That's an economic conundrum for the entire world. A free market system requires cheap reliable energy in order to grow and the long term ecological consequences are not considered, until it's usually too late to do anything but damage control. So it looks like Texas went with the quickie economic solution and will deal with the repercussions on the morrow.

It's the old damned if you do, damned if you don't.

the libra,

but the single worst possible polluting energy source even compared to nuclear power

Just where did you get this information? People like you make me laugh. I work in the operations dept. of--oh gasp-- a coal burning power plant. A 1970's designed coal burning power plant. We are one of the cleanest plants in the nation. Do yourself a favor and look up scrubbing technology. You may learn something.

With the uproar about shifting energy needs away from oil from the middle east I would think you would be happy we are using a resource from the good old U.S.A. Just where do you think the electricity will come from when you plug in your hybrid car?

The EPA has enacted much tougher emmissions laws for power plants in the last few years. The facility I work for is currently in production of 4 new coal fired plants. The air permits are not easy to obtain. If it gets the ok from the EPA who are you to whine about it?

Originally posted by shooterbrody
Just where did you get this information?

If you look closely, you'll see I hyperlinked everything of importance, that should have been obvious. As for information that wasn't linked, the annual IEEE meeting power track, and several engineers from within the energy industry, as well as some anonymous friends at ERCOT and TXU.

Originally posted by shooterbrody
People like you make me laugh.

People like me? You mean people that don't want to breathe filthy air and be responsible for the release of more CO2? People who are looking past more than just our selfish little world and the two cents per kilowatt hour? You mean people who actually give a damn about the future of their world? Yeah, we're a bloody riot.

Originally posted by shooterbrody
I work in the operations dept. of--oh gasp-- a coal burning power plant.

Excuse me for saying I'm underwhelmed, and can now understand where your bias against clean renewable energy comes from. Sorry man, but you should read something besides your own company's literature sometime.

Originally posted by shooterbrody
We are one of the cleanest plants in the nation. Do yourself a favor and look up scrubbing technology. You may learn something.

Cleanest compared to what? Other coal plants? What do you take me for, an idiot? There is no way your plant is as clean as wind, solar, tidal, or geothermal. And I'd be willing to bet it's not as clean as natural gas or nuclear either.

Here's the problem, shooterbrody, you've offered nothing in the way of facts, figures, science, or references. All you've said is some offhanded comment about "scrubbing technology" which, I'm quite familiar with, and after reading your ridiculous claim, I may just be more familiar with it than yourself. Maybe not, but I've presented a helluva lot more in the way of evidence than yourself.

Originally posted by shooterbrody
With the uproar about shifting energy needs away from oil from the middle east I would think you would be happy we are using a resource from the good old U.S.A.

No, in point of fact, I'm livid. And your comment makes me doubt you're even in the power plant industry, or you'd already know that oil is hardly ever used in U.S. power plants anymore. Additionally, there's plenty of wind, sun, tidal, and geothermal energy for new plants. Hell, they could have even used Natural Gas, that would at least have been better than coal! All of those resources America has in spades.

Originally posted by shooterbrody
Just where do you think the electricity will come from when you plug in your hybrid car?

There's plenty of other companies out there, like Green Mountain. And if ERCOT can ever get around to upgrading its energy distribution system, it wouldn't matter if your energy was coming from all the way across the state or not, but they won't do it because they used to be part of TXU, they're still in bed with TXU, and there's far more profitability in simply tossing some more coal plants out there than there is to upgrade the transformer stations for the electricity we have.

There's no problem generating electric power. That's another thing that makes me doubt your credentials, or you'd know about it already. We don't have a problem generating enough power for Texans, there's plenty of juice. The problem is with storage and distribution. Now I know batteries aren't TXU or ERCOTs responsibility, but power distrubution falls well within their capacity to upgrade, at a reasonable cost to their consumers and themselves.

Unfortunately, ignorant people like yourself are willing to just make some wisearse remark about hybrids and chuckle about how clever you are instead of focusing on the real problem.

And for the record, I drive an Echo. I bought it before getting a Prius was an option, but yes, you can be damned certain my next car will be a hybrid.

