New Frontiers for Coal

The folks over at Foreign Policy’s Passport blog (recommended reading for lots of great news analysis) are dishing the dirt on the possibilities of the nascent Coal-to-Liquid (CTL) industry taking off with an assist from the U.S. military. To wit:

For the coal industry, getting access to the American gas tank would be a tremendous boost, giving it a whole new market outside of power generation and heavy industries like steel. The WSJ [Wall Street Journal] filed a must-read report last week, “Coal Industry Hopes Pentagon Will Kindle a Market,” that really gets at the key issues. CTL is a huge emitter of carbon dioxide, and the process uses between 5 to 7 gallons of water for every gallon of fuel it produces. But those inconvenient facts aren’t dissuading some folks…

Clearly, coal has numerous problems to overcome before it can be remotely recommended from an environmental standpoint and the likelihood is slim that it can ever be considered alongside other clean energy sources - if nothing else, the scars that its extraction leaves on the ground will take care of that.

Over at Architecture 2030, they are drumming up a new campaign under the slogan “No More Coal” that shows how new coal power plants (151 are in some stage of planning in the U.S.) threaten to undermine a lot of the progress on carbon emissions that is being made in this country. Among the statistics cited, are that the emissions from 2 medium-sized coal-fired power plants would offset the potential savings of every U.S. household changing out a 60-watt incandescent light bulb for a CFL. Because coal is plentiful, cheap and domestic, it will take a lot to keep it from becoming a more and more popular source of energy.

To get started on the fight against coal, check out our I ♥ PV page too see how you can get involved in the push for more renewable energy in New York City and beyond.


Posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 5:17 pm | Tagged in Energy, Global Warming, Photovoltaics | posted by Jamie

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