Seven solutions for climate change and creating a new energy economy

No More Dirty Coal

No More Dirty Coal

Try picking up a wooden board you are standing on; or emptying a bathtub while the water's on full blast; or pouring used fry oil into the soap compartment of your dishwasher. If you think those are exercises in futility, consider the folly of trying to clear the air of carbon dioxide while continuing to build coal-fired power plants. As the old saying goes, if you're in a hole, stop digging.

Coal is global warming, not just in India and China, but also in the USA. Right now, there are plans for constructing more than 120 new coal-fired power plants in America (see searchable map), none of them "clean." It's hard to comprehend the enormity of the pollution that emerges from even just one of those plants, unless you consider what goes into the firebox. Here's how Steven Mufson of the the Washington Post brought it home:

The new $1.1 billion MidAmerican facility will be one of the nation's biggest, with 790 megawatts of capacity. Its boilers and pulverizers will devour 400 tons of coal every hour, 3.5 million tons a year. Combined with an existing plant next door, it will require a fresh train of coal every 16 to 17 hours; each train will be nearly 1.5 miles long and lug 135 cars about 650 miles from Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

That's what goes into a coal plant. Now consider what comes out. Here's how the 2030 Research Center brings it home:

California passed legislation to cut CO2 emissions in new cars by 25% and in SUVs by 18%, starting in 2009. If every car and SUV sold in California in 2009 met this standard, the CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant would negate this entire effort in just eight months of operation each year.

Further:

If every household in the US changed a 60-watt incandescent light bulb to a compact fluorescent, the CO2 emissions from just two medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate this entire effort.

Hold that in your head -- what goes in, what comes out -- and multiply it by 120 (the number of proposed new plants), and then add it to all the other coal plants we already have. It will explain to you why -- if we had to choose just one thing to do about global warming -- many people in the know would vote for no more dirty coal. Period.

Trouble is, America has more than 100 years' worth of coal reserves. How are we ever going to keep our hands off it? Same way we wouldn't do those dumb things with the wooden board, the bathtub and the dishwasher. And by investing instead in smart alternatives.

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Jargon Watch

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  • As Mr. Portokalos says in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "Give me any word, and I show you the root of that word is Greek." He can even do it with "kimono", so anthropogenic -- close cousin of anthropology -- should be easy for us. It means "caused by human activity."

    In relation to global warming, anthropogenic emissions are the gases, most notably carbon dioxide, that we humans have pumped into the air, especially over the last 150 years of modern industrial life, without giving it a thought, as if the atmosphere has the limitless capacity to absorb our waste. It doesn't.

  • Carbon Capture and Sequestration is the name of a technology, still in development, that is supposed to help us clean up the emissions that come from the burning of coal. It has acquired the status of a myth, the kind that when it's mentioned, thinking ceases.

  • Here's what the Competitive Enterprise Institute had to say about it in their ad campaign:

    "Carbon Dioxide: they call it pollution; we call it life."

    It was probably one of the most ridiculed ad campaigns of recent memory. Last word has to go to Rafael Baptista, who posted this comment on Gristmill.

    "How about you make a campaign called 'Uric Acid. They call it urine. We call it lemonade.'"

  • The most highly radioactive form of carbon known to politicians. Like Kryptonite to Superman, carbon taxes are believed to rob politicians of their powers through unavoidable election loss. No one knows for sure, because no politician has had the courage to really try to enact one.

    A carbon tax would be the simplest and most efficient way to solve climate on an economy-wide basis, and the most rational thing to do. It would be beneficial to every living thing except politicians.

    Last we checked, they're not on the endangered species list.

  • The best way to understand the role of China in America's global warming debate is to understand the function it plays in the national psyche. Here's one analysis.

    America has made China the victim of its own psychological projection, a defense mechanism in which one blames others for one's own unacceptable attributes.

    So rather than take responsibility for being far and away the world's biggest global warming polluters on a per capita basis, Americans have been duped into pointing the finger at China.

  • The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines it this way: sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.

    So let's use common sense and think about evidence of global warming.

    The ice caps are melting, massive chunks of ice are collapsing into the ocean, and glaciers are in retreat all over the world. Nobody can argue with that.

    Okay, but how do we know fossil fuels are the cause?

  • Think of a dormant volcano. It's got a cap on it.

    An emissions cap is a similar idea. It's a legally binding mandate that puts a lid on greenhouse gas emissions, and slowly lowers it over time.

    The science clearly tells us where to put the lid, what the maximum amount of allowable emissions should be. Science describes this point in many different ways, but the easiest formulation is this:

    Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2% every year.

    Otherwise, like a volcano, the climate will erupt in unpredictable fury.

  • Long before treehuggers roamed the Earth, the greenhouse effect was scientifically investigated and confirmed.

    First discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1829, the greenhouse effect works by reducing the amount of heat the planet loses to the cold of outer space. It's a good thing. It is what makes life on Earth possible. Without it, the surface of the planet would be as much as 30 degrees centigrade -- or more than 80 degrees fahrenheit -- colder.

  • The story of the planet Venus provides a cautionary tale, as told by Al Gore.

    Earth and Venus are neighbors in the solar system. They are both exactly the same size. Both have almost exactly the same amount of carbon. But ours is in the ground, and on Venus it's in the atmosphere.

    The difference is, the temperature here is 15 degrees Celsius -- 59 degrees fahrenheit -- and on Venus, it's 455 degrees Celsius -- or 800-something degrees fahrenheit.

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