Blowing Smoke

I am a scientist with a bit over 30 years experience in hydrogeology, environmental science, geotechnical engineering, and exploration geology and geophysics.

As I???ve read the comments below, I am appalled at the general lack of understanding of the facts that actually relate to climate science. I have tolerated Al Gore???s crocumentary, and I now see how far the ???Green??? Movement thinks it can go without producing actual evidence, fully understanding just how gullible and uniformed the American public is on the broad range of issues related to this critically important subject. I???ve had all I can take. It???s time for the American public to start intaking some actual facts, so here goes.

Firstly, and very importantly, the earth has been undergoing gradual warming since the end of the Little Ice Age, around 1700. Since that time, earth has warmed less than 1 degree Celsius, actually about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Today???s global average temperature is about 0.5 degrees C lower than it was in the Medieval Warm Period.

Secondly, CO2 is a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that, contrary to what you have been led to believe by the Greens, is very beneficial to plants and life in general in concentrations substantially higher than we experience today, about 380 parts per million.
For those of you not scientifically inclined, this number translates to 0.038%, less than FOUR ONE HUNDREDTHS of ONE PERCENT.

Thirdly, the notion that humans are largely responsible for the increases in CO2 concentration in earth???s atmosphere we have experienced in the past century is absolutely not supported by the facts. The increase in CO2 concentration is 99.9% due to solar influx, and the direct relationship this has on our oceans, which is HUGE.

Fourthly, Greenhouse gases are dominated by water vapor, which makes up about 95% of the greenhouse gas mix. CO2 makes up about 3.8%, with methane coming in at less than 1%. Of the 3.8% of the greenhouse occupied by carbon dioxide, it is believed that humans contribute about 3.5% of that fraction. This means that human-caused CO2 in the greenhouse is about 0.1% of the greenhouse. Volcanic activity, both subsea and above sea level, animal activity, plant activity and of course the oceans, absolutely DOMINATE the output of CO2 into earth???s atmosphere.

My point in stating all the above is that it is ABSOLUTELY FRUITLESS AND RIDICULOUS that we should spend one cent attempting to contain an UNCONTAINABLE, harmless, essential gas.

So, if your beef against ???clean coal??? has anything whatsoever to do with CO2, then you need to go for another argument.

Finally, I will say this without hesitation: If the Greens, Al Gore and the like, want to go to war on this issue, I say let???s bring it on. America is becoming overdue for a REVOLUTION, and I will be happy to either initiate it, or if someone else jumps out there ahead of me, I???ll just join it. Enough is enough.

Renegade

The fact that there is no project in the USA is irrelevant. Carbon sequestration is not just being demonstrated but is part of active CTL production in multiple places around the world. Check out the South African company Sasol at http://sasol.com

Innovation is the driving force that made us the richest nation in history. We once had to switch from whale oil to another energy source. Peak oil will force the innovation and new technology in the area of clean coal. No! it is not clean now but you can???t tell me that the combined intellect of our scientific community is not capable of coming up with a clean coal solution. Many that have been mentioned here look promising. When oil goes back to the 100 dollar a barrel level and it will, economics will drive the innovation. We have no oil but we are the Saudi Arabia of coal. When we run out of whale oil we turned to a plentiful source of energy, oil. The Germans had coal to fuel technology over 60 years ago. South Africa has had great success with it. The technology is there for coal gasification and CTL, coal to liquid production. The question of the day when considering co2 emissions and the green house effect is can we do it in an environmentally friendly manner. Natural Gas for transportation and solar, wind and thermal for power generation may be the bridge until the new clean coal technology comes on line if Obama can renovate the Power Grid infra-structure. The new battery technology and new photo electric cell technology is developing at hyper speed only the cost prohibitive factor of competing against 50 dollar a barrel oil now stands in the way. We should not polarize this issue when we are 70% dependent on a finite resource where neither the production or transportation is not secure. We cannot afford to be involved in energy wars for the next years 50 when we have all the answers at home. We should not take the extreme position of saying no coal under any condition. Most environmentalist who are supposed to be scientist already have. If we can mine it responsibly and burn it responsibly we need to. We have no choice, don???t be fooled by the current drop in the price of oil because of the economic downturn. Peak Oil demands we take advantage of the energy resources we have, all of the resources. I will wager that the technological innovation of this nation will solve this problem as soon as the coal corporations quit spending so much money on false advertising and developing Chinese markets and start putting some money into the research.

i live in a town called Lakeland FL and our power supposedly comes from clean coal, i pass by it almost everyday and i have only seen it let out gases once. if clean coal really isn't real then i will conserve more power.