What's even more funny though is your complete lack of knowledge about hybrids as well. You don't plug them in, they charge themselves through something like an alternator in normal cars. Ah, but I'm sure you knew that, right? Being as you're such an energy expert and all?

Originally posted by shooterbrody
The EPA has enacted much tougher emmissions laws for power plants in the last few years.

Your ignorance and disinformation staggers me. It's incredible. The EPA hasn't done JACK SQUAT about the coal plants in Texas because the standards are set back to a decades old standard, and to whit, there isn't any sort of official set of laws or guidelines protecting Texans from additional dirty power. That's one of the sad assumptions by my fellow Texans.

There's this idea that "oh, well, the EPA made some standards, so it can't possibly be that bad in Texas," and it is completley 100% wrong. There is no governing body for Texas "energy cleanliness" standards, and that's one of the reasons clean-energy is having such a hard time getting a foothold here. Why should someone spend four times as much building a coal-gassification plant when you can just plop a dirty coal plant down for less, and charge half of what your cleaner competition charges?

Originally posted by shooterbrody
If it gets the ok from the EPA who are you to whine about it?

I'm a Texan thinking about the future quality of life for his family and state, that's who I am. Who the hell are you?

The EPA hasn't done squat. TXU has actively worked with legislation and ERCOT to enact a flawed system that requires more power plants when a more efficient distribution network would suffice. They don't even go with the cleaner coal options, they go with the dirtiest one, coal burning, and to top it off, they make it illegal to power your own house with alternative energy sources unless you pay an enormous fee to get wired in, AND pay for a massive, outdated inverter, AND don't even let you put your excess energy back into the grid, making it almost impossible for anyone short of a very rich philantropist to try and even make a dent in their home energy consumption. It is a viscious cycle of greed, waste, and pollution that you would do well to familiarize yourself with.

Hi Libra, I know exactly what you're talking about. A long time ago, coal burning was banned in many places because it is so bad for the air quality and was causing alot of lung problems in people.

Have you heard about mountain top removal? I live in the Appalachians and that's the current rage for cheap energy - coal. They remove entire mountain tops to get to the coal underneath more cheaply. It ruins everything around the removal: water, soil, people's homes have been ruined and are worthless and besides that, it looks horrendous, especially in a place that is so beautiful. It looks like a huge mastectomy from a distance. But still it goes on. I don't have any mountain top removal going on in my area, but I live in dread that one day that's what they will do. Our home would be worthless and unlivable.

What the hell are they thinking??? Bush thinks this is a great idea and has encouraged other states to also use coal. It's just plain stupid. It not only ruins the air quality and is dangerous to inhale, but it's also another fossil fuel and fossil fuels always eventually run out. We need renewable sources of clean energy. If we can put a man on the moon 40 years ago, why the hell haven't we developed better energy sources yet?

You know, there's an old saying: "Don't # in your own nest." But that is exactly what we humans are doing to our planet that we call home.

Constructon is going to start on 32 new nuke plants in a couple of years so that ought to make you happy I know it will keep me working for years to come.

mikell

buy anthracite, stop being cheap, make the miners die for our clean burning coal

There is no way to reduce the amount of CO2 in coal. We don't have that technology and we never will, since coal is carbon, and when it's burned it produces CO2. This is an unarguable fact. It's like trying to take the oxygen out of oxygen.

And CO2 is the major contributing factor to the current unbalance of the earth.
I'm not a huge fan of nuclear power, but I do think that's the form of energy that we need to head towards. Better than that to have a planet that will not sustain life, which is where we're headed now if we don't change our ways.

exellent thread..with the info to back it up

imagine if you will, that fantasy world where the corporations spent as much money on 'alternative cleaner energy' has they do on the standard sources AND trying to avoid 'alternative sources'.......with all the technology out there and we still can't step out of the ....'dark ages'.....

I love this thread.

Everyone on here is whining and complaining about "let's save the earth" and "coal plants are bad"...

You need the coal fired plants (or any other means) to produce electricity, and then you fall back to "let's conserve energy"...


and you stay online to argue your point... which is justification for producing more and more and more electricity.


How redundant.


