I’ve always thought that the biggest issue with greens was not CO2 and AGW, but “progress in general”. This story seems to support that notion. Maybe they’ll get James Hansen to denounce it too. – Anthony
‘Emissions-free’ coal plant pilot fires up in Germany
BERLIN (AFP) – One of Europe’s biggest power companies inaugurates on Tuesday a pilot project using a technology that it is presenting as a huge potential breakthrough in the fight against climate change.
But green campaigners have denounced the project as a cosmetic operation that does not really address the problem of global warming.
At the site of the massive “Schwarze Pumpe” (“Black Pump”) power station in the old East Germany, Vattenfall wants to the new method to allow it continue burning coal — but with radically reduced emissions.
To do so, the Swedish firm is using Carbon Capture and Storage, or CCS for short, which captures the greenhouse gases produced when fossil fuels are combusted.
This prevents the greenhouse gases escaping into the Earth’s atmosphere and contributing to global warming.
The captured gases are then sharply compressed until they become liquid and are injected deep underground, sealed away and therefore will not contribute to the increase in the Earth’s temperature, Vattenfall says.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Talking of alternative energy sources
“Compost bug offers hope for biofuel industry”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/15/biofuels.renewableenergy
A detritus-loving bug found in garden compost heaps has been genetically ‘turbo-charged’ to help it break down tough plant matter at speed, a process that could be about to transform the way the world makes biofuels”
http://www.tmo-group.com/
“It completely eliminates the debate about food versus fuel,” says the company’s CEO, Hamish Curran.
Stu (05:49:16) :
We have all this nuclear waste needing to be stored.
Why?
France has been generating 75% of their electricity with nukes for the last 25 years. Total waste is stored in a single room about the size of a large basketball court.
Why?
Because France recycles their nuclear fuel. Most of the material in the fuel rods (95%) consists of uranium and plutonium. Both of these can be used to make new fuel rods. A lot of the remainder is used in nuclear medicine. In fact, the US must import such medicinal isotopes as we want to store ours away in big waste areas.
Why?
After the publication of the book The Curve of Binding Energy by John McPhee, the Carter administration became convinced recycling nuclear fuel rods was a national security risk because someone might steal the plutonium and build a bomb. However, the problem with using plutonium from spent fuel rods for nuclear devices is you must separate the isotopes responsible for poisoning the chain reaction. This almost brought and end to the use of plutonium in the first atomic bomb. For awhile Oppenheimer despaired of getting around the problem. However, the implosion design was designed, allowing the Los Alamos group to use plutonium even with the undesirable isotopes present. This is all documented in the book Making the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes.
In any event, why couldn’t the US secure the fuel rod recycling process?
Is it better to have used fuels rods stored in over 130 locations throughout the US with little or no security?
Evidently it is, because that’s what the US is doing.
We are all smarter than those French, right?
For the whole story see http://www.terrestrialenergy.org/
Everytime I read environmental quotes/policy/desires, I can’t help but think about Orwell’s 1984: “Some are more equal than others.”
The creation of an extremist environmental party after WW II and the eventual collapse of the Communists, could have been predicted, since these people are the natural heirs of these extremist groups. They can’t be reasoned with, only opposed. We have to be careful not to let such a group get this kind of power and clout here. The proper use of coal (hydration) is essential for a good energy solution. Carbon sequestration is a waste of money.
If the greens were truely Luddites, they would eshew all mechanical things, like the private jets the green leaders flit about in to be seen in different countries “caring fo the environment.” If they are, as some have pointed out, concerned about the effects that China will have on the world, why don’t they go to China to wage their battle? Why persecute their war on coal and oil in countries where real pollution has been markedly reduced over the last 4 decades? They claim that these home-soil campaigns are necessary because the US produces 25% of the CO2 with only 3% of the world population. They seem to forget that the US also produces between 22% and 25% of the world’s economic output and that the US is dinged for 25% of the UN’s annual budget.
Why are they working on “global governance” as a next step?
As a few people have rightly commented, most people in the green camp are sincere. Most of them have no real grasp of the issues, they just follow where the green executive lead them. Sheep do that too. The real problem is with the anti-everything green leaders who want to tell you how to live, what cars to drive (more appropriately, not to drive at all), how many children you can have, etc. All the while, they live profligate lifestyles that are truely at odds with their messages.
