[Bruce_the_vii]

Coal will be King

Coal was “King” at the beginning of the 20th Century and will be King again, as oil runs out. There is a trillion tons of the stuff available.

It’s about half the price to generate electricity from coal than from nuclear. Green energy wind is at least twice as costly as nuclear. Going forward there will be tar sands scale developments of coal deposits, we need about 27 times the coal as the Alberta tar sands by 2050. Coal can be turned into gasoline and diesel.

Going forward the issue will be how to keep the world economy going with oil rising in price. This could come up in a few years. An oil recession is possible.

There’s a concern about the CO2 from coal but the CO2 is going to dissolve into the ocean. An issue is to determine how much CO2 will go into the ocean by 2050. You will never read about that in the newspapers, the science is absent.

[martin14]

Coal is socially unacceptable.

Very few will ever be convinced coal can be 'clean' power.

Co2 does not "dissolve" into the ocean.


Wind or solar are not dependable, too costly, too inefficient, and in any case,
will still require a 100% backup system, as people will not accept
power outages for hours or days cause 'there aint no wind'.


The future, like it or not, is nuclear.

[Proculation]

"... and will be King again, as oil runs out."

We still have a lot of oil which mean we still have a lot of time to work on new technologies for energy and to enhanced them.

Coal is the future ??? Come on !

[PostFactum]

I don't believe in it, make energy from it is very bad for ecology and is not effective as nuclear nowadays. I thing that the sun is our energy future.

[Pseudonym]

I think we'll be surprised by how little the popularity of coal matters when energy costs get high enough. People like the environment, but all the propaganda in the world won't matter when your bank account is running dry. With new methods of processing coal and reducing toxic emissions, some of the stigma attached to coal will also fade.

I am not sure exactly what Bruce is referring to about CO2 dissolving into the ocean. Gases do dissolve in water to some degree, but I'm not sure what would create a higher rate of CO2 dissolution. Rising plankton populations?

[angler57]

martin14 wrote:

Coal is socially unacceptable.
Very few will ever be convinced coal can be 'clean' power.
Co2 does not "dissolve" into the ocean.
Wind or solar are not dependable, too costly, too inefficient, and in any case,
will still require a 100% backup system, as people will not accept
power outages for hours or days cause 'there aint no wind'.
The future, like it or not, is nuclear.

If coal is socially unacceptable?
And other systems are far to expensive?
We had better find something that is reasonable to produce and socially acceptable
quickly or we will return quickly to the dark ages.
Dark being the key word.

"Green," seems to be used more as a marketing tool than a reasonable cure to our ills.

[Proculation]

Pseudonym wrote:

I think we'll be surprised by how little the popularity of coal matters when energy costs get high enough. People like the environment, but all the propaganda in the world won't matter when your bank account is running dry. With new methods of processing coal and reducing toxic emissions, some of the stigma attached to coal will also fade.

I am not sure exactly what Bruce is referring to about CO2 dissolving into the ocean. Gases do dissolve in water to some degree, but I'm not sure what would create a higher rate of CO2 dissolution. Rising plankton populations?

the rate of transfer between the air and the water and the quantity depend of the concentration of both, tending to an equilibrium. Since the CO2 level in concentration is quite constant over time, I would say that we are in that equilibrium state. If you add 20% more CO2, only a certain part (~30%) of that 20% will be absorbed until the equilibrium is brought back. So about 60% will stay in the atmosphere and you will contribute to the acidification of the oceans. This is a loose-loose solution.

[PostFactum]

angler57 wrote:

"Green," seems to be used more as a marketing tool than a reasonable cure to our ills.

Can't agree, for marketing tool the most used are "cheap" and
"quality". Only a little part of companies use green, because the government is checking stuff, so to write this word on some products can cost a lot of money for the company. On this planet most of people are not thinking about ecology, and that's the real problem.

[Bruce_the_vii]

Most the CO2 on the surface of the earth is in the ocean. As the CO2 increases in the atmosphere it will disolve in the ocean to come back to equilibrium. Gases dissolve in water. It does not work quickly because the deep ocean water stays down there for a long time and only comes to the surface when it circulates into the colder regions where there is mixing of the surface water with upwelling deep water. In the tropics the water is stratified and the warm top layer doesn't mix with the lower water. This is part of the basic science of global warming but is not explained enough. I have never seen an estimate of the mixing rate.

[bootlegga]

Why is this in the Canadian Politics sub-thread?

Are you posting that our politicians are full of hot air?

[Zipperfish]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

Most the CO2 on the surface of the earth is in the ocean. As the CO2 increases in the atmosphere it will disolve in the ocean to come back to equilibrium. Gases dissolve in water. It does not work quickly because the deep ocean water stays down there for a long time and only comes to the surface when it circulates into the colder regions where there is mixing of the surface water with upwelling deep water. In the tropics the water is stratified and the warm top layer doesn't mix with the lower water. This is part of the basic science of global warming but is not explained enough. I have never seen an estimate of the mixing rate.

I don't think you really know what your'e talking about, sorry.

[KorbenDeck]

Oil will remain king for a long time still. Remember we can "farm" oil from algae, still in development but the first full scale farm is supposed to be running in 2012. With cost expected to be a mere $30 per barrel

[Bruce_the_vii]

I read that algae could replace oil. However it's sort of difficult to grow and so we don't see announcement of developments. Probably takes fertilizer.