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Energy Secretary-Designate, Steven Chu Endorses "Clean Coal"?
Obama's nominee for Secretary of Energy is appearing before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources today for his confirmation hearing. Given his long record of concern about climate change, it was inevitable that he would be asked about the role of coal as part of the US energy strategy.
I haven't been watching the hearings, but according to the Wall Street Journal, Chu parried questions about his past statement that coal is his "worst nightmare," by saying that he is "hopeful and optimistic that we can figure out how to use coal in a clean way."
It is likely he is parsing his words in the face of Senate interrogation, since Reuters is reporting that he is also simultaneously sticking to his guns at the hearing about the urgency of climate change. Chu is expected to be approved without a hitch, so we will likely get to see how he deals with these challenges once in office.
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What the hell is next in this kind of reasoning? Chu promotes virgin prostitutes?
Next thing you know, he'll suggest that global warming will be cured if we will only leave our refrigerator doors ajar at night to help cool the atmosphere.
January 13, 2009 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
I would get into your argument here Sleepin', but I do not want any women mad at me today!!!!
January 13, 2009 12:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Best to not have women angry with you, ever. General principles, you know?
January 13, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=first-oxyfuel-clean-coal-power-plan-2008-09-04
If the Germans can do it so can we. Of course the economics don't even come close to penciling, but it is developing the technology that is crucial. Well designed Taxes, regulations, or Cap and trade system will do the rest. I am as big a fan of alternative energy as anyone but coal is too cheap and abundant to be replaced anytime soon.
January 13, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am aware of many interesting "clean coal" technologies that are in development. Perhaps the most intriguing are algae scrubbers for smokestacks that capture the carbon. The algae can then be used as a great feedstock for biodiesel.
My strong reaction to mentions of clean coal is founded in anger over the coal industry's recent ad campaigns that suggest clean coal technology is the standard for today's coal usage. Thus, according to them, we need not be concerned about approving additional coal-fired power plants. It's dishonest and does a disservice to the effort to achieve more energy conservation which could make it unnecessary to build many of the proposed new plants.
I am wrong, however, to be too critical of Chu's testimony. In parsing his comments, he rightly expresses "hope and optimism to use coal in the future in a clean way."
And therefore you are right in pulling me up a bit short here, and I thank you for it.
January 13, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think he's just providing himself wiggle room that allows him to stick to his guns on climate change while not raising the hackles of the industry types and their supporters too high. The objective of the moment is simply to get through confirmation without a hitch.
January 13, 2009 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think, in general, you're right. I'd like to actually watch the hearing to see his demeanor in answering the question.
On the other hand, Obama kept on talking about "clean coal" during the campaign and has endorsed some questionable coal liquification schemes in Illinois.
It might, in fact, be more telling to see how Lisa Jackson [EPA-designee] responds to coal questions in her confirmation hearing tomorrow, given the EPA's tremendous regulatory power over air pollutants and hazardous waste.
January 13, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no question Obama's "clean" coal position in the campaign was dubious and driven by the powerful coal interests in Illinois as was his absurd support for nuclear energy. Now that he's going to be President it will be interesting to see if he still feels he must demonstrate his allegiance to those rapacious interests or if he feels his efforts should be lashed to the interests of the environment and the people who have no choice but to breathe the air, drink the water and otherwise exist in it.
January 13, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Betcha Obama not only doesn't back away from "clean" coal and nuclear, but we will see a push for nuclear fairly soon. Who will profit from "clean" coal? Obviously not the people of the contaminated county in Tennessee right now or anyone downstream. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erin-brockovich-and-robin-greenwald/tva-disaster-spreads-far_b_157198.html
January 14, 2009 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Again, coal and nuclear power are both very big interests in Illinois. He carried mucho water for them in DC before. No reason to suspect that cat will change it's stripes.
January 14, 2009 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
So Chu is on record as saying that
1. Normal coal is a disaster and "Clean Coal" does not work
2. He hopes "Clean Coal" can be made to work in future
I don't see where the contradiction is here.
January 13, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you MCC and my memory is that Obama said the same things.
