I thought the Dems were the responsible party, the green party, and the party that would lead us away from the impending catastrophe of global warming. Yet, I read this about the man who also killed the fusion research budget while in the White House, which I see as a primary compnent of avoiding oil based economies.
Help me out here.
AP
Bill Clinton Adopts New Campaign Role
Friday March 7, 3:51 am ET
By Beth Fouhy and Mead Gruver, Associated Press Writers After Months of Trial and Error, Bill Clinton Settles Into New Role in Wife’s Campaign
ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. (AP) – This small mining hamlet might not be the first place one would expect to find the former leader of the free world.
But here was Bill Clinton in southwest Wyoming, two days before Saturday’s Democratic caucuses, telling about 1,000 people how his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, would establish 10 clean-coal technology projects if elected president in November.
“Some environmentalists don’t think we ought to be doing anything with coal, but they’re wrong,” he said.
By the way, it’s hard to engage in a discussion with someone who starts out by using the term “alarmists”. Nothing like being dismissive from the get-go.
Wow. Remember when Bill Clinton banned access to the largest deposit of clean burning coal in the world? I guess these new coal burning plants are going to be getting their fuel from India, rather than from Utah. That sounds environmentally friendly . . .
I’m not an alarmist, but I’m willing to help. Was there a question in there or something? Or was it merely a rant against anything environmental, Democratic and/or Clinton?
Definitely not a rant. And it was a bit of a troll as I was hoping to hear from you in particular among a few others.
My basic point is that, perhaps courtesy of Al Gore, the “environmental friendly” party is deemed to be the Democrats. Yet, I continue to find evidence to the contrary. All I am looking for is balance. Case in point, what thread would be posted by MattinSF in place of this one, if it were McCain proposing 10 coal plants, or maybe even by you perhaps?
My belief is that real elimination of fossil fuel sources will only occur when those resources are extinct, or very nearly so, regardless of Republican or Democratic administrations or controlled congresses. Not that that is the best solution for the environment, but it is just the way the world works.
I heard or read the same thing recently (about Clinton having killed nuclear research while in office). I’d agree that nuclear power seems like a big part of any strategy to get off foreign oil. Are the clean coal plants being proposed as a sort of “bridging” strategy until other methods come on-line? How “clean” would these clean coal plants be- just removing sulfites and phosphorus, or would it recapture CO2 to be sequestered? For that matter, where and how would the CO2 be sequestered?
My belief is that real elimination of fossil fuel sources will only occur when those resources are extinct, or very nearly so,
Why do you believe that? Do you believe that there simply is no other alternative energy available and that no amount of advancement will provide a better energy source?
regardless of Republican or Democratic administrations or controlled congresses.
I’ll agree with this portion, but only on the grounds that I don’t think government will come up with the solution to our energy needs. They’ll stand in the way or help on occasion but as usual it will be private industry to bring the solution along to it’s fruition…IMHO.
My belief is that real elimination of fossil fuel sources will only occur when those resources are extinct, or very nearly so,
Why do you believe that? Do you believe that there simply is no other alternative energy available and that no amount of advancement will provide a better energy source?
I believe that because I have watched the original creation of the DOE after the '73-74 oil crisis, and the waxing and waning of funding for alternative fuels and energy sources ever since. I have seen fission based nuclear energy rise and fall as an alternate source. Wind and solar are too limited to ever be major contributors (IMHO). My best hope was fusion based nuclear which is a hard technological nut to crack. But the payoff is immense, unlimited fuel supply, clean, no CO2, potential for superconducting energy grids, electricity to generate hydrogen for vehicles, it’s all good.
However, every time energy prices relax, the government cuts funding, and progress dies. All administrations and congresses for the last 30 years have had no guts for sticking to a committed effort to develop alternate energy sources because they can’t stop pandering to the voting public, just as in the present case. I can only see alternate sources take over when we have exhausted fossil fuel sources, or more likely the cost of fossil fuels become prohibitively expensive (probably when we are down to the last 10% of the world’s reserves). I give it another 20-30 years.
My belief is that real elimination of fossil fuel sources will only occur when those resources are extinct, or very nearly so, regardless of Republican or Democratic administrations or controlled congresses. Not that that is the best solution for the environment, but it is just the way the world works.
Well, it’s gonna be awhile, then. The United States is the Saudi Arabia of coal. We have something near 28% of the proved recoverable resources, with Russia next at around 17%. Estimates differ but we could have 200+ years of coal! Coal can be made into gasoline (“syngas”), and the procecss is supposely competitive with $35/barrel oil, so we may see coil to gas plants in our future (South Africa already does this).
Of course, extracting all that coal is a real environmental disaster since they either use giant strip mines (out west), or blow up mountain tops (west virginia). The old traditional mines like we see coverage of during accidents are becoming less common as those coal seams play out.
“Clean coal” is pretty much an oxymoron, there’s nothing clean about burning coal. Plants must have scrubbers, etc…there are IGCC plants which convert coal into a cleaner burning gas and then burn it in a gas turbine…so I suppose you can remove contaminants somehow, but it’s expensive. CCTC has supposedly patented a process that removes impurities from coal before burning it, they’re going to be retrofitting a big coal plant in China, I think it’s a scam but who knows.
