'Clean' coal

Well, I don't drive a coal powered car either.

I suppose the coal could be processed into something I'd put in my car, but...yeah, I'd rather buy an electric vehicle.

I thought the only clean coal out there is diamonds.

There's also fat, which is astoundingly efficient for some purposes.

I doubt there is enough fat to drive a car, even in the states.

edited 17th May '11 12:17:31 AM by joeyjojo

"Yeah well, people only know about Chernobyl and so they will harp on about it." - Usht

Actually, for this exact same reason I would push harder to go nuclear, if only to give the middle finger to the ignoramuses equating it with Chernobyl.

edited 17th May '11 12:20:34 AM by neoYTPism

Don't forget Fukushima, which just happened.

Whoever perfects fusion will become fucking immortal.

All the other reasons nuclear is stupid aside, we only have enough nuke fuel with a positive ERoEI to last us about 2-6 years if we switched completely, unless we used plutonium breeders, which would be unbelievably dumb for numerous reasons even once we got them working (which we haven't.) I debunked nuclear at length in the alternative fuels thread a little while ago, particularly about from here to the next two pages. Also, there's a fusion discussion in the last two pages of the thread.

In contrast, coal is the only fossil fuel we have a practically limitless supply of and, along with natural gas, the only one with a positive ERoEI. Which is no excuse to keep using it when wind and solar are as mature as they are now.

Wind and solar are inherently non-continuous power sources. Sure, you can use various energy storage technologies to cope with this to some degree, but still. I don't think that such things are yet an affordable way to provide continuous, guaranteed power — if I'm wrong, show me.

I'm for hydrogen-producing algae, myself.

^^, ^ The guy not far from where I live who's currently convinced that wind power is the future used to think algae was the future instead. Got really into it, then decided one day that it simply wouldn't work. Now he's doing all these experiments to try and make a miniature flying windmill. I remember that either Scientific American or Discover thought it was a legitimate idea, though I forget which one it was.

For the record, I supported uranium breeders, which will last us for about damn near ever. But Eric linked the thread and I'll let the reader decide rather than rehashing that debate.

Oh, and we forgot to mention solar array satellites beaming the juice down via microwave. That's another fun option.

So yeah, clean coal isn't. Don't waste time with it.

Once upon a time while browsing survivalist websites, I found this:
http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04/why-self-sufficiency-should-replace.html

I thought I'll share, perhaps it'd fit better in the Alternative Fuels thread, but, I hope it'll be given a pass.

Clean coal is an oxymoron.

It does sound a little too convenient. Don't bother into looking into new fuels. Just invented fire without smoke.

For the record, algae power is a relatively old idea that hasn't been given much attention until recently. Basically, algae can farmed for (if I remember what my chem friend said) an oil that will very much like the oil we currently use except it's renewable and cleaner. The problem with it though is that it's essentially an algae byproduct and one that they don't exactly produce a lot of, meaning that if you're tending to your 4 liter farm tank of algae, may scrape together, oh say, a fifth of a liter by the end of the month (with the student projects anyway). It's just too inefficient and has too high of maintenance.

The next step, of course, is to start trying to make easier to maintain algae that can output more oil on a regular basis so that a profit can be turned from using them but that's going to take a lot of time and money, even when you've got PhDs on the job.

edited 17th May '11 1:59:02 PM by Usht

For the inevitable period where we will be reliant on atmospherically-polluting sources of power, I'd rather do some work on making those as minimally polluting as possible.

The idea that we should do nothing to make them less polluting is stupidly idealist, in my view. We cannot get rid of coal fired power stations in the immediate future. Any proposal that requires an immediate and significant reduction in the standard of living is a political non-starter, and anyone who doesn't agree with that reality is a Cloud Cuckoolander and not worth spending time debating.

Given that, we are going to be producing a fair proportion of our power from polluting power sources for at the very least decades to come, even as other sources develop and come online.

Let's increase the efficiency and decrease the air pollution of those power sources as much as we reasonably can. What's the sane argument against that?

Opposition to cleaner coal-burning power is also allowing the greenhouse gas worry to wipe out all other environmental considerations. CO 2 is not the only pollutant, and the focus on that to the exclusion of all else is a poor decision.

I'm not opposed to making coal cleaner per se, I'm opposed to using this to justify avoiding renewables.

Yeah, I don't object to improving what we have, just using the excuse to sweep real problems under the rug.

@ Usht, that's what genetic engineering is for.

Genetic engineering is neither cheap nor easy. It's still a developing field of science and despite what many may think, it doesn't cause miracles. Putting X amount of stuff into any form of algae doesn't ever result in X amount of oil out, it fact, it'll be less, way less and messing around with algae or any organism will be a trial and error process, no matter how scientific it is.

I know, people just need to learn to shut up and the let the science flow.

Sure, except you know, public interest, money, and ethics are all getting in the way. You'll need people to want this development, someone to invest in it, and for it to not be evil. To let science just flow doesn't really work at all. In a perfect world it would, but we're not in a perfect world. Feel free to be the next guy who was doing experiments in his basement and miraculously makes the next big discovery, though.

Pff, fuck ethics. And lack of public interest is what brutal dictatorships are for.

Like those anti-depression pills that worked until they made you jump off the roof of a forty foot building.