[ExI] Coal Gasification and CO2 (was Re: Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020?)

[Kelly Anderson]

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 10:05 AM, spike <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> *Wind power is capricious, and it is noisy and ugly.  Solution: put the
> wind turbines out in Wyoming where there is not much of anything but coal,
> lots of coal.  Build factories that convert coal to liquid fuels powered by
> wind. *
>

 I don't know where you stand on the whole CO2 global warming thing Spike,
but you might be interested in knowing that one of the largest single
points of human CO2 production in the world is the Sasol coal gasification
plant in South Africa.

http://www.sasol.com/sasol_internet/downloads/CTL_Brochure_1125921891488.pdf

This is one of my favorite little known examples of unintended
consequences. 66.8 Megatons of CO2 were produced in 2004 from this ONE
plant.

http://m.everythingscience.co.za/grade-12/05-the-chemical-industry/05-the-chemical-industry-02.cnxmlplus

The reason that the plant is there? The world's condemnation of apartheid
stopped oil from being imported into South Africa. So the liberals (in the
sense of wanting to force the change on others) meddling with the internal
affairs of South Africa's racist government led directly to the
construction of one of the largest point productions of CO2 in the world.

I wonder how many of these meddlers would prefer not to have the coal
gasification plant at the cost of letting apartheid fall apart under its
own weight, which it would have eventually no doubt done.

Note that the numbers above are just for the Production of the liquid fuel,
and that further CO2 is released when that fuel is burned (at least if I
understand what the number means).

My brother works for Sasol in Louisiana, and brought this to my attention,
or I would never have known about any of it. The anti-greenhouse gas people
aren't really about green house gasses, or this would be a bigger story,
imho. The ignorance of the Sasol plant's CO2 emissions reveals (to me,
anyway) the true nature of the greens. They are anti-capitalists first, and
true environmentalists second.

-Kelly
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