Whenever you seed the phrase 'clean coal' check for you wallet. There are many irreducible problems with coal.
First, you've got to get it out of the ground. The most common ways of doing that are strip mining and mountain top removal mining. Both not only destroy the area actually minded but produce enormous amounts of liquid and solid waste (coal slurry and fly ash are the worst) that destroy whatever environment they are deposited into.
Second, however you cut it, the fundamental chemical reaction is going to be CxHxOx + O2 => CO2. There is no way to avoid producing carbon dioxide if you want and exothermic reaction. So you get carbon dioxide capture schemes. The problem is once you capture the carbon dioxide no one has any idea what to do with. There are vague notions that we can pump it underground, but pilot projects in this area have been dismal failures both because of a lack of confidence that the CO2 will remain buried and because of the high energy costs in burying the CO2.
Third, aside from CO2, coal has a variety of other nasty constituents: mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic among others.
> Third, aside from CO2, coal has a variety of other nasty constituents: mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic among others.
How high is the radiological pollution from coal I wonder? All that stuff gets turned to ash and spread around by wind and now it will be some kind of slurry I guess. Still have to do something with it.
"Coal power stations, for example, expose the public to nuclear radiation,
because coal ash typically contains uranium. Indeed, according to a paper
published in the journal Science, people in America living near coal-fired
power stations are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near
nuclear power plants."
"–People in America living near coal-fired power stations are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near
nuclear power plants. Source: McBride et al. (1978). Uranium and thorium have concentrations of roughly 1 ppm and
2 ppm respectively in coal.
Further reading: gabe.web.psi.ch/research/ra/ra res.html,
www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/energy/Companion/E20.12.pdf.xpdf."
When I hear a comparison made in that manner my fraud antenna goes up. 'Higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants!' Is the sort of breathless thing you can say without considering that people living near nuclear power plants might not have much of a radiation dose to begin with?
Clean energy begins with honest conversations about the cost/benefit of each type of energy.
The extra dosage for living near a coal power plant is really low - about 2% of a chest x-ray per year. The extra dosage for living near a nuclear power plant is nearly non-existent at a third of that.
The chemical effects of the pollutants in fly ash are a far bigger concern than the radiological effects.
I don't think I understand your objection. The comparison between coal and nuclear power is made because there is a public perception that living near a nuclear plant is dangerous, while coal plants are ignored.
The electricity I'm using to write this was in all likelihood generated by the local coal power plant (though there is some wind and hydro generation nearby); I wish they'd replace it with nuclear.
...people living near nuclear power plants might not have much of a radiation dose to begin with?
Second, however you cut it, the fundamental chemical reaction is going to be CxHxOx + O2 => CO2.
I thought most fuels were hydrocarbons (CxHx - e.g. propane is C3H8, methane is CH4, benzene is C6H6), not carbohydrates (CxHxOx).
There is no way to avoid producing carbon dioxide if you want [an] exothermic reaction.
I'm not a chemist, so forgive this question if it is naive: is there no catalyst or chemical process that can completely strip the carbon from the hydrogen, oxidize the hydrogen, and leave only carbon and water?
Anyway you are going to need something to bind to the carbon. Pure carbon allotropes (graphite, diamond, buckyballs, etc.) are extremely energetically disfavored as compared to CO2 at normal pressures. You could use fluorine instead of oxygen, but tetrafluoromethane (CF4) has a greenhouse gas potential 6000 times that of CO2, and is fairly poisonous to boot.
First, you've got to get it out of the ground. The most common ways of doing that are strip mining and mountain top removal mining. Both not only destroy the area actually minded but produce enormous amounts of liquid and solid waste (coal slurry and fly ash are the worst) that destroy whatever environment they are deposited into.
Second, however you cut it, the fundamental chemical reaction is going to be CxHxOx + O2 => CO2. There is no way to avoid producing carbon dioxide if you want and exothermic reaction. So you get carbon dioxide capture schemes. The problem is once you capture the carbon dioxide no one has any idea what to do with. There are vague notions that we can pump it underground, but pilot projects in this area have been dismal failures both because of a lack of confidence that the CO2 will remain buried and because of the high energy costs in burying the CO2.
Third, aside from CO2, coal has a variety of other nasty constituents: mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic among others.