CO2 capture and sequestration is a hopeless cause, we couldn’t capture enough of it to make a difference even if it was a problem. Solar and wind are niche techologies that are so inefficient and so landscape intensive as to be unworkable.
Maybe the lights will have to go out before people wake up.
Les,
Most of the eco-criticism, comes from Ontario, of course.
Followed closely by British Columbia, where we have a carbon tax on our gasoline.
Imagine a spiral shaped greenhouse, emanating from the coal plant at it’s center. The plants can use the CO2 and a moderated amount of the waste heat. At the open end of the spiral the CO2 levels will be at preindustrial levels. However, even if this could work perfectly, greens won’t like it.
My guess is that things will have to get worse before they can get better. The utility companies have not been building coal or nuclear plants for quite a few years. But the existing plants are approaching the end of their design life, about 40 years. Some of the utilities are doing life extension work on the existing plants but sooner or later they will have to be reitired. If nothing new gets built then we will start having brownouts. When the lights start going out people will become more positive about proven technologies like coal and nuclear.
Jack, that was my take too. We could also be using fast breeder reactors to transmute U-238 to Pu-239 at a point in time when U-235 ore sources are depleted. Also Th-232 can be transmuted to U-233, which is fissile.
However, uranium contamination isn’t something to scoff at, as it is very hard to clean up or even keep in one place once it gets into the groundwater, but most of that is legacy contamination due to no knowledge of the future potential of a problem during the Manhattan Project or not caring later in the game by the military-industrial complex.
Of course the French didn’t just get into proxy war with Russia in Georgia and stick missiles to intercept Russian ICBMs in Poland either… I imagine the U.S. starting to reprocess nuclear fuel would have repercussions with the Russians, who are basically drunk on the money that they’ve been making from selling oil and gas to the Europeans.
We had a fast breeder reactor that used “spent” fuel rods for fuel, and which was inherently safe due to the use of metallic fuel rods. It was called IFR. The prototype was up and running in SE Idaho at the Argonne-West facility. It was the dawn of a bright new age – we have enough spent fuel rods lying around to provide all of our electricity for hundreds of years. But Bill Clinton killed the IFR in 1994 with encouragement from NRDC.
Greens at the core of radical environmentalism don’t oppose solutions because they’re Luddites. It’s because they’re Malthusians. They think there are too many people on the planet. Elimination of DDT killed a lot of people, but didn’t really make a dent in the population. Converting food to fuel might accelerate the pace of starvation. Lowering the standard of living will knock off a bunch due to starvation, lack of medical care, etc. If those don’t work, I suppose total economic collapse and global war might work. Hang on to your hats, folks. Until the general populace gets wise to what’s really going on, it’s going to be a rough ride!
Bobby L.
Very interesting essay.
As an aside, there are quite few extremists posting on this and other similar threads (e.g., “environmentalism = evil insanity”…period). I suggest to anyone so willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater to go live for a while in some of the industrialized former Eastern-Block countries, or perhaps Beijing, to see what industry/economy in the absence of environmental regulation looks/smells like.
You’ll be beating a wheezing, soot-marked path back to this crazy “over-regulated” country….betcha…Almost without exception, environmental regulations originate as concerns shared by free citizens (now so often demonized as wacko-green “environmentalists”).
It’s easy to see that extremists are a big problem in today’s world, though as I see it, extremists on “both sides” of any issue equally detract from recognizing real problems and developing meaningful, long-term solutions.
John D.
can I recommend this link on the crazy economics of carbon capture
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/09/knee-jerk-politics.html
[…] Read More: wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com Tags: atmosphere, carbon, carbon emissions, co2, coal, Environmentalists, global temperatures, global warming, global warming activist, global warming activists, global warming myth, green, money, nature, temperature, temperatures Related Posts […]
Mike Hodges (10:37:37) :
Everytime I read environmental quotes/policy/desires, I can’t help but think about Orwell’s 1984: “Some are more equal than others.”
Hrrmmph. Wasn’t that “Animal Farm”?
The ones you’re referring to are more like Conservationists. The whackos don’t want any progress, period, no matter how “green” or “earth friendly” it really is.
Tony Edwards:
Thanks for correcting my brain cramp.
What Mike said. The Malthusians hide amongst the true stewards of the environment the same way the Isamic Jihadists hide amongst the civilian population.
Tony:
I should have responded.
No. It is “1984”.
