Oscar's Argument To Clean Coal

Coal is the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. When burned, it produces emissions that contribute to global warming, create acid rain and pollute water. With all of the talk surrounding nuclear energy, hydropower and biofuels, you might be forgiven for thinking that grimy coal is finally on its way out. On the other hand, coal is no sooty remnant of the Industrial Revolution - it generates half of the electricity in the United States and will likely continue to do so as long as it's cheap and plentiful . Clean coal technology seeks to reduce harsh environmental effects by using multiple technologies to clean. Coal is a fossil fuel composed primarily of carbons and hydrocarbons. Its ingredients help make plastics, tar and fertilizers. A coal derivative, a solidified carbon called coke, melts iron ore and reduces it to create steel. But most coal - 92 percent of the U.S. supply - goes into power production .Electric companies and businesses with power plants burn coal to make the steam that turns turbines and generates electricity. When coal burns, it releases carbon dioxide and other emissions in flue gas, the billowing clouds you see pouring out of smoke stacks. Some clean coal technologies purify the coal before it burns. One type of coal preparation, coal washing, removes unwanted minerals by mixing crushed coal with a liquid and allowing the impurities to separate and settle. Other systems control the coal burn to minimize emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and

Clean coal is proposed as being an emission cleaner form of regular coal, because it reduces the amount of sulfur-dioxide, and nitrogen oxide that is produced by burning coal. It does this by removing impurities from the coal that are contributing to the higher emissions within regular coal, which is created through “clean coal technology”. Clean coal is obtained just like regular coal through either mining it or by mountaintop removal. A technique called coal washing is used to remove impurities, such as sulfur and other unwanted minerals, by washing them in a liquid to remove them.

It implies that it is possible to make coal a fuel source that is free of (or very low in) carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutant emissions. Some of the techniques that would be used to accomplish this include chemically washing minerals and impurities from the coal, gasification (see also IGCC), treating the flue gases with steam to remove sulfur dioxide, carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the flue gas and dewatering lower rank coals (brown coals) to improve the calorific value, and thus the efficiency of the conversion into electricity.

It produces a great deal of our electricity; however, we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the implications. As Goodell notes on the first page, “We love our hamburgers, but we’ve never seen the inside of a slaughterhouse.” Isn’t that the truth? When we fuel up our cars, we don’t think (much) about the ramifications of our oil dependence. When we flip a light switch, we do not associate that with the coal-driven mountaintop removals in West Virginia. In this book, “BIG COAL” Jeff describes Goodell thrusts those associations right in your face. He covers the history of the industry, tells the stories of the people in and around the business, and while most of the book is based on U.S.-happenings, he does spend a chapter in China. We would imagine the coal industry was none too pleased with Big Coal because it paints a really ugly picture of the industry. Goodell contrasts the coal industry with the individuals whose lives have been negatively impacted by coal in one way or another. He details corruption and politics that allowed the industry to delay implementation of pollution control equipment. And on a big picture level, he argues that continued usage of coal poses a serious threat to the earth’s

In the research report “Coal Blooded: Putting Profits before People” by the NAACP, they explore devastating health, economic, and environmental effects of coal pollution in low-income communities and communities of color. The NAACP and their allies ranked 378 coal fired power plants nationwide based on their Environmental Justice Performance. They discovered the average income of communities surrounding coal plants are lower than the nationwide average and almost half are people of color. In addition to rankings, they have asserted coal pollution isn’t just an environmental issue, but a civil and human rights issue. “This report will help put a human face on the life and death issue of coal pollution,” stated Executive Director of Indigenous

Jason Hayes, communications director for the American Coal Council says “the industry over the past few decades had invested over $100 billion in cleaning up emissions and it’s already been effective. All of the important noxious pollutants have decreased markedly over the last 30 to 40 years. We’ve been doing all of this on top of dealing with everything else.” Coal may not be green, but it is a source of energy American needs. It is cheap and efficient. Without coal, America wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is today. The coal mined here isn’t just used for energy. America’s

