Guest post by Alec Rawls
The graphics were changed in the last two days, but Conn Carroll at the Washington Examiner took a screenshot of Obama’s “All of the Above” energy policy page on Tuesday. “Notice anything missing?” he asks:
The updated graphics actually retain the same omission. They still omit the source of almost half of all U.S. electricity generation (coal), and only add the non-existent eco-unicorn called “clean coal”:
Of course what the CO2 alarmists call “dirty coal” is perfectly clean. The only difference is that it produces CO2—that most healthful gas, the beginning of the food chain for all life on earth—which remains alarmingly close to the minimum levels needed to sustain life.
To rid coal-burning emissions of this eco-villain the going cost is $761 per ton of sequestered carbon: “staggeringly, wildly, mind-blowingly higher than any other conceivable measure designed to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.” So still no coal in Obama’s plan. Our existing energy infrastructure is to be jettisoned, as Obama promised in 2008:
If somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can — it’s just that it will bankrupt them, because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.
Obama’s EPA rules already block all new coal plant construction, so his graphics are just looking forward to his true objectives: all-but-coal for now, with oil and nuclear to disappear next.
That slick “clean coal” logo indicates that the coal omission was not a mistake
The Obamatons had the clean-coal stupidity all ready to go, indicating a conscious decision to leave it out. This is reinforced by the absence of the clean-coal logo, not just from their pick-a-topic selector, but also from their header logo. Another of Obama’s eco-pages still has the original header:
That page now includes a clean coal section but the Google cache from May 3rd shows that it was recently added. The people who put these pages together are so anti-coal that they couldn’t even bring themselves to include the utterly phony “clean coal” in their proclaimed “All of the Above” energy strategy. That shows a extraordinary level of zealotry.
Kinda fits with the longstanding “climate denier” smear (recently on display), where people who don’t buy CO2 alarmism are likened to those who deny the holocaust of the Jews during WWII. The alarmists are all projection all the time. Their supposed scientists at the IPCc are omitting virtually all of the evidence for a solar driver of climate from AR5, and here their political leaders are trying to disappear the primary energy source upon which modern society currently relies, yet it is supposedly the rest of us who are conspiring to cover stuff up.
The conniving mind cannot conceive of another mode of being.
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Tom says:
May 11, 2012 at 8:29 am
So you’re actually trying to formulate an argument. Great, you’re making progress. With regard to the pollutants you mention, you probably have not heard of that invention called flue gas scrubbers, but I can help you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flue_gas_scrubber
My city of 250,000 in Germany, Braunschweig, has a coal- and gas fired plant right besides central residential areas. And I’m glad it has, 300 MW that can keep the city going when the wind/ solar power instabilities wreck the national grid. No, no pollution here I am worried about.
Maybe I’m missing something, but when I took a course in Combustion,, some 40+ years ago, natural gas & coal were classified as Hydro carbons.. That is, they both contain carbon, which when burned, normally, changes to CO2.
While coal may contain more contaminants, CO2 & H2O are the primary emitted gases.,
This was attested to in my youth, as to the comments by many homemakers, about the local coal plant’s small “cinders” be blown in the hanging laundry. However many residents did make use of the local coal pile for “midnight requisitions”. MN does get cold in the winter.
We also had a local “gas” plant, that converted coal to gas.. In the summer, when it was warm, they had the doors open. Watching the guys shoveling coal into the boilers, was like looking at a scene from hell.
Tom is having trouble figuring out what “clean” means.
Is it salutary? Is this very modest source of the entire food chain “healthful” as I wrote in the post?
Alarmists try to claim that it is not salutary because it is going to cause harmful global warming, but there is ZERO evidence for that. In the history of mankind, warming has always been salutary, cooling harmful. It is only by claiming that CO2 has such powerful warming effects that it will cause runaway global warming, feeding on itself through powerful water-vapor feedbacks, to catastrophically change our world, but all the evidence points AGAINST that.
So on what basis does Tom want to call CO2 dirty?
@ur momisugly DirkH – sorry, but was that noise you dragging the goal posts to another location?
Alec said “Of course what the CO2 alarmists call “dirty coal” is perfectly clean. The only difference is that it produces CO2—that most healthful gas”
That is a rubbish statement. Burning coal produces SO2, N2O, Mercury and others and coal ash typically arsenic, selenium, and cadmium. It burning coal were “perfectly clean” it would produce none of those. It does. Alec is simply wrong.
It is still odd that the comments have shifted to making personal attacks/smears – which I thought we had all agreed was not helping anything – rather than asking Alec to correct his mistake.
So given that his statement is factually wrong, why are you not asking him to correct it? In the interest of science of course?
Alec – quite strange. Avoiding the topic at hand. I am sure that was an oversight.
Are you saying that burning coal does NOT produce SO2, N2O, Mercury and others and coal ash typically arsenic, selenium, and cadmium?
Kindly answer that question and then we shall move on to your claim that more CO2 is inherently better and why better neglects any considerations for the rest of the life on the planet.
