Natural Gas Hits A Roadblock In Energy Bill: Coal Lobby

The New York Times:

For all its pronouncements that gas could be used to replace aging, inefficient coal-fired power plants -- and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the process -- lawmakers from coal-producing states appear committed to keeping coal as the nation's primary producer of power.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[CaptD]

That carbon "Tax" should not all go back to the coal industry or they will just drag their feet and take tax write offs forever; I'd suggest 10% or less, that way they would have to stop stalling and start investing in new technology.

They are spending way more now for lobbyists to maintain the status quo than they are spending on clean coal...

[research]

Agreed, but this ACES bill is the largest new derivatives market ever created, and the existing Carbon credit market just CRASHED.

!$ per ton Carbon tax is a much better idea, clear, unavoidable, fair.

Plow the money into rooftop solar and waste BioChar. see my profile.

The other barrier to Natural gas, is that the "new" natural gas isn't natural, it's forced out of shale using "Fracking" Look it up. It's energy inefficiency, pollutes the water table, and uses vast amounts of potable water.

[CaptD]

Our motto should be "What's best for America is what we are going to do First!", we are doing nothing but slowing down our financial recovery and energy independence by yielding to all these "special interest" groups that have the ear of Congress because of money/donations...

Wake up America and demand better from Congress and begin to vote for what's best for all of US!

[hellboundtrain]

If there is a roadblock,
accelerate and drive around it!

!

[mag68]

The roadblock is corrupt politicians, not the coal lobby. You listening, Obama? They didn't need the $3 billion you gave them...

[CaptD]

Right On!

[wayoutleft]

oh-oh. i sense another lesson in reality coming for barack and us poor progressives. again, we will cluelessly stand before big charts and scientific testimony while the cash deal goes down between energy interests and congressional sleazeballs.

[BannedNBoston]

""The cracking of the water may not be cost effective ""
Separating water into hydroxy gas is cost effective.
Take solar panels pulse the current through stainless steel plates submerged in H20
and you will get browns gas. Run the gas in your car with a propane adapter.

http://www.energeticsecrets.com/teslatech-browns-gas

[LBS]

I am so confused. How is it that progressives seem so entirely ignorant about natural gas production in this country? Natural Gas Production -- particularly that which has produced the "glut" spoken of, which is unconventional, involves about 5,000,000 gallons of fresh water per well, none of which is returned to the eco-system. Thousands of wells are drilled, perhaps ten times each. The process used explodes the shale under the earth, and the shale is held open by a fracking fluid that is exempted from the right to know law. All we do know is that it contains scoresof toxic chemicals, and, as renouned scientist Theo Colbourn tested before congress, is associated with rare cancers, nervous system disorders, brain damage and reproductive disorders. Natural Gas Production, as it is currently done in the United States, pollutes the air with methane, which is highly conducive to global warming, and ozone, which leads to significant lung damage. It is also associated with thousands of instantces of aquifer contamination. None of this has been adressed by progresives. None of this has been adequately studied. Coal vs. Natural Gas is like Lex Luther vs. Darth Vader -- is either a good choice?

[Animal Compassion]

When will our government do what is right for America instead of the individual states that make up the union. These interests and those interests and nothing ever progresses to help everyone. Clean and renewable energy for America and the world. This "profit" thing is out of touch with what is best.

[hellboundtrain]

I do truly believe with all of my heart that the hydrogen and oxygen in water can do everything that we require. The cracking of the water may not be cost effective - yet, but all we need is some genius backyard inventor, or some lucky basement tinkerer that either figures out the way to crack water without any electrical current at all, or a catalyst that allows the process to be done most efficiently, then we will retrofit the products to our current devices. Inventing new all the while!

We, our beliefs, and lives are not about disease or death or anything like it, but the continuance of generations of progressive, creative people, that will always eventually think of workable solutions.

We must believe that the future will be brighter than the past!

[MyTake]

Regarding your first sentence, you might want to check this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzLTeQeI8tY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpeswiki.com%2Findex.php%2FDirectory%3AJohn_Kanzius_Produces_Hydrogen_from_Salt_Water_Using_Radio_Waves&feature=player_embedded .

[DougDeWitt]

No one in the coal industry honestly believes that pumping CO2 into abandoned, empty coal mines for all eternity will lower atmospheric GHG levels. This is merely the justification to give the coal industry another 10-year free-ride, granted free carbon-credits because they're "really trying hard".

I agree with those posters who have commented on the non-emissions environmental holocaust perpetrated on our ecosystem, and our society by the coal industry. Before there was such a thing as a "carbon footprint", there were communities in which the life expectancy for males averaged around 50, because of the nearly universal pervasion of black lung. Before anyone had a clue regarding "greenhouse gases", there were millions of acres of dead, naked stumps of trees denuded by the acid rain produced when it fell through dense clouds of toxic emissions.

When I first heard the almost incredulous concept of carbon sequestration underground, reading in disbelief the theoretical science justifying it, I laughed aloud. My 9yo daughter asked what was so funny in the news, daddy... and I explained it to her in kid-friendly terms she could understand. Her response was "classic kid" in its metaphorical brilliance: Oh, kind of like when Gracie (our cat) uses her litterbox and then buries the poops? And then leaving them there forever and pretending they don't really exist?

Out of the mouths of babes oft come gems.

[Troutboi]

Heard Coal, puts out Radioactive material into the air.

[Matt51]

Natural gas should be used to fuel our cars first, before it is considered for being used to generate electricity. Of course, taking on the oil lobby is a much greater task.

