Anti-Coal Trend and Some Reasons Why

dilettante

dilettante

Well-known Member
Location
Michigan

Basically, politics and fracked gas and logistics.

But it sounds like coal has an export future.
 

Nowadays coal has a bad press, and rightly so. No matter how you label it, coal is always polluting. In fact, it is the most polluting way to produce electricity. When coal is dug up and later burned in power stations, it releases massive amounts of pollution, damaging our health and contributing to intensifying climate change.

Along with adding to greenhouse gas pollution, burning coal emits toxic and carcinogenic substances into our air, water and land, severely affecting the health of miners, workers and surrounding communities. Two hundred years ago it was all so different.

The nineteenth century saw dramatic technological development. Engineering prowess, especially in communication and transportation, made Great Britain the leading industrial powerhouse and trading nation of the world at that time. Coal is inevitably linked to the birth of the railway systems.

The railways, and therefore coal, stimulated demand for building materials, coal, iron and, later, steel. Excelling in the bulk movement of coal, they provided the fuel for the furnaces of industry and for domestic fireplaces. Millions of people were able to travel who had scarcely ever travelled before.

Railways enabled mail, newspapers, periodicals and cheap literature to be distributed easily, quickly and cheaply allowing a much wider and faster dissemination of ideas and information. They had a significant impact on improving diet....[and enabled] a proportionately smaller agricultural industry was able to feed a much larger urban population....They employed huge quantities of labour both directly and indirectly. They helped Britain to become the ‘Workshop of the World’ by reducing transport costs not only of raw materials but of finished goods.

T3-No.-563.jpg
A coal powered Victorian steam engine, looking magnificent following a £650,000 restoration.
 
Mother Nature gave us an abundance of energy sources - sun, wind, water - but being free for the taking, they could not be converted to great wealth.

What if the same amount of time, money, research and development had been directed to these free sources as has been to fossil fuels in the past 150 years??? What if ??? Just look at what the field of electronics has done just in your lifetime.
 

The Chinese still like coal. They must since they keep building new coal plants. Coal and cigarettes share the same destiny. They both may not sell here in the U.S., but they will sell elsewhere.
 
horseless carriage said:
Nowadays coal has a bad press, and rightly so. No matter how you label it, coal is always polluting.
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True, but just type "Black Lung Disease" and discover the really heinous nature of coal.

There's a documentary on Youtube about an Asbestos mine in Russia. Still working today. The locals swear that Asbestos is safe, and too much fuss is made about it. Meanwhile, they die horrible deaths. Yet their tradition, their culture, is all asbestos. And no, none of their wear masks. I understand culture, but I also understand sometimes things change for the better.
 
oldman said:
The Chinese still like coal. They must since they keep building new coal plants. Coal and cigarettes share the same destiny. They both may not sell here in the U.S., but they will sell elsewhere.
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But the Chinese are also working steadily on building the new clean infrastructure that will be the norm in the future. They have more solar, wind and EV's than any country and they install about 700,000 EV chargers a year.
 
A method to change the CO2 and Carbon Monoxide back to C. and O2 has to be developed using the best methods. Most likely very Energy absortive also. But it has to be done, most likely. Every tail pipe, every smokestack, every Chimney. The Deep Earth harbors all the Carbon of
the total of Earths life. A volcano can blow up huge swathes of total hell if it happens. Saudia Arabia has Volcanos. Wyoming has lots of
deep stuff and also Volcano activity near. Sure we have burnt up more of the earth than any in all of existance but its still an awesome amount
remaining just a waiting the fire.
 
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Debrah N. said:
But the Chinese are also working steadily on building the new clean infrastructure that will be the norm in the future. They have more solar, wind and EV's than any country and they install about 700,000 EV chargers a year.
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Naturally I do not believe it. The Chinese care less and must make as much mu-lah as possible. its their way. Ya gotta look at the deep state of the average people not the high collar liars.

