started. I'm lucky to have several friends and family employed in the electrical power generation business, and it fascinates and depresses me to hear their take on CO2, global warming, and the future.
No doubt people at every level are products of the social environment they live and work in, but some of these guys are top engineers in their company, and I'd imagine their opinions are typical industry wide. As a young and stupid liberal Christian supporter of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis these same folks thankfully convinced me that global warming was a farce, but now the poles have been reversed.
While there's an argument for CFC's combining to destroy ozone, last night I was presented with CO2's effects in the thermosphere and the end of coal power regardless of what Trump may say or do. Thought provoking I suppose. Looked it up here 50-400 miles up and sometimes over 3000F But no. Oxygen and nitrogen are the two dominant constituents in that thin air and the bottom line is the same as its been for the last 35 years or so.
People turn screws and pull levers for a paycheck. Sometimes they believe in the bigger picture, sometimes they're just making a living.
After Obama’s executive actions to kill coal, there are not many plants that can burn coal, thus there is not a big US market for coal, unless coal burning plants are re-opened.
According to the left, a landscape full of whirligigs and solar plants shredding and incinerating birds and blighting the landscape is far better.
Absolutely correct. If you can’t sell your coal at home, it gets sold elsewhere. Coal ash was close to being named a hazardous waste, thereby increasing cost to dispose vs. being used in concrete for road projects.
Wiberals = useful idiots
Fossil fuels should be be burnt as power but used as base pharma and electronic production. Bring on automation and everyone manages the computers and robotics.
Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant
“It’s about power, and I don’t mean electric power.”
Rough living a miner’s life.
I watched “Harlan County, USA” (1976) the other night on TCM. Noteworthy because of the entities involved...the miners were pawns. But, surprisingly, while many didn’t have significant education, they were very eloquent, well-spoken and passionate about their grievances.
The Left is made up of nothing but greedy, hypocrites. Funny how we hear nothing from the animal rights groups about all the dead birds.
Yet, more things added to the list of things the Left wants, as long as it’s at arms distance and they don’t actually have to deal with the consequences nor bear the costs. It’s like everything else they get their hands into. They are a destructive force, nothing more.
They were pawns to the robber barons of old. They bought the mines, owned all the shops and stores. Any money that the people made, went right back into their pockets when they folks went to the grocery store or pharmacy.
Much of that is gone now. And with technology, mining coal, even getting in there and doing it by hand is incredibly safe. No more ‘black lung’ crap. And those guys were able to make a very, very nice living for themselves and their families.
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