Another well-placed idiot who doesn't quite get it about CO2

[asheets]

Here's the article that is making me made today: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17359704/

Sure, blame coal... .  But, the fact is that burning anything to make electricity or to provide motive power releases CO and CO2.  When comparing on a per-KWh basis, ethanol, wood, methane, propane, whatever, releases comperable amounts of carbon as coal -- MEANING that if I could automagically replace all the world's coal plants with any of the above-listed alternatives, we'd still have the same problem.

You want to get rid of CO and CO2?  Then let's seriously talk about nuclear, solar, hydro, geothermal, and wind.  But you can forget about putting all the blame on coal -- if anything, dealing with coal emissions is a lot easier than dealing with the emissions from other sources.

[fungus]

Well...

I dont think that it is quite as simple as that.'Biofuels' such as ethanol, wood etc... all 'consume' CO2 in their lifetime, reducing the overall emissions. Coal also contains a lot of other nasty chemicals trapped inside it, such as sulphur and methane etc.. which does even more damage in the form of acid rain. I do still however believe that not using fuels in the first place is better than using the 'cleaner' fuels.

Apparently in China etc there are coal fires in mines, out of control and burning their way through the coal seams, that actually contribute to about 2-3% annualy of the overall emissions of CO2 from fuel sources in the world. This energy is going completely to waste.</rant>

What I would definitely like to see is higher energy density and higher efficiency of battery's or other storage means(lithium battery's are still pretty high, a lithium battery has the same energy density as a hand grenade) so that electricity itsself can be used as a 'fuel' more effectively.

[Titantornado]

> Apparently in China etc there are coal fires in mines,

> out of control and burning their way through the coal

> seams, that actually contribute to about 2-3% annualy

> of the overall emissions of CO2 from fuel sources in

> the world. This energy is going completely to waste.

Sounds like some folks aren't thinking outside the box.  Can anyone say geothermal opportunities?  Making lemonade from lemons.  ;-)

There's a coal mine fire two hours from me that's been burning since 1961. (search Centralia, PA) No amount of water dumped into the mines was able to stop it.  Imagine the potential of a geothermal steam to electricy plant being erected nearby.

[jimjjnn]

Here in Colorado near Grand Junction , Colorado, we have coal mines on fire that have been burning for years. They tried blocking all the air inlets but the ground has cracks all over the Bookcliffs. The fires may go out in a couple of hundred years. Every once in a while they have to put out fires that have broken through the ground and set prairie fires.

[3rd Charm]

"Well...

I dont think that it is quite as simple as that.'Biofuels' such as ethanol, wood etc... all 'consume' CO2 in their lifetime, reducing the overall emissions."

And every bit of it is released- and then some when the bio product is processed and burned.

The real truth of the matter is man made co2 is only a tiny part of a fraction of the co2 produced and released by good ol' mother earth.

"Global warming" caused by co2, man made co2 at that, is a joke. Even is man stopped burning all fuels, stopped any and all activities which produced co2, the co2 levels would not be reduced by even 1%. It would be something like 1/10 of 1%.

Co2 is not a pollutant, it's a  natural normal and needed element that supports all life on earth, Everything would die without it.  Increased co2 just makes things grow better, which in turn reduces co2 over time. Co2 levels rise following global warming (which was in the 30's not now) Global warming and coolingf is simply a natural thing, caused by solar activity. The last "global warming" spell was in the 30's, we are still coming out of a mini ice age which began around 1400, and we still aren't as warm as we were at the time Christ walked the earth.

We still aren't as warm as we were 2000 or so years before that, when elephants, rhino's, tigers, hippo's, etc were abundant withinin the artic circle, living on lush green tropical forage which we  see emerging from the ice.

Global warming is a money scam.

Still, that doesn't negate the need for cleaner and renuable energy.