Peak coal, the other bad news

Again, Peak Coal, like Peak Oil, is a theoretical issue, and we can solve it by theoretical means. Purified (or relatively purified as is the case with most coal these days) carbon is just like a battery. It has a store of potential energy released when it reacts with other elements. As long as we have carbon, we can make coal because we have energy from the sun to use in the chemical reaction. Thermal Depolymerization works the same way. However, if the carbon is being used for power generation, it makes more sense to just switch over to solar and cut out the middle man.

TL;DR: Coal and Oil are stores of energy from the sun. We can make both with energy from the sun, but it's cheaper not to.

That isn't quite how it works, but your argument is sound.

Wind farms kill birds. Dams kill fish. Tidal energy destroys ecosystems.

Carbon is carbon. It's an element just like anything else, and if necessary we can come up with controls for it should it's products be (allegedly) radioactive. Likewise, if it has any problems (as do wind farms, hydroelectric dams, and tidal energy) we can work around those too, if the economics are there.

Energy is energy. We can burn coal, generate energy, and power light bulbs to grow algae for oil to be used in planes. Again, this is if the economics are there.




And now we reach the fun part; despite my arguments *for* coal, I am not an advocate. The economics to make coal a cleaner technology are not as alluring as the naturally cleanliness of Natural Gas (which will serve us as a bridge-fuel until alternative energies kick in). We could theoretically use coal in thermal depolymerization in order to generate oil for airplanes, but I think the most economical way to go is solar. All energy on earth is derived from the earths internal reactions (IE geothermal energy) and the sun. Solar has virtually no impacts on the environment and is the most abundant energy on earth.

I believe coal, however, will serve it's purpose as a useful fuel in economies already built around it (such as some areas of the United States, particularly the East Coast) and perhaps parts of Russia and Europe, but I think it would be much more economical for developing nations such as China to invest in more sustainable infrastructure that won't become obsolete in the next 100-300 years.

 

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Oh boy, another one join the fracas...

If FACTS are theories... wait, they are not!!!

Why are we switching? Oh yes, because peak coal..

Relevance? But anyway, I would prefer to kill animals then breath in coaly air...

By the way I couldn't help to notice, you are not really arguing against peak coal...

 

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VAWT wind farms don't kill anything yet still produce the desired electricity.

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http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag...b=14dgl7m16&sigi=12llortkr&.crumb=wS8DpzvS6M7

 

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Very nice display. I was viewing all of the pictures and saw one that I saw on a TV program about small personal vertical axis wind turbines.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonfreeenergy/3997173670/

These vertical axis wind turbines work in very low wind speeds from any direction and because they sit on a magnetic bearing they are totally silent when operating, which is important to homeowners and neighbors alike.

 

The Nazis were already producing aviation fuel from coal back in the 1930s...using the Bergius process.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergius_process

 

True. But that's an odd thing to say. It's like saying "as long as we have hydrogen we can make methane." Sure, that's true as well. But an odd thing to say since we in fact make most of our hydrogen _from_ methane.

Currently coal is our primary source of carbon.

And solar kills. The waste from broken panels is very slightly toxic. Installers will fall off roofs and die. Mining to get aluminum ore is somewhat polluting, and making the aluminum takes a tremendous amount of (often dirty) energy.

The question is - which method kills the _least_?

Agreed. If we do 100% capture of exhaust (sequestration) - we could make it pretty clean.

 

The economics, as you say, aren't there, and never will match that of a product we simply can pump from the ground.

 

True but we haven't truly established that we're at Peak Coal yet. More over, my use of the word "theoretical" wasn't meant to discredit the legitimacy of the issue. My point was that the issue can be solved using theoretical means (IE using Thermal Depolymerization to solve Peak Oil probably won't happen, but it works IN THEORY). I was a bit ambiguous here. I apologize.

The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stone. The iron age didn't end because we ran out of iron. Likewise, we are not switching from coal because there is too little of it, but because we have found a replacement which is more efficient and more economically viable. The quantities of coal available to us are by and large irrelevant.

My point was the windfarms and hydroelectric dams have trade offs, just like coal. We could remedy each and every one of them if we chose to, but we don't because it doesn't make economic sense. Given enough capital, it would be easy to make a zero emissions coal plant, but it's way more profitable to just burn the coal and sell the power.

As I said, I am not really an advocate of coal, I just believe that you are really exaggerating the issue with unsubstantiated claims (such as that coal cannot be clean). I prefer Liquid Natural Gas as an alternative to coal, as it's a completely renewable resource and will serve to bridge the gap between our currently combustion based infrastructure to the mostly electrical infrastructure of tomorrow.

 

Sequestration is just burying the problem. I prefer the cogeneration method wherein the scrubbed Co2 is used to provide nutrition to algal farms which can then be used for algal oil (to be used as fuel) or for sustenance.

Of course, the issue you get there is that the algae is basically just a big solar panel, so it probably makes more sense in the long run to build solar plants. Still, it could be a viable solution as it uses the infrastructure we already have, plus it's a lot more applicable in Northern countries which don't get as much sunlight.

 

The economics may not be present but if we do keep using oil (we won't, the market demand for it will be reduced as the price goes up), we could make that oil go on indefinitely by recycling it using TD.

Again, the issue is theoretical. We won't use TD on an economic scale because it will just be cheaper to throw up solar panels or a wind farm here or there.

 

Can we talk about reality and not what is possible in a laboratory in a small scale? Peak oil and coal are not theoretical.

 

They are theoretical. Although they can physically occur, we do not know that they have.

 

Peak oil did indeed happen here in the US in the 1970's. Production has been, on average, declining ever since.

 

If we're talking in terms of production, yeah, that's quantifiable. I was under the impression we were speaking more in terms of the exhaustion of world wide reserves, which we don't have the geological data to determine.

 

That's what peak oil means, the peak of production.

 

No, peak oil means "peak production" after which it irreversibly declines. We'll never run out of oil (or coal) - the remaining fuel will just become too costly to recover.

 

You can't say the decline is irreversible. If we didn't have access to the steam technology for the asthabasca oil sands, we would be unable to produce it but it would still be there.

 

But it wouldn't make a difference in the peak of oil production. The production of oil from tar sands is difficult and slow compared to light sweet crude.