Another early skirmish in the coming coal war

This one in North Carolina

Posted by David Roberts at 4:44 PM on 02 Mar 2007

I think you have to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal to see this, but I'll excerpt the relevant bit:

North Carolina regulators balked at a big power project fueled by coal, which furnishes half of U.S. electricity but is on the defensive over worries about pollution and global-warming gases.

The state utilities commission gave Duke Energy Corp. permission to build only one of two requested coal-fired power plants there and said it must spend millions of dollars on energy-efficiency programs to tamp down growing demand.

A commissioner at the North Carolina Public Utilities Commission said it was the first time in the state that approval of a major power plant had been tethered to a requirement that a utility help consumers reduce energy use through energy efficiency and conservation. Duke must plow 1% of utility revenues, about $50 million a year, back into demand-reduction programs and mothball four old plants.

For story: Another early skirmish in the coming coal war
21 Comments | Post a Comment

Jim Hansen recommends

That there be a complete moratorium on construction of coal power plants until their CO2 output can be completely sequestered, and he thinks that technology is decades away. He had four other recommendations to meet the climate change challenge, but that was the first.

by EliRabett at 8:43 PM on 02 Mar 2007

Fools Rush It Out

Coal burning must be increased if we are to escape from the full consequences of Global Climate Change.

Why?, because it pumps water into the atmosphere as well as carbon dioxide... yes the other nasties are nasty and should be scrubbed out....

Carbon dioxide you say ????? yes, a greenhouse gas, but this will also cause the air to hold more water. We must rehydrate the atmosphere to create clouds.

The petroleum oil in the surface marine micro-layer is reducing water evaporation into the atmosphere.

So in part burning coal (greenhouse gases) is holding severe consequences at bay.

Remove this buffer and well..full blown drought will surely follow
No food, no water, no hope... what will the population of the world do then ???

WAR, plain and simple.

Get the facts straight, y'all are in TOTAL DENIAL.
see http://omegafour.com/forum/

by Zarkov at 12:34 AM on 03 Mar 2007

Zarkov is the great grandchild of Dr. Strangelove

That is the ticket folks. Where is Stanley Kubrick when we need him? What we need to do is quit being so dour and earnest about climate change, and start producing dark comedies that will do for climate change, what Dr. Strangelove did for nuclear war. "Dr. Zarkov or How I quit Worrying about Global Warming, and Learned to Love it."

I am waiting by my phone for Hollywood to call me for my script!

Randy Cunningham

Randy Cunningham

by randino at 6:05 AM on 03 Mar 2007

Amen, Brother Randy!

And seeing that Peter Sellers is no more available than Kubrick, I would cast either Streisand, or Whoopi Goldberg, in the title role.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 7:26 AM on 03 Mar 2007

Who will replace Gen. Jack Ripper

played by George C. Scott, inspired by Curtiss LeMay? In this movie we will need a character like Ripper to represent the coal industry in general:someone levelling Applachian Mountains. Maybe Robert Duvall would be available. Instead of saying "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." he could say something equally crazed about blowing the tops off mountains. Zarkov could be his reclamation specialist.

Somebody stop me!

Randy

Randy Cunningham

by randino at 7:46 AM on 03 Mar 2007
[ Parent ]

Duvall is perfect!

And another crazy man from the same movie ("Apocalypse Now") is Dennis Hopper.

Still, George C. Scott was a brilliant casting-against-type. Whom else might we consider, with that range? Billy Bob Thornton? Patrick Stewart? Tommy Lee Jones? Jack Nicholson?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 8:35 AM on 03 Mar 2007

As Rick said to Louie

in Casablanca, I have to say to you caniscandida, "I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship."

Randy

Randy Cunningham

by randino at 10:11 AM on 03 Mar 2007
[ Parent ]

I don't get it

What is so special about coal in terms of grennhouse gases? Any carbon-based fuel releases CO2 into the environment, including natural gas, bunker oil, gasoline, diesel, wood, scrap tires, and whatnot.

If you're worried about fine particulate, acid rain, regional haze, and toxics such as mercury you might want to regulate large coal-fired power generation stations.

But the fact is carbon in, CO2 out. I don't care what kind of fuel you use.

Now there may be some technology to "squester" CO2 but I haven't heard of it, and I'm in the business. I think what most people want to do is simply "turn the smokestack upside down" and inject the exhaust gases into the ground.

I'm having a "duh" moment here because that just don't work, folks. To inject any gas into the ground one needs enormous pumps that require HUGE pump pressure capacities of over 1000 psi. Hey um, doesn't that require more power?

Take a look at what the oil & gas folks use for "fracturing pumps." That's one 6-8 inch diameter oil and gas well that require 4 to 6 of 1,000 HP diesel engines.

