My kid, as part of his class project, has to come up with arguments in favor of burning coal for energy. His job is to try to convey the opinion that coal burning is an efficient, cheap and clean energy source.
I’ve looked all over the net, and I could only find a couple of sites advocating this position. Does anyone know of any sites which argue in favor of using coal over other energy sources? He has to have the links by tomorrow, so any help you guys could give would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks in advance.
I think that he has left it a bit late to learn the background to make such an argument…
But I had a quick look. I think his best bet (OK yours as ‘Homework Dad’ is to make some comparisons with other forms in terms of efficiency and pollutant output. It looks as though researchers are getting there, but not quite yet.
I did a quick ‘Google’ search and found this:
Personally, I think that you can not really do it! Natural gas and nuclear are both much more environmentally friendly except for the issue of the limited reserves of gas. Storage of spent nuclear fuel is more of a political issue than a practical one and coal is plain old dirty, fallout from stack exhausts causes cancer clusters, mining is dangerous and industry seems unconcerned about real improvements (said he generalising)
Thank you sir! I really think my kid got screwed on the assignment, as he is assigned the role of a spokesman advocating coal energy in a subject covering "acid rain’.
There is actually research that suggests that acid rain is not caused by coal fired power and that acid rain actually aids many forest environments by enhancing soil fertility.
If I had known before then I would have dug up some useful stuff in time…
I confess, I am finding it hard to find the document that I was looking for, but along the way we have:
A useful article that could be used as a tool to change the direction of the discussion:
Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press, 2001) A book, not available on-line, considers the cost benefit equation of pollution. The guy used to be a serious Green but has had something of an epiphany. Worth a read if you have time.
A point worth making is that acid rain is a part of the nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen is essential for healthy plants. It is the main component of fertilisers. Acid rain in many cases adds fetility to the gound upon which it falls. THere is evidence, noted above that forests in Europe are now larger and more dense than a century ago. Undoubtedly too much nitrogen is a bad thing.
You might want to look at the role of sulphur in smokestack outputs.
BTW rain has always been acid. It is the normal state. If you are to have a reasoned debate on the subject you need to know how much is normal. If you find out, you should ask your opponents how much is normal. WIn the argument because they d not know the basics!
Unfortunately, I’m right now at this hour talking to people in DC in Congress and from the World Bank about a similar subject, so I’m rushed for time.
My questions:
What is your deadline for this?
As far as “efficient” and “clean”, that can be a hard one to argue. I mean, the question back is - “relative to what”? Compared to many other technologies, coal is not “efficient” and “clean”. However, if you balance all factors (cost, resources, suitability for electrical generation, markets, experience, etc.) coal does look very good, especially when combined with clean coal technologies for reducing emissions from the power plant.
Let me borrow some quick facts from a good friend who made some slides recently.
It certainly is cheap; there is little argument about that - at least, unless you want to start to get into intangibles, which are likely far beyond the scope intended. According to the EIA, the average cost for delivered fuel price in the US for the FY 2002 (August data) is:
Coal: 121.9 cents/MBtu
Gas: 346.6 cents/MBtu
Petroleum: 352 cents/MBtu
Biomass: 70 to 285 cents/MBtu (depends on too many factors, not equally comparable)
US Electrical Energy Breakdown, by type:
2002, DoE EIA - billion kWh/year
As far as current coal emissions control technology:
Wet limestone desulfurization systems can remove a typical 90% of sulfur from flue gas. If pushed to the limit, they can routinely remove 93-94% of the sulfur from the flue gas.
Selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems can remove up to 90% of NOx from flue gas, but in practice a typical long-term aggressive value would be 80%.
Particulates can be removed with electrostatic precipitators and fabric filter baghouses to remove 99.99% of ash from the flue gas.
I can answer any specific or general questions on coal, provided that they are not too general. I mean, I think what might be a good start is a layout of an outline of an argument.
The image of coal as a dirty, polluting source of energy comes from plants built in the old, pre-environmentally-conscious days. There’s lots of them left around, surviving on “pollution credits” and political pull.
But old plants can be retrofitted, and new plants built, with the antipollution stuff noted at the end of Anthracite’s long post, that make coal, of which we have over 300 years worth of proven reserves in the US, at least as clean as other fossil fuels – and significantly more economical, from the cost-of-energy standpoint, which is important if you’re going to be charging consumers the cost of keeping things clean.
