Gasification converts coal into hydrogen and then the hydrogen is burnt in the power plant. A hydrogen fueled power plant pollutes less then a natgas fired facility of the same size. the conversion needs to take place at the plant (coal to hydrogen) site because the current natgas pipeline system cannot move the volume needed to power a facility. In other words to use them for hydrogen, pipelines would need to be 50% bigger in order to move the same volume of natgas. there are currently only 4 fuel types for base load facilities in the USA, coal, natgas, oil and Nuclear. A base load facility runs 24/7, something no solar facility or even wind can do. Solar plays a role in reducing the need for base load during the day, in California business are becoming more willing to pay the higher prices of Solar power by mounting the systems on thier buildings. By doing this it removes the building off of peak load during the day which is the highest price for electricty. However at night the building moves back onto the grid and the electricty then comes from a base load facility. So far storage technology has not reached a point where Solar could replace base load.

As for pollution, older, smaller plants need to be replaced. The small facilities are not cost effective to upgrade. These plants will continue to run until its owner is allowed to replace them. The reason for this is demand, you cannot take a facility off line until you have replacement power. No doubt Solar and Wind can play a role in replacing smaller base load facilities, but until the technology advances far enough to allow large amounts of energy to be stored, new base load facilities must be built. New facilities have much better pollution controls, so i find it interesting that old plants must continue to run because it takes so long to get its replacement approved.

Bob Grush

Which is the greater injustice: entrenched global poverty and inequality, or mountaintop removal and its community impacts? How you answer this question may shape your opinion on CCS.

CCS raises important questions about justice. The environmental justice movement fervently opposes CCS because of the very real injustices of coal mining, mountaintop removal, and the associated impacts upon communities. Groups and communities battling the impacts of coal extraction are understandably skeptical, and often outright opposed, to any new technology that uses coal.

CCS is interpreted differently by those who focus on the injustices of global poverty and inequality. Jeffrey Sachs, for example, is a major supporter of CCS. This technology is seen as a potential way for developing countries to retain access to affordable electricity to lift their populations out of entrenched poverty. China, for example, has brought hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty with coal-powered development just in the last few decades.

One of the greatest sources of passion and dedication among today’s youth climate movement is its commitment to justice. “Clean and just energy future” – this has become our vision and rallying cry. But what is a just energy future? Which injustices are we addressing? How do we get there, and which of the many injustices do we tackle first? If you believe that global poverty is as great (or greater) of an injustice as mountaintop removal, are you justified in supporting CCS?

Just how toxic is so-called clean coal? Very.

The Orwellian named clean coal and the pipe dream of large-scale carbon sequestration are yet another massive corporate subsidy for a centralized technology doomed to failure. Alas, politicians would much rather propose “solutions” like a $1BN coal-to-liquid plant for impoverished Mingo County, West Virginia than provide leadership in ways that deal with the core problems, not just symptoms of those problems. We would be much better off investing similar amounts of money in (as one example) a smart electric grid, negawatts, and other investments in energy efficiency.

Those who are going to be hardest hit by the inevitable carbon tax–the poor in Appalachia dependent on a carbon-extraction economy–needs solutions like an Appalachian Green Energy Empowerment Zone. We do them, and all of us, a disservice by funding programs that do not address the causes of global climate change and do not prepare the region for a post-carbon economy.

Compromising on false solutions such as CCS will only mean that we have to fight against them again later, but that fight will be in the coal fields, in Appalachia, in Southeast Ohio, on Reservations and in the poorest parts of our country, and the world. I’d rather use our resources to fight it now, while we have the power of many of the big greens (Greenpeace! Sierra Club! Energy Action!) and a real chance to promote large-scale solutions and investments in efficiency, renewables and clean, smart transportation.

Anything like CCS or “clean coal” (it doesn’t exist!!) will only mean we are leaving the dirty work of fighting against new plants, increased extraction and mountaintop removal and piles of wretched waste to communities who, by the time it gets to them, will undoubtedly be fighting for their lives, literally. They have enough problems already with illness, death and poverty due to our last 100 years of dependence on coal. This is our chance to end the cycle of poverty and illness from our energy use and invest those billions of dollars in solutions that are good for everyone, not just lobbyists and politicians too scared of jeopardizing their own self-serving power structures to demand real solutions in solidarity with the suffering of our land.

