YES. Coal is not the way. But I have heard that if you run co2 through pipes though a water filter. And then dry the water. You come up with co2 bricks. And use it as a fuel. I have this idea on paper. Sounds crazy. But I have heard of crazyer ideas. Places that are winding need wind powered gen. And also solor.

GEE!
Way to have an open mind, should we just go back to being hunter gathers and use dead wood for our camp fire.
Maybe we need 100 new nuclear powerplants, oh wait, I'm sure you will hate that too.
Thanks
MADOG

@MADOG, way to read the article.

"Even Generation IV nuclear power plants are a better idea."

And the author is right, btw, clean coal is little more than a marketing ploy cooked up by the coal industry to convince people that coal is not a major polluter.

It IS possible to reduce the pollutant output of coal significantly, but almost nobody is doing it because it's expensive. So expensive, in fact, that solar and wind are cheaper than the so called 'clean coal'. The end result? If you're interested in clean energy, you don't use coal. Period. If you're interesting in cheap energy above all else, hey, coal.

@ PETERD

If you understood how regulated the power utility industry is you would know that the government could and likely will force the companies that decide to build new coal plans to use this method. if there's a profit to be made someone will make it.

Solar and wind have a long way to go before they can power what we need for our life style (let alone an impaired life style). Nuclear is a good interim step, but the NIMBY faction and the American Greens will make this impossible.

Without compromise from the NIMBYs and the Greens, coal may become the default fuel.

I'll take this less editorialized, more fact-filled version, and decide for myself: http://science.howstuffworks.com/clean-coal.htm.

But thanks for your opinions!

I'm in favor of all the power generating ways.

everyone likes the green ones like wind, solar, & waves. But I'm also in favor of hydro, and nuclear. and yes, even coal. coal is cheap...and thats the bottom line.

My city gets its power from a coal plant...which I am 100% fine with, theres nothing wrong with using our cheapest resource to power our world.
I live in South Dakota...which is one of the most windiest states...so I'm of course in favor of wind turbines...I'm not some hippy, ans if I had land, I'd like to have a turbine built on it, I have no problem with them.
FYI, my last electrical bill put my power price at: .0725 kWh

I like coal cause its cheap, ans we have over 200 years worth of it...why not use it!?

@ Murc. Think about this fore more than 5 seconds. We have coal, that's a given, coal is cheap, that's also a given. But what happens when we can't go outside anymore because we can't breathe the air? What happens when we have to suit up to go outside when it's raining because it's not raining water, but acid that will burn though our skin? What happens when we can't go outside during the daytime because there is nothing left of our atmosphere and we will get skin cancer from any contact with sunlight? People like you are the reason we are in the mess in the first place, you all just go about your business like it's never going to be a problem, well guess what IT'S A PROBLEM NOW! All these years of not caring and now my generation has to find a way to deal with it, and since NOTHING has been done about it, we are way behind on finding a way for the human race to survivor countless crisis. Now everybody take a minute to think about what you are saying before you post, this is our planet, we only get one of them, AND WE ARE KILLING IT!

"Enviromentalism" is the fraudualnt religion!

You know for a bunch of nerds eagerly awaiting our next "Technology fix" most of you guys stopped using your head.

When I was younger, I was told that by the year 2000 all the rainforests would be gone AND WE ARE KILLING IT (Joshkin's words). The fact of the matter is it's long past 2000 and the rainforests are very much intact. Why? Human engineering. We are smart enough to be able to harvest and regrow.

Mr white said we have 29 coal plants operating. How much do they pollute? Obviouosly not that much or they would be sued for illnesses and whatever that stem from that pollution. In short, those 29 plants would be shut down from all the lawsuits.
There are plans for 110 more. That's a little over 3.5 times the amount of coal plants currently operating. What's 3.5 times very little? That's how much pollution you'll get. That's not even taking into account HUMAN ENGINEERING.

Never forget that people will find the way to improve on things. Never give up on the human spirit.

It's incredible how dumb some people are.
The fact is that we are putting more CO2 into the atmosphere then nature can remove. This leads to an accumulative effect. Which means that the longer this goes on the the worst it will get.

