Clean coal?

[Wayne Tracker]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-blow-to-%E2%80%98clean-coal%E2%80%99-flawed-plant-will-burn-gas-instead/ar-BBDqA6V

[benj]

On 06/29/2017 12:32 AM, Wayne Tracker wrote:
> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-blow-to-%E2%80%98clean-coal%E2%80%99-flawed-plant-will-burn-gas-instead/ar-BBDqA6V
>
Clean coal is still an unsolved problem. The problem is not coal miners
out of work, the problem is that as gas and oil begins to run out, if
you don't have an alternative lined up you'd better start taking lessons
on how to drive a pair of oxen to pull a cart like the old days.

R's should ignore all the coal miners back to work crap and put some
money into developing an answer where there is real serious amounts of
energy to used. Green fantasies of wind and solar and the halcyon days
of the wonderful middle ages will not turn out as wonderful as they
imagine. Trust me. Read history.

[Defiant]

The problem with solar is that it only works when the sun shines, and
it requires a lot of land area per GW. Wind only works when the wind
blows, requires a lot of land area per GW, and the ultra-low-frequency
noise is proven to cause illness in humans and animals. Not to mention
the number of birds that haplessly wander into the whirling blades and
end up windkill. The fact is the only renewable that generates power
24/7 is hydro, and it floods lot of land area, although it also
creates new habitats. Problem is, there isn't enough rivers to dam to
generate the electricity our civilization uses.

You want clean power that will last for thousands of years? Nuclear
is it. But the left hates that "N" word more than the other "N" word.
And the fact is, nuclear power can't power aircraft. You still need
good ol' hydrocarbons, unless you want to set travel back a century
where visiting another country meant a week or two on a ship, and
going coast-to-coast in the US meant a few days on a train. Even
leftards will start to balk when presented with those options.

[benj]

On 6/29/2017 11:39 PM, Defiant wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jun 2017 22:19:42 -0400, benj wrote:
>
>> On 06/29/2017 12:32 AM, Wayne Tracker wrote:
>>> https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/in-blow-to-%E2%80%98clean-coal%E2%80%99-flawed-plant-will-burn-gas-instead/ar-BBDqA6V
>>>
>> Clean coal is still an unsolved problem. The problem is not coal miners
>> out of work, the problem is that as gas and oil begins to run out, if
>> you don't have an alternative lined up you'd better start taking lessons
>> on how to drive a pair of oxen to pull a cart like the old days.
>>
>> R's should ignore all the coal miners back to work crap and put some
>> money into developing an answer where there is real serious amounts of
>> energy to used. Green fantasies of wind and solar and the halcyon days
>> of the wonderful middle ages will not turn out as wonderful as they
>> imagine. Trust me. Read history.
>
> The problem with solar is that it only works when the sun shines, and
> it requires a lot of land area per GW. Wind only works when the wind
> blows, requires a lot of land area per GW, and the ultra-low-frequency
> noise is proven to cause illness in humans and animals. Not to mention
> the number of birds that haplessly wander into the whirling blades and
> end up windkill. The fact is the only renewable that generates power
> 24/7 is hydro, and it floods lot of land area, although it also
> creates new habitats. Problem is, there isn't enough rivers to dam to
> generate the electricity our civilization uses.

This is exactly correct! And of course hydro has been widely if not
completely exploited by humans do date. The "idea men" of the left just
come up with old ideas (like windmills) ignoring the fact that this
"solution" was tried and rejected as practical centuries before. Sure
wind and solar are good for SOME things. But as replacement for fossil
energy is just a drooling dream. The left is fixated on old ideas being
new again. They insist that communism is the future in spite of the
largest social experiment in history proving it is a failed ideology.
The problem with solar and wind is not only how much energy is there,
but also a battery problem.

> You want clean power that will last for thousands of years? Nuclear
> is it. But the left hates that "N" word more than the other "N" word.
> And the fact is, nuclear power can't power aircraft. You still need
> good ol' hydrocarbons, unless you want to set travel back a century
> where visiting another country meant a week or two on a ship, and
> going coast-to-coast in the US meant a few days on a train. Even
> leftards will start to balk when presented with those options.

