[Mick]

coal is abundent and its something the earth makes faster then alota other resources... but it bursn dirty and to get it u gota blast giant holes in to the earth and u spread so much dust and coal itself into the atmosopher...even mining it is not earht friendly.......... probably exagerating......iv got no hard source or evidence at the moment but when i have something emprical ill hook you up...

[Simon47]

In my cruise through the morning news looking for the poop on the Bali Summit I read a few articles that caught my eye. I got to one in particular that quoted someone from Indonesia who claimed that the only real solution to avoiding the progressive use of coal given the growing demand for energy in the east is going to be nuclear. Keeping in mind that the developing world is hoping to achieve our level of development even faster than we got there. They are making up for lost opportunity.

It is a similar discussion I have heard in Ontario around the closing of the coal plants here. Is nuclear the lesser of the evils? In India and China and a dozen places more the coal is the fuel available and abundant. I think that if the numbers are correct that the tar sands production can be clean for 3 dollars a barrel. What is it worth to coal producers and energy producers to continue with a clean process or shutdown cold the dirty one. They still make trillions. Which way? Nuclear is the next available resource and can meet the demand curve. it's not hard to recognize the method the energy companies would like to go and it seems to have a lot of support. There is a lot of propaganda out there. The important thing to note that will affect a lot of the developed world as climate change progresses and becomes more catastrophic and that is environmental refugess and displaced persons forced to migrate. These situations would inflate energy consumption and demand projections if in the near future there are millions of victims of the wasteland on our shores. You don;t hear a lot of this subject in planning and preparedness discussions. There are challenges we haven't even consider possible.

Sim

[Timetrvlr]

This is a great overview of clean coal technology complete with diagrams by BBC News.

An article in this issue of Discover magazine showcases the potential of the new ICGE design power plants. The ten-year-old 250MW Polk power plant near Tampa, Florida is an ICGE design and captures all fly ash, 98% of sulphur emissions, and nearly all it's nitrogen oxides. It does not capture any of its CO2 or mercury emissions because there is no requirement to do so but could easily be fitted with equipment to capture both. Interestingly, the Polk power plant is very profitable too.

[13lucky13]

I here they have developed a brick using wood waste that will rival coal in BTU's and has less emmissions