Think about it...is dirt dirty, is water wet, can anyone see the emperors new clothes?
This has become the newest spin on merchandising, repackaging, and selling us what they all know to be, absolutely know to be, a new set of duds for the king. This dedication hasn't been seen since 'cigarettes and why they are good for you' campaigns in the 20th century.
Will there be a child who will finally break the spell and shout out...but the emperor has no clothes.....he is naked?
Or will we remain mute watching our tenuous balance with a sustainable environment be destroyed just so we can all agree
on clothing we really do know is not there?
Is clean coal oxymoronic?
September 21, 2009 | Length: 00:03:16
At the AlwaysOn GoingGreen Conference in Sausalito, Calif., executives talk about various technologies being implemented to make coal cleaner, reducing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere. The panel, moderated by Technology Partners VC Ira Ehrenpreis, includes Tim Vail, CEO of Accelergy; Chris Poirier, CEO of CoalTek; and David Huard, partner of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips.
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RE: Is clean coal oxymoronic?
Posted by sk.dunnage@...
30th Sep 2009
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RE: Is clean coal oxymoronic?
Posted by Tetracomm
13th Oct 2009
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RE: Is clean coal oxymoronic?
Posted by bellafresca
22nd Sep 2009
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RE: Is clean coal oxymoronic?
Ditto Bellafresca. Why waste resources...money, energy, intellect, but more importantly time on the technology to make coal "green" when we have natural gas as a resource? The same applies to nuclear energy. Both technologies are also rans in my book.
Posted by VerdeVista
23rd Sep 2009
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RE: Is clean coal oxymoronic?
A few quick points for eco-twits ?\
-Coal is the single greatest source of economical energy found domestically; the most worthwhile use of research funding is to develop ways to extract usable and transportable fuels for internal combustion and gas turbine engines from coal and to use Its transmissible gaseous forms for home heating and polymer feed stocks.
- the carbon contained in coal is directly from the growth of ancient plants; therefore by eco-definition coal is carbon neutral at the plenetary level,
- actual climatologists continue to report that the global atmospheric temperature ceased to rise a decade ago and is currently becoming marginally cooler; only beneficiaries receiving donations, grants, and membership dues and a large group of later day Luddites and anti-capitalist fellow travelers disseminating junk science as though it were Holy Writ including leftist acedemics and eco-idealogues are the only ones attempting to continue the myth of androgenic global warming
-Coal is the single greatest source of economical energy found domestically; the most worthwhile use of research funding is to develop ways to extract usable and transportable fuels for internal combustion and gas turbine engines from coal and to use Its transmissible gaseous forms for home heating and polymer feed stocks.
- the carbon contained in coal is directly from the growth of ancient plants; therefore by eco-definition coal is carbon neutral at the plenetary level,
- actual climatologists continue to report that the global atmospheric temperature ceased to rise a decade ago and is currently becoming marginally cooler; only beneficiaries receiving donations, grants, and membership dues and a large group of later day Luddites and anti-capitalist fellow travelers disseminating junk science as though it were Holy Writ including leftist acedemics and eco-idealogues are the only ones attempting to continue the myth of androgenic global warming
Posted by RetiredCPA
23rd Sep 2009
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wrong-o
Sun shine on America contains more energy than all the coal in America... it's renewable and produces no toxic waste..
The carbon neutral argument is an idiots red herring since carbon neutral implies no release of squesterd carbon, particulalry since there is no mechanism to return the amount of carbon released back to a sequesterd state in the same time frame it is released. 1=1 not 1=0
The whales are still here because a superior technology came along in time to save them and there were enough intelligent businessmen to take advantage of it. There was plenty of hand wringing by the whalers of course just as the coal and pertroleum producers who replaced them are trying to justify the continuation of their now obsolete industries.
I hope we have as much sense as our forefathers. I'm not taking bets though, as it seems most people's intellect is dependent on the slickness of presentation and repetion instead of content.
caveat emptor
The carbon neutral argument is an idiots red herring since carbon neutral implies no release of squesterd carbon, particulalry since there is no mechanism to return the amount of carbon released back to a sequesterd state in the same time frame it is released. 1=1 not 1=0
The whales are still here because a superior technology came along in time to save them and there were enough intelligent businessmen to take advantage of it. There was plenty of hand wringing by the whalers of course just as the coal and pertroleum producers who replaced them are trying to justify the continuation of their now obsolete industries.
I hope we have as much sense as our forefathers. I'm not taking bets though, as it seems most people's intellect is dependent on the slickness of presentation and repetion instead of content.
caveat emptor
Posted by bernalillo
29th Sep 2009
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RE: Is clean coal oxymoronic?