Thanks guys... it's job security for me.

Originally posted by forestlady
There is no way to reduce the amount of CO2 in coal. We don't have that technology and we never will, since coal is carbon, and when it's burned it produces CO2. This is an unarguable fact. It's like trying to take the oxygen out of oxygen.

1st - there is no "CO2" in coal. CO2 is a byproduct of the chemical reaction in...... "FIRE". Yes, a release of carbon in the chemical reaction actually makes CO2, but there is no CO2 in coal.

Originally posted by forestlady
And CO2 is the major contributing factor to the current unbalance of the earth.
I'm not a huge fan of nuclear power, but I do think that's the form of energy that we need to head towards. Better than that to have a planet that will not sustain life, which is where we're headed now if we don't change our ways.

[sarcasm on]A good change that everyone could make.... plant a tree.

We breathe - we give off CO2
We drive - the car gives off CO2
We use coal to make electricity - the "burning process" gives off CO2
We burn leaves - the "burning process" gives off CO2
We whatever - surely there's an emission of CO2


Trees breathe in CO2 and return O2.

That should make for a lot of happy healthy trees. [/sarcasm off]

[edit on 2/11/2007 by Infoholic]

Originally posted by Infoholic

Originally posted by forestlady
There is no way to reduce the amount of CO2 in coal. We don't have that technology and we never will, since coal is carbon, and when it's burned it produces CO2. This is an unarguable fact. It's like trying to take the oxygen out of oxygen.

1st - there is no "CO2" in coal. CO2 is a byproduct of the chemical reaction in...... "FIRE". Yes, a release of carbon in the chemical reaction actually makes CO2, but there is no CO2 in coal.

Originally posted by forestlady
And CO2 is the major contributing factor to the current unbalance of the earth.
I'm not a huge fan of nuclear power, but I do think that's the form of energy that we need to head towards. Better than that to have a planet that will not sustain life, which is where we're headed now if we don't change our ways.

[sarcasm on]A good change that everyone could make.... plant a tree.

We breathe - we give off CO2
We drive - the car gives off CO2
We use coal to make electricity - the "burning process" gives off CO2
We burn leaves - the "burning process" gives off CO2
We whatever - surely there's an emission of CO2


Trees breathe in CO2 and return O2.

That should make for a lot of happy healthy trees. [/sarcasm off]

[edit on 2/11/2007 by Infoholic]

You're right, I should have said the CO2 that is produced when you burn coal. I do know the difference, just didn't word it very well. But still, you didn't really address the problem that the CO2 creates. We have a majorly disproportionate amount of CO2 in our atmosphere - more than the trees can keep up with already.
Also, you can generate electricity from water, i.e. dams, etc. The problem with that is that we will soon be running out of water.

TXU and the railroad vs. The Natural Gas Companies

Electricity from coal is a third of the cost that electricity from (cleaner) natural gas.

The natural gas lobby is shaking in its boots, because Dallas is a captive audience; almost completely fueled by natural gas in its electrical plants. Coal plants would seriously cut into that system, and lower the demad for NG, thus driving down prices.

The coal nearest to texas (although TX also contains its OWN unexploited coal beds) are the low anthracite beds in the four-corners region of the desert southwest, easily accessible by rail. Some of the Highest grade coal in the world by the way, with low sulfur, low odor, and low particulate products.

While proven NG reserves are enormous, America is the Saudi Arabia of coal, with a more than a quarter of the planet's projected reserves. America also has most of the Anthracite, the highest quality, cleanest variety of coal (much of which is unmined, in the desert southwest). America has more than China and the Russian confederation combined.

Railroads want to get into the energy business. NG companies are still paying for miles of pipelines, and are worried about a drop in demand (and thus prices).

The electric providers in surrounding states want to stop TXU because texas still has its own independent e-grid. They want texas to build NO new plants, and buy its power from suppliers outside the state---meaning, not TXU.

I'm probably in favor of coal, as the cleanest, low cost method for the US to power itself and maintain some kind of energy independence, as well as lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

Not that TXU is "right" about these plants, this year; but I wanted to point out the players, for out-of-town spectators.

.

Thanks for the heads up good Dr.