As readers of this blog probably know, nations of the world are currently meeting in Montreal to discuss climate change, the Kyoto Protocol, and what to do about the global problem when the largest emitter in the world, the U.S., refuses to act.
"You are watching 163 nations do an elaborate dance to try to make progress when the United States is sitting in the middle of the road trying to obstruct," said Alden Meyer to the NYTimes.
"It’s getting to be like Charlie Brown with Lucy holding that football," he said. "Every time, at the last minute, the U.S. pulls it away."
The story by Andrew Revkin mentions that the Bush administration choose this moment to announce a deal with coal companies that has been in the works for two years. The plan is to build a plant called Futurgen that will, it is hoped, produce power by burning coal, with zero emissions. The trial plant will require a billion dollars and ten years. Perhaps it will work, but–as The Onion points out–it’s not going to make a difference for us. They quote the Prez:
"Our mission is clear," Bush said in a speech delivered at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. "We must free ourselves from dependence on fossil fuels within 85 generations. A cleaner, safer America is my vision. And it is our great, great—great-times-80 grandchildren who will realize that vision."
Kit Stolz 
More specifically, the plant will convert coal to hydrogen and CO2 gas, with Sulpher and Mercury as byproducts. They’ll burn the Hydrogen (or capture it for H2 cells), store the CO2 in a saltwater layer over a mile underground, and sell the Sulpher and Mercury to chemical plants.
If they can do this economically, then we can expect plants like this to pop up all over the world.
In IL alone, there’s more stored energy in coal than in all the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined.
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The CSIRO, the venerable Australian government research organisation that, under the Howard government, has seen its Board taken over by the Aust. Coal Industry & has been suborned away from its traditional areas of research to do research into clean coal, has just reported to the relevant Howard minister that its main clean coal research project, the post combustion capture technology of aqua ammonia method was “unlikely ever to become technologically feasible or commercially viable”. The Howard government suppressed the report. (2) I’m glad to see that Futurgen uses precombustion capture. That makes it easy to shoot down. Precombustion capture demands that you demolish all pulverised coal powerplants. Try calculating the bottom line on that!! That’s why everybody’s after postcombustion capture & that is at least two decades away, if ever. Remember this, in clean coal, postcombustion capture (pcc) represents up to 80% of the cost of clean coal. Geosequestration represents only 20%. Without getting pcc right, forget about geosequestration. (3) It’s hidden in plain view. Hasn’t anyone yet asked the question about clean coal technology for blast furnaces? Answer: there isn’t any!!! Conclusion: Like dialectic materialism & the Soviet State, clean coal’s a story, put together to confer legitimacy upon the edifice that’s built on it. It’s not there to be proved, it’s there to be believed. And you’d better believe the party line or else you’ll be socially marginalised & then you’ll have to go off & join a bunch of sad bastards like the Greens!!
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The CSIRO, the venerable Australian government research organisation that, under the Howard government, has seen its Board taken over by the Aust. Coal Industry & has been suborned away from its traditional areas of research to do research into clean coal, has just reported to the relevant Howard minister that its main clean coal research project, the post combustion capture technology of aqua ammonia method was “unlikely ever to become technologically feasible or commercially viable”. The Howard government suppressed the report. (2) I’m glad to see that Futurgen uses precombustion capture. That makes it easy to shoot down. Precombustion capture demands that you demolish all pulverised coal powerplants. Try calculating the bottom line on that!! That’s why everybody’s after postcombustion capture & that is at least two decades away, if ever. Remember this, in clean coal, postcombustion capture (pcc) represents up to 80% of the cost of clean coal. Geosequestration represents only 20%. Without getting pcc right, forget about geosequestration. (3) It’s hidden in plain view. Hasn’t anyone yet asked the question about clean coal technology for blast furnaces? Answer: there isn’t any!!! Conclusion: Like dialectic materialism & the Soviet State, clean coal’s a story, put together to confer legitimacy upon the edifice that’s built on it. It’s not there to be proved, it’s there to be believed. And you’d better believe the party line or else you’ll be socially marginalised & then you’ll have to go off & join a bunch of sad bastards like the Greens!!
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