Sincerely,
Winston Smith
Ministry of Truth
Sorry but I’m just not in to painting with broad brush strokes. I know it is easier to come up with pithy sayings about ones opposition with a broad brush stroke, but it likely will lead to gridlock instead of compromise that can lead to real change. Abraham Lincoln was like that. He painted with finer brushes. While many wanted him to paint the opposition early in the process with the broad brush of “bad” versus “good”, he did not want to do that and tried very hard for compromise. Unfortunately, it takes both parties to a two-sided debate to change from broad brushes to finer ones. Environmentalists and conservationists have lots in common but they insist on holding onto their preferred brushes. On both sides. Its like paddling feverishly in opposite directions in a two person canoe. Both people look ridiculous and they get no where.
Here is an example of same-side compromise. I think both sides on this issue can say that for example, China has a pretty substantial pollution problem, not from burning fossil fuels, but from having no exhaust controls and scrubbers in place. A place to start with China would be to add an import tax on goods manufactured under environmentally unsafe conditions combined with positive incentives to use more environmentally friendly manufacturing processes. Its not telling them they can’t use fossil fuels, it’s just telling them to control the smoke stacks a bit more or else their goods will be more expensive to sell outside of their own country. The other thing that a person like me can do is to limit the items I buy that are made in countries that use environmentally unsafe manufacturing processes. And I do that.
Jeff A., I’m a conservation biologist/ natural resource consultant who often works on behalf of the building, timber and ranching industries. I’ve spoken out on a few local environmental issues and been labled “wacko-environmentalist” and “anti-progress” as a consequence, I’m not sure where the line is drawn.
I have many friends who by no means are “anti-progress”, or “anti-people” who have spoken out about one conservation issue or another, and as a consequence have gotten labeled, packed into an extreme wacko-box and shipped to La-La-Land where the crazy cavemen live.
Extremist diaologue and name-calling do not help, hardly ever, no matter which side is doing it; that’s my point. It tends to oversimplify very complex issues. By the way, there are a lot of extreme views and name calling to be found in the Bloggosphere; it’s unfortunate, but true.
By the way, do you personally know anyone who “doesn’t want progress, period”?…really? Even in the article posted by Anthony regarding this coal-plant issue, if the article is carefully read, one can see that the “Green” opponents may not even be opposing this particular plant, or this new technology, or progress in general.
Rather, as I previoulsy pointed out in the third post under the article provided by Anthony… “Vattenfall managers talk a lot about supposedly environmentally friendly coal power stations but they are still planning and building conventional coal-fired power stations with high levels of CO2 emissions,” BUND’s energy spokesman Thorben Becker said.
As I wrote in response to Anthony’s comment about greens, I wrote…
“It makes me wonder if it is “progress in general” as you state, or “progress as usual” that is the issue…? It’s difficult to draw strong, broad-brush conclusions based on that little blurb..no?
By the way, under my last post…I meant to write “quite a few extremists”…not “quite few”..just slightly different meanings there..
Jd
John D:
You might recall that the soviet block economies you mentioned were almost totally government controlled. The example you cite totally destroys the point you were trying to make.
Mike Bryant (05:33:14) :
As long as we’re on literature:
Mike Hodges (15:19:27) :
Brilliant!
{Please excuse the repost, I thought of a better riposte at the end.}
Mike Bryant (05:33:14) :
As long as we’re on literature:
Mike Hodges (15:19:27) :
“Just the place for a Snark!” the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What i tell you three times is true.”
The Hunting of the Snark – Lewis Carroll
George B.
Not really, the bottom line is those Eastern Block industrial economies did not benefit from, or adjust to the voice of concerned citizens; because there, concerned citizens had no voice. With no voice, there is no expression of concern (environmental, economic or otherwise), without expression of environmental concerns on behalf of citizenry, there’s no government response, with no government response, there’s no resulting environmental law…no environmental law…voila…you get a lousy place to live, work and play…filthy, disgusting, ugly, unhealthy; barbaric and dehumanizing actually (but at least nobody has to suffer the foolishness of “Greens” and wacko-environmentalists there!).
Ultimately you can blame the dismal state of the Eastern Block environment on the failure of totalitarianism. Proximally though, it arises out of inability of citizens to express or respond to social concerns (environmental or otherwise), and of course, a government that really doesn’t care counts for something too.
It supports my argument precisely; if not, I apologize, as I don’t exactly understand your reasoning.
John D.
How did Lord Chesterton put it?
“The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.”