Hansen notes that while the Mass Energy bill is overall pretty good, itone proposed ammendment does have a serious problem. It actually subsidizes coal gasification (without requiring carbon capture and sequestration).
Just as a reminder, coal is one of the dirtiest fuels around. Increasing our use of coal will massively increase greenhouse gases. Other harmful results of increased coal usage include destruction of mountains, releasing of Mercury into the air, poisoning of rivers and streams, radioactive waste released into the air, and deaths of minors.
This is not something we should subsidize.
Additionally, as described in the op-ed, the state EPA is considering extending the life of an existing coal gasification plant.
If a state like Massachusetts continues to build new coal, how in the world can we ask China, India and other poor countries not to do so?
Please take a moment to contact your state rep or state senator. Mention Hansen’s op-ed, and ask them to oppose subsidies for coal gasification, and urge them to close down NRG’s coal plant.
..that coal could produce radioactive waste.
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p>Ever the skeptic, I immediately checked and found:
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p>http://www.sciam.com/article.c…
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p>However, it still seems to me that the title of the article may be extremely deceptive: “Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste”
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p>To be sure, coal ash as an air pollutant may be more radioactive than air pollutants emitted from nuclear plants. However, coal ash is not in the same league as most things commonly referred to as “nuclear waste”:
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p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N…
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p>In conclusion, I offer a friendly reminder to view every shocking claim with a healthy dose of skepticism.
It is true that the use of coal would produce more acid rain, which is not only corrosive to buildings and whatever, but will kill off more of our lakes, streams and rivers. More air pollution, and also more sickness and death among miners, ant the general populace would result as well. Not a good way to go, imho. Bad omen!
The subject of radioactive emissions from coal often comes up in debates on the pros and cons of nuclear power. Pro-nuke activists love to point out that coal releases more radioactivity into the air than nuclear power does. Of course, you’re also quite correct that the amount of radioactivity released is not large.
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p>Kudos to you both for doing some research into this, and for posting the results.
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p>Perhaps I shouldn’t have included radioactivity in the list of bad things coal does. Heaven knows, there is plenty of other material out there. The carbon emissions are probably the worst, but the local pollution is awful. (And if you don’t know about mountaintop removal, look it up.) I even forgot all about acid rain, rightly raised by mplo.
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p>The blogosphere works on many time-scales: long-term (movement-building), intermediate-term (elections), and short-term. The state energy bill is apparently very fluid right now.. so now this is a short-term problem. If you haven’t yet called your state rep and senator to ask for less coal, please take a couple of minutes to do so today!
…the emission of radioactive ash and of sulfate aerosols were two of the reasons for the requirement that coal-fired power plants install scrubbers.
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p>Regarding fly ash, it might be the case that there is not a heavy concentration of radioactive materials in the ash, but, given the ash’s weight, it is likely that the ash will fall to the ground relatively close to the power plants. In other words, it will contaminate areas that are relatively close to the plants. (BTW, I knew as a teenager in the 1960s that coal contained quite a bit of radioactive materials. It was no secret even then.)
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p>Regarding sulfate aerosols, they were the reason for the “cooling period” in 1945-1975 because, after being injected into the upper atmosphere, they reflected sunlight. The problem, as mplo mentioned, was that the sulfate aerosols also resulted in acid rain. After scrubbers were mandated, the sulfate aerosols were reduced, and global warming continued increasing.
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p>Regarding nuclear power plants, the fuel rods are largely vitrified (essentially a glass). No ash, no sulfate aerosols.
The dose of radiation the average person gets just by living on the planet is around 240 millirem, (see http://www.unscear.org/docs/re… )
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p>Just giving a little meaning to the stat.
n/t
Shutting down or cleaning up old power plants was the standard established in the 1970s with the Clean Air Act, but some of the people who own these plants have used every legal and political method to avoid shutting down or cleaning up their dirty old plants.
