In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009, two cooling towers are demolished at a coal burning power plant as an effort to improve energy efficiency in Xinxiang, in central China’s Henan province. (AP Photo)
The Associated Press reports this week (via public radio) that President Barack Obama’s visit to China next month is not likely to yield a separate accord on countering global warming, though both countries are pushing for progress for upcoming global talks in Copenhagen. At the same time, Obama’s energy secretary, Steven Chu, told Congress that the U.S. is risking falling behind China on clean energy technologies. Meanwhile, some analysts argue that current U.S. legislative proposals don’t do nearly enough in this area.
Climate politics is likely to take center stage again next week, as Democrats prepare to move their bill through a Senate committee. One report wonders if any Republicans will show up.
This week’s coal news included stories about a South African mine explosion that killed one worker and injured 15 others, and a happier story about three Chinese miners who were rescued after being trapped for eight days.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting had one story about coal in the classroom, including a link to a coal “coloring book.”
This BBC blog piece had an interesting take on coal and the climate change issue:
The Obama administration needs 60 Senate votes for its climate bill if it is to avoid a Republican filibuster – a roadblock to the bill.
The electoral calculation only adds up so long as every Democratic senator votes with the administration.
But both Democratic senators here in West Virginia have said they will vote against the bill.
That means Senator John Kerry, the former presidential candidate who is sponsoring the bill, is looking for compromises that might draw them back into the fold.
He is also being forced to consider inducements – like offshore drilling permits and incentives for the nuclear industry – which might attract wavering Republicans.
In short, West Virginia’s opposition to the Senate climate bill will end up watering down America’s position on climate.
There were a lot of earnings reports out this week from major publicly traded coal producers, including Arch Coal, CONSOL Energy, International Coal Group, Massey Energy and Patriot Coal.
Congressional investigators continued to examine the letter-faking scandal involving one of the coal industry’s biggest lobby groups.
Finally, here’s a video put together by Friends of the Earth about the climate change bill’s experiences on Capitol Hill …
I’m just a bill, the clean green energy bill,
Gonna change things here on Capitol Hill.
Well, everyone was sick of oil wars and apocalyptic weather,
Needed energy security, so the people got together,
And decided I should be a law.
How I hope and pray that I will,
But today, I am still just a bill.
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(Still gloomy)
Arch Coal 3Q tumbles, but co. sees recovery signs
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/10/30/financial/f072318D15.DTL
Arch, which fuels about 8 percent of all U.S. electrical generation, said it is seeing improvements in markets for metallurgical or coking coal used in steelmaking, though the company cautioned that high stockpiles at U.S. power plants likely will dampen steam coal markets in the first half of next year.
Arch Coal earned $25.2 million, or 16 cents per share, on $615 million in revenue in quarter. That’s down from profit of $97.8 million, or 68 cents per share, on $769.5 million in revenue during the same period last year.
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Arch said it sold 29.1 million tons of coal in the third quarter, an improvement from the 27.4 million tons during the previous three months but down from 34.8 million tons in the third quarter of 2008.
The average per-ton sales price during the quarter was $20.05, up from $19.43 the previous quarter but lower than $20.38 a year earlier. Arch’s per-ton margins improved to $1.86 from 69 cents in the second quarter, but still down from $3.73 during last year’s third quarter.
Doesn’t Kerry have his op-ed companion, Lindsey Graham?
Haunted Coal Mine (5:35 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am3V3iWUW1s http://www.tour-edmine.com
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/lifestyles/s_650264.html
(Excerpt)
According to Tour-Ed mine officials, the haunted mine has won kudos from HauntWorld magazine and others.
“Welcome to your nightmare,” a chipper Goth greeter announces at the beginning of the tour of the Haunted Mine, now celebrating its fifth anniversary as the Tour-Ed coal mine’s major fund-raiser.
A functional coal mine since about 1850, the mine’s last owner, the late Ira Wood, stopped commercial mining and established a nonprofit museum on the site in 1970 to preserve the heritage of coal mining and the lives of miners.
Capturing CO2 and sequestrering it underground will be problematic, when trying to go from a small pilot project to a significant fraction of CO2 produced from burning coal. Putting CO2 underground would be expensive, and geologic prisons for the CO2 will not all be escape proof.
When burning natural gas we get half as much CO2 for same energy as when burning coal. If we apply carbon capture technology to CO2 from natural gas powered plants, then the problem of putting all that CO2 somewhere is cut in half. (Coal-fired plants may be retrofitted to burn natural gas, and they will then be able to be fired up and down as needed, which coal plants can’t do.)
A better way to sequester CO2 than burying it may be to use it to grow algae in large greenhouses built next to the power plants. The greenhouses could be hothouses, warmed year-round with waste heat from the power plants. The algae could also be dried, then cooked into charcoal with waste heat. This biochar, the sequestered CO2, could then be applied to the land where it would make the land much more productive. Increasing the vitality of our soils with this biochar could pull much more CO2 from the atmosphere, as increased biomass, such as food, fiber, and trees.
Alternative sources of power, such as wind, solar, nuclear, dams, wave turbines, etc can and will give us more power without any CO2.
So, the best way to prevent costly mistakes from trying to imprison CO2 underground on a large scale will be to use a better way to sequester it, as well as not produce so much of it in the first place.