I can see that, but I think that’s a pretty short estimate on the depletion of fossil fuels. I think it will take at least another 10-20 years for some new technologies to be viable. For the most part wind already is, just isn’t implemented in mass yet. As far as fossil fuels being “depleted”. I think we are looking closer to 100 years. Probably considerabbly sooner for oil, but probably later for coal…that stuff is EVERYWHERE.
** We have something near 28% of the proved recoverable resources, with Russia next at around 17%. Estimates differ but we could have 200+ years of coal! Coal can be made into gasoline (“syngas”), and the procecss is supposely competitive with $35/barrel oil,**
Yep, Germany used coal for a source of gas during WW II. I think the 200-300 yr estimate was for coal as a heating/electric source. If you add gas/diesel into the equation, it will shrink that estimate considerably. The other issue with coal is the sulfur content, the same as oil.
I am curious at what kind of motivation oil’gcompaines have for building new refineries with declining stocks. I wonder how that translates to building plants to convert coal to gas? Anyone in the biz who can enlighten me?
I am curious at what kind of motivation oil’gcompaines have for building new refineries with declining stocks. I wonder how that translates to building plants to convert coal to gas? Anyone in the biz who can enlighten me?
Well, none! There hasn’t been a NEW refinery built since what, the 1970s? Of course, many refineries have been expanded, so while the total # of refineries has decreased, the output has increased.
Coal to gas has never been economically feasible because oil wasn’t consistently over $35/barrel. It’s a big gamble…you could spend billions to do this only to see the Saudis open the spigots and flood the market, dropping you to $20/barrel, making your coal to gas investment worthless.
It’s a big gamble…you could spend billions to do this only to see the Saudis open the spigots and flood the market, dropping you to $20/barrel, making your coal to gas investment worthless.
Do you really think OPEC has that kind of power at this point? IOW do you think they can actually produce enough oil to make that big of a drop?
OPEC has been pretty good in the past of keeping oil around or under $30 a bbl. Every time a big effort was put into alternative energy sources, the prices dropped.
Having attained prices of $100+ a bbl, OPEC doesn’t need to drop to $20 a bbl to kill alternate energy sources. The U.S. has blown oil fields from early last century where excessive drilling killed the pressure to pump the oil out leaving a lot of oil in the ground. That was supposedly recoverable economically when oil prices rose above $50-60 a bbl. I haven’t seen that mentioned in a number of years.
This country’s policies are far too easy to manipulate far too often.
fusion energy is not the panacea you make it out to be. The technological hurdles are massive and will take many decades to work out. The fact that the entire reactor would become so radioactive that it could only be run for a few months at a time before it had to be turned off and allowed to ‘cool’ is only one of them.
Much of the fusion energy research goes on in Europe. The next reactor will be built there, hopefully starting construction this year. It is slated to operated for about 8 minutes and will cost about 8 billion dollars. It will not produce electricity just lots of radiation and heat.
Most of the US magnetic fusion energy budget was cut in 1988 before Clinton’s time. Inertial confinement fusion still goes on but is gear towards weapons development. I know because I was working on magnetic confinement fusion at the time and then all of a sudden I wasn’t.
The government biodiesel research budget was cut in 1985 also before Clinton’s time and the research shelved until last year. Unlike fusion, biofuel, wind, solar, wave, all are there and just require scaling up.
We will likely be running pretty dry on oil before the fusion power is viable. The data says peak world oil production was 3 years ago and is already in decline. The most optimistic estimates are that peak oil production will be 2011-2015.
I guess that’s one of the problems with forums like this, that my position on things seems to be muddled or misunderstood.
The reality is that we do need to build new plants to replace existing ones that are aging or can’t be upgraded to modern emission standards. New nukes are an option, as Congress will be subsidizing them to a tune of a billion dollars each for the first 6 built.
My position, based on a number of studies commisioned by utilities, utilities commisions, and others, is that there is a vast potential for energy efficiency. Cost effective energy efficiency. That’s not shivering with a sweater, but building homes so that they are more efficient. And make more money while doing it. A program run by several utilities in Arizona covering thousands of houses demonstrates that building standards and support gets houses that use 30% less energy. And that’s in practice, not just in models.
And the cost of that program is about half the cost of building new power plants and generating that power. I’m not talking environment, parkito, I’m talking money and profit. The builder makes more money by doing it right, and the house is more efficient and comfortable too, at least according to the customer satisfaction surveys.
On the nuclear stuff, that’s always an option. I’m not a nuclear scientist, so I’m going to trust the nuclear scientists and advocates I hang out with and that work for our company. While pro nuclear, I haven’t heard any of them support the fission you champion. They do, consistently, support the reprocessing as is done in Europe. But that is more costly than what we do now because uranium is so cheap.
If I recall correctly, I think you are the one that was awfully strong on windmill technology.
I personally don’t have any problems with any alternate energy sources. Windmills and solar will be limited by NIMBY and suitable locations. Fission nuclear will probably never get to the point where ever one agrees on waste storage and disposal. Furthermore, my recollections of uranium reserves is something less than 500 years, so at best it just buys time. Thus, my hope for fusion, which for the last 30 years has always been another 20 years away.
My pet peeve regarding alternate fuels and global warming is this pervading attitude that it is one particular political party that blocks alternate energy development and denies global warming, coupled with promoted “solutions” that are not cures by the other political party. I think the news item in the original post substantiated my little tantrum.