Recipe for Clean Coal Success: Lose the Coal
Here’s an article in “Think Progress” called “Mississippi realizes how to make a clean coal plant work: Run it on natural gas” in which the organization’s founder and editor, Joe Romm, writes, “After wasting $7.5 billion, the state realizes its coal-to-gas plant should just skip the coal.”
I’m not sure about the gerund “wasting”; isn’t it a bit “over the top?” If it costs less than $10 billion to come to an understanding that clean coal has no future, I might conclude that this experiment was worth every dime, insofar as it means we can all quietly move on and begin to eliminate the burning of coal from the face of the Earth as quickly as we possibly can.
Coal is necessary in life and industry. Maybe we can try to use biomass waste to make biocharcoal.
Craig,
I understand you hate coal and eagerly absorb the rantings of fellow
anti-coal fanatics.
I (like everyone) also understand coal will never be a 100% ‘clean’ energy source, but technologies are being developed that produce much cleaner coal mining, transport and coal power generation.
Instead of sneering and disseminating distorted,pessimistic and erroneous information, you should be celebrating the efforts of those scientists and engineers striving to make this valuable energy resource less environmentally harmful.
Coal-fired power plants currently fuel 41% of global electricity and, in some countries, coal fuels a higher percentage of electricity.
The last 35% of power generation will be the most difficult to replace. That 35% represent base load power in nations where coal is the only economic resource capable of providing electricity on an industrial scale.
Technologies to reduce coal emissions are being developed with mixed success, like all new technologies, not all prove successful. Those that are successful, are proving the value of pursuing clean(er) coal.
The myth the world can simply stop mining coal tomorrow is as silly as Cameron claiming to be able to build a 3 ton EV fire engine ! It’s the stuff of fantasy and unicorns.