Sure it's the same here. Call it Narcissistic Gaslighting if you want. Just think of it as if the Ones in the news say a lot constantly, its just more of the same & they want to stay in charge of your lives.
 
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papa tiger said:
Naturally I do not believe it. The Chinese care less and must make as much mu-lah as possible. its their way. Ya gotta look at the deep state of the average people not the high collar liars.

Sure it's the same here. Call it Narcissistic Gaslighting if you want. Just think of it as if the Ones in the news say a lot constantly, its just more of the same & they want to stay in charge of your lives.
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I have a policy of taking news and words at face value until evidence arises that disproves it. As well, I make a point of looking up supporting information from credible sources as much as possible. Like this.... https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminsti...-et-al-2017_China-leadership_policy-brief.pdf

Keep in mind, that China develops policy for long into the future, unlike in the West where we have four year election cycles which results in opposition parties too often, tearing down what 'current' governments are doing. So like in Canada, we currently have a government that is somewhat committed to preparing for a change in climate and all it's ramifications and an opposition who refuse to even recognize that it's an issue in their party platform.

I know that China is now shipping what looks like a terrific little EV called the Seagull, that sells for around $28,000 US (America won't let it in of course), and that it's starting to catch on in Europe. So if they're working on things like that and according to the above link from a UK think tank, I think it's safe to say that China is working on their end of this problem.
 
Think China is importing all its coal and Oil and NG. Air pollution is so bad, you can't see across the river there or the Ground from space.
Everything shuts down with international sporting events. Problems in China, economy is imploding, nobody can afford to buy a building.
It's all just lies. China intends to take whatever it wants forever. All the ground near the China sea and whatever Shallows.

Sure our systems make adjustments in arrears mostly. Communists have a meeting show of hands, nobody wants to be taken out and shot.
 
papa tiger said:
A method to change the CO2 and Carbon Monoxide back to C. and O2 has to be developed using the best methods. Most likely very Energy absortive also. But it has to be done, most likely. Every tail pipe, every smokestack, every Chimney.
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Chemistry and thermodynamics make it clear that this is but a pipedream. The energy inputs required are more than the energy taken out through combustion in the first place.

On a geologic timescale green plants have done this but very slowly. The success is clear, but only achieved through massive scale.

Yet people insist on eating avocados, the biggest motivator for rain forest deforestation we've ever seen, not to mention the associated labor abuses and population displacement.
 
The new power plants are supposed to have inexhaustible power. So, it won't matter the inexhaustible power needs, just break the carbon out of the Oxygen. Water will be inexhaustible so irrigate the deserts and plant plants. Turn the Earth green again like it once was. The word is
Wolves & most all animals are doing great around Chernobyl.
 
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Unless and until all nations work together to address our common failure to care for our planet, environmental disaster stories will continue dominating our news.

Massively destructive hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, rising oceans, heat domes, ice storms, floods, droughts, high winds, coral bleaching, extinction, near-extinction or migration of various species (humans included), are already figuring into every news cycle.

BTW, coal is generally acknowledged to be among the filthiest of fossil fuels. Oil is better, but only because it's such a low bar to clear.

I despair at the paltry leadership on this planet, and am convinced environmental terrorists will eventually deal with the problems modern politicians refuse to touch. As is true of all terrorism, their methods will likely be swift, shockingly harsh, life-changing, and not necessarily well thought out.

We are creating a gigantic toilet that our grandchildren will be forced to live in.

For example, every modern hospital creates literal mountains of plastic and other waste every year. Do we think it will magically disappear?

Modern humans have zero foresight, sorry to say.
 
papa tiger said:
Think China is importing all its coal and Oil and NG. Air pollution is so bad, you can't see across the river there or the Ground from space.
Everything shuts down with international sporting events. Problems in China, economy is imploding, nobody can afford to buy a building.
It's all just lies. China intends to take whatever it wants forever. All the ground near the China sea and whatever Shallows.

