Is burning coal bad?

People often see this as a bad thing but its emissions are easily scrubbed...the by-product of which is variou industrial acids that we need so badly.

So really, is Coal burning for electricity a bad thing when it supplies with so much?

With New "clean coal" technologies coal can be very earth friendly. You could infact have a zero emission coal. The earth has enormous resources of coal that could be utilised cleanly.

www.iea-coal.org.uk...

You just have to get this technology to be economically competitive thats the hard part.

A lot of people just hear coal and think of it as a arcane dirty fuel.

It's all a question of investment ( the French gets more than 75% of their power from nuclear plants) and if any given government is truly interested in doing what is best for their country funds would be move from all those other wasteful programs ( agri subsidies etc) and invested in a efficient clean national energy grid.

As i remember only South Korea ( or some former SU state) has a higher percentage of nuclear power generated....

Stellar

Burning anything is bad. Particulates, soot, smoke, volatile organic compounds and so on. Forest fires are tremendously polluting, as are volcanic eruptions, but we haven't even begun to adress those sources of emissions.

There's nothing with burning coal to produce energy. If the process is uncontrolled, and the emissions unregulated, we'll have problems, obviously.

I'm smoking a cigarette as I type this, so take it with a grain of salt.

The sin began when it was dug from the ground. My downtown yard is littered with coal pieces from old coal burning chimneys. I used to collect the little black clumps... filled a five gallon pail over a few years. Last week I dumped the pail out... littered the yard again. It felt good. Coal is better off in the ground, seperated from man as Law intended. Otherwise a disruption of Time-Space, much calamity.

Sri Oracle

when i had a wood stove, i used to burn a wood coal mix. i would go through about 200 lbs of cal in the winter. in the evenings i would put several chunks in and that would keep the heat going for a good 6 hours. when i got up there would be just enough hot coals left for me to start the fire again. it cost all of 20 buck for the 4- 50 lb sacks of coal.

one night i cam home and my brother had kept putting more coal on after the flame from the heavy oil in the coal quit. he must have put nearly half the bag in. it was the largest pile of glowing coals i had ever had in the stove ( i had one with a window) and it was by far the hottest i had ever had the place. upper 90's in my house when it was in the 30's outside

i could make a cord of wood last 2 years using a wood/coal mix. i have never tried petroleum coke. i hear it burns much hotter than coal

I think the best and smartest idea is Solar Power.I seen a show on TV about this massive solar power plant somewhere in the U.S there are tons and tons of hudge soler panels and collecters that garther the suns energy then store it in large battery like things so it can be used and distrabuted to towns,citys,ect

I think of it this way, solar power dose not harm the einviorment at all nothing is burned and nothing is left behind (smoke,toxic/radioactive wast,ect) it onley makes sence to use it more. There is alot of space in deserts and open fields all over the U.S and Canada so why dont people and energy companys say,

"Hey look no one lives in the desert and the sun shines there for long amounts of time and large grassy fields out in the country side are the same so why dont we build large solar plants and solar energy unites to gather energy!"

The hudge wind mills are just as good theay dont gather as much energy but in large number theay are just as good and cheeper to mainetane then other types of power plants.People theese are the 2 best ways to get energy.I know at the moment theay are not as advanced as theay could be but if people payed more attion to them more reserch can get done and way to make them more efficent could happon.

www.pwc.k12.nf.ca...

Above is a link to a site that talks about wind power plants....in large numbers theay are perfect.And allready some large citys are takeing notice of the befits of haveing wind power plants (big wind mills) i seen this in Toronto and herd of it in other large citys.

www.earthscan.co.uk...

The above link talks about solar energy.Im telling you theese are the smartest ways that work the best.good post (sry for bad spelling)

Solar power is great but we need to be able to convert more of the suns energy to usable power. The sun beats down un us with about 1,000 watts per square meter- that immense amounts of energy. Most solar cells only convert a fraction of that energy though. Its not a infinte power source but for mankinds needs is pretty much is we have about a 4 Billion year supply left of the stuff.

I personally think a policy that used, Solar, Hydro-electric, Wave, Hydrogen and bio diesel and wind power would be best. Wave power for example is a amazing power source, a tiny fraction of the energy created in ocean waves would meet all our energy needs.

If they could get fusion reactors working we wouldnt need any of that stuff for all practical purposes it would be a infinte energy source as long as we had water. But its turning out to be very difficult to master. I have heard people say just keeping a fusion reaction contained in a Magnetic field is like trying to hold jello with rubber bands. Since this stuff can be millions of times hotter then the sun you have to do it that way, no physical container could contain it.

StephenR,

Better than using just solar panels and wind turbines, which according to the links you provided are not always efficient, why not use coal power plants but with algae emissions scrubbers?

You get more power, because coal plants are quite efficient, and you get extra bio-fuels out of the algae scrubbers that absorb the pollution from the smokestacks.

Check this thread out to see what I mean: Pond Scum and The Future

I'm not saying solar power plants are out, but I do believe using algae-derived energy systems in conjuction with existing technologies is the economical and not to mention GREEN way to go.

P.S. - Sorry if this seems like a blatant self promotion of my thread, but since the topic is "Is burning coal bad", I'm just responding, "not if you do it right" and providing the relevant links

P.S.S. - ShadowXIX, speaking of wave power, have you heard of that Japanese desalinization plant that works by exploiting the temperature difference between warm surface water and cold deeper waters? It also produces energy!


Xenesys Inc. - Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)

Thanks for the info Beachcoma I was aware of thermal power but didnt think you could get a economically feasible power source from such a small difference in Temperature. As little as 15 degree Celsius difference thats impressive.

I still remember that generator thing from Science class that you put over a cup of hot water or ice water and it would make the fan on stop spin. Forgot what it was called but it was pretty interesting still remember it clearly after all these years.

lol wow afater reading some of that pond scum stuff and a bit more on cole i guess all i can say is with the right technolgy (filters and stuff) its not that bad afater all.

Useing wave power is an amazeing idea with the right reserch and willingness this could be very good source of energy but the fact is to be frank about it in my opinion "people are to stupid to do the thigns to help the Earth" wut i mean is.

Not enough people know of theese other ways to gather energy or theay just dont care.If people did alot more then theay are doing now more wind/solar/cole,sucm lol even wave plants can be built and we would no longer have to use plants that harm the Earth with there wast.

I wonder if in my life time i will live to see the day when people stop being so greedy and careing for money and oil and all that crap and smarten up to fix the Earth...i want to see people get there head out of the ground and build fields of wind mills and other plants that are not harmfull for the planet but good!.

Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to live near a coal plant? You get less radiation from being near a nuclear blast than you from living near a coal plant. The levels of mercury exposure are insane. The byproducts of coal are highly toxic and usually just dumped near towns where they can expose people to a lot of nasty things.






www.energyjustice.net...




www.ornl.gov...

If given a choice I'd rather have 4 or 5 nuclear plants near me than *ONE* coal burning plant.

Compared to older coal plants, modern coal plants ARE cleaner. But those scrubbers, and the waste STILL has to go somewhere.

Yeah, but that's for FUTURE plants. How many CURRENT plants use something like that? Biotech is definately the future, but until we can get it in regular use, it's just sitting there, not doing us any good. There's a grass that can be planted in the waste that does something similar, but it's just sitting there in limited use.

It's called Beach Grass. It's used to reclaim the land where the waste coal is dumped. The gob retains heat and burns off the native plants before they can be established. The Beach Grass thrives in those conditions, and allows other plants to grow, and the land where the gob, and the mining was done to recover.

www.erosioncontrol.com...