Now let's try the same thing with a stack several meters wide. Sequester my arse, we spend billions of dollars converting toxic carbon monoxide into CO2, and now we have to inject it in the ground. It is ridiculous, folks, simply ludicrous! Show me how you can take a large power plant and turn the stack upside down ... or maybe reconsider your argument.
/Sammie

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 10:39 AM on 03 Mar 2007

Calling Falsh Gordon

Dr. Zarkov is off his meds Flash, come and take him back to Mongo where Ming can administer some useful therapy. Water vapor has this useful habit of precipitating, e.g. raining on your parade, which is what controls the water vapor content of the atmosphere. Trying to raise water vapor content by brewing tea is like pushing on wet spaghetti.

by EliRabett at 12:21 PM on 03 Mar 2007

Nice try Guys

But when that water vapour does not condense any more, no more tea, no more cake and no more you.

Twiddle your thumbs, discount science and fantasise on into the coming desert. Better take your hat and sunscreen, LOL, heat is nasty but nice, ah but what you forgot is that it is the cold at night that kills you in a desert.

It is coming as fast as a rowed boat across the bay, but just as surely.

Coal is the only way out, but the oil on the water MUST be removed SLOWLY

The overburden of heat in the seas will precipitate an ICE AGE, just like that!!!!

by Zarkov at 1:47 PM on 03 Mar 2007

Sam

All fossil fuels (and biofuels) release carbon, but the ratio of carbon to energy varies with the fuel. I believe it has to do with the ratio of hydrogen atoms to carbon atoms. Thus methane, CH4, is one of the lowest. Coal is one of the highest.

From here I pulled these figures:

# coal (average) = 25.4 metric tonnes carbon per terajoule (TJ)
# oil (average) = 19.9 metric tonnes carbon / TJ
# natural gas (methane) = 14.4 metric tonnes carbon / TJ

Coal even varies alot, depending on the grade. The older, denser stuff is much cleaner burning (in terms of all pollutants, not just carbon). Lignite vs. anthracite, but I don't recall which is which off the top of my head, and I'm going to go garden on this beautiful afternoon rather than look it up. :)

by GreenEngineer at 2:29 PM on 03 Mar 2007

Sequester CO2 centrally

Now there may be some technology to "squester" CO2 but I haven't heard of it, and I'm in the business. I think what most people want to do is simply "turn the smokestack upside down" and inject the exhaust gases into the ground.

As you say, that's probably pretty hard, and the 102 GW(e) of coal plant that started up in China last year aren't going to be doing it any time soon. Nuclear retrofit will be politically workable if environmental concern takes hold in China.

But there are minerals that are hungry for CO2 and can spontaneously suck it out of 0.0004 mole fraction in the atmosphere; we may end up with central atmospheric garbage collection to take those 102 GW of plants' CO2 back out, and billions of cars' too. One would not use Rhode Island to zero the rate of increase of the whole atmosphere's [CO2] that the race's current fossil fuel habit is causing, but it's about the right size, according to the area estimate given at that site.

You may be "in the business" of burning fossil fuels without considering the atmosphere to be finite; because government makes so much money on fossil fuels, they're not going to rough you up too much for proceeding on that false basis, so you haven't needed to know this stuff, but your successors do.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around B fire, car goes

by GRLCowan at 3:44 PM on 03 Mar 2007
[ Parent ]

Gardening is fun

Hey GreenEngineer, they're developing the land next door so we saved some fairly rare Yellow Saphora, Palafoxia, and South Padre Blue Mist. I feel better now ... OK, so I'm a butterfly nut!

Your point about carbon (as CO2) per unit of enery is well taken, and it is true that natural gas is possibly the cleanest in that regard. However, when consumed, about 5-10 percent of the natural gas / mathane is not burned but is exhausted up the stack or out the tailpipe, and methane is a greenhouse gas.

I like to appear fuel-neutral when is comes to any fuel, since to me it is the technology that is the key. For example, natural gas engines and boilers can be very efficient, leading to high Oxides of Nitrogen (including nitric oxide, another GHG) as a trade-off. So computer technology can be used to make these devices LESS efficient so as to moderate the emissions of certain contaminants. Stack after-treatment catalysts can also help moderate the emission releases as well.

I DO think we can solve some of the problems with technology ... look at what we have done with gasoline car emissions over the last 25 years. Sure, they have catalytic convertors and oxygen sensors to operated "stoichiometric" but the computer controller was key ... the air / fuel ratio was varied between rich and lean so as to optimize emissions in terms of cycles per second, really cool.

That said, coal STILL sucks. I fear its impacts on the environment, not just the air just what we have done to the land and our waters. Much of the trace emissions found in Artcic ice core samples can be directly linked to burning coal (e.g., using Carbon 14 radioactive data as an indicator). It is some really cool science but the results are quite depressing.

