Comments on: A solution to the clean coal conundrum? http://www.blahblahtech.com/2009/01/a-solution-to-the-clean-coal-conundrum.html Tech' views that are 667% more interesting than the tech' news itself... Wed, 23 May 2012 09:47:07 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: David Bradley http://www.blahblahtech.com/2009/01/a-solution-to-the-clean-coal-conundrum.html#comment-5189 David Bradley Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:11:34 +0000 http://www.blahblahtech.com/?p=1145#comment-5189 Hey, thanks for reading Dan! I wasn't suggesting this was a solution, it's Wayne's idea, I was just chipping in with some thoughts on the chemistry. To be frank, however, coal is the lesser of many evils and seeing as we added scrubbers to remove sulfur (sic) compounds, it probably wouldn't do any harm to scrub the CO2 as well if it weren't too great an energy or infrastructure cost. Wind, solar, tidal, whatever, are not ready to displace conventional power stations on the scale required for us all to keep on blogging... Hey, thanks for reading Dan! I wasn’t suggesting this was a solution, it’s Wayne’s idea, I was just chipping in with some thoughts on the chemistry. To be frank, however, coal is the lesser of many evils and seeing as we added scrubbers to remove sulfur (sic) compounds, it probably wouldn’t do any harm to scrub the CO2 as well if it weren’t too great an energy or infrastructure cost. Wind, solar, tidal, whatever, are not ready to displace conventional power stations on the scale required for us all to keep on blogging…

]]> By: Dan http://www.blahblahtech.com/2009/01/a-solution-to-the-clean-coal-conundrum.html#comment-5181 Dan Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:28:36 +0000 http://www.blahblahtech.com/?p=1145#comment-5181 The idea of clean coal is going to be drawn out just like the concept of global warming. Do I believe that we can develop clean coal technology? Yes. I believe human ingenuity can do anything... but desire isn't the driving factor here... profit is. After the coal sludge catastrophe in Tennessee recently, how can anyone expect the power companies to do the right thing. Oil companies, coal companies and even the auto industry work from the model, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Improving profitabilty is the only thing they think of. So the question isn't can we produce energy from coal in a clean fashion, its will we. Tougher regulation is needed. The only reason that the coal plant in TN has that lake of sludge was because there were no regulations telling them what they need to do with it. The next problem is time... How long will it take to retrofit those existing plants... can we retrofit them without disrupting the current process? Throwing money at the problem doesn't solve it. CEO's are overpaid to do little work. I read David Bradley's blog and I think he has some great ideas... but it's not up to us directly... only indirectly. The power companies will only do what is required of them when we the people stand up, as our ancestors did and say, "No more." The idea of clean coal is going to be drawn out just like the concept of global warming. Do I believe that we can develop clean coal technology? Yes. I believe human ingenuity can do anything… but desire isn’t the driving factor here… profit is. After the coal sludge catastrophe in Tennessee recently, how can anyone expect the power companies to do the right thing.

Oil companies, coal companies and even the auto industry work from the model, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Improving profitabilty is the only thing they think of. So the question isn’t can we produce energy from coal in a clean fashion, its will we.

Tougher regulation is needed. The only reason that the coal plant in TN has that lake of sludge was because there were no regulations telling them what they need to do with it.

The next problem is time… How long will it take to retrofit those existing plants… can we retrofit them without disrupting the current process?

Throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve it. CEO’s are overpaid to do little work. I read David Bradley’s blog and I think he has some great ideas… but it’s not up to us directly… only indirectly.

The power companies will only do what is required of them when we the people stand up, as our ancestors did and say, “No more.”

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