Richard is right, the people who post on this blog can do whatever they please. But if you keep choosing pie-throwing over strategically pushing the climate solutions movement forward, you’re going to keep making Julie look right, too.

We learned the hard way in California with Proposition 87 that avoiding talking about the multitudes of benefits from progressive policies will lead to their defeat: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/03/20/vanjones/. If we stress how a moratorium on coal will protect communities, improve health, and give us a shot at beating climate change, AND we make sure that progressive policies are in place to correct for any potential increases in electricity price, then we have positive politics. We can correct for energy prices, but we can’t correct for lost mountains, sick children, or a climate that is spiraling out of control. So let’s make sure we continue to call out CCS for what it is, a false solution, and continue to hammer in that the true way to address our societal ills is with a just and clean energy economy.

Now, in defense of little kids, it was a little kid who saw that the emperor had no clothes. And maybe it takes someone who has no money to make off of coal to say that coal is killing people. Carbon Sequest-crap-tion doesn’t change that (even it it existed) (which it is still years off) (and billions of dollars) (that could be spent on renewables).

Coal also causes massive water shortages. Because a 500 Megawatt coal plant (med-large plant) uses 2.2 billion gallons of water a year. And we’re in drought here in the Southeast. Not a lot of water to spare! http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02b.html Carbon Sequest-crap-tion doesn’t change the way a coal plant depletes and poisons water.

Now I understand that people will believe that they want to hear. And I choose to believe that Ranger Rick would be against Clean Coal (no such thing!) And you know what? I also think that Santa Claus would be against Clean Coal. That’s why he uses it to punish people.

The statement I made on my post at Breakthrough,

“The fact is that the majority of serious studies on the matter have concluded that rapid deployment of CCS must be a central tenet of any sound global energy policy.”

came from the Clean Air Task Force’s literature review of CCS, which I cited on in the post. A summary of their conclusions:

“The Clean Air Task Force (“CATF”) has reviewed and evaluated numerous expert studies of the
potential role of CCS in the world’s future energy systems. In general, most experts agree that
without utilization of fossil fuels and CCS, climate change mitigation is likely to be more costly and less effective than if CCS systems are available in a timely manner. In addition, many studies suggest that a world without significant fossil fuel and CCS is a world with significant new nuclear capacity. Informed by these results, and its own analysis, CATF has concluded that CCS is a likely to be key energy technology for mitigating climate change. Rapid deployment of CCS therefore must be a central tenant of any sound global energy policy.”

As I say in my post at Breakthrough, the Greenpeace study that Richard Graves mentions above comes to the opposite conclusion of the majority of international studies of CCS, including those done by the IPCC. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong, but I think it’s important to put things in context.

And while I agree with Richard that condescending comments like Julie’s are unproductive, I have to wonder about the quality of a blog that would censor attempts to add balance to the discussion.

I think your condescension towards the contributors to It’s Getting Hot in Here is both misplaced and quite frankly insulting. The contributors range from those on the front lines of the fight against global warming, like Dana, whose experiences seeing the horrors of mountaintop removal is all too far from many of the sessions in the halls of the capital where these decisions are made.

Likewise, you said, “Ever think they might know more than you? Jesus, a bunch of kids write this blog and they have a lot to learn.”
Tell that to Greenpeace International that just released a report to the exact same effect as this post. Are you going to condescend to them the same way?
“Greenpeace International has released a new report, entitled “False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate,” which proves once and for all that “clean coal” is nothing more than a slogan aimed at greenwashing the image of an irremediably dirty energy source.”
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/new-greenpeace-report-exposes

Likewise, NWF is an organization that should be able to explain their position to their own activists on their email lists - as their staff members have their own accounts.

Finally, it was a bunch of “kids” who pushed the green groups and the presidential candidates to find a backbone and match the targets called for by science, namely 80% by 2050, and the largest lobby day on climate in US history. So please explain why I should trust the quality of your statement.

-Richard