Back to the butterfly garden, my friend. :)
/sammie

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 4:04 PM on 03 Mar 2007

See Australia now for our future

Once drought takes hold we'll have to shut down coalfired electricity plants anyway because we'll need the water more for our survival.

Look at Australia now for our future
http://www.news.com.au/sundaymail/story/0,,21189976-50053 ...

John McCain already vetoes every eco bill

by dotcommodity at 9:35 PM on 03 Mar 2007

Crossing the coal line

I am afraid that as oil and gas disappear, the pressure to use more coal will be intense. That will lead to further acid rain and deforestation, as well as CO2 output. The strategy we need is to elect a government that will dedicate its focus to renewable energy sources, as has been happening for a long time already in Europe. Look at Norway and yes Germany, as examples of working towards a goal that makes sense. We are we not doing so? Can anyone say "ExxonMobile, GM, Bush"? Except that now ExxonMobile wants to play nice. I hope it is the beginning of a strong movement in the right direction.

David Alexander
PlanetThoughts.org
Love your Planet.

by planetthoughts at 5:30 AM on 04 Mar 2007

It's About Time; It's About Space

Isn't it amazing that while we slap ourselves on the back about all the progress of mankind, we're still burning stuff to heat water (to make electricity).

I mean seriously, it's all just too primitive to even care...

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 8:49 AM on 04 Mar 2007

Take Big Oil to the cleaners

>> The strategy we need is to elect a government that will dedicate its focus to renewable energy sources,>>

Absolutely, SALT is the way forward, no footprint.

>> it's all just too primitive to even care. >>>

Indeed it is, but will anyone listen ?
And unless you are a big polluter who has the money to take these primitive practices to task.

The Big Oil group should be stripped of assets, and fined until skint, then that resource needs to be invested in salt.

by Zarkov at 11:30 AM on 04 Mar 2007

My Business

I'd like to answer a G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan, about his accusations, since I think I'm a pretty fair fellow. FYI, my "line of business" has been environmental consulting, emissions modeling, trend analysis, and retrofit technology. I do not go around burning coal. Sure, if you're looking over 10-20 years down the road, there may be some break-through technology out there. My clients include some major ports and EPRI as well as Blue Water Action and EPA. People like it because I work both sides of the fence and stay the heck out of policy.

I mean, I was a "green" hippie in 1976 so some of that hurt.

Hey, I enjoy the positive spirit of wanting to get into policy and to actually do something about this mess. I just call them like I see them right now. We are currently about 10 years behind the Europeans in promoting awareness, new energy sources, and even life-style changes. Having a rather quirky Bush administration did not exactly help. But it's incredibly complex and one simply does not "convert" a coal powerplant over to nuclear power. Unfortunately, the Bush policy is to cap GHG emissions at the rate of population growth. Like all business, it can be frustrating. /sammie

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 2:16 PM on 04 Mar 2007

Retrofitting coal plants to nuclear

Sam Wells wrote:

But it's incredibly complex and one simply does not "convert" a coal powerplant over to nuclear power.

Sam, one simply converts a coal powerplant over to nuclear power.
.

jimholm.com/#Ending_the_Climate_Change_threat_quickly

Rather than build hundreds of new, large nuclear electric power plants, it's much quicker and much less costly to retrofit all the world's existing coal-burning power plants with small, aircraft-carrier size nuclear boilers. In fact, some coal burning power plants have already been repowered with natural gas and while that's an improvement, natural gas is much more expensive than coal and also produces 50% as much carbon dioxide as coal so it still doesn't really get the job done.
Existing power plants already have ample land, railroad tracks, cooling water, and are already wired to our cities - no new construction costs or delays there, either.
[...]
The "RAPID-RETROFIT" Plan:
Everything needed to repower coal-burning power plants can be purchased today. Here's what to buy and why:

by Nucbuddy at 4:31 PM on 04 Mar 2007

Um, a little lost here

A nuclear power plant, I don't care how big, take about 10 years to get online. Most tend to be very large, in units of at least 250 MW. I am not aware of anyone permitting small nukes unless they are used for medical or research pruposes - not an electrical power generating facility.

And of course all coal-fired power plants can be converted to batural gas or oil. How do you think they start one up? That's right, natural gas is typically used for start-up purposes, before powerderized coal is introduced to the boiler.
Sam

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 7:34 AM on 05 Mar 2007

The AP1000 takes 10 years or 3 years to build?

Sam Wells wrote:

A nuclear power plant, I don't care how big, take about 10 years to get online.

Design pre-certification (standard Design Certification), 50 percent fewer valves, 83 percent less piping, 87 percent less control cable, 35 percent fewer pumps, and 50 percent less seismic building volume does not make any difference in construction time? How are nuclear power plants being built in South Korea and Japan in only 3-5 years?
.

world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html#perspective

New reactor construction [in the USA] is expected to start about 2010, with operation in 2014.

by Nucbuddy at 8:45 AM on 05 Mar 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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