Category Archives: Fossil Fuels

Applied Chemistry

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Beakers by Move The Clouds

This month’s Sierra magazine includes a blurb about some of the lesser known impacts of fossil fuel use & global warming.

Half of the carbon dioxide we’ve put into the atmosphere since 1800 has been absorbed by the world’s oceans, increasing acidity by 30% and changing seawater to carbonic acid. In terms of pH (lower numbers equate to higher acidity), that means a drop of 0.1 from preindustrial levels [8.1] to today’s 8. If trends continue, ocean pH will be 7.7 by the end of the century. At 7.8, however, shell formation ceases. Barnacles, sea snails, and corals will decline precipitously.

In fact, the Caribbean is already impacted, as are sensitive Alaskan waters.

For those of you whom may have forgotten your high school chemistry: Like the Richter scale, pH is logarithmic and each whole number actually corresponds to a ten-fold change in the measured value. Thus the drop from a pH of 8.1 to 8 amounts to the cited 30% increase in acidity, or more specifically a 26% decline in alkalinity.

Carbonic acid is the product of carbon dioxide dissolved in water and it is present in beverages from seltzer to soda pop. Although it is a very mild acid, large quantities of can take their toll, and carbonic acid’s presence in ground water is responsible for the formation of limestone caves. Limestone is of course a sedimentary rock formed from the skeletons and shells of ancient sea-life…

It is interesting to note that since 1976 the EPA has regulated alteration of of pH as a pollutant, permitting variance of 0.2 from normal. This standard has undergone some scrutiny recently, and is likely too lax.

Coal Country

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This week, the highly anticipated documentary “Coal Country” hits theaters. And, surprise, big coal is not thrilled with its release. From mountaintop removal footage to interviews with those most impacted—local residents of Appalachia—Coal Country exposes and breaks down the business of coal mining into its dirty parts. For one, an American Lung Association study shows that 24,000 Americans die each year from from coal-fired plant pollution (grist).

In addition, coal-fired power plants are major emitters of CO2, NOX, and SO2 into the atmosphere; NOX & SOX factor into acid rain. Another source of pollution may occur before the coal is even burned. In the controversial practice of mountain-top removal, a devastating process that strips off the living layers of a mountain for the sake of simpler coal extraction, heaps of tailings and overburden are often dumped as fill into valleys below or placed into poorly managed heaps whose runoff pollutes local waterways. This impacts not only those immediately adjacent to the plant, but also those further downstream. Coal remains “cheap” however, and many developing countries like China have immense deposits at their disposal, leaving the world to ponder: Will we ever break out of our addiction to coal? One can only hope. The movie opens in King Coal’s back yard on July 11th.

TechTV

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logo-mit-techtv

If you’ve got time and bandwidth to kill, you might want to check out TechTV. In the spirit of OpenCourseWare, MIT hosts videos of various guest lectures and conferences. For instance, Energy forecast for the rest of the century. Although I don’t personally agree with all of the professor’s interpretations—many conflict with the more pragmatic views portrayed in “Sustainable Energy,” which is incidentally available via OCW—it was an interesting presentation, and could probably serve as a good introduction for the uninitiated nevertheless. I also appreciated his putting the scope of human influence in perspective by comparing it with natural flows. It reminded me of prolific environmental author Vaclav Smil’s excellent Cycles of Life : Civilization and the Biosphere.

Warming threats looms larger, but all is not lost

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Our friendly neighborhood researchers at MIT’s Joint program on the Science and Policy of “Global Change“—tomatah, tomahto—released updated predictions from their global warming climate model yesterday, and as the images below show, the results are a mixed bag. Although it seems we are now destined to experience one more degree Celsius of warming, whichever path we choose, the range and likelihood of greater increases in average global temperature are much higher if we continue with the status quo. On the other hand, if we adopt serious policies to shift toward efficiency and renewable resources, we may experience less warming than previously predicted; allowing for one degree of increase due to years of inaction.

The pictures represent possible climate impacts as an intuitive gambling wheel. Each image is clickable for a larger view. The top row features the updated model, and the bottom row the original 2001 model. The left column represents outcomes if we do not undertake serious measures to curb emissions, and the right column shows the impact of emissions thus far, and while in transition to a cleaner economy.

P.S. 1 degree Celsius is 9/5 of a degree (~2 degrees) Fahrenheit.

What? Greenhouse gasses, dangerous?

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The Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) has recently determined that greenhouse gasses(GHG) pose a danger to public health and welfare. This weeks announcement by the EPA enables the agency to put the Clean Air Act into action. The act defines the responsibility of the EPA as protecting and improving the nations air quality.  There is a 60 day public comment period which will be documented in the federal registrar.   Once the public comment period closes, the EPA will be required to take some sort of action.

