The Mythology Of Green Energy

American Sentinel ^ | February 6, 2009 | Jay Henderson

[jay1949]

Anyone who believes the "green energy" hype should spend a day driving around Buchanan County, Virginia, to view the cross-hatching of excavations and roadcuts which scar the landscape. Southern Appalachia is experiencing a natural-gas boom, but the production of this "green" fuel is far from benign.

[Slapshot68]

I’d pay money to see “green energy” advocates fight against the sierra club. Maybe they’ll kill each other off.

[ClearCase_guy]

I hate green technology. I think 95% of it is a scam. If the government is going to invest in near-term energy production, they should build nuclear power plants. If the government is going to invest in long-term energy research, they should focus on fusion power.

Solar, wind, biofuel stuff has been "just around the corner" for about 35 years and I say it's a joke and a waste of money.

[Tarpon]

Isn't natural gas renewable energy?

Did you know that liquid transport fuels made from coal, gasoline and diesel, are cleaner burning than oil based liquid transport fuel? It's true, the coal conversion process, which usually involves gasification, inherently filters out some of the impurities that doesn't get removed from oil based refining.

So why is it that the USA is the Saudi Arabia of coal, having over 25% of the world's supply, and it all just sits there. I wonder if nanny Peloser could help with the answer.

Search on "Fischer-Tropsch process" for more information.

[Sherman Logan]

I don’t know of any “green energy proponents” who class natural gas as green.

As a fossil fuel, in their eyes it is only slightly less evil than coal itself.

[gracesdad]

Coal production certainly isn’t less benign when it involves destroying whole mountains. Go look at some photos. It’s much worse in person.

I’ve never really thought of gas as part of the “green” energy movement. It might burn more cleanly than coal, but getting it out sure isn’t green.

[Robert A Cook PE]

If I had my druthers, I'd druther not burn natural gas OR oil fuel - Both are too valuable as commercial feedstocks for chemicals, fertilizers, plastics, medicines (a small volume granted) and other items we need.

Best is fusion - it's NOT EVEN IN THE Fed's energy “agenda” - much less real research or engineering! - but fission (conventional nuclear) is only slightly less hated by the enviro’s. (It is only the false threat of greenhouse gasses that makes nuclear even tolerable for discussion notice that they probably won't sign the permits for real construction.)

Conversion of fission wastes/recycling/enrichment/breeder reactors?

Forbidden by artificial federal restraints - because Carter was worried about proliferation! (Except NOW Obama is permitting encouraging ?) Russia/North Korea to build their own recycling/plutonium plant/nuclear weapons program in Iran.)

[jay1949]

see, e.g., http://www.cleanenergyfuels.com/main.html

[wita]

I’d pay money to see “green energy” advocates fight against the sierra club. Maybe they’ll kill each other off.

A dream come true were it so. There is still time.

[Sherman Logan]

Ho, ho.

Those guys aren’t green energy proponents, they’re natural gas producers trying to catch a ride on the green train.

The people actually driving the train, the deep environmentalists, hate all fossil fuels. In fact, the real deep environmentalists hate all sources of energy, and dread the prospect of the development of an environmentally innocuous source of energy. They don’t want people to be wealthy and numerous. The extremists think people should be wiped out to save the planet from us.

[jay1949]

One, I referred specifically to underground coal mining; mountaintop-removal mining is certainly destructive and has its own host of undesirable effects.

Two, politically and in the public perception, natural gas is lumped together with a number of items such as wind power, hydropower, solar cells and biofuels. ALL of these technologies have an environmental cost (see my remarks about wind turbines) and none of them is truly either clean or renewable. When we make electric-power turbines, we use copper which is mined from open-pit operations, for example. We run out of copper, we run out of turbines.

[chimera]

ALL of these technologies have an environmental cost (see my remarks about wind turbines) and none of them is truly either clean or renewable.

I can't think of a signal; technology that is. They all involve manufactured materials and articles that will have some environmental impact. They all have finite lifetimes.

The designation "green" or "renewable" is in many ways an artificial construct. most often used for political and social engineering purposes. In the end, nothing is really "clean" and "renewable". There has to be a closure for the utilization cycle, whether it's burial of waste from a coal plant (i.e., fly ash piles spilling out), reprocessing of nuclear fuel, or tearing down a windmill that has broken or is at the end of it's useful lifetime. Some may be more or less difficult to manage, but they all have to be dealt with at some point.

[chimera]

sorry, signal—>single

[Between the Lines]

From the article there is this pic:

gas-well rig

That is not a "gas-well rig" as labeled, but is instead it is a pump jack. They are never used on a gas well, but instead are used to pump oil up from an oil well. It is also not a "rig". A rig looks like this:

[jay1949]

“The extremists think people should be wiped out to save the planet from us.”

And to them I say, talk is cheap; lead us by your example!

[Sherman Logan]

And to them I say, talk is cheap; lead us by your example!

I present for your amusement and edification the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.

http://www.vhemt.org/

[jay1949]

Thanks for pointing this out; I will correct the caption. The rig is the device used to drill the well, and it is trucked out once the well is complete. In this part of Appalachia, the function of the pump jack is to remove water which accumulates in the well; thus the need for both water lines and gas pipelines.

[PRO 1]

All of this dialog is mindless blather because the entire premise upon which it is built is fraud. Global Warming is a fraud. CO2 as a deleterious gas is a fraud. Current mining and drilling technology as being destructive to the environment is a fraud.

All of these frauds being foisted upon the US by individuals, groups and organizations that are clear in their anti-American, anti-capitolist, anti-liberty, anti-freedom agendas. They are liars all of them and they count on the ignorance of the uninformed.

How can frauds like this happen? You may ask. Have they ever happened before?

Remember the CFC fraud? Have you heard a damn thing about one ozone hole since the inhalation of freon production in the US and the corresponding forced retooling and new tech. required? NOT A PEEP. Do you know why? Because the target of the fraud was hit. The US.

Can you tell me if the freon use and production ban became global? You would be lying if you said it had. What do you think manufactures of refrigeration equipment in China, Russia, India, Mexico, and all other developing countries are using? FREON R12 YOU FOOOOOO.

So such a fantastic and incredible lie has precipitated in encumbering and destroying a product/industry before.

The liars are just reapplying the same technique to another target.

[Between the Lines]

In this part of Appalachia, the function of the pump jack is to remove water which accumulates in the well; thus the need for both water lines and gas pipelines.

I had never heard of this use for pump jacks before. But a little reasearch finds that indeed they are used to remove water mostly from low pressure coalbed gas wells. You learn something new every day. : )

[PRO 1]

Oops

annihilation duh