Let's Move To Clean Coal
About the Author
Formerly, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, US Department of Energy
Member of the Board of Directors of the National Low-Income Energy Coalition
Member of the National Advisory Council on Environmental Policies and Technologies
Member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Energy Research and Technology (CERT)
Member of the Commission to Engage African- Americans on Climate Change
Member of the African American Unity Caucus
Member of the Board of Directors of the StEPP Foundation
About This Video
Whatever we do in addressing our climate concerns must recognize the need to minimize the negative impacts on low-income, fixed income and minority populations.
It is a matter of fairness and social responsibility.
According to the EIA, the nearly 8 million low-income families in the US pay as much as 40% of their after-tax income for energy services. Currently these families pay more for energy than they pay for health care, clothing, or food. National policies that intentionally raise the price of energy will have an significant negative impact on these citizens.
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4 comments for "Let's Move To Clean Coal".
1. No such thing as clean coal
Let's call it "Cleaner Coal" and be more accurate. The process of mining coal is dirty; the burning of coal is dirty -- whether the CO2 is sequestered or not. If new processes make using coal for energy cleaner, then that's what we all need to call it. There is no such thing as Clean Coal -- hold it in your hand, burn it... whatever you do, it's dirty. But the real crime from coal is in the destruction wrought by the mining of it, and the resulting water pollution from its processing.
We all want cheaper fuel to power our lifestyles, but until we begin to really measure the cost of cheap fuel -- and not just the dollars and cents to the power companies -- we won't really know how much we and our children are paying to have air conditioned homes.
See more of my views on coal technology at www.verdantva.blogspot.com
2. No such thing as clean coal
Let's call it "Cleaner Coal" and be more accurate. The process of mining coal is dirty; the burning of coal is dirty -- whether the CO2 is sequestered or not. If new processes make using coal for energy cleaner, then that's what we all need to call it. There is no such thing as Clean Coal -- hold it in your hand, burn it... whatever you do, it's dirty. But the real crime from coal is in the destruction wrought by the mining of it, and the resulting water pollution from its processing.
We all want cheaper fuel to power our lifestyles, but until we begin to really measure the cost of cheap fuel -- and not just the dollars and cents to the power companies -- we won't really know how much we and our children are paying to have air conditioned homes.
See more of my views on coal technology at www.verdantva.blogspot.com
3. Thanks but no thanks
So I guess I should give my cell phone to the soldiers out because there are kids in Africa mining the minerals to make pennies while Motorola makes millions, and it's the same for the notebook I'm typing on right now. The americans are benifiting from their foriegn slaves, the Chinese and any other one's we can work on the cheap and they or their government doesn't care how much they get paid. Our goverment pays very few people for open pit mining of coal in the mountains, and in the process, they are making a wasteland of the former mountains, ruining the water and the health of the community. Clean coal also means essentially burying the coal in the porous rocks even deeper than the coal retrieved from, and the concentrated carbon dioxcide is without a buffer and it creates a bad acid base balance in that rock, which cascades into even more problems. We've done this before, disposing of our mistakes, hoping no one would have the sense to investigate, or end of the victim and speak out, so we often either fire them or pay them off not to say a word, be human and realize those lives in Tennessee are ruined, their farms are , there aquifer is, and therefore there livelyhoods, all because of deregulation of the coal industry. All because coal never cared about where the coal came from or how many people died in the process. Thanks, because I know I'm a coal consumer, no thanks, because it's not clean, it's more like the blood diamonds to me, someone is dead or dieing so that I can turn the lights on.
4. Clean Coal and Direct Carbon Fuel Cells
Almost everyone has a technology favorite that they hope will provide an answer to our energy problems.
I appreciate the inclusiveness of Frank Stewart's short video delivering a message that we need to draw on all of the available energy technologies, including a few that tend to get regularly demonized like coal and nuclear, in order to deliver energy at reasonable cost and retain a good quality of life for the middle and lower class in America. Middle and Lower class workers pay a disproportionately greater amount for energy cost increases. The wealthy can easily afford to pay a little more for gasoline, heating oil, and coal but lower and middle class workers are always closer to the edge and just have to start doing without during a deep recession. Sequestering CO2 in areas close to oil fields or fortuitously built above large limestone formations will probably have some success (although it will add some cost to what we have gotten used to paying for coal).
There is a "NO HYPE" clean coal technology called Direct Carbon Fuel Cells (DCFC) that cuts in half the amount of CO2 generated while using coal and does not require burning the coal to make the energy. DCFC fuel cells directly convert the chemical energy in the coal and turn it into electricity without having to burn it. The demonstrated energy efficiency of the conversion of coal into electricity is 80% (the best modern coal fired power plants have efficiency of conversion of coal chemical energy into electricity of less than 40%). DCFC fuel cells have been demonstrated in the laboratory but have not been commercialized. Government could do a great service in bringing to practicality industrial sized direct carbon fuel cells by funding the construction and testing of a few industrial scale cells.
Dr. John Cooper of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory designed an attractive gravity fed DCFC that could permit efficient use of coal without many of the normal drawbacks of coal use (release of particulates and contaminants, including uranium and radioactive elements, into the air.
So far, DOE and the Obama Administration, has not allocated any funding to direct carbon fuel cell development but is earmarking large sums for Clean Coal geological CO2 sequestration carbon capture and storage technologies only which is likely to be costly and only possible only in areas that are close to nearby oil fields or large limestone deposits.
DCFC fuel cells do not require expensive noble metal electrodes (DCFC uses graphite) and should be possible to scale relatively easily to industrial sizes. A modest cost attempt to build a few large DCFC cells would tell us it we can actually produce cells that would produce commercial levels of power without material and electrode problems. DCFC fuel cells could help America utilize its largest fossil fuel resource is a cleaner and more environmentally responsible way and also point a way for China and India to use coal without threatening the health of their people or the climate of the planet.
Meyer Steinberg and John F. Cooper
HIGH EFFICIENCY DIRECT CARBON FUEL CELL
FOR CO2 EMISSION AND SEQUESTRATION
http://www.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint%20archive/Files/47_1_Orlando_03-...
DCFC Overview Articles
https://co2.llnl.gov/7.php
http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2008/02/closer-look-at-direct-carbon-...