No they won't. They DREAM of the happy days of the middle ages before
the smelly industrial revolution when everyone was safe and happy!

Obviously one totally practical and viable option is nuclear power.
Which is better, using the nuclear fuel to blow each other up or power
our homes and industry? Of course people are scared of Nuclear because
of the danger of Chernobyl or Fukushima. Well, here's what they don't
tell you. Power plants are dangerous because given the choice of
building a nuclear power plant that is totally safe even in the event of
extreme failure or building one that is dangerous as hell but ALSO
produces materials from which you can build nuclear bombs, guess which
one gets built?

Dumbass leftards think they are so "caring" yet you've heard not a peep
from them about safe nukes. These were designed decades ago! I'm still
waiting for the word "Thorium" to come out of the leftist lib's yaps.

Cripes! Wind powered ocean travel! How "GREEN". I think we got Nobel
material here. Worked for Algore.

[Defiant]

I'm actually a big fan of solar. Wind, not so much. Solar energy
SHOULD be widely used, but it does only work when the sun shines
so another source of power that works in the dark is needed to take
over during night, cloudy days, etc.

Solar is free, unlimited power, and environmentally benign, unlike
wind farms. IMO, EVERY home, business, and other structure with a
roof should be covered with solar panels. The land is already being
used for the structure, and all a roof is for is too keep the sun
and rain out/off of whatever is beneath. Might as well put that wasted
surface area to good use.

>
>
>
>> You want clean power that will last for thousands of years? Nuclear
>> is it. But the left hates that "N" word more than the other "N" word.
>> And the fact is, nuclear power can't power aircraft. You still need
>> good ol' hydrocarbons, unless you want to set travel back a century
>> where visiting another country meant a week or two on a ship, and
>> going coast-to-coast in the US meant a few days on a train. Even
>> leftards will start to balk when presented with those options.
>
> No they won't. They DREAM of the happy days of the middle ages before
> the smelly industrial revolution when everyone was safe and happy!
>
> Obviously one totally practical and viable option is nuclear power.
> Which is better, using the nuclear fuel to blow each other up or power
> our homes and industry? Of course people are scared of Nuclear because
> of the danger of Chernobyl or Fukushima. Well, here's what they don't
> tell you. Power plants are dangerous because given the choice of
> building a nuclear power plant that is totally safe even in the event of
> extreme failure or building one that is dangerous as hell but ALSO
> produces materials from which you can build nuclear bombs, guess which
> one gets built?
>
> Dumbass leftards think they are so "caring" yet you've heard not a peep
> from them about safe nukes. These were designed decades ago! I'm still
> waiting for the word "Thorium" to come out of the leftist lib's yaps.
>
> Cripes! Wind powered ocean travel! How "GREEN". I think we got Nobel
> material here. Worked for Algore.

The problem with nuclear is that the technology that is currently allowed
to be used dates from the 1050's. Pressurized or boiling water, with
dense cores that require active cooling even when shut down. There are
proven reactor technologies that are generations ahead of those old water
cooled technologies, and they are passively safe. Go check out General Atomics
GT-HMR reactor. It is literally impossible for this reactor design to melt
down. You couldn't make it melt down even if you deliberately tried to
sabotage it and make it do so. Another passively safe technology is molten
salt cooled fast fission reactors. Again, meltdown-proof, and this technology
has the advantage that the spent fuel only contains short-lived isotopes
rather than the long-lived isotopes that make current spent fuel dangerous
for millions of years. Spent fuel from a fast fission reactor that has
undergone maximum burnup only has short lived isotopes that decay away
in a few hundred years, so the spent fuel doesn't have to be stored
indefinitely. A fast fission reactor can even burn up current "spent"
fuel from water moderated reactors, so besides generating power it makes
a good spent fuel disposal device. All that is needed to bring these
technologies to fruition is political will and money.

Speaking of money and political will, if both had been used to create
a Manhattan Project or Space Race scale project to develop a working
fusion reactor we probably wouldn't be talking about any of this right
now. We'd have cheap energy with essentially limitless fuel that can
not only generate electricity, but also be used to cheaply crack
hydrogen from water and cheaply desalinate water for areas with fresh
water shortages like, say, California and the middle east.