And if you don't know it's not only affecting the atmosphere, because the oceans also absorb CO2. And with the increase of CO2 the oceans acidity increases, which leads to ocean life decreasing. Specially corals that are all over the world being destroyed.

And no I'm not an environmentalist, who thinks we have to go back into caves. It is simply the case that we have the technology to solve the problem, but people don't do anything.

@YOGURT
Do you know why we still have rain forests, it's because there were people complaining about it which lead to a change in policy, which in turn lead to a reduction in the destruction of the forests.

politics = bad; shiny new devices = good. Please don't turn this site into another political pulpit. Be it whig, feudal, federalist, reform... whatever.

You need to put these power plants near ALGAE farms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miNn8DyKSC0

Two lots of bang for your buck

Whoever posted Anonymously thank you. I'm not an environmentalist either, i'm simply a logical thinking that can see a problem that is smacking us right in the face and somehow people are still ignoring it. I never said anything about the rain forests, you put those words in my mouth not me. However the anonymous poster is correct. Some things have been fixed, however society as a whole needs to make an effort even if it means sacrificing a little bit of cash. Coal is not the answer, it puts us in the same boat as using oil. The enviroment and politics aside. Give this a though, you say coal will last us another 200 years...then what. If we rely on coal then we haven't found a solution then we have nothing. So really it's not a matter of if we should because we have to!

i believe in aliens, the outer space ones. and i keep thinking of them coming and saying something like "you people have known that your power technology is causing problems. and you haven't DONE anything or changed to a new one?? in ALL this time??". IF that happened, i personally would feel like part of the "slow" species.

we know that coal is finite, just like oil. people die working in coal mines for several reasons. coal mines do irrevocable damage to habitats. how bout some acid rain. and we're pretty damn sure it's doing bad things to the atmosphere.
just because we have a lot of coal doesn't mean we should use it. it's not a sale at a big box store. burning coal is easy. but so is letting your curtains stay on fire until your show is finished. if you ask me, sticking with what is easy when it's causing obvious problems is lazy. i know people don't like to be called lazy. but what would you call it. we have alternatives, and we barely use them? and maybe they're not ready to power car factories. but they'll barely get better if EVERYONE waits till they are common place. wind power's only problem is that it's an eye sore. and the only way solar power will run out is if the sun dies. and if the sun dies, we're dead anyway. it's never too late to start on something like this. there are times when you go with easy because you deserve it, and there are times when easy is just a excuse for lazy. which time is this?

Thanks for exposing the clean coal as the joke that it is (I expect Obama will confess after elected).
Yogurt, get a clue: The mean annual deforestation rate from 2000 to 2005 (22,392 km² per year) was 18% higher than in the previous five years (19,018 km² per year).[29] At the current rate, in two decades the Amazon Rainforest will be reduced by 40%.[30]. Beside losing the great carbon sink, consider the devastating loss of biodiversity.
Yogurt for brains: there are approx. 600 coal plants operating in the US, (29 under construction)~ garbage in>garbage out~ a little comprehension helps.
And yes I'm a vegetarian environmentalist!

So, by "those who would like coal to remain the centerpiece of United States energy policy for centuries to come", you mean the environmentalists who killed the nuclear power industry, right?

Joshikins - I have thought about it, for a lot longer then 5 seconds...
and I stand by what I said.
you sound like your in middle school.
its not going to be raining acid, there are a bunch of regulations that power plants have to abide by.
You need to calm down, the world isn't going to crap out over night.

Joshikins (2nd post) - No, it does not put us in the same boat as using oil, because 75% of the oil that we use comes from other countries. While the coal we use comes from the good ol' US of A.
As for your "thought", about coal & 200 years...dont be stupid. I simply said we have enough to last a couple hundred years...not that we should use it blindly and not look at other possible power technologies.
new coal power plants are far cleaner then the old ones, and they make things like acid rain a thing of the past.

