“Coal will remain with us because there is simply too much global demand for electrical power to fill the gap with renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear options, even assuming massive scale ups in all of these technologies.”

Please get a copy of Scientific American, November 2009 and read the cover story.

In that article you will see a blueprint of how we could power 100% of the world with 100% non-fossil fuels by 2030.  And do so by using existing technologies.

Coal needs to go.  We don’t know how to efficiently capture the CO2 output from burning coal.  And if we manage to capture it, we don’t know how to safely store it.  We cannot afford to risk our futures waiting for someone to figure out a solution for coal.

We need to start by conserving.  Recall the North Carolina study that found that by giving people smart meters and some help controlling their electricity usage there was an average 20% decrease in consumption?  We’re getting less than 50% of our electricity from coal now.  Just think how many coal plants we could close were we to have a nationwide 20% drop in electricity consumption.

And then we need to take the technologies that we have in hand and greatly increase our rates of installation.  We’re on the way to nine gigs of new wind this year.  We need to double that annual rate by 2011 and keep increasing the rate into the future.

Clean coal is an oxymoron and a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  The people who said that CCS is some kind of smoke and mirrors scheme are right.  They were the ones who paid attention in their engineering courses.  Everyone else is on the payroll of the coal companies or just don’t understand thermodynamics.

When we combust coal (by burning it) we break the molecules apart into CO2 (the green house gas) and H2O (water). We also create lots of heat. If you want to sequester the CO2 again it will take a lot of energy, as well as expensive equipment to do so.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics basically states that it is impossible to generate net energy from a system that you are trying to put back to its original state (perpetual motion machines are also a violation). So in principal it is thermodynamically impossible to get net energy out of burning coal if you also need to put the CO2 back into a permanently sequestered state.

Of course you could still pump the CO2 into the ground and hope it doesn’t leak out — but just the pumping equipment and energy to do so will also be quite expensive. And no one is every going to want to live near those underground CO2 reservoirs (In 1986, a tremendous CO2 “burp” from the lake Nyos, West of Cameroon, killed more than 1700 people and livestock up to 25 km away).

Bob… Several analysts have found that Smart Meters tend to favor coal. The basic idea is: AMI—> Demad Response—> Flatter load profile—-> More baseload—> More coal.

Thermodynamics Germsgrowonhammicks… Why not tube the gas to space? Better yet Superman IV the CO2? Imagine the ghoul who would emerge after Luther’s secretly planted DNA sprung to life. Bam… That would be awesome.

Eric, whats’ the basis for your claims re CCS?  Do you have any background in the engineering required for this mythical technology? 

On your website (E2C2) I didn’t see any experience or education that would suggest you’re even remotely qualified in that field, although I did notice your website lists several other mythical technologies under “projects”, specifically “hybrid solar lighting” (a system that will never be remotely cost effective) and “solar sails” (neither practical or cost effective). 

It would seem you have a history of supporting projects that require a stable of unicorns to succeed…