Avro, has it ever occurred to the people who are so much against coal, that perhaps there could (should) be some funds allocated to R&D to find a way to burn coal CLEANLY, rather than just shut down the coal industry, putting countless coal workers, miners, technicians and their families on the unemployment line? Has it ever occurred to the same folks that CO2 is no more of a green house gas than water vapour? Has it ever occurred to them that there is an almost limitless supply of coal and not using it would be a crime against mankind?
What to do about global warming
- Thread starter Extrafire
- Start date
I'm overwhelmed with joy that potash sales will hit 60 million t in 2011. That should help the beautiful algae blooms keep on blooming. I'm really looking forward to when all the subsistance farmers start collectives and use even more thanks to the "green fund".
We already shelved the "clean coal" idea in SK because it is cheaper to import CO2 from Minnesota.
Ontario Emerging As Renewable Leader
YouTube - SLOW STICK FPV Sarnia Soler Farm CANADA DAY 2010.wmv
Aerial tour of a large solar array near Sarnia, Ontario (42 degrees north latitude) Canada seems the unlikely location for the world’s largest solar photovoltaic array, but, for now, that is the case. Ontario has one of the most ambitious renewable energy plans in the world. The program is based on a “Feed in Tariff” model, similar to arrangements that have been successful in Europe. As a recent study pointed out, the cost to the average ratepayer is about equal to buying one Tim Horton Doughnut per month.
For small players, the program is designed to encourage renewable development by creating a market with a fixed, predictable price for the energy produced. According to the official description -
If you are a homeowner, farmer or small business owner, or if you manage an institution such as a school or place of worship, you have the opportunity to develop a very small or “micro” renewable electricity generation project – of 10 kilowatts (kW) or less in size – on your property. You’ll be paid for all the electricity you produce through the microFIT Program.
YouTube - Solar panel #33 goes on
The program is also designed to fit the needs of larger developers, including wind, solar, water power, biomass, and landfill gas.
According to Energy Minister Brad Duguid:
In Ontario, we’re quickly shifting our energy sources away from sources like dirty coal, cleaning our air and providing healthier outcomes for ourselves and our kids,” he said. “This is a transition I think our generation can take a great deal of pride in.”
Duguid said the conversion to green energy will create 50,000 jobs in the province.
“That’s a lot of jobs, the next generation of jobs. The kind of jobs that will be around for a long, long time.”
YouTube - SLOW STICK FPV Sarnia Soler Farm CANADA DAY 2010.wmv
Aerial tour of a large solar array near Sarnia, Ontario (42 degrees north latitude) Canada seems the unlikely location for the world’s largest solar photovoltaic array, but, for now, that is the case. Ontario has one of the most ambitious renewable energy plans in the world. The program is based on a “Feed in Tariff” model, similar to arrangements that have been successful in Europe. As a recent study pointed out, the cost to the average ratepayer is about equal to buying one Tim Horton Doughnut per month.
For small players, the program is designed to encourage renewable development by creating a market with a fixed, predictable price for the energy produced. According to the official description -
If you are a homeowner, farmer or small business owner, or if you manage an institution such as a school or place of worship, you have the opportunity to develop a very small or “micro” renewable electricity generation project – of 10 kilowatts (kW) or less in size – on your property. You’ll be paid for all the electricity you produce through the microFIT Program.
YouTube - Solar panel #33 goes on
The program is also designed to fit the needs of larger developers, including wind, solar, water power, biomass, and landfill gas.
According to Energy Minister Brad Duguid:
In Ontario, we’re quickly shifting our energy sources away from sources like dirty coal, cleaning our air and providing healthier outcomes for ourselves and our kids,” he said. “This is a transition I think our generation can take a great deal of pride in.”
Duguid said the conversion to green energy will create 50,000 jobs in the province.
“That’s a lot of jobs, the next generation of jobs. The kind of jobs that will be around for a long, long time.”
Tivo for Megawatts: Storing the Sun in Salts.
YouTube - spanishsolar
For the first century of the electrified age – one fundamental principle has shaped the way electricity is generated and used.