Like I have already said: I support: Nuclear, wind, solar, coal, waves, hydro, ect

as for cars, (even thought I live in SD) I think ethanol is a joke, and if the government wasn't subsiding it...it would FAIL.
for vehicles I'm in favor of Electric. so we can "fill up" our cars using wind or coal, and not hand over 700 billion dollars of US money a year to other countries, some of whom would like to destroy us.

I'm glad I dont go to high school anymore, these days it seems like all there doing is teaching people to be a bunch of tree hugging socialists.

Ignorance of what coal burning is doing to our planet is the real problem, as evidenced by some of these posts. The coal lobby, such as "America's Power" exist to continue to mislead the public and keep them ignorant.

Heh, I like how you say "even" nuclear would be a better option.

Nuclear is the only short term power solution other than coal. I mean, to balance the bajillions of old style (not even "cleaner") coal plants that China is using we'd have to completely drop out of coal use ourselves and convince the rest of the world to do so as well. And nuclear is about the only option that can provide the same power. It doesn't require enormous infrastructure (which your cost estimates don't take into account) like solar or wind. Also, conveniently, it doesn't take small but significant amts of the earth's natural energy cycle out of the system. There is absolutely no telling what gigantic state spanning wind or solar farms would do (and that's what we'll need to take over all power needs; simply GIGANTIC) to the environment. Not many people two hundred years ago would have guessed that releasing tiny increases in toxic gasses into the atmosphere would have caused the differences it supposedly has, after all. Nuclear is a small solution, requiring relatively little infrastructure, and has two known waste products. The worst, in my opinion, is water vapor (ya know, the biggest of the greenhouse gasses, dwarfs carbon dioxide's contribution to heating, etc). That can be recaptured, however. Then there's nuclear waste. That can be safely buried in any deep hole in a seismically nonactive region until we can come up with something better to do with it. Or, better yet, we can use tech we already have to build a gigantic rail gun, hook it up to its own nuke plant, and shoot the crap in the general direction of the sun. Sure, it'd take a mile long rail gun and tons of energy (nothing a good plant couldn't handle by itself tho), but it'd also be a permanent solution.

And we've got massive nuclear stockpiles. We could not only meet today's energy requirements, but far far exceed them. ANd you know what that means, oh socialist dvice editors? It means greater human wealth. Energy is free work; the more energy you have, the richer your society is. We could make our society so rich on nuclear and eventually fusion (which we're right on the edge of, even with almost no research going on) that even the bottom rung would be well off by today's standards. We could make our society so rich that we could switch to an even longer term solution - massive solar arrays placed in space, where the solar radiation is un-diluted and the space is unlimited. Where there is such resource wealth as to dwarf our dwindling earthly stockpiles, and there is infinite room for our ever expanding race.

Heck, w/ enough nuclear (and definately with the power we could get from fusion) we could take on such "out there" ideas as cycling the excess CO2 and poisons out of the atmosphere, or creating increased cloud cover to reflect some of the sun's heat. With enough non polluting energy we could manually fix the atmosphere rather than simply reducing our impact on it and buying ourselves a slightly longer amt of time.

We have been overlooking so many obvious solutions for so long. Well, here's the fact - nuclear and fusion are the energy of the future for planetside energy needs. Solar is for large scale space energy needs (like, y'know, the several thousand mile accelerator we'll need for industrial antimatter :D). That's just the way it is, and that's how it is eventually gonna fall out even if Obama gets elected and manages to delay progress a bit longer.

It's time you stupid hippies quit delaying progress. You are against nuclear in every form, and by doing this you have hurt the environment more than any group in HISTORY. More than the giant oil tycoons you hate so much. YOU are the problem. YOU.

(I apologize profusely in advance for the confounding nature of the upcoming post. I feel it is indicative to emphasizing my point. Please try your utmost to follow as it can be comprehended if one reads it carefully.)

daaahhh i da dumb stuupeed hippy yous done talkes aboot. duuooouuh i sa soorry we dunb hippys su demn stuulpid. we joost dune undearstand whaa we guuuuna do weeth al dat toxek waist lie-ing aroond thaah stayies toxek fer a feww half-lifes (well over a million years) duuuugg. we jast su sca-yud oof a leak in the bearals thah macke badgers mute-tate an-to gofers an gave people tumors. ploos, we sow dumnb, we hav drewms a plant go badaboom. or or the plant melts, and evarybody gets si-uck. thads how duuuum we are. we dudy heads.

