Clean Coal Technology

[Racer X]

cbelt3 wrote:
makk- wrong
Mac- also wrong

You have to include the manufacturing of those lovely solar panels (lots of toxic chems and rare earths) and windmills (steel mills, Aluminum mills, Yucko !)

Hence my point.

It's sort of like those uber vegans running around wearing nice leather boots. Sure, you consume less, but you don't consume nothing.

don't forget the refining processes that turn the copper ore into copper wire and windings....

[Black Landlord]

karsen wrote:
[quote=Black Landlord]
[quote=karsen]
[quote=Black Landlord]
I'm surprised that nobody mentioned the environmental abomination unleashed when the tops are blown off of mountains to farm the coal.
Even if it burnt completely "clean" you have to get it out of the ground somehow.

Here's a positive spin on that... Driving up and down mountains kills your gas mileage!
Sorry to bring you back down- no picnic for drivers either:

Coal washing often results in thousands of gallons of contaminated water that looks like black sludge and contains toxic chemicals and heavy metals. The sludge, or slurry, is often contained behind earthen dams in huge sludge ponds. One of these ponds broke on February 26th, 1972 above the community of Buffalo Creek in southern West Virginia. Pittston Coal Company had been warned that the dam was dangerous, but they did nothing. Heavy rain caused the pond to fill up and it breached the dam, sending a wall of black water into the valley below. Over 132 million gallons of black wastewater raged through the valley. 125 people were killed, 1100 injured and 4000 were left homeless. Over 1000 cars and trucks were destroyed and the disaster did 50 million dollars in damage. The coal company called it an “act of God”.

http://www.mountainjusticesummer.org/facts/steps.php
It was a joke. See, no mountains = better gas mileage. It could be the marketing campaign of the coal industry.
I knew it was a joke, but I used it as a vehicle . . .

[mattkime]

Racer X wrote: don't forget the refining processes that turn the copper ore into copper wire and windings....

ug, OF COURSE any renewable energy source worth its salt recoups that!

[Racer X]

know anything about the refining of gold used in the super efficient electronic controllers for those wind farms? The generators with a 59% failure rate after 24 months? (windings burning out, one phase melts and shorts) The manufacturer has gag orders and NDAs preventing most people from talking about it. I have a friend at the power company who was visiting one of these wind farms in Eastern washington when one of the turbines shorted out and started smoking. hard to put it out when it is 240 feet up in the air.....

[mattkime]

>>The manufacturer has gag orders and NDAs preventing most people from talking about it.

ooo, conspiracy theory!

[JoeH]

> know anything about the refining of gold used in the super efficient electronic controllers for those wind farms?

I thought everyone knew silver was a better conductor than gold? Of course you have to protect it from corrosion more than gold. :dunno:

[karsen]

Anyone have inside information about proposed underwater turbines they've discussed putting in the Gulf Stream? Supposedly they could power the entire eastern seaboard.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...d=16713781

[Doc]

karsen wrote:
Anyone have inside information about proposed underwater turbines they've discussed putting in the Gulf Stream? Supposedly they could power the entire eastern seaboard.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story...d=16713781

It takes at least a decade for that kind of tech to get refined through small-scale testing and then start workign its way into regular use. Those things can do some serious ecological damage, so it's worth waiting to get it right.

CETO might be the better tech to pin hopes on. It's a wave-power technology that's completed small-scale testing in Australia, powering a desalinization plant. A larger facility is due to go online in 2011 and should supply energy to homes. There's talk of supplying 10% of Australia's power demands with wave power within the next 2 decades.

[Racer X]

mattkime wrote:
>>The manufacturer has gag orders and NDAs preventing most people from talking about it.

ooo, conspiracy theory!

Not that unusual. I think that when you get MCSE certification from M$, one of the things you agree to is that you wont say or write anything disparaging about M$. One of our IT guys told me about it when he got his MCSE cert a few years back. I have a NDA with work, being a contractor. It isn't that unusual.

The utilities buying the wind turbines deal directly with the manufacturer, and there are NDAs covering anything that comes up during their operation. Discussing anything outside a federal legal investigation is forbidden.