Report outlines major risks of "clean coal"
The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report today outlining the considerable risks associated with so-called "clean coal" and carbon capture and storage technology (pdf.)
Clean coal has been a persistent theme throughout the US election, with presidential candidates on both sides of the political ledger touting the message that coal is somehow clean. As coal industry commentator and author Jeff Goodell puts it best:
Clean coal" is not an actual invention, a physical thing – it is an advertising slogan. Like "fat-free donuts" or "interest-free loans."
In other words, coal remains more in the realm of illusion than reality and the UCS report highlights the major outstanding questions around the holy grail of the coal industry - carbon capture and storage technology (CCS).
The report found that carbon-capture-and-storage technology, while promising, is saddled with many unanswered questions about scale, safety and cost:
SCALE: For the technology to make a meaningful contribution to reducing global warming pollution, it would require an enormous processing and transportation infrastructure that could handle a volume of liquefied carbon dioxide rivaling that of the oil consumed in the United States today. Put another way, the Department of Energy estimates that the annual storage space needed for a typical 600-megawatt plant's emissions would be approximately four times the volume of the Empire State Building.
SAFETY: Demonstration projects will have to determine if carbon dioxide can be stored indefinitely and in what type of underground geologic formations. Slow carbon leaks could undermine the technology's effectiveness as a global warming solution and contaminate groundwater. Fast leaks from a storage site or a pipeline could threaten local residents.
COST: Current coal plant designs cannot cost-effectively capture carbon dioxide. Studies estimate that adding the technology to a conventional coal plant would dramatically increase cost and reduce energy output. Although there are advanced coal plant designs that are better suited for carbon capture, it still would be extremely expensive to add the technology, particularly as a retrofit.
No significant global warming since 1995
http://www.factsandarts.com/articles/no-significant-global-warming-since-1995/
Graphs have become
Graphs have become meaningless to me. They're all contradictory. Graphs prove AGW and they prove it's wrong and they even prove Global Cooling and they probably prove the Earth is flat if you juggle the data enough.
I blame science.
Mount Monkton Erupts
Loooong letter from Monkton to McCain over at American Thinker.
Too long for me to read the whole thing for now, maybe later
C'mon Desmog heres some red meat for you. Do an article and take apart his letter point by point.
Do it for the children! and for my personal entertainment please.
Heres a quote to get you started:
"Here, Sir, are the facts about “rising temperatures”. The facts which I shall give you in this letter are taken not from my own imagination, nor from the obscurantist reports of the UN’s climate panel, nor from any lobby group, but from the peer-reviewed scientific literature."
looking forward to some return fire going Monkton's way
Just for fun
Test your knowledge: It may surprise you.
Dr. Richard Keen of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (ATOC) at the University of Colorado has a very interesting set of questions that he has posted with respect to global warming. It can be viewed at:
http://atoc.colorado.edu/wxlab/atoc1050/1050%20ppt/Global%20warming%20quiz.ppt
Not to me it was not!
Not to me it was not!
"Clean coal has not yet been
"Clean coal has not yet been proven to be an effective technology, let alone affordable."
Wind, solar, tidal and algae based biofuels are all more mature technologies. "One shoul add here" and also has not yet been proven to be an effective technology, let alone affordable."
True, there are questions
True, there are questions about solar, wind, geothermal and wave... and they aren't doing much yet but lets hope.
On the topic of pumping CO2 underground. That just makes no sense to me. Find something useful to do with the carbon.
Fizzy drinks.
Fizzy drinks.
large scale greenhouse
large scale greenhouse production of fast growing wood to make into biochar for soil or greenhouse food production or algae for fuel or industrial use of some kind.
or you can pump it down into the rocks and find out 20 years later that it's been leaking out and you've wasted all your time and money.
Somebody needs to figure out how to make CO2 valuable for some kind of use that keeps it out of the atmosphere at least partially. There could be money to be made out of this whole CO2 as demon gas thing.
CO2's value in the ground is
CO2's value in the ground is in preserving the conditions that are conducive to widespread human life on planet Earth. Natural Capitalism needs to be kicked in. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Or we may as well abandon any hope that 'civilisation' is going to endure. No doubt the Romans with half an education or a social conscience were arguing with the inactivists of the time about how the empire was over-stretched, the population overtaxed, the fields over-farmed, and how this would bring them all down, while the inactivists sat back, demanded another grape be peeled for them, assured them that the Gods would take care of them...
