rss

Tag: "coal"

0
By Erich Vieth on November 11th, 2009

Peak coal

For those of you who read this shocker that the worldwide oil reserves are dwindling much faster than official reports have been coyly indicating, don’t get too cozy with the concept that we can always move on over to coal. At least that is the opinion of Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute. He claims that cheap coal is running out quickly too, and that we will have hit peak coal by 2025.

There are a lot of good reasons for avoiding coal. It’s a dirty fuel that has spawned dozens of massive ecological disasters, including this one in Tennessee. Another reason to not depend on coal is that there might not be enough of it to consider it to be a long-term solution. And please tell me: why is “conservation” still such a dirty word to so many people out there when it is the cleanest and easiest why to even out energy input and outgo?

Energy • Environment • global warming • snake oil
Full Story
6
By Erich Vieth on October 13th, 2009

Radioactive coal

This just in, from Scientific American:

[T]he waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.

At issue is coal’s content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or “whole,” coal that they aren’t a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels. Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food . . . [E]stimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities.

Not that the risk of radiation from either coal plants or nuclear power plants appears to be significant for those living nearby.

Energy
Full Story
1
By Erich Vieth on September 26th, 2008

Al Gore calls for civil disobedience to prevent new coal plants

Al Gore said it starkly: it’s time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction of new dirty coal plants.
If you’re a young person, looking at the future of this planet and looking at what is being done right now and not done, I believe we’ve reached the stage where it is time for [...]

Energy • Environment
Full Story
12
By Erich Vieth on June 03rd, 2008

“Clean coal” is a fantasy

If you stop to listen to the “solution” to the energy crisis, you’ll hear millions of people (including most politicians) reassuring themselves that coal will be the new oil, because the United States has plenty of it and because there is now a way to burn coal “cleanly.” This last claim is pure fantasy. [...]

Energy • Environment
Full Story
8
By Erich Vieth on May 08th, 2008

Is nuclear power the solution?

An enthusiastic conservation effort, coupled with a wide variety of alternative sources of energy, will soften the blow of peak oil, but it might be too little too late.   And it’s incredibly difficult to get people to actually do something serious about conserving energy (see Janisse Ray’s “Altar Call for True Believers” at Orion Magazine).  [...]

American Culture • Energy • Technology • global warming
Full Story
9
What to tell people who insist that cheap and plentiful coal will power our future
By Erich Vieth on April 15th, 2008

What to tell people who insist that cheap and plentiful coal will power our future

Tell them what Architecture 2030 says about coal:
Because coal is the only fossil fuel plentiful and supposedly cheap enough to push the planet to 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.  Because reaching 450 ppm (or possibly less) triggers potentially irreversible glacial melt and sea level rise.
Because 53% of Americans [...]

Energy • Environment • Health • global warming
Full Story
10
By Erich Vieth on March 11th, 2008

We are naive fools to wait for the free market to save us from impending shortages of critical natural resources

“The free market–the invisible hand–will take care of everything.”
I’ve addressed this topic of the free market as alleged panacea several times before.  I’ve referred to this blind faith in the market as unsubstantiated.  I’ve mockingly referred to the common belief in the wisdom of the invisible hand as a belief in the Fouth Person in [...]

Consumerism • Economy • Energy • Environment • Food • Statistics • Technology • global warming
Full Story
11
By Erich Vieth on October 28th, 2007

We’re running out of water and oil . . . (yawn).

Today, the following Associated Press article was run on page-19 of my local newspaper (the St. Louis Post-Dispatch):
An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn’t have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York’s reservoirs have dropped to record lows. And in [...]

American Culture • Consumerism • Economy • Energy • Health • Politics • Science • The Middle East • War • global warming
Full Story
3
By Erich Vieth on June 22nd, 2007

The secret campaign of the Bush administration to let polluters determine US climate policy

All of your suspicions are true and you can now find them in an article that is intensely compelling and distressing.  It’s the current edition (June 28, 2007) of Rolling Stone.
It’s not every day after all that the leading scientists from 120 nations come together and agree that the entire planet is about to go [...]

American Culture • Consumerism • Corruption • Energy • Politics • The Middle East • global warming
Full Story