90 percent of people posting on this subject could write a more informed story than Mr. Stone. EPA has had stringent guidelines for years and they keep getting tougher for coal plants. There is technology out there but it takes money....and the private industry that are taking risks to do so, must reevaluate goals everyday. Media influence of public opinion to the new White House hampers their will. 'Clean Coal' are the new buzz words. Right now at this moment cleaner coal processes are being used to power everyday life for about 50 percent of Americans. Cleaner coal than 30 years ago. There is motivation on the scientific level just from an intellectual research prospective And in 30 more years it will be accomplished.

Not only does the sun not shine at night, and predictable wind power doesn't justify the massive amounts of wind turbines that need to be installed, but everyone overlooks the flywheel inertia that is stored in spinning generators, whether Hydro, Combustine Turbine, or Thermal they all produce significant intertia needed on a electrical system. Solar contains no inertia, wind very little. Also there are no reactive reserves in solar and only little in NEW wind turbines. Grid operation and stability go away when "green" is used. The only green that has any effectiveness is Hydro power, yet it takes 50 -100 years to get a dam approved and built in the US. That leaves Nuclear as the most safe and robust generator of the cleanest power. Green power and Combustine turbines can fill in the "regulating gaps" and nuclear power can be base loaded. That is if you want a stable grid. If you don't care about stability then go with green. But remember in ERCOT this spring the wind suddenly died down and 1500MW were instantly lost with no turbine generation to take its place. This caused the System Operators to have to drop industrial load or risk a grid collapse. The bottom line is if you are not a NERC or Regionally qualified grid operator you pretty much don't know what you are talking about. Go get 10 years of grid operations under your belt and then find ways to make it cleam. Don't start building a churh by the steeple.

Uh hello!!!! The clean coal technology does work you idiots!!!! Try there is one plant in Ohio, and the other one is in Florida!!!
Basically it takes pulverized/liquified coal mixes it with natural gas, and blows it in under very high pressure. And the exhaust is returned multiple times to the combustion chamber to minimize unburned by-products which are then removed by scubbers! It works better here then in Europe because of our "hard coal" then the "soft coal they have to use. We tried to build a plant like this in northern Minnesota to help out the iron range, but the project was cancelled by lawsuits from "Big Electric" (Excel Energy) who didn't like the competition.
As for the "Green Ones" why don't they get there own houses in order read this Mr. Gore? When your spead in Tennessee stops wasting resources for generating all the power it needs, which I think is from a coal fired power plant? Then we'll start listening!

Uh hello!!!! The clean coal technology does work you idiots!!!! Try there is one plant in Ohio, and the other one is in Florida!!!
Basically it takes pulverized/liquified coal mixes it with natural gas, and blows it in under very high pressure. And the exhaust is returned multiple times to the combustion chamber to minimize unburned by-products which are then removed by scubbers! It works better here then in Europe because of our "hard coal" then the "soft coal they have to use. We tried to build a plant like this in northern Minnesota to help out the iron range, but the project was cancelled by lawsuits from "Big Electric" (Excel Energy) who didn't like the competition.
As for the "Green Ones" why don't they get there own houses in order read this Mr. Gore? When your spead in Tennessee stops wasting resources for generating all the power it needs, which I think is from a coal fired power plant? Then we'll start listening!

I agree clean coal is not green and that it contributes nore pollution than cars and trucks combined. If anyone does not believe this just look at China where you can;t see to the end of 1 city block and thousands of people are dying of emphysema and other lung-related disorders. Also many people have no idea of the disaster that pumping CO2 into the Earth will have on the potable water supply when the CO2 mixes with H2O to form Carbonic Acid. Carbonic acid will then dissolve the granitic substrata causing collapses on the surface that will rival earthquakes in catastrophic effects, and imbalance ecosystems that depend on neutral water pH. Another example of humans tampering with critical balances that should not be tampered with!

