Clean coal technology can fuel state's energy needs -- Global C...

[moral hazard]

The strategy, I believe, will be to burn all the coal they can get their hands on, while holding out the "promise" of CO2 sequestration, until it's too late.

[JRS]

moral hazard wrote:

The strategy, I believe, will be to burn all the coal they can get their hands on, while holding out the "promise" of CO2 sequestration, until it's too late.

"the "promise" of CO2 sequestration"

"There is no evidence that CO2 has ever ‘driven’ the climate in the past, nor is there any compelling evidence that it is doing so now."
http://www.greatglobalwarmingswindle.com/co2_...

Why do the AGW CRISIS peddlers want to deny plants their food?

"CO2 is Plant Food, not Pollution"
http://www.topix.net/forum/news/global-warmin...

CO2: The Greatest Scientific
Scandal of Our Time
by Zbigniew Jaworowski, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc.
http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2007/20...

WHY THE CON JOB?

The scientific community has a financial incentive to spout gloom and doom. Doing so generates oodles of money from our single sugar daddy, the federal government. No one ever leverages billions out of or Nation’s Capital (the current annual outlay for “global change” research is $4 billion) unless they threaten the worst. Then the political process takes credit for saving us from certain destruction. And the media, addicted to “if it bleeds, it leads” stories, without questioning, print the worst.

Don’t expect scientific peer review to stop this process. To gain expert-review status, a scientist has to also have oodles of federally funded research. Who would rationally derail this gravy train? So, papers arguing against the end of the world (which are obviously correct) are much harder to publish, while any problems with apocalyptic submissions are either glossed over or ignored.

All of which guarantees that my colleagues are going to continue to scream bloody climate murder with impunity. It is simple economics interacting with politics, as evinced by unquestioningly published absolute nonsense.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2...

Global warming has literally become a global religion with Al Gore rising to the status of a new “savior” to help cleanse the world of its CO2 sins.

The reality is that Gore is the biggest con artist of the century,

enabled by a politically biased and uncritical media promoting this pseudoscience
http://www.thevillagenews.com/story.php...

[our twisted sister]

You must be on that rocky mountain high stuff with the fantasy you are spewing. No it was LCN the local coal barron that raped the land, it was the coal barrons that polluted the rivers, it was the coal barrons that pollute the air. You live in the rockies we live in the filth of companies like LC&N. Come on over to our side of the country, I show you the pictures of the coal breakers with children pickers sitting in the black filth with the coal barrons burly men standing there with whips in their hands ready to whip any of the 6 year old children who aren't working fast enough. Come sit on our front porch as the filthy coal trucks go by in endless streams, black dust spewing into the air with each one. But then there is no convincing you corporate hogs who only care about unadulterated greed, screw the elderly, the children, as long as you put more money into your bank account. But you are like the dinosaurs, unable to even recognize that your end is near, just a few more months until the right wing corporate hog lovers are shown the door, may it hit you in the arse on your way out. The bottom line is, you support pollution, filth, cancer, greed and the corporate hogs, now go to your right wing Pickens rally and cheer on into the night, the asteroid is coming and your days are numbered and the earth and all mankind will be better for it, adios corporate puta.

engineer wrote:

Our twisted sister - since you seem to know so much about mining and the environement, I wonder where did you attain your degree? Is it mining engineering or environemental engineering?
You know what is really funny to me, is this attitude that it is everybody's fault but your own. YOU are the problem, I am the problem, we are ALL the problem. YOU took those mountains down, YOU polluted those rivers (I think thats BS, but thats a different discussion) right along with the rest of us.
I wonder if you have ever taken the time to visit a modern mine, or do you just see the effects of historic mining and think we still do it with picks and shovels, and no regulation. Have you ever read the multitude of laws mining companies follow?
You are missing the point entirely, which is not suprising. Thank goodness people like you don't make policy for this country.

