Burning coal is a major source of pollution, yes, however, coal is cheap and plentiful within the United States. A major part of any energy policy should be the continued work toward energy independence. This, as shown above, would be good for the economy, as well as international relations.
That's a long introduction to what I found in the Houston Chronicle on Friday. Thad Hill, president of NRG Texas had this to say,
"Coal is our most abundant energy resource, and there's no way for the U.S. to get anywhere near energy independence without finding an acceptable way to use coal."
That's an expected statement from a company that operates a coal power plant, but it makes it no less true. Coal is a national resource and we should be looking for ways to use coal in a cleaner manner. Check out how NRG is working toward that in Friday's Chronicle article.
1 comment:
I think technologies that clean up coal after its burned are getting cleaner all the time. I also think the biggest concerns with coal are SOx and NOx as well as mercury. I know CO2 is a problem (Global warming is a bitch), but it seems like the others could cause pretty bad things (acid rain). Burning low sulfur coal like most of the U.S. does greatly reduces SOx and ensuring good combustion techniques and adding chemicals reduces NOx. There are also chemical blends that help capture the sulfur also. Mercury from coal is a serious concern, especially in China where they burn whatever they can find. Coal isn't as clean as natural gas power production, with that said, people in the U.S. would be pissed if coal disappeared as power production since its very cheap per kw-hr. I'm not saying coal is a great solution, but its what we have right now, so we should make it as clean as possible and continue to work towards energy independence. I feel that we need to reduce our current electricity consumption, and then invest heavily into alternative solutions and possibly nuclear. I say possibly nuclear, because I'm not worried about melt down, I'm worried about what to do with the waste. I know most people are paranoid there's going to be another Chernobyl but I'm more concerned about waste personally. The energy problem isn't an instant solution like people think. Solar, wind, and biomass just aren't feasible to replace our current levels of use. The technology isn't there, especially in electrical storage (see previous blog entries). Another interesting thing I've read (don't know where, it was a long time ago) that someone claimed the U.S. was abnormally smart by using all of the oil, natural gas, etc. that's from other countries before we tapped into our own supply of other energy sources(coal, oil and natural gas). Just an interesting side note, we may have accidentally made our lives easier for years to come.
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