[Wayne Tracker]

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-germany-produced-record-35-percent-of-power-from-renewables-in-first-half-2017-7

[benj]

Solar is really a battery problem. Getting much better but not solved.
And Solar works just great for low power say mountain top weather
stations. But covering texas with solar panels to power the U.S.? I
don't think so.

> Solar is free, unlimited power, and environmentally benign, unlike
> wind farms. IMO, EVERY home, business, and other structure with a
> roof should be covered with solar panels. The land is already being
> used for the structure, and all a roof is for is too keep the sun
> and rain out/off of whatever is beneath. Might as well put that wasted
> surface area to good use.

Roof is good, but solar not free. Panels cost and create nasty pollution
to build. And based upon my solar panels, you'd think they'd last
forever but they don't in a few years they get seriously degraded.
Decent output takes tracking which is another fail point. But like I
said for some things they can't be beat.

EXACTLY my point! Non-meltdown technology developed a long time ago But
given the choice between safe nuclear power or using your power plant to
make materials for atomic bombs, the choice goes (went) with blowing
things up.

> Speaking of money and political will, if both had been used to create
> a Manhattan Project or Space Race scale project to develop a working
> fusion reactor we probably wouldn't be talking about any of this right
> now. We'd have cheap energy with essentially limitless fuel that can
> not only generate electricity, but also be used to cheaply crack
> hydrogen from water and cheaply desalinate water for areas with fresh
> water shortages like, say, California and the middle east.

Unfortunately cheap power would upset a lot of establishment apple carts
so one can expect a lot of foot-dragging as is obviously the case. End
result is lot of money for show (Stellarators, tokamak, laser fusion)
and none for things that might work cheaply (cold fusion, low energy
transmutations). Energy runs civilization and he who controls the energy
controls civilization.

[Lord Valve]

I'm surprised you knew anything at all about Thorium. In
the 50s, it was the nuclear power of choice among science
fiction authors (many of whom were in fact scientists)
for future power technology. It's damn near forgotten now,
for some reason. It's probably been 50 years since I've
seen/heard anyone even use the word.

There is, however, the energy density problem - petroleum
is very good in that department, and it's not likely we're
going to see electric-powered airliners - ever, if at all.
Might get some electric-powered dirigibles or blimps, though.
Nice big surface on top for solar cells, too. Slow, however.
We're going to need petroleum-based fuels for a long time,
unless we can come up with a way to produce a whole lot of
electricity with a device which weighs very little, or unless
batteries get way better than they are. And they're not bad,
now, since you can indeed have a high-performance vehicle with
decent range like the Tesla. The electricity to fill those
batteries has to come from somewhere, though, and unless we
make it with geothermal or hydroelectric technology - which
we can, right now - it's not going to do us any good to use
coal for power generation, unless we can clean it up. New
plants will be much cleaner than the old ones, assuredly.
A technology which shows promise is biodiesel; if we can
make a petroleum-equivalent fuel from waste biomass, that
solves two problems at once. We can do this now, but not
cheaply. Diesel motors run very clean now (Volkswagen's
hustle notwithstanding) and they are ideal for heavy use
like trucking, farm equipment, and power generation.

Want *real* solar power? The power generating facilities
need to be in orbit, where the sun shines 24/7/365. Power
so generated would be beamed down as microwaves, received
at antenna farms and converted to whichever flavor is most
useful. The initial outlay for this will be horrendous, of
course, but it's *feasible*. Nuclear reactors can work in
orbit too, either delivering power by microwaves or by lasers.
We have a screamin' shitload of resources just loafing around
the sun in the asteroid belt, and we should be looking in
that direction, not at the Moon, which is at the bottom of
a gravity hole just like the Earth. Microwave and laser energy
travels well and loses little of itself in the process. With
massive amounts available, inefficiencies (always to be striven
against) are less consequential.

We can do a FUCK of a lot better than the libtard feelgood
unicorn-fart energy hustles we've seen so far, or criminal
scams like Solyndra.