[lawson]

I am 77 years old. During my life, I have observed that periodically the media and others promote some sort of catastrophic disaster looming on the horizon which requires immediate action (eg. more money). At one time, a forthcoming ice age- another- destruction of the ozone layer.
All had a common characteristic- they were based on very selected and dubious data which supported whatever theory being promoted and ignored any information which would conflict with that theory. The proponents generally refused to critically re-examine their ideas on an ongoing basis as new information became available.
Now we have "Global Warming" and "climate change". Deja Vu

[Norbert]

Only when the price of oil exceeds $80 or so per barrel and will indefinitely, according to one study, will turning coal into liquids be worthwhile. Other estimates are higher and lower, based on assumptions.
Coal indeed will never truly be ``clean'' but coal stocks have been cleaning up.
Bush has favored instead the non-subsidy subsidy of ethanol, through directives to use more and that nasty tariff on Brazilian production.
Bush sure likes those self-reliant agricultural businesses, eh.

[Bill]

lawson wrote:

I am 77 years old. During my life, I have observed that periodically the media and others promote some sort of catastrophic disaster looming on the horizon which requires immediate action (eg. more money). At one time, a forthcoming ice age- another- destruction of the ozone layer.

The media does. The scientific community doesn't. And the ozone thing was a genuine problem which is being addressed.

[Norbert]

Lawson is a little fact-challenged, so to speak. The ozone layer was real, it was addressed in international talks that included the U.S., and is a success story.
He is short on examples and facts, just passing off barroom wisdom.

[JRS]

lawson wrote:

I am 77 years old. During my life, I have observed that periodically the media and others promote some sort of catastrophic disaster looming on the horizon which requires immediate action (eg. more money). At one time, a forthcoming ice age- another- destruction of the ozone layer.
All had a common characteristic- they were based on very selected and dubious data which supported whatever theory being promoted and ignored any information which would conflict with that theory. The proponents generally refused to critically re-examine their ideas on an ongoing basis as new information became available.
Now we have "Global Warming" and "climate change". Deja Vu

Earth Day, Then and Now

Earth Day 1970 provoked a torrent of apocalyptic predictions. "We have about five more years at the outside to do something," ecologist Kenneth Watt declared to a Swarthmore College audience on April 19, 1970. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that "civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." "We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation," wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal Environment. The day after Earth Day, even the staid New York Times editorial page warned, "Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction." Very Apocalypse Now.

Three decades later, of course, the world hasn't come to an end; if anything, the planet's ecological future has never looked so promising. With half a billion people suiting up around the globe for Earth Day 2000, now is a good time to look back on the predictions made at the first Earth Day and see how they've held up and what we can learn from them. The short answer: The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly wrong.
http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/mn/042204_...

[goon]

ever go fishing in an orange river?

[goon]

JRS wrote:

<quoted text>
Earth Day, Then and Now
Earth Day 1970 provoked a torrent of apocalyptic predictions. "We have about five more years at the outside to do something," ecologist Kenneth Watt declared to a Swarthmore College audience on April 19, 1970. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that "civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." "We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation," wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal Environment. The day after Earth Day, even the staid New York Times editorial page warned, "Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction." Very Apocalypse Now.
Three decades later, of course, the world hasn't come to an end; if anything, the planet's ecological future has never looked so promising. With half a billion people suiting up around the globe for Earth Day 2000, now is a good time to look back on the predictions made at the first Earth Day and see how they've held up and what we can learn from them. The short answer: The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly wrong.
http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/mn/042204_...

What exactly is your point?

[JRS]

goon wrote:

<quoted text>What exactly is your point?

Then as now con men love to stand up and proclaim "if you don't give us money and power then you will die"

December 13, 2007

BALI, Indonesia – A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming at the United Nations climate conference. A panel of UN participants on Thursday urged the adoption of a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”

the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.”