Envisage a world where only the twinkle of candlelight illuminates windows in the night, warmth is provided by wood stoves, and horse drawn carriages provide transportation: a world without energy provided by fossil fuels. One might think this is the world of our forefathers and of bygone days; however, with staggering increases in energy demands perhaps such a world may not be so far from reality if humanity fails to adapt to these changing needs and how we produce energy to meet global energy requirements. There is no doubt that the greatest issues affecting humanity today are that of pollution fueled climate change and energy insecurity (Jacobson and Delucchi 1154). A number of solutions have been proposed in efforts to reduce our dependence

With the supply of fossil fuels steadily declining, gas and oil is becoming harder to harvest which means it is getting more expensive. Fossil fuels take millions of years to be naturally produced, yet each person burns gallons of gas per day (Maehlum par. 5). Though fossil fuels are produced naturally, when burned they release nitrogen oxides gases into the atmosphere, which contributes to the formation of smog and acid rain. According to the EPA, major sources of these nitrogen oxide emissions come from cars and trucks, coal-fire powered plants, large industrial operations, and ships and airplanes (EPA par 3). By reducing the number of gas powered cars on the road, we can reduce the amount of harmful chemicals we are releasing into our atmosphere.

Coal has been around for 250 million years, but only has been used since the 1800’s first by trains and now for energy all around the world and many other things that people couldn't think of! Coal is a combustible sedimentary organic rock which is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. It is formed from vegetation which has been consolidated between two other rock strata and altered by the combined effects of pressure and heat over millions of years to form coal seams. There are over 174,000 jobs in the U.S associated with coal and 83,000 of them are mining jobs, Coal miners have found many ways to extract coal from the ground which includes, surface mining, longwall mining, room and pillar mining, and underground mining. “Surface

“Power plants use flue gas desulfurization equipment, also known as scrubbers, to clean sulfur from the smoke before it leaves their smokestacks. In addition, industry and the U.S. government have cooperated to develop technologies that can remove impurities from coal or that can make coal more energy-efficient so less needs to be burned.” (Coal).

Coal: A Human History was written by Barbara Freese to focus on the history of coal and how mankind has used it as part of their lifestyle. Ever since the times when early nomads used the slash-and-burn method, coal has been around acting as jewelry for the Romans and as fuel for peasants and the noble class in Britain. Coal was in such high demand that many inventions were utilized for the convenience of retrieving it from intolerable conditions such as vacuums and the construction of more efficient underground tunnels. The book gives insight of how this small stone has been so vital to humans that they were able to adapt to the ways coal best functions.

Coal (n): A combustible black or dark brown rock consisting mainly of carbonized plant matter, found mainly in underground deposits and widely used as fuel. This little rock is what keeps 39% of our nation running. 10% of that coal comes from stripping the Appalachian mountain range of her beautiful peaks in a process called strip mining- or, more popularly, Mountaintop Removal. Coal is considered a non-renewable energy resource, meaning once it’s depleted, it will not return for millions of years. Once it's gone, it's gone. These non-renewable sources are found deep underground. Coal needs to be mined out, either by machine or by manual labor. The use of and the process in which we procure coal is a detriment to both the environment and the people in said environment. It is dangerous to the workers within the mines, the flora and fauna around the sites, and the surrounding communities.

Even people who do not develop illnesses from coal pollutants will find their health and wellbeing impacted due to coal's contribution to global warming. The discharge of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere associated with burning coal is a major contributor to global warming and its adverse effects on health and wellbeing worldwide, such as heat stroke, malaria, declining food production, scarce water supplies, social conflict and

Coal was the first of the fossil fuels to go into widespread use, displacing low-energy firewood as the leading source of fuel in the US, and triggering the country’s industrialization in the second half of the 19th century. Within a few decades, the US went from a net importer of coal (mostly from Britain) to a major exporter of the fossil fuel, a development made possible by mining the nation’s vast reserves of coal.

Coal and natural gas are the United States’ main fossil fuels used as energy sources. These fossil fuels both contain mixtures of hydrocarbons, which is a chemical compound of carbon and hydrogen (Olah, 2005). Currently, fossil fuels provide eighty-five percent of commercial energy, such as businesses, worldwide and this eighty-five percent does not even account for residential use. Imagine if the residential energy use was accounted for in that eighty-five percent (Davison, 2007). According to Goodell (2006), “Between 1950 and 2000, the world population increased by 140 percent and fossil fuel consumption increased by 400 percent. By 2030, the world’s demand for energy is expected to more than double,” with most of the electricity