Coal: The Addiction and the Hope

An excellent news story by Alan Zarembo in the Los Angeles Times begins with the problem:

Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is the crack cocaine of the developing world.

But along the way, it also mentions the hope — not the promise, but the hope — for a solution.

Another possibility is a process known as integrated gasification,
which converts coal into a cleaner-burning gas, capturing emissions in
the process.

Coal plants in China and India could eventually be retrofitted with such systems.

"We need a bolt-on solution for those existing plants," said
Stanford’s [Michael] Wara. "It’s going to be very difficult to tell those people
to shut down those plants."

File it under topics for further research…

Published by Kit Stolz

I'm a freelance reporter and writer based in Ventura County.

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