2:14AM
China still dirtier, but working to clean up faster too
Monday, June 15, 2009 at 2:14AM FRONT PAGE: "China Far Outpaces U.S. in Building Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants," by Keith Bradsher, New York Times, 11 May 2009.
China now uses more coal than the US . . . and Europe . . . and Japan . . . COMBINED!
So the great sinner is also the most prolific peddler of partial salvation: cleaner-burning coal plants.
While we debate, China builds at a rate of one per month.
No, not exactly leap-frogging in an aggregate sense, but yeah, leading the way in its own, particularly Chinese way.
Reader Comments (6)
Natural gas obviously burns cleaner than coal but as a result of the massive economical deposits, it could also end up making coal plants obsolete. It also obviously has implications to other forms of alternative energy that may take considerably longer
I'm told this would also end up putting China at a disadvantage as far as energy costs go AND apparently Europe has shale deposits which would reduce fears of Russia turning off the taps. I'm still trying to read up on it, but shale gas seems pretty exciting.
Apparently, media still does not monitor ongoing DOD/DARPA/DOE/NIST design and demonstration of a wide variety of domestic, cleaner energy methods with global implications. Give the media time, it has only been a decade or so.
The media is just barely noting the Smart Grid aspect of the energy plan, but even then, it focuses on windmills and home efficiency angles.
The Smart Grid will allow continental wide distribution of energy from fewer large scale energy sources located where local people want them, rather than close to most cities. They are nearby today because of the inefficient current energy transmission system. That Smart Grid will involve big solar and wind farms, but it will also involve distribution from near the coal fields, large secure nuke plants etc.
We use a lot of natural gas electricity sources today because it is better than coal or oil for air pollution. As the Smart Grid takes over, that natural gas can be used in various forms for transportation fuel.
Yes, you will be able to plug in your electric car or solar roof system to feed the grid at times, but it will be the networked big guys that are key.
And it was something the Chinese had to do, since the black soot overhanging the cities and acid rain cause very real and costly economic problems.
If you heat up hydrocarbon bearing shale in a pressure vessel under the right conditions, you will get natural gas. The key is to do it economically and without creating a whole lot of pollution.
Here's another interesting fact. If you heat up coal in a pressure vessel under the right conditions and add steam, you will also get natural gas. Once again, the key is to do it economically and without producing a lot of pollution.
You can even do this with wood chips and agricultural waste. If the Europeans had their natural gas cut off by the Russians, they could even turn some of their agricultural surplus into natural gas if they had the equipment in place, although that would be a remarkably inefficient use of resources.
The nice thing is that the equipment that burns natural gas doesn't care if the natural gas came from a well or if it was made from shale, coal or plant matter.
Big issue is reliability and security of network.
A network containing many small power sources will be more resilient than a network with a few large ones. The thing that would make America's power grid much more efficient would be more East-West transmission lines so that power could be wheeled across time zones to follow the peak loads across the continent every day.
Of course, given the power of the BANANA environmentalists and their lawyers, lots of luck with that.