Liquid Coal – Flooding back to life!

Byoliveridley

See, it was only a matter of time before liquid coal made its egregious way back to front and center of the “energy security” debate.

Lawmakers Push for Big Subsidies for Coal Process – New York Times

Prodded by intense lobbying from the coal industry, lawmakers from coal states are proposing that taxpayers guarantee billions of dollars in construction loans for coal-to-liquid production plants, guarantee minimum prices for the new fuel, and guarantee big government purchases for the next 25 years.

Liquid coal produces more CO2 than gasoline, so, all the coal makers are claiming that they will sequester the CO2, and use renewable energy to produce the coal, it’s a lie, and an expensive one at that.

It is going to be more expensive, more polluting, and more profitable for big coal companies at tax payers expense than any other options available.

In addition to construction loan guarantees, Mr. Boucher would
protect the first six liquid plants from drops in energy prices. If oil
prices fell below about $40 a barrel, the government would
automatically grant loans to the first six plants that make coal-based
fuels. If oil prices climbed to $80 a barrel, companies would have to
pay a surcharge to the government.

But the most important guarantee, many coal producers said, is the prospect of signing 25-year purchase contracts with the Air Force.

Wow, why can’t solar or wind energy get these kinds of incentives?

“There is financial uncertainty, which is inhibiting the flow of
private capital into the construction of coal-to-liquid facilities,”
said Mr. Boucher, who supports most of the proposals and is drafting
portions of the energy bill.

Yes, there is “financial uncertainty” because without the taxation of the American public, there is no hope of making money with this thing. It’s just a giant boondoggle to transfer money from the public sphere into coal companies.

The US is losing its collective mind!

Technorati Tags: ,

Similar Posts

  • Obama seeks U.S. carbon emissions cap

    Byoliveridley

    President Barack Obama on Tuesday called on Congress to send him legislation that places a market-based cap on U.S. carbon polluting emissions and pushes the production of more renewable energy.

    In his first speech to a joint session of Congress, Obama said that “to truly transform our economy, protect our security, and save our planet from the ravages of climate change, we need to ultimately make clean, renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.

    Good, Canada will have to harmonize. Stephen Harper was last seen pretending that his “intensity based”” approach was just a “different” way of measuring emissions. You can say that speed and distance are just two ways of measuring travel!

    It is still early and we will see what the US congress can come up with, and what egregious exemptions and offsets it will provide for. Lobbying is already fast and furious. But the news emanating from Obama is promising on the climate change front.

  • New Source Review stands for now

    Byoliveridley

    Cinergy, now Duke Energy, was trying to claim that as long as its plants’ hourly emission rate did not increase, they could make unlimited “modifications” to the plants. So, in theory, if capacity got doubled so a plant was operating 24 hours a day from 12, the hourly rate would remain the same, but pollution would double. Well,  isn’t that a “new source” then? Apparently, Cinergy did not think so, and after at least 6 years of wrangling, this thing is going to be decided by the Supreme Court this fall. So, once again, the crack team of Roberts, et al. will decide whether we breathe or not, policy by judicial fiat?

    US court hands EPA a win in utility emission case | Reuters.com

    A federal court has ruled that a big U.S. utility must install costly pollution-reduction equipment at its aging coal-powered electric plants if it expands them, handing a victory to the U.S. government in a case that could shape an upcoming Supreme Court ruling.

    The three-member 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on Thursday ruled that Cinergy must install emission curbs at its coal-powered plants in the Midwest if it expands them to prolong their operating lives.

    The Environmental Protection Agency had sued the utility to force it to apply for an expansion permit, which would trigger emission-reduction measures.

    In a bevy of cases, U.S. utilities are testing how far they can go to expand aging plants without triggering a section of the Clean Air Act known as “New Source Review.”

  • |

    Arsenic a rising risk?

    Byoliveridley

    This is new information? Tell that to the millions of Bangladeshis and Indians suffering from Arsenic for many years now.

    As groundwater use increases due to population pressure and overexploitation of freshwater, expect this problem to get worse.

    Arsenic in Drinking Water Said to Be Rising Risk – New York Times

    Naturally occurring arsenic in drinking water poses a growing global health risk as large numbers of people unknowingly consume unsafe levels, researchers said on Wednesday.

    The problem is bigger than scientists had thought, and it affects nearly 140 million people in more than 70 countries, according to new research presented at the annual Royal Geographical Society meeting in London.

  • Water find may end Darfur war

    Byoliveridley

    It has been posited that the Darfur crisis war genocide is a resource conflict caused by water shortage. If that is true, finding the world’s 10th largest lake (underground) will help.

    BBC NEWS | Africa | Water find may end Darfur war

    A huge underground lake has been found in Sudans Darfur region, scientists say, which they believe could help end the conflict in the arid region.

    Some 1,000 wells will be drilled in the region, with the agreement of Sudans government, the Boston University researchers say.
    Analysts say competition for resources between Darfurs Arab nomads and black African farmers is behind the conflict.
    More than 200,000 Darfuris have died and 2m fled their homes since 2003.

    “Much of the unrest in Darfur and the misery is due to water shortages,” said geologist Farouk El-Baz, director of the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing, according to the AP news agency.

    “Access to fresh water is essential for refugee survival, will help the peace process, and provides the necessary resources for the much needed economic development in Darfur,” he said.