The moment a pulse of electrical energy is created, it will instantly be put to use. Electrical Grids are built with this fundamental physical fact in mind, and the idea of being able to generate power at one moment, and use it sometime later has never been an assumption for engineers, economists, or designers.
Now, that’s changing. The tired repetition of “What do you do when the sun/wind stops shining/blowing?” that anti science types think is a showstopper has been left behind by reality quite a while ago. We are entering the age of energy storage, when energy will be stored, saved, and moved around in ways unimaginable decades ago.
Think of this disruptive technology as Tivo for Megawatts.
YouTube - spanishsolar
For the first century of the electrified age – one fundamental principle has shaped the way electricity is generated and used.
The moment a pulse of electrical energy is created, it will instantly be put to use. Electrical Grids are built with this fundamental physical fact in mind, and the idea of being able to generate power at one moment, and use it sometime later has never been an assumption for engineers, economists, or designers.
Now, that’s changing. The tired repetition of “What do you do when the sun/wind stops shining/blowing?” that anti science types think is a showstopper has been left behind by reality quite a while ago. We are entering the age of energy storage, when energy will be stored, saved, and moved around in ways unimaginable decades ago.
Think of this disruptive technology as Tivo for Megawatts.
Fuel From Sunshine and Air
National Press Club
“Can we design something that begins to replicate what a plant does?… in principle, we can design something better….. Can we go from water, to oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, to hydrocarbon fuel?”
Steven Chu’s description at the National Press Club ofexciting new prospects for creating carbon neutral, or maybe even carbon negative(?) fuel using sophisticated solar processes. The invaluable Greencarcongress has a diagram of the emerging technology.
Click for larger image
A team from Caltech, ETH Zürich and the Paul Scherrer Institute have devised a solar reactor for the two-step, solar-driven thermochemical production of fuels. In a paper published in the journal Science, they report stable and rapid generation of fuel over 500 cycles. They achieved solar-to-fuel efficiencies of 0.7 to 0.8%, and showed that the efficiency was largely limited by system scale and design, rather than by its chemistry.
—
Given that, the team anticipates that reactor optimization and system integration will result in substantial increases in both efficiency and fuel production rates. Furthermore, they note, the abundance of cerium, which is comparable to that of copper, is such that the approach is applicable at scales relevant to global energy consumption.
Here’s the abstract of the paper, published in Science. -
Because solar energy is available in large excess relative to current rates of energy consumption, effective conversion of this renewable yet intermittent resource into a transportable and dispatchable chemical fuel may ensure the goal of a sustainable energy future. However, low conversion efficiencies, particularly with CO2 reduction, as well as utilization of precious materials have limited the practical generation of solar fuels. By using a solar cavity-receiver reactor, we combined the oxygen uptake and release capacity of cerium oxide and facile catalysis at elevated temperatures to thermochemically dissociate CO2 and H2O, yielding CO and H2, respectively. Stable and rapid generation of fuel was demonstrated over 500 cycles. Solar-to-fuel efficiencies of 0.7 to 0.8% were achieved and shown to be largely limited by the system scale and design rather than by chemistry.
National Press Club
“Can we design something that begins to replicate what a plant does?… in principle, we can design something better….. Can we go from water, to oxygen, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, to hydrocarbon fuel?”
Steven Chu’s description at the National Press Club ofexciting new prospects for creating carbon neutral, or maybe even carbon negative(?) fuel using sophisticated solar processes. The invaluable Greencarcongress has a diagram of the emerging technology.
Click for larger imageA team from Caltech, ETH Zürich and the Paul Scherrer Institute have devised a solar reactor for the two-step, solar-driven thermochemical production of fuels. In a paper published in the journal Science, they report stable and rapid generation of fuel over 500 cycles. They achieved solar-to-fuel efficiencies of 0.7 to 0.8%, and showed that the efficiency was largely limited by system scale and design, rather than by its chemistry.
—
Given that, the team anticipates that reactor optimization and system integration will result in substantial increases in both efficiency and fuel production rates. Furthermore, they note, the abundance of cerium, which is comparable to that of copper, is such that the approach is applicable at scales relevant to global energy consumption.
