Re: COAL - Was: damage from ethanol?

mm wrote:
On 10 May 2006 11:00:09 -0700, trader4@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

mm wrote:
On 10 May 2006 07:08:35 -0700, trader4@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

The problem is that most people think you can just get hydrogen from
water. You are correct that electrolysis is one of the ways it can be
generated. In that case, the hydrogen is best viewed as a transport
vehicle for the energy. The nuke is the real source of the energy, not
You meann nuclear power? The electricity generated at nuclear power
plants is no better at splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen than
is any other electricity.

Hydrogen doesn't have any other relationship with nuclear power
plants.


The point is the hydrogen is just an energy transport vehicle. So, if
not nuclear, then where do you propose to get the energy from? Import

For all the risks and costs of nuclear, it might be necessary if we're
going to keep using electricity at the rate we do. According to
Jeopardy, 20% of US electricity is made with nuclear now. (even though
no new plants have opened in decades. There are 3 within 90 or 120
minutes of Baltimore.)

My objection was to your tying hydrogen closely to nuclear. It has no
special relationship to nuclear.

(not counting hydrogen bombs and the possible possibilty of cold
fusion (that is, a hydrogen bomb that's not a bomb and generates heat
more slowly and at a lower temperature than a bomb.)

If you mean that you want to use nuclear and hydrogen is one way to
store the energy, I have no objection, but it didn't sound that way in
hte post that I answered

More below.

more oil? Burn natural gas? Just use the oil or gas then and forget
the hydrogen. Hydroelectric? All the easy sites are done, and there
are serious environmental issues with any more sites. Nuclear is cost
effective and readily deployable. That's why it makes the most sense
as a source of energy to generate hydrogen.




(except that if cold fusion is ever developed, it will *use* hydrogen,
not generate it.)

the water. And the problem is most of the people running around
saying water is the answer, don't realize this. They think you just
get the hydrogen out of the water by some miracle process. And these
same people won't let anyone build a nuke in this country anyway.
Until that is solved, hydrogen is a myth.
It's no less of a problem then, except generation of electricy might
be cheaper, especially as the cost of oil goes up. We could also burn
coal to make eletricity to generate hydrogen.
Sure you could burn coal, but how realistic is that? You've got lots
of people running around saying that global warming is gonna kill us
all. You think building more fossil fuel plants, especially coal
fired ones that not only generate CO2 but other difficult to deal with
pollutants, is a reasonable approach?

There are problems with every fuel. I'm not pushing coal (even though
it is plentiful and not radioactive), only saying it is as related to
hydrogen as is nuclear.

AHH, but studies of the emissions from coal plants show clearly that the amount of radiation vented to the atmosphere from coal plants EXCEEDS normal annual radiation released from a nuclear plant!!!!

There is a very low level of radioactivity in coal. When you burn ALOT of it, the radiation gets released. Thorium and uranium are present in very nearly MINE ABLE quantities in the ash that gets trapped in the waste pile.

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

This link explains some of the hazards of coal fired plants.

In the 1950s I lived near a town that processed lots of wood into paper and lumber products. Those processes needed LOTS of high pressure steam heat. The plants were in a valley in the mountains of North Carolina. Coal was the fuel of choice for these plants, HUGE piles of it were lying around on the ground surrounding the boilers. The stink was awful, you had to roll up the windows (no AC in cars those days), hold your breath and close your eyes (eyes burned)

Course those plants did not have fly ash precipitators on them and all coal power plants now have such, capturing over 99% of the ash before reaching the atmosphere.

There is also coal slurry, which iirc solves some of the problems of
coal, but has difficulties of its own. I don't remember the details.

There is also low sulfur versus high sulfer coal. I thought
low-sulfur was pretty good, but I don't recall details.
So, again, where is the energy going to come from for this pie in the
sky hydrogen?

Nor am I pushing hydrogen. It too has problems, mostly iiuc that you
can only put so much of it in a pressure tank on a car.
In fact, if you just built
the nukes, they could go a long way to helping even without getting to
the hydrogen for fuel stage.

.

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