    I am a technology sceptic sometimes, in the sense that I don’t believe technology fixes everything. But, this seems to be a promising development. If anything, all that activity, well digging, etc. will bring more people into Sudan and that could slow down the murderous Janjaweed.

  • |

    FDA decides to breed super bugs

    Byoliveridley

    Well, what else can you say about it. This is insanely moronic. Read this sierra club release about the overuse of antibiotics brought on by the overcrowding of animals in food production factories (aka “farms”). Read the whole article and see how much everyone will be endangered so that Intervet, Inc. can make money.

    FDA Rules Override Warnings About Drug – washingtonpost.com

    The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency’s own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people. The drug, called cefquinome, belongs to a class of highly potent antibiotics that are among medicine’s last defenses against several serious human infections. No drug from that class has been approved in the United States for use in animals.

    Note, a powerful and potent antibiotic that works well, but is not used much because it’s the last line of defense. But the drug company that manufactures this product cares little about long term efficacy. Their only goal is to maximize short term shareholder value. I don’t blame them, I blame the government for not doing its job, that is, to balance these short term and long term goals and protect the people that pay them a lot of money for this protection.

    The wording of “Guidance for Industry #152” was crafted within the FDA after a long struggle. In the end, the agency adopted language that, for drugs like cefquinome, is more deferential to pharmaceutical companies than is recommended by the World Health Organization.

    Cefquinome’s seemingly inexorable march to market shows how a few words in an obscure regulatory document can sway the government’s approach to protecting public health.

    There’s a reason this present U.S government works in secrecy, so these “obscure” (I am sorry, but nothing that directly affects human health can be called obscure) rule changes will not hit the public eye before it’s too late. Apparently, the FDA can now only consider resistance to food borne diseases in considering an application. That’s like saying that a hospital will only treat victims of food borne diseases, so if you catch the cold, we won’t treat you! This is the Food and Drug Adminstration (all food and all drugs), not the food borne disease protection council.

    This drug is absolutely unnecessary for the following reasons:

    1. The disease it treats (respiratory distress in cows) is brought about by insane levels of animal overcrowding
    2. There are currently a dozen antibiotics for this particular problem, none of which are considered susceptible to resistance
    3. The FDA has previous history with similar public health threats with fluoroquinolones
    4. This drug is considered a last resort drug for antibiotic resistant strains of diseases in cancer patients – So strains resistant to this drug will evolve shortly after the antibiotic is overexposed . This is a death sentence for a lot of very vulnerable people.
    5. A similar drug used in Europe for the last 10 years has resulted in an increase in resistant strains of bacteria.

    This is what you get when you vote for an ideology that hates government. You get a government that hates itself and is busy pawning parts of itself off to its cronies.

  • | |

    Organic agriculture can feed the world

    Byoliveridley

    That’s the conclusion reached by the authors of this study based on 293 examples in the developing and developed world.The authors also conclude that yields in the developing world are higher for organic agriculture than for conventional agriculture. Why? Well, since the paper is not open access, I can’t read it, or critique it, I’ll have to wait to get to the library before I can download it. But, maybe it’s because organic agriculture tends to be more labor intensive than conventional agriculture as practised by the developed world, and in the developing world, labor is cheap!

    Anyway, this is a good news study and should be examined a little more thoroughly.

    CJO – Abstract – Organic agriculture and the global food supply

    The principal objections to the proposition that organic agriculture can contribute significantly to the global food supply are low yields and insufficient quantities of organically acceptable fertilizers. We evaluated the universality of both claims. For the first claim, we compared yields of organic versus conventional or low-intensive food production for a global dataset of 293 examples and estimated the average yield ratio (organic:non-organic) of different food categories for the developed and the developing world. For most food categories, the average yield ratio was slightly 1.0 for studies in the developing world. With the average yield ratios, we modeled the global food supply that could be grown organically on the current agricultural land base. Model estimates indicate that organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base. We also evaluated the amount of nitrogen potentially available from fixation by leguminous cover crops used as fertilizer. Data from temperate and tropical agroecosystems suggest that leguminous cover crops could fix enough nitrogen to replace the amount of synthetic fertilizer currently in use. These results indicate that organic agriculture has the potential to contribute quite substantially to the global food supply, while reducing the detrimental environmental impacts of conventional agriculture. Evaluation and review of this paper have raised important issues about crop rotations under organic versus conventional agriculture and the reliability of grey-literature sources. An ongoing dialogue on these subjects can be found in the Forum editorial of this issue.

One Comment

  1. I think that the way that this could be and should be handled is by requiring all those proposing renewable energy projects for funding to submit environmental impact statements within which the issue of sustainability is also an important factor.

    The use of sustainability as a yardstick, which includes whole life costs, greenhouse gas emissions, AND resource utilisation is a powerful tool.

    I would say that the technologies that come out top on those issues are that ones most deserving of government encouragement.

    I must say that as a UK Waste Management Professional I am partial to a techmology seldom given prominence. I am a fan of rewable energy from waste. There is a lot of it there for the taking, and there are many benefits.

    There is more about Anaerobic Digestion and is the benefits of Anaerobic Digestion – creating renewable energy from waste materials here.

    Like you, I say wouldn’t we just love some of the benefits for renewables which you have suggested may be given to liquid coal.

Comments are closed.