[ExI] THE END for fossil power

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Damien Sullivan
<phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 09:25:01PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:
>
>> Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is
>> that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact
>
> We might be exporting crap coal, and importing the good low-sulphur
> stuff for use in domestic power.  Imports might be cheaper than burning
> our crap more cleanly, even if we could provide all our own coal.  Just
> a guess.

This is just the kind of crap that happens when we say that we're
concerned about the global environment, but really only care about the
politics of power. I'm just so sick of it. I really do care about the
environment, but none of the politicians seem to really care about
that, except when it gives them some political advantage. It makes me
sick. I hope this isn't really happening, but you're probably right.

>> that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The
>> other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going
>> through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers
>
> And if oil runs out enough that people start synthesizing it from coal,
> coal'll run down even faster.

True, but I'm not worried about that so much, because I think it's
cheaper to synthesize oil from tar sands (Canada has a LOT of that)
and even the methane deposits at the bottom of the ocean will
*probably* be cheaper in the long term than coal gassification. There
will probably be some conversion of coal to a liquid fuel, but I'm
hoping that the other options (even if they are fossil options) will
kick in first. I don't know what the actual cost is of each option,
this is just my sense of things hearing how people talk about it. I
can do the research later if anyone is really interested in the
relative costs. The methane fuel (methane hydrates?) is really a big
deal because there is an abundance of it. Of course, the global
warming crowd won't like liberating any more CO2, and at some point it
really is going to start having a big effect. Sorry, it's late... I'll
do more fact checking later if I get a chance.

-Kelly