Clean Coal, like Non Sticky Super Glue!!! Also, a Pickens Plan Followup.

Well, I'm sitting here at the U of A typing this up on a Mac, listening to dcTalk and Spoken Groove on my iPhone, I look like an Apple commercial.  Honestly, this is the first time I've ever used a Mac, and yes, I'm 25 years old.  The only two problems I'm seeing right now is that this thing doesn't have a wave keyboard and the screen is so huge, I .... wait, there's only one problem after all, seriously, the screen is bigger than my living room TV.  I'd by a Mac, if they didn't cost more than my truck... zing! 

Anyway, as you have, I've been hearing stuff about clean coal on TV and in the debates, and in the non-official debates, and spewed by the Republicans.  I'd just like to go ahead and say that clean coal sits right down there with hydrogen technology as far as feasibility and the possibility of actually coming to fruition.

I'll tell ya why.  Just like hydrogen, if the technology did suddenly and magically appear to make the idea even possible, there's boatloads of other problems that still don't follow the dot to dot.  If the technology did suddenly show up to capture carbon (which I could care less about) there's still all the other stuff I do care about, and you should too, sulphur, NOx's, mercury, lead, cadmium, and fly ash which under continuingly restrictive restrictions, is gonna be toxic waste soon.  There's still the problem of mining, mountaintop removal mining, processing and transportation of all that coal.  Just like hydrogen, if you can figure out how to make hydrogen economically, you still have to figure out how to transport and store it which so far still has big problems since hydrogen can LEAK THROUGH SOLID METAL.  Then of course, you have to use it again which is equally or more inefficient that making it in the first place.

These technologies have been 40 years from economic feasibility for 50 years now.

And that's the simple facts.

Addendum to the Pickens Plan, I've recently learned that the US already imports nearly a quarter of its natural gas.  So, Mr. Pickens, I really like the wind turbine idea, but I'm still coming up with the conclusion that you'd like to trade an oil addiction for a NG addiction.  Trading one import for another now.  NG like oil gets traded on the open market, which means as other countries use more of it, our price goes up.

Electricity on the other hand can't easily be exported to other countries, and can be used in infinite ways.  We make it here, we use it here, and other countries can't easily buy it from us.  Plus there's always the fact that I can make it in my back yard, which I can't do with oil, NG, or hydrogen.  Concerned about the limited range of electric cars?  I live 6 miles from town, how far away do you live?

I did think of one other bad thing about this Mac, the screen's so big, I can only use about a quarter of it to write this post because of the size of Blogger's typing window.  All this wasted space and electricity.  But I guess if I bought one and used it as my TV it could be economical.  Of course, for the same price, I could have a rockin' awesome PC and a big screen HDTV.  Plus, I wouldn't look like so much of an elitist. ;-)

Go with what works.

WiredForStereo