Tom the Tool man:
Here is a testable, falsifiable hypothesis. Your job is to falsify it, per the scientific method… if you can:
At current and projected levels, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere
Remember: only thestable, measureable evidence [ie: no models] is allowed. We go by the scientific method here, and leave Post Normal Science [which is not science at all] to the amateurs at RealClimate, Pseudo-Skeptical Pseudo-Science, Closed Mind, etc.
It could not be more simple and straightforward. Have at it.
@ur momisuglydirkH:
Have to agree with Tom. Coal fired powerplants are definitely dirtier than gas fired combined cycle plants, with respect to emissions of heavy metals, particulates, NOx, SOx, etc., even with particulate filters, SOx scrubbers, deNOx-scrubbers (catalitic reductors) installed.
And @ur momisugly Alec Rawls: I would suggest you remove the link to the $761 per ton article, because the numbers are incorrect. Please see my earlier post at 4:51am.
Regards,
Wijnand
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck and flys like a duck it must be a duck. BHO is supported by Soros who makes his money destroying national economies. Virtually everything Obama supports is destructive to our economy. Logical conclusions= 1) He is trying to destroy our economy or 2) he is an ignorant idealogue. Take your pick. The only issue keeping our currency from taking a crap is that in a global economy it is still better than others on a relative basis, at least for now. And, by the way, last time I checked coal was 53% of our national electrical generating capacity. I suppose it depends upon whose numbers one uses and what year or even what time of the year.
Obama will take actions like freeing up 370 mm tons of coal in Wyoming and then have his sychophants at the Sierra Club et al file suit with some liberal judge and obtain an injuction against digging it. Makes old Slick Willie look like a horse hoof rasp file by comparison.
Philip Bradley said May 11, 2012 at 1:14 am
quote
The ‘dirty coal’ meme was all about implanting in the public mind that so called carbon pollution is the same as the soot and other pollutants that come from burning coal in home hearths and stoves, which only a few million Chinese peasants still do.
unquote
Oi, watch it! I’ve used about a ton and a half of coal this winter to keep warm. Admittedly it’s burned in a cast iron Rayburn, but still. I’m not a Chinese peasant. I’m an East Anglian peasant.
JF
(I’ve heard something about a proposal that country dwellers will be forbidden to use gas-fired central heating in future: this means I will just stick with burning coal which is much more carbon intensive than gas. Well, one can’t expect much in the way of intellectual coherence from these people — they are, for example, thinking of raising speed limtis to 80 mph while making us reduce our fuel consumption by increasing fuel prices. Ho. Bloody. Hum.)
@Wijnand:
Quit nitpicking. You sound like you’re ready to wet your panties. Scrubbers remove 99.99% of all particulates. Residential fireplaces emit more particulates that all of our coal plants.
Everything is a trade-off. Have you never heard of cost/benefit analysis? To eliminate that remaining 0.0001 of particulates from coal plants, your “solution” is to shut them down. Of course electricity costs will skyrocket. The minuscule benefit is not nearly worth the immensely higher electric bills and widespread brownouts that would result.
Coal provises more than half of all U.S. electricity. To avoid being a hypocrite, stop all your electricity use for fifteen days out of every month. Report back, and tell us how that worked out for you.
Finally, I see nothing in your comment regarding the fact that China is building 2 – 4 new coal fired power plants every week. But you are afraid to criticize China. Hypocrite.
Der Speigel had a story on CO2 sequestering today. For purposes of completeness, here it is: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/promising-carbon-capture-facility-launched-in-norway-despite-doubts-a-832284.html
Seems most of the by products in burning coal are used in the manufacture of solar panels. So burn coal, make solar panels, pollution neutral, grow plants, win win:)
I should check to see if “nuclear” includes LENR research.
Yes, it’s time to see what Andreas Rossi is up to. Oh, here’s something from just a week ago. This could be big. Or the next step in a big deception. High temperature steam means efficient electricity. It could even save us from Carrington events by eliminating the need for long “antennas.”
Rossi tends to mention big news in little droppings in his blog in English but with an Italian accent. Fortunately there are people who make sure the gems don’t get lost.
From http://www.e-catworld.com/2012/05/rossi-talks-of-breakthrough-stability-at-very-high-temperatures/
…
By the way: we are working very hard on the temperatures, and we have reached a tremendous goal in the last week. We are making a test which endures since a week, that could make a revolution in the revolution. It will go ahead for a month.
For now, just working.
May 5th
Dear Dr Joseph Fine:
I agree.
It’s Saturday, but today and tomorrow we will work 24 hours a day on the reactor we have made here in the USA: we have stabilized it at very high temperatures…and when I say very high I mean it. We understood the reason of the instability, so now the work is going on hard.
Hi smokey,
Please calm down! I by no means suggest to shut down coal power! I am right in the middle of building an 1100MW coal fired power plant for christ sake,I will start commissioning soon (lead commisioning for main cooling water system).
I am FOR coal power, gas power and a fervent CAGW skeptic. I was merely responding to the statements made that coal power is clean. It is not, especially not compared to gas fired combined cycle plants which have higher efficiency and lower emissions (“regular” and CO2). I know China opens a coal station or two a week and think that is fine, dont put words into my mouth!
I usually like your posts and fireyness, but is the name calling necessary? Please do not put words in my mouth and DON’T CALL ME A HYPOCRITE please!
Regards,
Wijnand
Wijnand keeps suggesting that I remove the link to the $761/pound story for carbon sequestration. Sorry, but we don’t remove links. He is free to criticize the story, and thanks for the input, but I actually don’t have any problem with it. So what if the costs are not fully amortized over the lifetime of the plant? There is no lifetime. The plant will never be used, so the actual magnitude of the boondoggle is even larger in cost per ton. See my other link, about England’s first carbon capture project being given up on as utterly unworkable after 1.5 b pounds spent. Price per ton, infinite. It’s a unicorn. Non-CO2 producing coal generation doesn’t exist, and it shouldn’t exist. CO2 is BENEFICIAL.
I notice also that Tom won’t answer my question about what he thinks is unhealthful about CO2, or on what other grounds he thinks it is “dirty.”
[Yes, it’s OT, but he started it!]
Affizzyfist says:
May 11, 2012 at 6:16 am
> CT looking really suspicious havent moved for 12 days now!
> http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
They told me they’re having server disk problems. I don’t fully believe that, but it will do. I wrote a NSIDC-based compare program and am using that in place of Cryosphere’s for now. See the WUWT reference page at http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/
I haven’t done anything about the SH images. Leaving them there for a while longer makes sense to me.
I think I see Tom’s problem. He doesn’t seem to realize that what they mean by “clean coal” simply means the C02, through a technology that still doesn’t exist, is captured and stored underground. If he has a problem with the phrase “clean coal” then I suggest he take it up with the Obama administration pushing the idea. Likewise, the reverse phrase “dirty coal” simply means the process of burning coal and allowing the life-enhancing C02 to escape to do its dirty work greening the planet.
@ur momisugly Smokey says “Quit nitpicking”
Smokey says “I attack pseudo-science, and the climate charlatans who hide out from debate”
So a focus on accuracy and validity are “nitpicking”? Is dismissing a clear case of accuracy not in fact the very pseudo-science you rail against?
Why the personal attack/smear (which I though we all agreed was bad form and not helping anything)? All Wijnand did was point out an accuracy issue.
I do not expect that you will ever show me any civility, but I fail to see what Wijnand did to deserve this reaction.
An apology and acknowledgement / correction of the error he found would be in order.
Wijnand,
My apologies. I misunderstood what you were saying. My mistake.
• • •
Alec,
I note that Tom did not respond to my hypothesis either.
Wijnand says:
May 11, 2012 at 4:51 am
Percentages only work (approximately) that way for small values, and you’re pushing into larger ones. If the efficiency goes down 20%, then the output is 0.80, you need to burn 1 / 0.80 as much coal, 1 / 0.8 ==> 1.25 ==> 25% more.
Likewise, 1 / 0.85 ==> 1.176 ==> about 18% more.
I can be a pedant in both verbal and math spaces!
Tom,
You are not the referee, so butt out. I had already apologized to Wijnand for misconstruing what he wrote. Now how about doing your best to falsify my hypothesis. That is my challenge to you. If you can falsify it per the scientific method, you will be the first to be able to do so.
And answer Alec Rawls’ question: What is unhealthful about CO2?
Alec says “He is free to criticize the story, and thanks for the input, but I actually don’t have any problem with it.”
So are you OK with being wrong?
Or are you OK with not disclosing methodology upfront?
Or is it that you don’t feel the need to document your assumptions?
I take note that you are, as Smokey et al, insisting on trying to move away from the the issue at hand here.
Alec said “Of course what the CO2 alarmists call “dirty coal” is perfectly clean”
Burning coal is far-far from clean, and that is indisputable even if you remove (as Gail points out) that byproducts of actually getting the coal to a point where it is available to burn.
May I also point out that the salutary argument here is, how to put this, patently ridiculous.
Under that logic natural must mean then that it is required for life, therefore more is inherently better. Ah yes, that is why we submerge our crops in water since they all grow better with an unlimited amount of water.
Or people need Vitamin D in their diet, therefore an unlimited amount of it is better. Oh wait, no that will give you kidney damage.
Bad argument Alec…but evidentially you do not care.
Alec says – “”Alarmists try to claim that it is not salutary because it is going to cause harmful global warming, but there is ZERO evidence for that. In the history of mankind, warming has always been salutary, cooling harmful.”
Surely you are not saying that CO2 causes warming, now are you? If CO2 is unrelated why string the words together like that.
@ric werme:
You are absolutely right, my mistake, thanks!
@smokey,
No problem.