The report stated there was an “urgent need” for a global tax in order for “damages [from climate change] to be kept from growing to truly catastrophic levels, especially in vulnerable countries of the developing world.”

The tens of billions of dollars per year generated by a global tax would “flow into a global Multilateral Adaptation Fund” to help nations cope with global warming, according to the report.

Schwank said a global carbon dioxide tax is an idea long overdue that is urgently needed to establish “a funding scheme which generates the resources required to address the dimension of challenge with regard to climate change costs.”

‘Diminish future prosperity’

However, ideas like a global tax and the overall UN climate agenda met strong opposition Thursday from a team of over 100 prominent international scientists who warned the UN that attempting to control the Earth’s climate was “ultimately futile.”

The scientists wrote,“The IPCC’s conclusions are quite inadequate as justification for implementing policies that will markedly diminish future prosperity. In particular, it is not established that it is possible to significantly alter global climate through cuts in human greenhouse gas emissions.” The scientists, many of whom are current or former members of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sent the December 13 letter to the UN Secretary-General.(See: Over 100 Prominent Scientists Warn UN Against ‘Futile’ Climate Control Efforts – LINK)

‘Redistribution of wealth’
The environmental group Friends of the Earth, in attendance in Bali, also advocated the transfer of money from rich to poor nations on Wednesday.

“A climate change response must have

at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources,”

said Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth.(LINK)

Calls for global regulations and taxes are not new at the UN. Former Vice President Al Gore, who arrived Thursday at the Bali conference, reiterated this week his call to place a price on carbon dioxide emissions.(LINK)

In 2000, then French President Jacques Chirac said the UN’s Kyoto Protocol represented

“the first component of an authentic global governance.”

Former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom said,

“Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide.”

Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper once dismissed Kyoto as a

“socialist scheme.”(LINK)

‘A bureaucrat’s dream’

MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen warned about these types of carbon regulations earlier this year.“Controlling carbon is a bureaucrat’s dream.

If you control carbon, you control life,”

Lindzen said in March 2007.(LINK)

In addition, many critics have often charged that proposed

tax and regulatory “solutions” were more important to the promoters of man-made

climate fears than the accuracy of their science.

Former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth reportedly said in 1990,“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”(LINK)
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/...

[engineer]

our twisted sister - just as I thought; you have the classic disconnect between how you live and how that effects the environment. You think your light comes from a light switch, your beef from Safeway.

You are unable to come to terms with your own impact, unable to even give one sentance towards it. Unable to give even one sentance of discussion.

You may consider me a dinosaur, or whatever, but I am actually out here working to make the world a better place.

You may accuse me of supporting pollution, but part of my job everyday is to limit/reduce pollution from my small operation. We may be the first zero-waste mine in the world in the next year. Quite an accomplishment, if you ask me.

Meanwhile, you sit and whine. You offer no solutions, nothing past the classic corporations fault. You gain no knowledge, no education in the industry you dislike. Your vision of mining is 100 years old; you have no basis for a current opinion.

[goon]

our contribution is negligible compared to China? Bigger picture is the emissions originate over there to make the stuff that is sent over here.So they are "our" emissions. You are trying to diminish the problem by blaming it on someone else.

Anyone who consumes stuff that is mass manufactured is contributing to the problem. What comes next from that understanding depends on your mindset.

[Bill]

goon wrote:

our contribution is negligible compared to China? Bigger picture is the emissions originate over there to make the stuff that is sent over here.So they are "our" emissions. You are trying to diminish the problem by blaming it on someone else.
Anyone who consumes stuff that is mass manufactured is contributing to the problem. What comes next from that understanding depends on your mindset.

That's an excellent point. We've inherited our "more is better" approach from an earlier era when manufacture was expensive and consumption displayed personal success. The more sensible approach now is "Less is More". Less cheap import junk, more quality. Less meat, better quality. Small home, tasteful decor. Etc. Status is a universal need, but when mass merchandising turns conspicuous consumption into a joke, it can be replaced by quality and taste.