Lord Valve, ThD
Futurist

[Les Cargill]

benj wrote:
> On 7/2/2017 2:16 AM, Defiant wrote:

<snip>

>
> EXACTLY my point! Non-meltdown technology developed a long time ago
> But given the choice between safe nuclear power or using your power
> plant to make materials for atomic bombs, the choice goes (went) with
> blowing things up.
>

I suppose it then depends on which side of von Neumann's game
theory concerning MAD you're on.

Roughly 4% of human population was killed during the Second World War.
How safe is that? We demonstrated ( with iron bombs left over from
WWII ) continuous saturation bombing during Rolling Thunder in
Vietnam.

The country's recovered nicely.

Besides, Teller led the vanguard of nukes away from plutonium...
gosh, over fifty years ago.

All the cases in which Bad Things have happened with domestic nuclear
power were , in the case of Chernobyl, *political*[1] ( unsafe behavior
in service of an ironically ill-advised safety demo ) and site
problems ( Fukishima Diachu ) .

[1] the story goes that a vodka-soaked and terrified
mid-level political apparachnik woke the operators up to to do
the test. It was purest careerism...

Those old 1950s containment vessel designs have been obsolete since
before they were deployed. But hey, GE brings good things to life....

>> Speaking of money and political will, if both had been used to
>> create a Manhattan Project or Space Race scale project to develop a
>> working fusion reactor we probably wouldn't be talking about any of
>> this right now. We'd have cheap energy with essentially limitless
>> fuel that can not only generate electricity, but also be used to
>> cheaply crack hydrogen from water and cheaply desalinate water for
>> areas with fresh water shortages like, say, California and the
>> middle east.
>
> Unfortunately cheap power would upset a lot of establishment apple
> carts

As has hydraulic fracturing.

A lot of this goes back to diesel turbine warship technology and
the Coaling Problem from pre-dreadnought battleships. The Brits went
slightly insane filibustering in oil-bearing regions in the service
of keeping the RN moving.

A good historical demarcation point for the end of this is the removal
of Mossagedh in Iran in 1953.

But seriously, folks....

https://www.amazon.com/Peace-End-All-Ottoman-Creation/dp/0805088091

> so one can expect a lot of foot-dragging as is obviously the
> case. End result is lot of money for show (Stellarators, tokamak,
> laser fusion) and none for things that might work cheaply (cold
> fusion, low energy transmutations). Energy runs civilization and he
> who controls the energy controls civilization.
>
>

It's pretty bleeping far from in control.

The last oil boom that ended about 2014, much on the Eagleford Shale,
was financed by zero-coupon bond funding which has been estimated
( without any provenance; a guess ) at $4T.

So that's about $4T worth of whistling past the graveyard... and I
can see the Devon Energy building from my house...

The quantity of investment necessary to implement fusion is completely
unknown. I very seriously doubt that $4T would go very far. It's an
inside straight that depends on a card that hasn't been printed yet.

--
Les Cargill

[benj]

Problem was it didn't make bomb materials. First things first!

> There is, however, the energy density problem - petroleum
> is very good in that department, and it's not likely we're
> going to see electric-powered airliners - ever, if at all.
> Might get some electric-powered dirigibles or blimps, though.
> Nice big surface on top for solar cells, too. Slow, however.
> We're going to need petroleum-based fuels for a long time,
> unless we can come up with a way to produce a whole lot of
> electricity with a device which weighs very little, or unless
> batteries get way better than they are. And they're not bad,
> now, since you can indeed have a high-performance vehicle with
> decent range like the Tesla. The electricity to fill those
> batteries has to come from somewhere, though, and unless we
> make it with geothermal or hydroelectric technology - which
> we can, right now - it's not going to do us any good to use
> coal for power generation, unless we can clean it up. New
> plants will be much cleaner than the old ones, assuredly.
> A technology which shows promise is biodiesel; if we can
> make a petroleum-equivalent fuel from waste biomass, that
> solves two problems at once. We can do this now, but not
> cheaply. Diesel motors run very clean now (Volkswagen's
> hustle notwithstanding) and they are ideal for heavy use
> like trucking, farm equipment, and power generation.

Yes batteries are the big problem. They are much improved though. I
replaced the Lead Gelcell in my hedge trimmer with Li-Ion and they are
pretty darn nice! VERY light and about the same capacity as the old lead
ones. Not quite there for large scale solar power, but like "clean coal"
they are about half way there.