(Please understand, I apologize if I have offended anyone. That was not my intention at all. I just wished to convey how insulted I feel being called "stupid" and all of the other claims and insults and name calling stated in the last few posts. As well as speak my peace on nuclear energy. Again, I'm sorry if I have insulted ANYONE.)

Hey Charlie, better trolls...please?!?

Anyway, pretty much correct with your post. Plus, the administration has watered down/gelded New Source Review the last eight years, keeping older, highly polluting plants on line without requiring better emission controls.

Nobody, to my knowledge, has a working full-scale example of carbon sequesterization so it's hard to say whether the concept even works. If it does it could be decades before it's widely used. Then, there's the cost of mining the stuff, including mountaintop mining, which is sorely underregulated.

Developing a broad array of electricity sources is surely the best approach. Wind and solar are making huge strides in becoming competitive in cost per kWh. When the full cost of competing techhologies is factored in, they're probably already on par in many instances.

Murc, when I said this puts us in the same boat as oil I wasn't talking about where it comes from at all... I was talking about it running out. I am in high school, i'm a senior. Yes they are teaching us to be "tree hugers" that's because were screwing up the planet because people like you support anything that works right now without caring about the future. Of course the planet is not going to go to crap overnight, but it is going to go to crap if we don't knock this crap off. The fact is the entire planet needs to be united about this and switch over to clean energies and get rid of things like coal all together. But this just is not going to happen because people like you really don't give a crap because it won't directly affect you...

The truth is that this is a typical leftist/green rant. The coal plants today are more efficient that the ones from 20 years go (the tech heads should've realized this fact). Solar & and wind at best are extremely inefficient. For those with doubts, take a economics class and actually pay attention.
And as far as human Co2 contribution, we are no where close to what nature produces (less than 1%). Kind of arrogant of humans to think they can do such damage (nuclear, chemical & biological weapons excluded). And trees a renewable resource, it would be fairly hard to completely remove the rainforests (from an earlier poster).

This one, full of fail is.

The answer is simple, a combination of wind, solar, wave and i hate to say it nuclear. They all need to be used to reduce the effect of greenhouse gases on the environent. Nuclear is Extremely safe now just look at what some of the european countries have been up too. Also i have just recently heard of a solar panel has acchieved 100% efficiency.

Follow the link for more info.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39807/113/

Just give it time, the new will replace the old, just hopw it doesn't take to long.

I think its all in the process. clean coal means a cleaner breakdown of the internals of pollution in the use and preproduction of coal. One could break down the CO2 after and use the waste in other ways as in using it for road use.

Whaa whaa this is the same old rhetoric that got us all in this mess of global warming in the first place. 49% of our electricity is from coal? wow, perhaps the enviros should have let us build nuke plants (haven't since the 70's). Then we wouldn't be facing this eminent global disaster.
environmentalists simply can't compromise on anything....

So Merc, Markavelli, and the others that believe there isn't a problem, you won't mind if we put all of the coal plants, nuclear plants, and their toxic waste dumps with their leaking underground storage tanks right next to your house? Great, We've been wanting to give Hanford Nuclear Reservation waste stores to you for a long time. :o) Enjoy!

To the Article: The piece lack any validity because of the over emotional tones that are very present. Your facts are un-cited, and you are using numbers that have no real meaning. If you want to make an article about the environment, please do something better by including not just a SINGLE viewpoint. Show both the Pro's and Con's to your argument. Overall, I'd give it a D/D- for overall inability to show neutrality on a subject that can raise a hefty ire.

To the commenters:
In my profession (Astronomy, I have my BS degree in it) I have to take data of stars using a spectrograph, more so in the far IR region. This region is heavily populated by the atmosphere of the Earth in spectral lines. By using known standard stars, and by comparing them over time, Carbon lines (CO, CO2, CHX) have not grown STRONGER or Wider which would show an overall increase of carbon. if anything, there is more Water and SOX/NOX's poluting the air, but it's only very minor. the thought that we the human race can out pollute mother nature is absurd. Killauea Volcano has put more Sulpher, Nitrogen, Carbon and other chemicals into the air in 20 years than the human race has in over 100 years.