[Mark Zakutansky]

Worst Op-Ed ever! Rendell and McGinty need to stop supporting Coal power and recognize that "Small is Profitable". This green cover of gasification of sequestration is unproven and will NOT work in PA.

If you really support coal use, get off your green horse Rendell and tell the people that you're actively working to increase global warming so Easton can one day be ocean front property.

[Um no]

goon wrote:

our contribution is negligible compared to China? Bigger picture is the emissions originate over there to make the stuff that is sent over here.So they are "our" emissions. You are trying to diminish the problem by blaming it on someone else.
Anyone who consumes stuff that is mass manufactured is contributing to the problem. What comes next from that understanding depends on your mindset.

I would argue that efficent mass manufacturing reduces overall emissions. Curbing demand would be impossible.

Personally, I'm sick of China getting off easy on everything. They claim they're a developing nation, but in reality they use that to their advantage with human rights, emissions, and even peacekeeping efforts around the world.

[Coal is King]

our twisted sister wrote:

I just base my conclusions on those little things called facts. Come on up here to the coal country honey, I will take you up in the mountains that are scarred, raped, trashed and polluted, I will take you to our rivers that run orange because of the corrosive effects of mine acid, no plants or fish will be found, I will take you to the cancer cluster families and let you tell the dying just how great this clean coal is, I will take you through the towns black with soot from the clean coal plants, with the thousands of filthy black dust spewing coal trucks on our streets everyday. I will take you to the mansion owned by the coal barron far away from where he does his filthy business, I will take you to the polluted stripping pits that have been loaded with toxins for decades, but I know, those little facts just can't get in the way of your pro pollution buddies. No, I wish they would just cover over all the coal, piles of culm, garbage and filth that the coal companies have heaped on this area for decades with the blessings of DEP. Sorry but simply spraying some deodorizer in your toilet after taking a dump doesn't make the pile any cleaner, your'e just masking the problem and that is what the robber barrons and DEP are attempting to do with their Kafka type rewording of pollution into the word clean. But of course you may believe just as DEP tells us, processed human pathogen laced feces, mercury, cadmium, arsenic laden dredge, arsenic and mercury laden flyash is as they say BENEFICIAL but here in the real world we know it is all a bunch of bull. Come live in our polluted towns for one week and you will most likely run away holding your nose and your breath but don't tell us how clean this is, we live in it and quite frankly it is nothing but filth.
<quoted text>

Look, like it or not coal is the here and now for three reasons. 1) The economy needs to remain strong and Coal is one of the few industries whose prices are keeping up with current inflation. You are correct it is not completely clean, but it gets cleaner everyday with new technology. 2) Anthracite is low sulfur, usually around .1% sulfur which is pretty clean. This is a resource that PA exports not only out of state but throughout the world. This brings in money, jobs, and stimulates the economy. 3) If we stop burning coal everytime you go to turn on that light switch you're going to have to wonder if it's going to come on. Ask Florida. They have brown-outs all summer.

Coal is king for now. Remember that.

[Fuel]

Um no wrote:

<quoted text>
I would argue that efficent mass manufacturing reduces overall emissions. Curbing demand would be impossible.
Personally, I'm sick of China getting off easy on everything. They claim they're a developing nation, but in reality they use that to their advantage with human rights, emissions, and even peacekeeping efforts around the world.

Well said. Especially about China.

[goon]

I'm curious of the origin of the "clean coal" term. Marketing company trying to clean up coals dirty image? I will investigate

[Frank]

With thousands of waste coal "Gob" sites across the country, a company has plans to recover and clean the coal and then remediate the land.

Geotec home page:
http://www.geo-tec.net/
Claims to the ability to remediate the land after the coal is moved from the waste coal site:
http://www.geo-tec.net/about_us.htm
PA operations in 2007 to prove their technology:
http://www.geo-tec.net/pwrpts/geotec_files/fr...