Comments on: Clean coal argument a farce, Harriman, TN fly ash breach proves it

By: Dennis Spisak

Dennis Spisak — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:52:14 +0000

Clean coal is a myth!

The mercury washed into our rivers and streams will cause numerous birth defects….

The Co2 will choke thousands…..

all so lobbyists and congressman like Charlie Wilson can stay millionaires!

By: oengus

oengus — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 15:23:32 +0000

Cleaner coal would be it burns less and produces more electricity.
Can you make your old furnace from the 1950’s more efficient and cleaner? No you replace it with a state of the art furnace that burns less and produces more heat and less fumes.

The cost of the coal is not high, so the utilities are not concerned with that. They burn as much as they need and the more you use the more money they make.

Each plant must be regulated as to what it produces in exhaust, they can be upgraded and then will burn less coal. That will take less mining and produce less emissions. That’s a cost as are the scrubbers and precipitators that remove the toxic elements in the exhaust.

Keep in mind that the goal is to generate electricity that being charge the power grid to meet demand. That has to exceed demand always, electricity is not stored and a shortage is the same as an outage. So they exceed demand and that is wasted.

If demand is 1 megawhatt and then that is what must be generated, if wind energy is added then its a fluctuating line of supply that must match a fluctuating generator. As the wind blows then the coal furnace does what, it turns on and off? They are generating steam that spins turbines, are they able to come back on line that fast?

It’s all a complex set of variables, currently they have relative control over production and can predict consumption ranges, add variable input and it is a whole new game.

It is going to cost more to make it all more efficient and if not careful it will not be more efficient it will just cost more.

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:20:10 +0000

Here’s what I don’t understand. Coal supplies roughly half of the total U.S. electricity supply. Do critics of so-called “clean coal” (which, as I had understood it, never purported to be “clean” as such, but rather, was aimed at reducing atmospheric emissions) prefer dirty coal to clean coal? Or would they prefer an aggressive nuclear plant construction program? Those seem to be the options, at least for as long as renewable sources remain too inefficient and expensive to meet demands.