Amazing that we don`t have the same defunk writings on all of the scienctist that are now saying there is NO GLOBAL WARMING. There is no balance, technology is there for it and yes we can always strive to be better. The fact is right now wind power, and most solar is marginal if best for realiability. 25% reliable at best, that means that for everytime you go to turn on your light switch, they will work 1 out of 4 tries! There is though the uses of putting Co2 into the ground to help remove and extend some of the oil well in the midwest, and in other areas too. These solutions are right now working and being used......Why then are they not being funded to help use what we already have to make it better? O yea without the rantings from the "Green Ones" They would have nothing better to do, AND funding from the taxpayers would stop. Maybe a real job would have to be taken.......OOOOooooo we can`t have that, lets dump more money for less return, haven`t learned from the bank bail outs recently that this DOES NOT WORK??

BALANCE PEOPLE!!!! That is the NUMBER ONE problem in AMERICA today.........NO BALANCE. Harmfully we will shift the pengelum hard to the GREEN side, and put ourselves out of whack again. Just look at the article. The hook was "Clean Coal....Fact or Fiction?" I bit, and all I saw was a ignorant spewing from the Sierra Club, one sided BS. There are problems with any type of Electrical Generation. Wind Farms take up too much land, where are the tree huggers?? Oh yeah......they are at home living in HYPOCRIPSY. Solar takes too much water, gas, oil, and harmful production production, which those factories spew carbon. And OHH Yeah they take up land. Nuclear has radioactive waste. Coal has carbon. We need to balance it all. 33% Nuclear, 33% Coal, 33% Renewable. The tree huggers forget that the sun goes down and the wind isn't predictable. Soo where do we get power when those systems can't keep a consistent flow to the grid?? Which battery company is making a bank to store that energy??? Uhh nobody. The freakin personal agendas need to get tabled and the environmentalists need to get a life. We hold oursleves to such a high standard that we freeze the possibility to move forward. WHERE IS THE BALANCE?? Ohh and now we have OBAMA in to really screw things up. That's okay he's from Illinois, where he who donates the most cash pushes the agenda. Hopefully Nuclear and Coal can stop putting cash into R&D and divert it to buy off "the man".

What a shame that progressive companies such as thermoenergy.com are ignored by the mainstream media when pollution/global warming are the subject matter.
If you want clean coal, look to the TIPS process at thermoenergy. If you want clean water look into the ZLD (zero liquid discharge) program at thermoenergy. How about clean wastewater discharge ? Try the ARP process by Thermoenergy.

It is a shame that progressive companies such as Thermoenergy Corp. are ignored by the mainstream media. This company has developed and patented the TIP`s system which will remove 99 % of pollutants from coal burning plants, and ZLD (zero liquid discharge) to reuse industrial wastewater. These technologies can change the pollution problems that face our planet today and tomorrow.

Man o Man.........Just reading these last two comments: So many people are just completely ignorant of science in this country. If.......[you know what ....F-it ....I'm not even commenting anymore. I'll send the Uranium mining waste tailings along with the millions of galllons of radioactive waste to your house----particuarlly your water well so you can drink it every day. We won't have to worry about Yucca Mountain......... Merry X-mas idiots, go stick your heads back in the sand]

So this is objective journalism? This article reads an great deal like an editorial. As for clean coal or not clean coal.....who really cares? Then green zealots will not stop until the world has folded back ino the stone age; which was made possible by a cataclysmic event that wiped the dinasaurs out.....I bet they were using nuclear power and blew themselves up........... or maybe the planet just goes though cycles and there isn't one stinking thing any of us can do about it. HMMMMMMM maybe the only "solution" to global warming is to wait and see? For every ounce of "proof " the greenies have I can produce an ounce of disproof. For every "scientist" the zealots trot out to confirm bad science I can find one to point out the flawed data and conclusions. So what do we really know? That the zealots refuse to openly debate the subject. That "going green" is costing the world trillions of dollars and having no affect. That the nations being held to a "green" standard are already the cleanest. That zealotry should always be viewed with SKEPTICAL EYE!