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p>And that has hardly been fair for the power plant owners who did clean up their plants. They made their contribution to the common good of clean air, and the NRG owners should not be allowed to save a few dollars at the expense of the air everyone breathes, and the lakes and streams that will be damaged by acid rain.
that the political class just keeps finding more hoops for Cape Wind to jump through, while managing to give NRG Energy the equivalent of Most Favored Generator Status.
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p>Not that Cape Wind, or any energy source, should be exempt from environmental regulation either. And the case can be made for subsidies that are based on adding in environmental costs and benefits, but better no subsidies for anybody than payoffs for best-lobbied dirty energy sources du jour.
The NRG plant has a capacity of 125 MW (source pdf), from coal, oil, and jet fuel.
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p>Cape Wind would have an average capacity of 170 MW (source), from wind.
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p>In other words, if we built Cape Wind we could tear a polluter like NRG to the ground and still have more supply than we have now, and cheaper supply too since the marginal cost of wind is $0.00 and the marginal cost of oil, coal, or jet fuel is strictly greater than free.
No Power plants with be taken down if Cape wind is built, When the wind isn’t blowing, cape wind’s output will be ZERO.
there’s quite a bit of information on the web about this issue, I’d encourage you to do some research. I’m in a bit of a rush now, but here are some brief outlines:
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p>1) NO source of power is always on. Coal has an uptime (from memory) of around 93%. The rest of the time its down for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance.
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p>2) By interlinking different renewables, one can achieve the same level of uptime as coal, or any other known energy source. (If the wind isn’t blowing at point A, its blowing at point B, or maybe the sun is shining at point c). For more details, see the Stanford study described in this press release.
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p>3) Energy storage technologies keep getting better (batteries, etc)
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p>4) Finally, the number of coal plants that exist does not matter for CO2 emissions. What matters is how much CO2 they produce. When the wind does blow (which is the vast majority of the time), CO2 is not emitted into the atmosphere.
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p>2. Not only interlinking different renewables, but also note that there are peaking plants. That’s tons of capacity that’s often not used. It’s true that the wind might not be blowing at annual peak demand, but that is handled with (4).
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p>3. Traditional chemical battery storage is a non-starter. If we progress to a fleet of electric vehicles, then one could use the millions of batteries as a massive electrical storage device, but that’s at least a decade away, more like two. Fly-wheels might work out sometime eventually. In the mean time, the best electrical storage: pump water up a hill when there’s extra capacity, run your hydro dams when there’s shortage of capacity. Making ice at night in large buildings to run air conditioning during the day is a similar concept.
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p>4. Absolutely right, sort of. The number of plants don’t matter, it’s the amount of coal [and scrubbing] that they do that matters. But coal plants can’t really be used as peaking plants, since they take too long to start and stop. They can, however, be used intermittently, but they take on the order of minutes to turn on and off, not seconds like natural gas or oil.
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p>Bottom line: every kWh that a wind turbine produces results in less emissions created from a coal plant or oil plant. In the long run [until wind accounts for about 20% of the grid, or about 19% more than it generates now], every kW of capacity built is one less kW of capacity in the form of coal, nat gas, oil, or nuclear that will be built. Wind intermittance is simply not an issue so long as the total capacity of wind generation is under 10%. Above that, there might be problems if the generation of all turbines is positively correlated [which it is not in the New England grid].
The term is “backing out,” not “taking down.” The power plants that are on the margin (least profitable to run) around here tend to be the dirtiest. So whenever the wind blows, it backs out combustion of coal or oil.
Chapter1’s post says that the legislation
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p>But the text of the Senate bill reads
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p>So for someone who isn’t up on the technologies in question here, (1) does or does the bill not require that coal gasification-related CO2 be captured and sequestered?
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p>And (2) if it does require that CO2 be captured, then are there problems with coal gasification beyond the (not insignificant) harm caused by the actual mining of coal?