"CO2's value in the ground
"CO2's value in the ground is in preserving the conditions that are conducive to widespread human life on planet Earth."
False. What evidence is there that increased CO2 will not be "conducive to widespread human life on planet Earth." Not predictions, but evidence.
"Natural Capitalism needs to be kicked in. A place for everything, and everything in its place." Clearly your motives are anti-capitalism not the science of AGW.
"Or we may as well abandon any hope that 'civilisation' is going to endure." This civilizaton is not going to endure much longer. The threat is not AGW which is 100 years away. The threat is energy depletion which is only years away. This fixation on AGW is diverting us from the real threat -- energy depletion and over population.
Jeeves, get my time machine.
I'm going to need it. Apparently JR wants evidence from the future.
(I wonder if he understands the language he so blithely mangles.)
Busbar costs
Busbar costs of electricity:
http://www.ethree.com/cpuc_ghg_model.html
Busbar cost in cents per kilowatt-hour in 2008 dollars:
Biogas: 8.552
Wind: 8.910
Gas Combined Cycle: 9.382
Geothermal: 10.182
Hydroelectric: 10.527
Coal Supercritical: 10.554
Coal Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC): 11.481
Solar thermal: 12.653
Nuclear: 15.316
Biomass: 16.485
Coal IGCC with Carbon Capture & Storage (IGCC with CCS): 17.317
The study was commisioned by the State of California
It's pretty hard to make
It's pretty hard to make sense of your link without voice-over.
It's interesting that the report contains no solid data from the people who actually produce electricity from hydro, conventional coal and nuclear. Compared to current Canadian experience, the calculated projections in the table are pretty far off the wall!
The cost for wind power looks a bit low but not outrageously so. Since the projected costs of conventional power (according to this legerdemain) will be so much higher than for wind, doesn't it strike you as curious that the evil, capitalist utility companies aren't converting wholesale?
Monopolies
such as Power Utilities are not capitalists, more like corporate welfarists.
Busbar costs are not
total costs. In the case of wind power, for reliability redundancy and a solid transmission grid are also required, so the total costs are quite a bit higher than the busbar costs.
Facts
David... you really shouldn't confuse people with facts and studies. :-)
The inactivists on these boards are more concerned with truthiness.
Coming from someone who
Coming from someone who thinks Ocean Erosion means rising water level...an eyeroller.
:-)
truthiness
The quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.
from
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=truthiness
wonder why so many wish for
wonder why so many wish for catastrophic climate change. The tone is not so much worry about the possibility as an almost gleeful anticipation. What motivates this desire for destruction?
hey I posted here without
hey I posted here without hiding my IP for the first time in a week - awesome. now I don't feel like a leper.
While we wait.....
Here is somthing to entertain you.
We have nothing to fear but green itself
http://orangepunch.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/14/we-have-nothing-to-fear-but-green-itself/4331
Excerpt:
In Ecuador they’ve approved a new constitution giving “nature” the same rights as human beings.
In Switzerland they have a constitutional amendment that led to a mandate not to “disturb the vital functions or lifestyle” of plants.
And in America...
They have a Vice Presidential candidate who thinks Man's activities are caused by climate change.
Clearly man's activities are
Clearly man's activities are caused by climate change. If it wasn't for global warming we'd be all living under a mile of ice and doing not much.
Therefore she's absolutely right. Climate change causes man's activity.
How true.
But what has that got to do with the current conditions and AGW argument? You know, the question she was responding to?
not much - but it becomes a
not much - but it becomes a fair argument because everybody is picking at her muddled words. If her word order can be attacked, it can also be employed in her defense - even if it's not what she had in mind (Rick's Law - 2008)
Re: Climate change causes
Re: Climate change causes mans' activity.
And that's only the most extreme example. Think of the great human migrations that have been motivated by climate changing, whether favourably or unfavourably.
For an unsophisticated woman with limited education (typical of graduates from State Colleges) Palin has a good measure of wisdom.
Twice a day
Even a stopped clock...
And JOBS is a 3 letter
And JOBS is a 3 letter word.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq-eeWow_WU
So what. Dillutioned like
So what. Dillutioned like all the rest of the alarmist dogmatists.
Palin is an alarmist?
Palin is an alarmist?
Is she? Not following the
Is she? Not following the US election.