> Want *real* solar power? The power generating facilities
> need to be in orbit, where the sun shines 24/7/365. Power
> so generated would be beamed down as microwaves, received
> at antenna farms and converted to whichever flavor is most
> useful. The initial outlay for this will be horrendous, of
> course, but it's *feasible*. Nuclear reactors can work in
> orbit too, either delivering power by microwaves or by lasers.
> We have a screamin' shitload of resources just loafing around
> the sun in the asteroid belt, and we should be looking in
> that direction, not at the Moon, which is at the bottom of
> a gravity hole just like the Earth. Microwave and laser energy
> travels well and loses little of itself in the process. With
> massive amounts available, inefficiencies (always to be striven
> against) are less consequential.

Problem is converting the down beam to power. A microwave radio is one
thing but efficient power conversion at those freguencies is something
else. If the problem could be solved on could run it in reverse instead
of the "space ladder" to power things into orbit.

> We can do a FUCK of a lot better than the libtard feelgood
> unicorn-fart energy hustles we've seen so far, or criminal
> scams like Solyndra.

Obviously. That's because Libtards just do fantasy and don't do
quantity. They think they are "idea men" even though they flunked every
science course they ever took (if they even did). Typical was their idea
to 'burn food". Namely to pass laws to force the use of alcohol from
corn in gasoline. Typical non-thinking lib disaster. World corn prices
doubled with the fucked up market, a million African babies start to
starve to death, and nobody can reverse it because libs wrote the law so
that the corn could not be withdrawn from fuel and put back on the
market. Can you imagine the disaster with these clowns in charge of the
whole world like they want? Oh wait we did try that! It was called
"communism". Remember? Only North Korea and U.S. Democrats still think
it works.

[benj]

On 7/4/2017 9:54 AM, Les Cargill wrote:
> benj wrote:
>> On 7/2/2017 2:16 AM, Defiant wrote:
> <snip>
>>
>> EXACTLY my point! Non-meltdown technology developed a long time ago
>> But given the choice between safe nuclear power or using your power
>> plant to make materials for atomic bombs, the choice goes (went) with
>> blowing things up.
>>
>
> I suppose it then depends on which side of von Neumann's game
> theory concerning MAD you're on.
>
> Roughly 4% of human population was killed during the Second World War.
> How safe is that? We demonstrated ( with iron bombs left over from
> WWII ) continuous saturation bombing during Rolling Thunder in
> Vietnam.

I believe the political theory is that there is no shortage of excess
people. In fact some think there are way too many.

> The country's recovered nicely.

See? What I said.

> Besides, Teller led the vanguard of nukes away from plutonium...
> gosh, over fifty years ago.

Safe nukes was worked out (even patents) longer ago than that.

> All the cases in which Bad Things have happened with domestic nuclear
> power were , in the case of Chernobyl, *political*[1] ( unsafe behavior
> in service of an ironically ill-advised safety demo ) and site
> problems ( Fukishima Diachu ) .

Well, obviously people are the problem (Let's run a little "safety"
test...Chernobyl or "I've got an idea, lets store the rods that always
have to stay underwater on the mountain top and put the back-up
generators that power the water pumps down in pits on the edge of the
ocean! Duh.) Clearly given these examples you want a system that simply
CANNOT melt down no matter how stupid people are!

Oil companies, utilites etc. do pretty well in spite of some rough
spots. If they wanted $15 a gallon gas I assure you they could make it
happen. Remember that USA is not a victim of OPEC but a MEMBER of OPEC.

> The last oil boom that ended about 2014, much on the Eagleford Shale,
> was financed by zero-coupon bond funding which has been estimated
> ( without any provenance; a guess ) at $4T.
>
> So that's about $4T worth of whistling past the graveyard... and I
> can see the Devon Energy building from my house...
>
> The quantity of investment necessary to implement fusion is completely
> unknown. I very seriously doubt that $4T would go very far. It's an
> inside straight that depends on a card that hasn't been printed yet.

Exactly. Which is why need to plan NOW for ways to give us so many years
of breathing space to "invent" how to really solve the problem.
Note problems begin earlier than one thinks because Oil and gas prices
start to go up long before it's all gone. "clean coal" could give us a
couple hundred years. Safe nukes would also give some time as well. One
thing certain is that the Libtard ideas of a return to the idyllic
middle ages will not end well.