Lying about coal pollution, which is the problem for people in the form of diseases and planetary health is not going to solve the problem.
Closed loop photobioreactors can take all that pollution and turn it into algae oil, biofuels, feed, natural fertilizers, and deliver excess oxygen and dry biomass to fuel their burners. The water used to cool them down is at a nice temperature to grow biomass after this use. Heavy metals, like mercury can be recycled or at least kept out of the environment.
The synergy between coal plants and biomass photobioreactor plants is obvious, but why use coal at all when the sun can produce energy for efficient lamps to grow controlled toxin free biomass?
The reason they are worried is obsolescence by these new technologies, enablers for a clean and safe future, starting with cleaning up their mess and taking advantage of their concentrated sources of CO2 as well as negotiating over the value of energy tax credits.
Closed loop photobioreactors can take all that pollution and turn it into algae oil, biofuels, feed, natural fertilizers, and deliver excess oxygen and dry biomass to fuel their burners. The water used to cool them down is at a nice temperature to grow biomass after this use. Heavy metals, like mercury can be recycled or at least kept out of the environment.
The synergy between coal plants and biomass photobioreactor plants is obvious, but why use coal at all when the sun can produce energy for efficient lamps to grow controlled toxin free biomass?
The reason they are worried is obsolescence by these new technologies, enablers for a clean and safe future, starting with cleaning up their mess and taking advantage of their concentrated sources of CO2 as well as negotiating over the value of energy tax credits.
Posted by femtobeam@...
30th Sep 2009
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RE: Is clean coal oxymoronic?
Simply:
There are and have been existing ways to burn coal "cleaner". Utilities have fought for years not to use them. Illinois is a great example: unbelievably expensive nuclear electricity and plenty of coal that is burned "the old fashioned way". That's how we do it.
Posted by sk.dunnage@...
30th Sep 2009
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RE: Is clean coal oxymoronic?
Yes, the term "clean coal" is oxymoronic. There is no known feasible way to produce and use coal in an environmentally friendly and cost effective fashion. Think about the disposal of the toxic substances which are removed from coal, as well as the cost to gasify coal. Coal is also a non-renewable resource. Wind, solar, and of course the energy storage systems (especially batteries and supercapacitors) used with them are the most worthy of our time and money, because when they become cost effective, things will take a sharp turn for the better.
Posted by Tetracomm
13th Oct 2009
Transcript
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Speaker: Is clean coal oxymoronic? You know, what do you think?
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Speaker: Well, I think that you have to -- if you take the traditional viewpoint, it is a challenge, but you apply technology to that. For example, what we're doing at Excelergy, we actually combine coal and biomass, and we do it in a very efficient, direct process that first of all, lowers CO2 output in the first place, and then combining that with a biomass feed, we can make our end product equivalent to petroleum CO2 output. So you are applying technologies, novel, new catalytic technologies to this problem, and we're ending up with a solution that is currently at par, and as we make progress, we'll actually go well below current CO2 production from traditional sources. So it can be done, and we just have to apply technology, capital, and time in order to do it.
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Speaker: It's certainly oxymoronic. I mean, at the end of the day, clean coal -- to get a truly carbon-free coal, you're talking about sand. It's got absolutely no energy value to it. And so we've got to find a way, again, to make that existing infrastructure more and more efficient. And what we do at CoalTech is we apply our technology to those industries, power generation, steel manufacturing primarily, that are -- that have very old infrastructure that will continue to rely on these fuels. But we look to make them more efficient, reduce the overall environmental impact of those technologies, and make it incrementally cleaner. So yes, it's cleaner coal. Is it clean coal? Not necessarily. Beyond that, not to the degree that Excelergy is working on this. But we're working with the University of Kentucky on a partial coal biomass product, which will allow existing coal-fire power plants to burn a product in their existing handling systems that is partially biomass. And that's a very novel -- it's a very novel opportunity to reduce the CO2 output from these facilities while maintaining their main play capacity, so making sure that they continue to operate as they were designed, rather than having to take a D rate or a massive parasitic load for a new technology that might ultimately reduce the carbon impact of that facility.
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Speaker: I think realistically, is -- you know, is clean carbon a possibility? No. But I think what we have to look at is, are we --what are we doing this for? We're doing this for basically reducing greenhouse gases and reducing CO2. So the question becomes is there a method to capture or to otherwise store and limit or eliminate the impact on the environment of using clean, conventional fuels such as coal? And I think that's one of the keys to this that we have to look at is can we, from a technology standpoint, develop carbon capture and storage, which results in the same thing. It entraps whatever we consider to be the pollutants that we wish to reduce.
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