Reading comprehension
is not your best subject is it?
Try reading Richard's comment more carefully.
science on climate change?
"We're here to clear the PR pollution that clouds the science on climate change"
Perhaps then, a good place to start would be to show some proof or even good evidence that there IS a scientifically supportable case for AGW.
30 years of trying and 50+ Billion dollars have so far produced some theories and lots of red faced advocates but precious few facts.
Have at it. We are waiting.
Place to start
Try reading the fourth assessment report from the IPCC, and not just the regurgitated crap that appears in the denialists blogs. Yes, I realise I am suggesting you make an effort and actually read something technical, but try it. Then make your own mind up based on the scientific facts, instead of letting somebody else tell you what to think.
Re: "crap" Well, I've read
Re: "crap"
Well, I've read the fourth assessment report and, although it contains a few nuggets of scholarship, it is, by and large, CRAP.
That's what you get when you gather together a bunch of bureaucrats and second rate "scientists" willing to put their names to a report to which they were allowed to make only negligible contributions.
What a pity that people who abuse their academic credentials can't have them pulled.
As usual
An in depth and thorough assessment from Zog!
that was
actually an actual 'assement' by Mr. Zog.
The IPCC is not a scientific
The IPCC is not a scientific organization. It's conclutions are not peer reviewed. It's purpose is strictly political and its message is political. Their political arm TOLD the scientists (all 35 of them) what to put in their reports. It's not to be trusted.
And I might add, when it suits the alarmists purpose, when the IPCC is not what they want to promote the alarmists claim the IPCC is too "conservative".
So you use it when you want, but reject it when you want.
Have it your way then
Bottom line is this: if you have read the conclusions of the IPCC, they are clearly beyond your comprehension. For some reason you believe yourself to be of equal scientific stature to the people who wrote the peer-reviewed scientific papers that were the basis for the IPCC conclusion -- people whose entire careers have been devoted to the accumulation, analysis and interpretation of climate data. I have no such pretensions. I know what I know not. And I can distinguish between scientific conclusions and PR smog.
I don't know why you rage against the evidence, JR. But it's very clear that you wouldn't recognize facts about AGW if they marched up & bit you in the face. Your mind is made up.
Fern Mackenzie
IPCC Process Explained...
Background:
We really don’t know enough about climate to conclude anything yet but we do have our mission statement, so we will go with that.
Assumptions:
We will assume that CO2 is the driver since that is what we are paid to prove and setup some simulations on computers.
We will assume huge feedbacks because we need them to support our conclusions and since we are granted huge sums of money to show results.
Process
With this setup, the only variable that we change that gives is large global temperature increases is CO2.
Conclusion:
Therefore we are “90%” sure that “most” of the warming in the late 20th century was caused by man made CO2.
Fern 2, JR 0
(Thanks for the title Smartlikestreetcar)
Fern,
It clear that despite JR's comments, he either hasn't read or hasn't understood the IPCC Fourth Assement Report. Case in point would be chapter 2 and JR's understanding of the carbon isotope signature.
Assessment!
Assessment!
The bottom line is This:
Your belief in the IPCC reports could be based on the following:
1. You have actually read the reports and fully understand them and agree with the conclusions.
This presumes that you have the educational background and domain knowledge required in multiple climate disciplines.
Or;
2. You have “Faith”.
This would be similar to Christians having faith in the clergy to interpret the scriptures correctly.
Which is it?
False Choice
Not anyone. even the participants. in the IPCC process can 'fully' understand everything in them. There is too much specialty knowledge.
But anyone here can read the reports (I have) have reasonable and confidence (NOT FAITH).
Distortions in the IPCC
Problem is the IPCC reports and summaries are highly politically skewed to the point of distortion. Then the alarmists distort that even more. Sea level is a great example of that.
Source Material
Again, the IPCC results are based upon the scientific papers submitted for that purpose.
IPCC scientists told what to write
Read up on the IPCC process. It's nothing of the sort. The scientists were TOLD what to put in their papers to match the summeries the IPCC wanted. There's all kinds of this on the Net. Many scientists have left the IPCC because of this.
That is the height of paranoia
You do realise that the papers are written years sometimes decades before the IPCC reports. And now you are claiming that the scientists are instructed to distort their findings by a presumably faceless black hat possibly decades before the papers are included.
Good grief.
Understanding
Your lack of understanding does not do you credit.