[Les Cargill]

benj wrote:
> On 7/4/2017 9:54 AM, Les Cargill wrote:
>> benj wrote:
>>> On 7/2/2017 2:16 AM, Defiant wrote:
>> <snip>
>>>
>>> EXACTLY my point! Non-meltdown technology developed a long time
>>> ago But given the choice between safe nuclear power or using your
>>> power plant to make materials for atomic bombs, the choice goes
>>> (went) with blowing things up.
>>>
>>
>> I suppose it then depends on which side of von Neumann's game
>> theory concerning MAD you're on.
>>
>> Roughly 4% of human population was killed during the Second World
>> War. How safe is that? We demonstrated ( with iron bombs left over
>> from WWII ) continuous saturation bombing during Rolling Thunder
>> in Vietnam.
>
> I believe the political theory is that there is no shortage of
> excess people. In fact some think there are way too many.
>

That was before population started slowing down.

>> The country's recovered nicely.
>
> See? What I said.
>

No, I mean regardless of the stupefying level of munitions expenditure,
Vietnam is doing a whole lot better now.

I suppose somebody, somewhere should have seen that mess coming but it's
not clear to me than anyone did.

>> Besides, Teller led the vanguard of nukes away from plutonium...
>> gosh, over fifty years ago.
>
> Safe nukes was worked out (even patents) longer ago than that.
>

No, I mean that the current crop of thermonuclear devices only
depend on breeders peripherally, if they do at all. So
power reactors should have been decoupled from weapons development
politically long ago, at least for the US.

But that's only true if you care about the waste.

>> All the cases in which Bad Things have happened with domestic
>> nuclear power were , in the case of Chernobyl, *political*[1] (
>> unsafe behavior in service of an ironically ill-advised safety demo
>> ) and site problems ( Fukishima Diachu ) .
>
> Well, obviously people are the problem (Let's run a little "safety"
> test...Chernobyl or "I've got an idea, lets store the rods that
> always have to stay underwater on the mountain top and put the
> back-up generators that power the water pumps down in pits on the
> edge of the ocean! Duh.) Clearly given these examples you want a
> system that simply CANNOT melt down no matter how stupid people are!
>

Well, we have those you know.

But they don't. We just forget (or don't see) the failures, unless
we have to.

If they wanted $15 a gallon gas I assure you they could make it
> happen. Remember that USA is not a victim of OPEC but a MEMBER of
> OPEC.
>
>> The last oil boom that ended about 2014, much on the Eagleford
>> Shale, was financed by zero-coupon bond funding which has been
>> estimated ( without any provenance; a guess ) at $4T.
>>
>> So that's about $4T worth of whistling past the graveyard... and I
>> can see the Devon Energy building from my house...
>>
>> The quantity of investment necessary to implement fusion is
>> completely unknown. I very seriously doubt that $4T would go very
>> far. It's an inside straight that depends on a card that hasn't
>> been printed yet.
>
> Exactly. Which is why need to plan NOW for ways to give us so many
> years of breathing space to "invent" how to really solve the
> problem. Note problems begin earlier than one thinks because Oil and
> gas prices start to go up long before it's all gone.

There's no telling how long it'll last. It's been proven to be
completely tractable by innovation. And that holds... until it
doesn't any more.

> "clean coal"
> could give us a couple hundred years.

If there is "clean coal" - it's a charged atmosphere so chances are
everybody is lying. And you're not bringing back the coal
production in the Appalachians to save those communities no matter what.

coal's days have been numbered for over 100 years now.

"Clean coal" is an incoherent concept and it means a lot of different
technologies.

> Safe nukes would also give some
> time as well.

You'd think we'd at least try it.

> One thing certain is that the Libtard

Oh eff the aitch out of that stupid, stupid word. We're
all some sort of 'tard if you prefer such really crude
expression.

I'm probably more of a Libtard than a Conservitard , but
I cant track the targets well enough to tell any more.