Here’s the abstract of the paper, published in Science. -
Because solar energy is available in large excess relative to current rates of energy consumption, effective conversion of this renewable yet intermittent resource into a transportable and dispatchable chemical fuel may ensure the goal of a sustainable energy future. However, low conversion efficiencies, particularly with CO2 reduction, as well as utilization of precious materials have limited the practical generation of solar fuels. By using a solar cavity-receiver reactor, we combined the oxygen uptake and release capacity of cerium oxide and facile catalysis at elevated temperatures to thermochemically dissociate CO2 and H2O, yielding CO and H2, respectively. Stable and rapid generation of fuel was demonstrated over 500 cycles. Solar-to-fuel efficiencies of 0.7 to 0.8% were achieved and shown to be largely limited by the system scale and design rather than by chemistry.
According to the coal industry there is. Trouble is the ecoterrorists keep trotting out pictures of 1920 coal plants and a gullible public believes them because they have been conditioned to believe that big business is bad. We went through essentially the same thing in the 80s and 90s with logging. Lots of BS by the greenies. Municipalities were passing bylaws against wood heat etc. Now biofuels is an emerging industry and of course the clearcuts that were predicted to be moonscapes for hundreds of years have 30 ft. high carbon sinks growing on them.
But of course they would say that, tobacco companies use to tell us cigarettes were safe as well.
How about more R&D in clean energy?
Tom Waits could be the solution to global warming since instead of breathing in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide like the rest of us lesser humans, Waits does the opposite, thus reducing greenhouse gases with every breath! Incidentally, whenever you see Tom Waits with a cigarette, he’s not smoking, he’s just getting a bit of fresh air.
Tim Roth’s Tom Waits Facts Site
Tim Roth’s Tom Waits Facts Site
Really though, spend money to make a dirty form of energy less dirty, or spend money to make clean energy more efficient and to engage economies of scale...not really a difficult choice. How do you clean up an energy source that is gathered by blowing up mountains and in-filling valleys and streams with the remnants of the mountain?
Solar Power for Africa
YouTube - Witness - Witness - Burning in the Sun
For those that found the story of William Kamkwamba and his wind machine, here is another inspiring look at the struggle to free Africa from darkness, and dependence on fossil fuel.
Twenty-six-year-old Daniel Dembele is on a mission to bring light to darker parts of Mali with his recycled solar panel business.
YouTube - Witness - Witness - Burning in the Sun
For those that found the story of William Kamkwamba and his wind machine, here is another inspiring look at the struggle to free Africa from darkness, and dependence on fossil fuel.
Twenty-six-year-old Daniel Dembele is on a mission to bring light to darker parts of Mali with his recycled solar panel business.
There is supposed to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 years worth of coal in Canada. No point in letting a proven source of energy go to waste while we fiddle around with expensive alternatives. By looking for ways to make coal burn cleaner and more efficient there is no telling what new technology we might develop. Besides it provides lots of good paying jobs.
Ford Unviels New Electric Car.
Building on the popular Focus chassis, Ford has introduced a new all-electric vehicle at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The company stated the vehicle would have performance similar to, or better than, the Nissan Leaf, another all-electric platform.
YouTube - Plug-in Hybrids: Renewable Energy Solution of the Month
Building on the popular Focus chassis, Ford has introduced a new all-electric vehicle at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The company stated the vehicle would have performance similar to, or better than, the Nissan Leaf, another all-electric platform.
YouTube - Plug-in Hybrids: Renewable Energy Solution of the Month
Lets not forget that the United has the largest coal reserves in the world. Yet here we are debating how not to best use it. I don't think there is anyway coal can be made into clean energy, cleaner burning yes, but still dirty.
Do you know of a way to burn coal cleanly and cheap with a very small carbon footprint? If so you could become a very rich person.
How?
It's called defeatism. I know of no way to do it, so that's it, end of story, case closed, let's not use coal. That's what I meant by 'going nowhere'.
Or, you could look at the modern coal fired plants, and see what they do.