First off, OXYGEN is the FIRST pollutant of this planet,

Second, Carbon is nowhere near the top of the list of pollutants. Top Green House gas: Sulpher Dioxide.

Third, Acid rain is USEFUL to some places because the soil can be naturally Alkali, once the acid rain comes down, the soil becomes more neutral and plants can grow easier there.

Fourth, Global warming is part of a NATURAL process, tied much more closely to the Solar cycles (Yes there are multiple cycles) than the greenhouse gases we find in our atmosphere. We've been cooling quite well since the Sun began this extended minimum, plus we're coming out of an Ice Age still, I'm expecting at least another 2C increase in global temperature, with a much less catastrophic impact than what many have "predicted" using very inaccurate models.

Fifth: 100% efficiency is improbable by the laws of physics. 101% is impossible.

Finally, the only solution is to use ALL of the Resources we have. We know how to make and run pretty effectively Oil, Natural Gas, Coal, Nuclear (fission using both major fuel types), geothermal, and hydroelectric energy generation systems. These are a good base to work on and use while we innovate and create better Wind and Solar (Not just photoelectric cells here people) systems so that they can become effective. Economically, it is IMPOSSIBLE to change over to another form or remove a form of energy generation without great effect to the human population.

Most people don't seem to think that they will be affected by a change over. but if what many say happen, we won't have the power to even generate the materials needed to build the other newer systems in any manner of reasonable time by the current standards of living.

We have become very energy dependent, any change made must be SLOW but noticeable, so that we can ease off of the old systems. if it's done too fast, we will lose the standard of living we have had for the past decade. I'd expect we would be sent to a living standard of the late 1800's to early 1900's if we lost the power we have now.

-Xaerorazor

The problem with "Clean coal" is that even if you pump all the CO2 underground, you will be still removing oxygen from the atmosphere and thus increasing the relative amount of CO2.

For starters, clean coal = coal - sulphur. Period. It doesn't mean your utility could set up a plant next door and your asthmatic grandmother could join you in cooking dinner over at the power plant.

Secondly, the fuel sources of solar or wind simply don't offer enough power to the grid to be worth it. If you want to offer up thousands of acres (with the Environmental Repercussions) so that solar and wind AND the power lines to distribute that power have enough land to be economical, so be it - but nuclear requires little land, some reasonable amount of water (which the warmth from the discharge can help some species such as manatees), and is very energy dense. Those who concentrate on disposal lack confidence in the future of our technology to deal with that. Think of the technological progress in all fields over the last 50 years. You really think that we couldn't find a way to deal with nuclear waste within a reasonable amount of time? We'll probably end up utilizing it for encapsulated, time-release radiation treatments or something.

The clean coal idea is to use those "cleaner" coal techniques, and then somehow pump the rest of the CO2-containing smoke deep underground. Sounds like a great idea, even though it does resemble putting our heads in the sand.

YES. Coal is not the way. But I have heard that if you run co2 through pipes though a water filter and you even Generation IV nuclear power plants are a better idea.

@ joshikins ...what happens when we can't go outside anymore because we can't breathe the air? What happens when we have to suit up to go outside when it's raining because it's not raining water, but acid that will burn though our skin? What happens when we can't go outside during the daytime because there is nothing left of our atmosphere and we will get skin cancer from any contact with sunlight?...
This would be hilarious if it weren't meant to be serious.
Do you even have a clue what America was like in the 1940's? Coal was FAR more prevalent even 30 years ago than it will EVER be in the future. . Trains ran on coal. Factories ran directly on coal. Did any of you know the average person used to heat their *HOMES* with coal furnaces...no scrubbers, no co2 reductions, no nothing but a nice yellow haze in the air? (my grandma even had a coal chute in her basement..she died at 95, the furnace was converted to nat gas in the late 60's) And guess what? Our parents somehow lived through it.
You all are way too young to have lived through the REAL environmental disasters of the late 60's. Do a search on Cuyahoga River fire tio get an idea of what it was like.
nice photoshop job by the way

Did I mention that I recently took a temp job (pc tech) in a partially completed coal plant that's under construction? It is presently operating at maybe 50% capacity and I can't smell a thing when I'm outside or inside. Even when I toured the plant.
Those scrubbers work beautifully.