January 13, 2009 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I used to work at an energy lab which tried to make coal cleaner. Energy companies are interested in cleaner technology because it also wastes less energy for them. We didn't work in the carbon sequestration end, which is tricky, but on the reducing SOx and NOx and solid waste front.
Weirdly, when you use coal ash in concrete, you reduce CO2 emissions quite a bit. BTW, concrete plants are easily one of the top carbon-dioxide emitters.
Considering most of the courntry's electricity comes from coal, who isn't for cleaner coal until we get to the next thing? Comprehensively looking at the big picture: Coal emits tons of crap. Coal ash reduces concrete CO2 emissions. Building lots of roads causes people to make more concrete and asphalt (another huge emission). Roads also cause sprawl causing people to drive more causing more CO2. Etc.
It's a huge mess and we need a comprehensive plan, which probably involves clean coal.
January 14, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps Chu, as a scientist, is aware of the developing technologies that are showing increasing effectiveness (while not yet ready for prime time, they show promise) at trapping both CO2 and mercury. The stuff is in the labs right now, and it is beginning to look like it may be able to work well enough, on a commercial scale, to allow coal to serve as a bridge source.
If that happens, as I suspect it will, the people behind it will be both seen as visionaries envied for their newfound wealth.
January 13, 2009 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oops: "...and envied..."
January 13, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
The future of coal has never been in doubt - the country can't run without it. And even if the US could manage to shuttle all our coal plants, replace it with renewable sources, the incremental cost of renewable energy at this time would bankrupt the our economy. We don't live on an island. We must compete with our trading partners. China is completing a 800 MW unit every four days and has plans for continuing this for another eight years. Those plants will produce electricity at less than $0.01/kwh. If we are at $0.07/kwh with renewable power, there goes our manufacturing jobs.
The bridge to our low carbon future isn't going to happen without cleaner coal - it's not something that's in question.
January 13, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
True that. The switch over to renewable sources isn't going to happen with a snap of the fingers. I had not heard of the algae scrubbers...I'll have to do some googling.
In the meantime...somewhere along the I-75 in Michigan a truck hit a patch of ice and overturned, spilling out 95,000 lbs. of coal onto the freeway. They've already got it tidied up...it was just coal, after all. Can you imagine if that spill had been home heating oil? Coal does have it's advantages....just need to work on the clean burning aspect.
And concerning China's use of coal...along the campaign trail, Biden mentioned our need to come up with clean coal technology and suggested giving that technology to China and India just to save the air we breath over on this side of the planet.
January 13, 2009 6:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are also some very interesting developments relative to algae as the source of biodiesel.
Interesting, no? First they oxygenated the atmosphere, eons ago, making the rest of life, including us, possible, and now they may pull us up out of some very serious trouble at a critical point in our development. Thanks, algae, who knew?
January 13, 2009 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually it's more interesting than that, because the cyanobacterial algae are in fact terrible polluters! Oxygen eventually became essential for aerobic life forms such as we are, but at the time the blue-green algae first came on the scene they caused horrific mass extinctions, because oxygen was poisonous to all life that existed at the time.
So what we'd really have is massive irony, history's second greatest polluters being pulled out of an environmental jam by history's greatest polluters. :D
January 13, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Flowers for algae,man. You're right. It's a terrible pun.
But, interesting, yes! I've been reading about it today.
Now I have to go read about cyanobacteria. Dammit. I'm never gonna catch up.
January 13, 2009 8:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, when you also consider that oil isn't anything except dead algae (that's been buried, sat around for a few million years, and then heated up a bit), then algae is both a root and a solution to climate change.
January 14, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
The most promising new technology for clean coal might be the oxy-fuel process. Google "CRFV28N2-C" for a peak at the system.
The beauty of this system is it might be possible to adapt much of our existing plant equipment to this process. It should be possible to close the flue gas loop allowing a zero CO2 release. Of course other toxins like mercury would also be completely contained.
A system like this is being tested in Australia. But it's going to take years before it's really for prime-time given the present budget.
January 13, 2009 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink