Posted on 02/14/2017 3:00:39 PM PST by Kaslin
Coal is a gift that we have in abundance. The vast reserves of coal guarantee the United States energy for hundreds of years. Coal is efficient. No fuel, other than uranium, is cheaper. Coal burns clean in modern plants. Strip-mining coal in the modern way improves the landscape. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. demonstrated coal reserve base is 477 billion 2,000-pound tons, enough for more than 500 years at current consumption rates.
In the eyes of the diminishing crowd of believers in catastrophic global warming, coal is evil, a demon. Why? Because it is mostly carbon, and when coal is burned, carbon dioxide (CO2) is created. CO2 is supposed to create a disaster. As the predicted disaster (global warming) fails to materialize, a new disaster (extreme weather) is invented. The disasters that never materialize are blamed on CO2 and indirectly on coal.
Apocalyptic ideology needs scapegoats. Coal and CO2 serve well. According to the Sierra Club, demon coal will destroy our world and poison our children. If the Sierra Club only offered mountain meadows and wildflowers, it would be pretty boring and wouldn't raise $100 million every year. Demons and conspiracies are the stuff that raises big money
The CO2 released by burning coal is wonderful stuff. Plants breathe CO2, and if there is more CO2 in the air, the plants breathe easy, grow faster, and need less water. Greenhouse operators put CO2 generators in their greenhouses because more CO2 helps plants thrive. Worldwide agriculture is going strong, partly because the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from about 0.03% to 0.04%.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
My favorite kind!
Coal is the most concentrated form of combustible fuel heat energy that is available by chemical means alone. Yet coal is not simply a conversion of carbon + oxygen to carbon dioxide, but burns WAY more efficiently when used in conjunction with - water. Coal, heated to near incandescence (about 1,000 degrees F.), when injected with water, forms carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas, both highly combustible fuels, and also important feedstock chemicals for a number of other industrial processes. The end result, when additional oxygen is introduced, is then carbon dioxide and water vapor (and a LOT of heat energy), both of which recycle in the ecology of green growing plants.
Blacksmiths using their forges knew the practical applications of this simple chemistry, as the hottest fire is from the combustion of hydrogen plus forced oxygen induction, via a bellows, used to forge iron by raising it to cherry or straw heat, for the purposes of forming by hammer and anvil. When iron approaches straw heat, is is almost as malleable as clay, though one would never attempt to handle it other than with tongs and while wearing protective gear.
The rise of industrialization and civilization itself depended on using this very concentrated form of carbon.
Cool!
I’m pro-coal.
However, burning low grade coal in awful ancient stoves in yurts in Mongolia’s capitol Ulan Bator is causing huge air pollution.
Does anyone know of a small, inexpensive, modern, low particulate stove for home warming use?
I’d like to see if there’s a fix anywhere in the world ...
Thanks!
Jr. chubby stove...chubbys are great coal stoves...
When i had a house in Brownville Junction Maine...I replaced the oil burner with a coal furnace and tied it into a heater box with a fan...heated the whole house even during the coldest parts of the year...and it gets a tad cold there...was cheap and easily maintained...I love coal.
particulate schmarticulate ...I had seen one friend put a sliding grate in a heat trap box to get a majority of it right before piping it outside ....seemed to grab alot and he would clean it when he let the stove cool down during the days...coal is dusty there is no way around it ...but you learn to be proficient when cleaning the ash and pipes....but if you think about it ..it is clean in comparison when you see what is involved in procuring oil and gas or any other fuel...fewer steps.
A lot of folks love to trash talk coal.
All I know is that if a coal powered thermal palnt catches fire:
It does not explode
It **does not emit lethal radiation** for for the next 100 human generations....
If Fukashima had happen at the time Christ was Crucified, it would still be lethally radioactive today.
Atoms for bombs? OK, I can see that.
Atoms for power plants? Not so much.
***It does not explode***
Duct work and coal pulverizers can and do often explode. Sometimes the coal will burn with spontaneous combustion.
Trump ought to introduce legislation that would mandate synthetic diesel made from coal.
Excellent post.
I found the USA coal resource map interesting. I had no idea there are coal deposits over large areas of Iowa and Missouri.
Also, since coal is derived from plant material, I was surprised to see significant coal deposits on the Arctic coastline of Alaska. That's definitely a good reason to believe in continental drift and global warming in Earth's pre-history.
As to coal smoke, that's been gone for at least 30 years. I lived in two medium sized upper mid-west cities in the late 80s and early 90s. Both cities had coal generators literally in the middle of downtown - no smoke, and no odors at all.
Compare that with the 1950s. I recall being on the observation deck of the Chicago Board of Trade building in the late 50s with my Dad. The air was full of fly-ash, much of it larger than potato chips!.
I did not love chopping it up, but it is warm.
Bkmk
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