> ideas of a return
> to the idyllic middle ages will not end well.
>
>
>

It's not a return to the Medieval they want; it's a return to
monolithic industry, where the government can call the steel people
and the coal people and get things done.

They're a lawyer-tribe - they don't care if it works, they just wanna
know who's accountable.

The want JK Galbraith's world back. Just don't tell them
that that is how things like the East River catching fire happened.

--
Les Cargill

[benj]

Until it doesn't. One can understand the coming problems before they get
here and have some options ready or one can just sit around dreaming and
then when it hits the fan start screaming for government to start
training millions how to hook up teams of oxen.

>> "clean coal"
>> could give us a couple hundred years.
>
> If there is "clean coal" - it's a charged atmosphere so chances are
> everybody is lying. And you're not bringing back the coal
> production in the Appalachians to save those communities no matter what.

Of course there is no "clean coal" because it's an unsolved problem.
Actually about a half-solved problem. But the key is that it's problem
easier to solve (most likely) than say fusion power. It's all about
buying time. The Trump idea to bring back Appalachia is pure political
nuts. The LAST thing we want to see is bringing back coal mining because
that means that the energy problem is not yet solved. Best would be to
invent clean coal and never have to use it because finally a viable
energy source at the levels needed for future civilization (go look at
electricity use over the years) have been found and developed.

> coal's days have been numbered for over 100 years now.

Unless you start to run out of oil. Green fantasies won't do.

> "Clean coal" is an incoherent concept and it means a lot of different
> technologies.

Yep and it's half unsolved. So what you do you think? Just put miners
back to work to get votes or spend the money trying to turn coal into a
source that can safely be used once oil and gas starts to dwindle and
prices go up?

>> Safe nukes would also give some
>> time as well.
>
>
> You'd think we'd at least try it.
>
>> One thing certain is that the Libtard
>
> Oh eff the aitch out of that stupid, stupid word. We're
> all some sort of 'tard if you prefer such really crude
> expression.

Hey this is the internet and I've learned one rule: You always have to
have the latest version. Think of it as modern net jargon! And anyway
fits nicely with the really stupid ideas that liberal greens keep
pumping out without regard to facts, logic or reason.

> I'm probably more of a Libtard than a Conservitard , but
> I cant track the targets well enough to tell any more.

Me they call me a "winger". Now that could obviously be "left" or
"right" but these days your audience is just supposed to know which you
mean.

> It's not a return to the Medieval they want; it's a return to
> monolithic industry, where the government can call the steel people
> and the coal people and get things done.

Except of course (back to the same old story) that steel making takes
energy...lots of it just like most of our modern civilization.

> They're a lawyer-tribe - they don't care if it works, they just wanna
> know who's accountable.
>
> The want JK Galbraith's world back. Just don't tell them
> that that is how things like the East River catching fire happened.

Hey I was there when the Cuyahoga river in Cleveland was a fire hazard
and regularly caught fire. And they said Lake Erie was dead and would
take generations to come back. But it was all wrong. It actually took
very little cleanup to bring things from disaster to much better. Which
is why going with fantasy is so bad. Spending money to pump CO2 (which
plants love) into the ground while the oceans are full of plastic and
nasty chemicals and a host of other nonsense is simply worse than
stupid. It's criminal. And Duh. We are all in this same boat together in
case nobody noticed.

[Les Cargill]

No, you can't understand the coming problems and get in front of 'em.

You can only work with what's in front of you.

And that coal isn't going anywhere.

>>> "clean coal" could give us a couple hundred years.
>>
>> If there is "clean coal" - it's a charged atmosphere so chances
>> are everybody is lying. And you're not bringing back the coal
>> production in the Appalachians to save those communities no matter
>> what.
>
> Of course there is no "clean coal" because it's an unsolved problem.

As a professional solver of "unsolvable" problems[1], I can tell you
that unless the right people want it solved, it won't be.

[1] ;)

> Actually about a half-solved problem. But the key is that it's
> problem easier to solve (most likely) than say fusion power.

Of course it is. That's saying very little.

> It's all
> about buying time.

We got nothing but.

> The Trump idea to bring back Appalachia is pure
> political nuts.

Of course.

> The LAST thing we want to see is bringing back coal
> mining because that means that the energy problem is not yet solved.