In addition, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, is being reviewed in the house and hopefully will gain the traction needed to pass as the nation’s first commitment to reduce its GHG emissions.  The bill calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 20% below 2005 levels by 2020, 42% by 2030, and 83% by 2050. If the EPA were to enact this legislation, it would most likely address emissions from automobiles, power plants, and major industrial sources.

factories

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-17-epa-moves-toward-regulating/

Coen Brothers lampoon ‘clean’ coal claims.

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They’ve filmed murder mysteries in the middle of a Minnesota winter, Texas Border country manhunts and CIA shenanigans in the wilds of Washington D.C. Now the two-headed directing team known as the Brothers Coen are taking on the coal industry and their claims of ‘clean coal’ technology. Watch the first in a series of ads that imagine how household cleaning products would perform if they were made by the coal industry.

If the concept behind these ads seems familiar to those who follow the ad industry-it’s from industry hotshop Crispin Porter Bogusky, who was behind the ‘truth’ anti-smoking campaign that garnered so much attention over the last few years. Including this Super Bowl Ad ‘Shards o Glass’

Glad to see that when it comes to environmental messages, our ad industry friends can ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’

Can Coal be Clean? Cambridge-based Greatpoint says Yes

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For those of us at Warm Home Cool Planet old enough to remember the last energy crisis, the current talk about Clean Coal, and Coal Gasification feels like deja vu, all over again.

Coal-to-liquids technology isn’t new— according to the WSJ the process was developed in Weimar Germany in the 1920s. South Africa used the technology to escape sanctions during the Apartheid era. Today, coal-rich, oil-poor China is hot for coal-to-liquids.

Closer to home, Cambridge-based Great Point’s coal gasification process, which includes carbon sequestering (not simply for sake of carbon sequesting of course, but for use in enhanced oil recovery) looks pretty good on paper. Depending on how much biomass is used as a feedstock, Great Point claims that its Bluegas technology can actually be net carbon negative.

bluegas_process

The real question is will federal regulators, who during the Bush Administration relaxed clean-air standards to allow Coal plants to postpone cleaning up emissions, actually make utilities spend the additional money required to do what is theoretically possible to reduce the damage done by using coal?

Clean(er) Coal costs more than dirty coal. Does the political will exist to enforce cleaner technologies which will cause rate-payers to pay more for electricity? Obama has said he’s open to the idea of clean coal technology. At this point in time, however, the only thing ‘clean’ about it is the carbon sequestering the industry is obliged to do under state and federal regulations. As more facts indicate the true costs and effects of making ‘clean coal’ a widespread production mandate for our energy needs, political opinions will be sharpened and sides taken.

As the price of oil falls, interest in goofing around with coal, shale, and tar-sands will most likely wane, just as it did in the 70s. Greatpoint’s technology began life back when the Disco was King. Will we all be wearing silver unitards and popping food pills before pilot efforts turn into wide-scale deployment?

Wind power employs more people than the coal industry? Soon…

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One of our favourite energy blogs–Bright Green Blog–featured a story today comparing the number of jobs in  power creation to the number of jobs in the coal industry. Apparently Fortune claims the number of people in the wind power business was greater that entire coal industry (which generates almost 50% of our energy needs). After a torrent of emails, Fortune was forced to correct–the number of people involved in all aspects of wind power is roughly equivalent to the number of coal miners in the US. (85,000 v 81,000).

No it's not a new 12 meter yacht. It's a blade for a wind turbine-manufactured in Windsor. Colorado.

It's not a new 12 m yacht, but a wind turbine blade manufactured at the Vestas factory in Windsor, CO.

No matter what the final numbers, it brings to light an interesting debate-one that will continue as more alternative sources are needed–and become available– to put energy onto our national grid. Like other alternative energies, wind power is a growth industry. Therefore a great deal of capital–financial and human–is now being spent on building infrastructure for the industry. Coal industry employment, after experiencing a large decline in manpower when mining methods and energy generation technology improved throughout the 7os and 80s, has stayed relatively stable over the last 15 years. Until the concept of clean coal technology becomes a reality, it is unlikely the industry will add many jobs in the near future. It’s hard to compare the two industries because they are at such different stages of development.

Our economic recovery, however, is largely dependent on generating new jobs. Many of these jobs will come from the adoption and installation of new energy technologies and infrastructure. It also represents one of the most immediate ways to add high value jobs to our economy.

Until the last couple of years most of the breakthrough technology in alternative energy generation was from outside the US–principally Europe. The wind and solar industries have now reached critical mass in the US. As you can see from the photo above, we now have enough demand to develop and manufacture alternative energy generation technologies in the US.

Also, it should be pointed out that unlike coal and oil–which are commodities with market driven prices–renewable energy sources, like the wind and sun, can’t be ‘owned’. Which explains why they are still free.