Sure our systems make adjustments in arrears mostly. Communists have a meeting show of hands, nobody wants to be taken out and shot.
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China has taken the problem to heart and apparently, their air pollution is down 42%. Still worse than ours but only because it was so horrendous to start with. But their industrial economy is also slowing down as wages are rising and that means less industry which is resulting in less air pollution and bluer skies. I think the effort to just dismiss China's accomplishments thus far, regarding climate change over the past ten years is simply habitual thinking and an effort by government agencies to reinforce the China bad, us good kind of thinking.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/asia/air-pollution-report-china-south-asia-intl-hnk-scn/index.html#:~:text=A decade on, those efforts,some parts, including South Asia. From the link: .........For instance, the report said, since 2014 the Chinese government has limited the number of cars on roads in major cities; banned new coal plants from the most-polluted areas; cut emissions or closed existing plants; and reduced high-polluting industrial activity such as the manufacturing of iron and steel..........
 
Coal is slowly phasing out, but it's still in use during high demand months.
Cut it out too quickly and there will be deaths from heat or cold.
As far as the sun, wind and water being free......ask the people who built off grid how free it is.
Big or small, everyone has to invest a large amount of cash to use (free) power. Then learn to maintain and use the equipment. Even that power is not always there when you want it. So a change in lifestyle is in order to be able to use it when it's available.
I upgraded my heating system 15 years ago. Before I did, I had checked into getting a geothermal system. $15,000.00 back then. I decided to keep paying my monthly gas bill.
 
stretch5881 said:
Coal is slowly phasing out, but it's still in use during high demand months.
Cut it out too quickly and there will be deaths from heat or cold.
As far as the sun, wind and water being free......ask the people who built off grid how free it is.
Big or small, everyone has to invest a large amount of cash to use (free) power. Then learn to maintain and use the equipment. Even that power is not always there when you want it. So a change in lifestyle is in order to be able to use it when it's available.
I upgraded my heating system 15 years ago. Before I did, I had checked into getting a geothermal system. $15,000.00 back then. I decided to keep paying my monthly gas bill.
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Geothermal would be a fabulous investment if you're the sort of person who stays put. I think though that as we get further into this transition, having a geothermal will become a major benefit to property values as people begin to understand what it is they'd be paying for.
 
Debrah N. said:
China has taken the problem to heart and apparently, their air pollution is down 42%. Still worse than ours but only because it was so horrendous to start with. But their industrial economy is also slowing down as wages are rising and that means less industry which is resulting in less air pollution and bluer skies. I think the effort to just dismiss China's accomplishments thus far, regarding climate change over the past ten years is simply habitual thinking and an effort by government agencies to reinforce the China bad, us good kind of thinking.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/30/asia/air-pollution-report-china-south-asia-intl-hnk-scn/index.html#:~:text=A decade on, those efforts,some parts, including South Asia. From the link: .........For instance, the report said, since 2014 the Chinese government has limited the number of cars on roads in major cities; banned new coal plants from the most-polluted areas; cut emissions or closed existing plants; and reduced high-polluting industrial activity such as the manufacturing of iron and steel..........
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and china introduced the "one child policy" and that is still a huge success???
 
Here's a reason coal is in a death spiral in the US.

The coal plant operators refuse/refused to invest in equipment to remove the pollutants from the smoke to retain it as an acceptable form of energy production.

Some statements above made me LOL. Avocados????? 81% of power produced in the US?????
 
davey said:
and china introduced the "one child policy" and that is still a huge success???
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They changed that policy to two children per family in 2016. But now I've read they have the opposite problem of a declining population for the past couple years. Almost 3 million down since 2021 and that will have ramifications for the tax base, for available workers and for social programs like their health care for all.
 
D
Debrah N. said:
But the Chinese are also working steadily on building the new clean infrastructure that will be the norm in the future. They have more solar, wind and EV's than any country and they install about 700,000 EV chargers a year.
Click to expand...
Doesn’t quite make any sense, does it? Building coal plants while making climate pledges. They are even building coal plants in Africa. What gives?

They can say anything because who would be able to doubt them?
 

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