"The energy problem" will never be solved. It's a constant
struggle.

> Best would be to invent clean coal and never have to use it because
> finally a viable energy source at the levels needed for future
> civilization (go look at electricity use over the years) have been
> found and developed.
>

All we have in front of us is the existing price; the existing
price says "No."

There's more natural gas available than we know what to do with.
Gas is an infinitely better fuel.

>> coal's days have been numbered for over 100 years now.
>
> Unless you start to run out of oil. Green fantasies won't do.
>

And that depends on what you mean by "run out of oil." If you
have a big enough nuke plant, you can *make* oil out of
biomass. Convert <x> acres otherwise useless Kansas grassland to <n>
barrels of oil.

Put together the Mother Of All Nuke plants in the Nevada desert with
big, *really* big hydraulic presses. Run a couple billion cubic feet
of ... well, weeds ( some oily grass ) per <x> from the Great Plains,
run in by rail and you get something a lot like oil at the end of it.

That's the ultimate solar power.

Make the reactors breeders so there's minimal waste. Put a dead zone of
5 mi around it. Pay people who work there five years enough to never
work again. But they gotta do the five years ( and make that easy
for 'em ).

>> "Clean coal" is an incoherent concept and it means a lot of
>> different technologies.
>
> Yep and it's half unsolved. So what you do you think? Just put
> miners back to work to get votes or spend the money trying to turn
> coal into a source that can safely be used once oil and gas starts to
> dwindle and prices go up?
>

I think coal is a fundamentally broken source. If there were
giant deposits of hard anthracite laying around, I'd change that, but
there aren't.

I suppose you'd have to drive on the Eagleford Shale at night to see
what I am talking about. Gas is king, until we find something t5o
unhorse it.

>>> Safe nukes would also give some time as well.
>>
>>
>> You'd think we'd at least try it.
>>
>>> One thing certain is that the Libtard
>>
>> Oh eff the aitch out of that stupid, stupid word. We're all some
>> sort of 'tard if you prefer such really crude expression.
>
> Hey this is the internet and I've learned one rule: You always have
> to have the latest version. Think of it as modern net jargon! And
> anyway fits nicely with the really stupid ideas that liberal greens
> keep pumping out without regard to facts, logic or reason.
>

I know, right? I'm just tired of all that. We are all God's creatures,
one and all. Or $DEITY if you prefer.

>> I'm probably more of a Libtard than a Conservitard , but I cant
>> track the targets well enough to tell any more.
>
> Me they call me a "winger". Now that could obviously be "left" or
> "right" but these days your audience is just supposed to know which
> you mean.
>
>> It's not a return to the Medieval they want; it's a return to
>> monolithic industry, where the government can call the steel
>> people and the coal people and get things done.
>
> Except of course (back to the same old story) that steel making
> takes energy...lots of it just like most of our modern civilization.
>

That doesn't matter in this case - they just want a framework
for a narrative they can support.

>> They're a lawyer-tribe - they don't care if it works, they just
>> wanna know who's accountable.
>>
>> The want JK Galbraith's world back. Just don't tell them that that
>> is how things like the East River catching fire happened.
>
> Hey I was there when the Cuyahoga river in Cleveland was a fire
> hazard and regularly caught fire.

Awesome.

> And they said Lake Erie was dead
> and would take generations to come back. But it was all wrong.

Of course it was. We're *always* wrong.

But the irony is - that did not happen in a vacuum. People
made it happen(stop?) , and there was a time when people
saw stuff like that and just shrugged.

It was something akin to "Hey, we can not have that happen any more."

> It
> actually took very little cleanup to bring things from disaster to
> much better.

It's true - and a hell of a story.

> Which is why going with fantasy is so bad.

But hu-mans live in the fantasy realm. Our entire cognitive architecture
is centered around *stories*. Facts? We don't do those nearly as well.

> Spending
> money to pump CO2 (which plants love)

Probably quite irrelevant - they love it to a point.

> into the ground while the
> oceans are full of plastic and nasty chemicals and a host of other
> nonsense is simply worse than stupid. It's criminal. And Duh. We are
> all in this same boat together in case nobody noticed.
>
>

https://xkcd.com/258/

--
Les Cargill