Blowing Smoke

The idea of clean coal is the same thing as clean dirt. As my dad used to say: You can't mae a silk purse out of a sow's ears.

"There's not a single coal plant in American that captures and stores harmful emissions." This statement is misleading. there is a clean coal plant in the US. DakotaGas (formerly known as the Great Plains SynFuel Plant) makes natural gas out of coal. thoough homes are not powered directly by coal the natural gas is definitely used in home heating and cokoking, etc. The CO2 from this plant is captured and sold to Canada who inject it into oil wells to produce oil and the CO2 is captured. (see dakotagas.com). We know we can sequester CO2 in oil and gas wells. This has been a technology long in use in the oil business in the US (especially the permian area). Check Kinder Morgan's site. So we can begin sequestering CO2 today and this a successful and proven technology contrary to Mr. Hardwick. the problem is that the capacity of these oil and gas wells is only enough to sequester ~10 years of US CO2 production. However, this can serve as a bridge until we perfect sequestration. i am a left wing environmentalist (see my contributions to Pres. Obama if you do not believe) but I hate our side cause we also do not state the whole truth. Let me ask Mr. Hardwick, how does he expect to deliver all that wind and solar to demand centers? They have to use one of the worst environmental damaging projects ; electric transmission. i am not saying he is incorrect but lets get all the true facts out so that we can make an informed decison; not one based on propaganda from the left or right. Luis pando

Uncovering the truth behind "clean coal technology", that it doesn't exist yet, is important. The need for clean energy sources is immediate and the technology already exists for providing solar, wave, hydro, and wind power. In the very long run, clean coal may be one of the answers but the need is now.

I encourage the person referring to those of us that care about the environment as enviro-wack jobs to move to the south so s/he can enjoy the killer hurricanes, killer heat waves, and droughts that are only expected to worsen in the near future. Denial of a problem does not make it cease to exist.

Nice, balanced article giving both sides an opportunity to be heard. But, sarcasm aside, did we all notice his use of the word "American" and "United States"? That is because there are pilot projects elsewhere, he just doesn't want us to know it.

"Brian Hardwick: We want people to know that right now, there is no such thing as clean coal. The burning of coal for electricity emits more than one third of global warming pollution, more than cars and trucks combined"

There you have it. Global Warming again. Hasn't Hardwick heard that phrase is falling out of favor, since it is increasingly being undrstood to be a bogus concept? But I guess it's hard to let go of catch phrases when you're addicted to them. Thought would then be required.

These enviro-wack jobs will never be satisfied. I'd like to see some of them live without electricity for a couple of years and see how they like their new quality of life. Barring that let them pay, say, a buck a kilowatt hour for a while and see if their whining for clean technology diminishes.

investing in clean coal is a wise investment for a coal rich country like the us especially now when we need some stability in our energy infrastructure we cant afford to undermine the economy any further

Brian Hardwick is wrong when he says there is not a single plant in the US capturing harmful emissions. Clean Coal is already being practiiced the the United States but not for electric power generatiion. The Great Plains Project in North Dakota makes substitute natural gas (SNG) by gasifing lignite coal and then the offgas is scrubbed to remove the CO2 before the syngas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) is sent to a reactor called a methanator where it is converted to substitute natural gas or SNG. Now what about the carbon dioxide that is scrubbed out of the gas from the coal gasifier? Well it is pipelined to Canada and sold at a profit since it can be used to stimulate old oil wells in a process called enhanced oil recovery (EOR) which makes thich viscous crude turn water like and flow out of the formation readily. I really don't know what all this stuff is about that we will need to wait 15 years to have clean coal technology ready. The only piece of technololgy that has not been thoroughly proven is storage of CO2 in the ground. The EU has been making huge strides in this area through the International Energy Agency Working Party on Fossil Fuels. I get their magazine every month and there is one heck of a lot going on. Check it out at at www.ieagreen.org.uk if you think we are fifteen years away from clean coal. Not evern close !!The technology is called carbon sequestration and capture (CCS) The EU is leading the way with the UK doing the most. Their magazine is free and is very informative. There are literally hundreds of projects for CCS underway. Go to www.ieagreen.org.uk to get a nice booklet on CCS and is called Voluntary Carbon Offsets.

It seems that the author of the Newsweek article does not understand Clean Coal very welll. You don't clean the coal before you burn it to make it clean. You treat the off gases from the combustion process with scrubbers to remove the gases. The best deal is to process the coal in a coal gasifier where it is burned in a reducing atmosphere (oxygen starved) This causes the sulfur in the coal to be gasified to hydrogen sulfide and it can be easily scubbed out with the carbon dioxide in the offgas scrubbers. The the scrubbed gas can be burned in a gas turbine followed by the hot gas making steam for a second steam trubine. This is called integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) and increases the thermal efficiency of coal conversion from 33% for convetional direct firing to around 40% for IGCC. Obviously IGCC is more expensive but still in the ball park. Roughly, the electricity from IGCC will be 25% for expensive. but it is really a clean process (it looks like a chemical plant instead of a power plant) and the way to go.

Can coal burning power generation ( which is 50% of current power generation total) be replaced by solar or wind power in a few years, the answer is probably no. Pres. elect Obama has previously praised Germany for its effort of solar power, but the fact is solar power only occupies half percent of total electricity generation. Wind power generation in US and worldwide is also small in terms of total power generation. As said in Wikipedia, " Germans invested nearly US$5 billion in new solar photovoltaic systems and in doing so employed nearly 35,000 in the solar industry. Germany now operates a solar-electric generating capacity of about 2,500 MW. Analysts estimate that solar cells in Germany now generate about 2 TWh of electricity per year, or about one-half of one percent of German electricity consumption. Overall, solar and wind power have limited contribution to the alternative energy problem, we don't need to spend 150 billion dollars to find out the facts or reinvent the wheels.

We have the opportunity to become the leader in clean energy. However, it won't happen unless academia, industry and the Gov't get together and develop a comprehensive strategy to get us to be solely dependent on clean energy, sun, wind, geothermal and waves. A long time ago Germany set a plan to have a certain percent of it's energy powered by wind, today, that country is dotted with windmills (not the cute Dutch kind). because there are so many of those windmills, and they are everywhere, you no longer notice them, except when they are going full speed, and you imagine how much energy they generate. Unfortunately, as long as there is coal, or any other fossil fuel, industry wants to take the easy way out, it makes for a quicker buck. Which is why we need a comprehensive national energy strategy, much like there is a national security strategy in America.