Oh I get it...thi ssite is run by the Science *FICTION* channel. No truth here LOL!!!

Where on earth did you get this picture. China... I was looking at a coal plant out west a few years ago and didn't realize it at first. All I saw was a thin trail of steam leaving the stack. Also The numbers you use for solar cell energy cost are way off. It's easy to make numbers fit your agenda when you selectively choose your data. Also a research group calculated it would take 10 to 20 years to replace just 10% of our power needs. At that point it would be time to start replacing what youv'e done. Solar cells have a 20 year life cycle. Same with wind generators. Has anyone done a study on wind turbines and how they may change the climate by disturbing the natural air flow. In China they clear cut a large forest years ago and inadvertantly created a large desert several hundred miles away because it changed the rainfall patterns.

I'd like to mention that tax dollars were used Ohh maybe 20 years ago to create a high tech coal plant that reduced emissions by 95%. It cost double the cost of a conventional plant but less then half the cost of a nuclear plant. It's conversion rate was 80% efficient compared to 20% for a conventional coal plant. Whats up with that. Coal being the major cost factor and being able to produce 4-times as much electricity per ton you'd think they would jump all over that. Putting 75% of the coal miners out of work and all the people involved in making the hugh equipment to mine it with, not to mention the reduction in personal to actually run these plants wouldn't be politically advantagious. Were taking a lot of very high paying jobs nearly impossible to replace. I'm all for the high tech myself, But It's just not up to speed yet to handle the task. I'm also not at all convinced that Co2 is the big bad wolf they make it out to be. Co2 hasn't increased that much and seems to increase after a rise in temp instead of before meaning it may be released after the fact. Also it appears the average temp my be starting to decline. Here's some (F O O D) for thought. With the slight rise in Co2 there's been a slight rise in food production, as crops depend on Co2 to grow. If we reduced the Co2 levels by 50% in our atmosphere as some would like It only follows that food production would drop accordingly. World wide famine would follow with war and caous. Can you say NUCLEAR WINTER.

I just have to add this

I view these sites from time to time and it's mostly all the same.

This is what we have to do and we have to do it right now.
If your against this you don't care for the environment or your and IDIOT or whatever.
Whats with the attitude.
Maybe the person who disagrees with you knows something you don't that makes it unfeasable at this time... As in the tech being pushed isn't up to the task and needs to be worked out or maybe we need a different approach all together. Just because a so called expert tells you it works dosen't mean it will. Experts screww up more then they get it right. Nearly half of the people who actually worked on the Nuclear bomb in the forties died shortly there after from radiation exposure. Because they were in a hurry and didn't take/or/have the time to get it right the first time. Relax. Lets give the technologies a little time to get up to speed. Get your politicians to provide the funding to develope the 40% plus solar cells to market. Push the nano tech materials research to provide wind turbines that are economical and long lasting because they aren't there yet by a long shot. But if people push it most of this stuff could be in the next 5 or so years.

Also pay attention to what your politician does outofsight of the media. Nancy polosi says shes all for these things, but when a company wanted to build a large scale solar array in the desert (The Most Efficient location to Build it) She put the location off limits and wants to get a bill passed to put the entire Mohave desert off limits. Some of your politicians give lip service to these inovations because they see possibilities to raise uor taxes. (CAP & TRADE) Tax the utilities who will pass it on in your utility bill (1 to 2 hundred amonth) It's kind of like We can provide every body with health care and pay for it by savings in other areas... (IT'S ONLY GOING TO COST YOU A TRILLION DOLLARS)

I Personally can provide you with a hybrid car for freeHEE HEE HEE. It'll only cost you $80,000.00