[armadillious2002]

NG is already used to generate electricity - a lot of it.

[Organic-Guy]

Nowhere in this article is there a mention of the water and land pollution caused by coal mining, mountain top removal, impovershed, long forgotten communities in mountain hollows who suffer low wages and poor health from working the mines and living so close to them. Have we already forgotten the ash spill from earlier this year who toxic pollution threatens and entire ecosytem and will for possibly a hundred years or more.
Coal is a toxic fuel and it isn't cheap if we run a real ledger with all the costs on it instead of this false capitalized model where the health care costs and death of minors and loss to their families isn't even counted along with the cleanup and destruction of natural ecosystems and habitats. Coal and nuclear have never been accounted for properly. any other business who did their accounting the way these two do would be called in by the IRS and made to account for the missing set of books.

[mcmchugh99]

Even if people don't believe in climate change, they shouldn't have a problem believing in air and water pollution, or that these are generally negative things.

If I had to choose between coal and natural gas, I would choose natural gas. If I had to choose between imported oil and anything produced here in this country, I would choose the things we produce at home. If had had to choose between nuclear fission and fusion, I would prefer fusion, although my first choice would be to expand wind, solar, tidal and other "green" energy as much as possible--along with the government financing to put all this in place in the decades ahead.

I am almost afraid to look at what kind of bill will come out of the Senate, though. We might just get big subsidies for all the old industries, not much investment in the newest and most modern things that all the other Western countries have, and a lot of pollution credits that Wall Street can play Monopoly with.

My rule of thumb is that if there is anything in proposed legislation that will benefit the country and ordinary people, the Senate is certain to remove it immediately.

[rf-hawaii]

" I am almost afraid to look at what kind of bill will come out of the Senate, though. "

Jeez. Do your job, please. Write letters. Make phone calls. Tell your representatives what you require of them.

Thanks.

[MyTake]

In 1709, William Darby invented the coking process which led to the use of coal in 18th century England. The wood burning used in cities/towns was rapidly depleting forests and the smog was everywhere.

Since then, coal use has spread throughout the globe with China now building coal fired electrical plants at a record pace. Rockefeller came on board in the late 1800's with his Standard Oil refinery monopoly and single handedly steered transportation and heating towards his monopoly.

Together, coal and gas are are killing the planet.

In 1999, Canadian Dr. Geoffry Ballard's photo was on Time magazine's cover under the title of "Hero of the Planet' for having brought a working hydrogen fuel cell technology to the public domain. In less than two decades, hydrogen fuel cells are ready for deployment and provide electricity for transportation, commerce and housing everywhere.

Here is a Verizon communications center: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/06/10/verizon-call-switching-center-powered-by-fuel-cells/ , getting 80% of its power and all of its hot water from those 6 fuel cell electrical plants.

Here is Honda's FCX fuel cell car in production and ready to go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-6B9jYQFm8 .

Let the CLIMATE CHANGE talkers stop now. Protest the oil, gas and coal cartels and demand the release the HYDROGEN ECONOMY!

[rf-hawaii]

Sadly, hydrogen is not available. You must make it. And that costs way too much.

Someday, someone may figure out how to make hydrogen affordably. That day still appears too far off to even estimate.

The oil industry likes to promote hydrogen as an alternative energy because they know it's not likely to happen in our lifetimes. So it won't ever compete with oil.

[MyTake]

Thanks for the sincerity of your comments.

Take a look at the video noted below and see what you think.

[Alonso Quijano]

Hydrogen is not an available fuel. It is made from oil or coal. The idea that hydrogen fuel cells provide clean energy is WRONG -- fuel cells just move the source of the pollution from one place to another. There exists a possibility of making hydrogen biologically, as there exist bacteria which reduce the acidity of their environment by a process that results in the expulsion of hydrogen gas. But the size of the installations needed for an industrial scale make them totally impractical.

The toxicity of coal is already in the coal, held inside the coal mine in stable form that does not migrate. It is possible to extract energy from coal near the mine, and return the toxic byproducts back into the mine. This does NOT pollute the environment, as it would leave the pollutants right where they were originally. However it takes money to do it right. As long as we value the cheapness of the energy more than the quality of the environment, we will have problems, even with fuel cells or wind farms or solar cells or solar anything, as the gadgets to collect solar power are huge and don't last forever. The cleanest energy available to day is the one produced by digesting trash and wastes to get methane, as it produces gas by reducing trash pollution of the environment.

FYI -- I am a retired physicist with a Ph.D. from CalTech and have worked on this subject all my life.

[MyTake]

I would point out that 90% of the global population lives within 100 miles of an ocean coast line. And the ocean is full of water molecules containing 2 hydrogen atoms.

So all that is required is that you develop offshore electrolysis generators using combo devices that capture wave, tidal, solar and wind energy to create the electricity to drive these generators and then pipe the hydrogen gas to the shoreline for compression and distribution.

The oil cartel patent lawyers hunt the patent systems around the globe looking for patents that would potentially interfere with cartel profits.

Here is one example when a concerned person in Erie, Penn. who was trying to help his wife, who had succumbed to cancer, and accidentally struck on using a frequency to split off the hydrogen atoms in salt water. It briefly made headlines before the oil cartel moved on it to ensure this man's discovery never sees the light of day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzLTeQeI8tY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpeswiki.com%2Findex.php%2FDirectory%3AJohn_Kanzius_Produces_Hydrogen_from_Salt_Water_Using_Radio_Waves&feature=player_embedded.

Being a physicist, you might be able to explain what is happening in this video.