Natural Gas vs Coal

Not so with the current administration whose motives are certainly NOT in the best interests of America.

There are no incentives to make coal "clean." Coal will continue to pollute at a much higher rate!

Trump's plan to use a Cold War-era law to bolster the coal industry ...

Trump orders Rick Perry to take 'immediate steps' to stop coal plant ...

To Help Coal And Nuclear, Trump Making Same Economic Mistake ...

This move is sure to kill many children and old people, like us! I have COPD, do you?

Clean coal is inaccurate, it really is "cleaner coal" as coal will never be totally pollution free by its very nature (even with carbon capture).

Alternative energy is nice but you still need the base load generation and it really comes down to coal, natural gas (or a combination cycle using both) unless you are fortunate enough to have areas suitable for hydro and geothermal generation. In that respect cleaner coal should be a primary goal until cleaner viable base load generation alternatives are found.

Natural gas generation is better but coal generation is very abundant so small pollution reduction gains here can really make a large overall environmental impact.

Renewable energy is unknown to you?

Can "renewable energy" provide a base load?

Yes.

Costa Rica actually ran on 100 percent renewable energy for 300 out of 365 days in 2015.

Iceland. Nearly 100 percent of the country's electricity is now provided by geothermal and hydroelectric plants.

Albania and Paraguay have also converted almost entirely to renewable hydropower.

We're not talking about some small province here, none of these methods is viable on the scale necessary for the US...We've had these discussions before, nothing has changed....Nuclear is the only viable option for mitigating greenhouse gases...

Maybe not today, but it could be done, given the proper incentives and a non-corrupt administration, not tied to fossil fuels.

I'm with you on nuclear energy. I've talked about Palo Verde Nuclear, 50 miles west of here, in the desert that uses no ground, or river, water. Treated effluent is used for cooling.

Coal is NOT viable, if health concerns (air and water pollution) are important.

Nuclear is, but it is too much of a hot potato at the moment. Cleaner coal is not as good but at least it is more politically acceptable and a start as renewables make more of an inroads into the market.

Coal generation is going to be with us for some time to come.

I am aware of special cases like places like Iceland where the geothermal potential is high and the load is low, but those are really special cases and cannot be made workable for large energy users with high polluting base load generation relying on coal such as China and the US without considerable cost.

There will always be areas that are located near abundant easily tapped renewable energy sources, but such areas generally have low population density, with equally low energy density requirements. There's also the need to examine overly exuberant headlines. For example, the article that I believe you quoted, also had this snippet buried near the end of the article:

" "...Costa Rican clean development adviser Dr Monica Araya said earlier this year the extent of Costa Rica's renewable electricity generation is a “fantastic achievement".

But she added: “It hides a paradox, which is that nearly 70 per cent of all our energy consumption is oil.”

The 99 per cent figure only refers to electricity usage, not gas used for heating or fuel used in vehicles, for example...While dams provided the majority of the country’s electricity, they can have destructive environmental and social consequences, such as affecting previously healthy rivers, disrupting wildlife and displacing indigenous communities..." "

Sometimes the caveats/footnotes are more telling than the headlines. Trust but verify.

You said, "The 99 per cent figure only refers to electricity usage, not gas used for heating or fuel used in vehicles, for example"

The OP said, "As long as natural gas affords a cost effective means of generating electricity instead of coal, little will be done to try to make coal a "clean" burning fuel."

Next, IdeaSmith asked, "Can 'renewable energy' provide a base load"? Base load - Wikipedia No other qualifiers were added.

I assumed that the subject was electricity generation, not fossil fuel consumption.

Jack mentioned hydro and did not exclude it as you seem to suggest in your post. You know that the renewables in question are intermittent providers of power like wind and solar.

Also hydroelectric does only work with enough water around.

Tasmania down in Australia had some high costs due to a sub sea cable damage (Link to main land) and empty dams. They had to use diesel as back up.

Iceland is very fortunate. New Zealand with lots of Geothermal power and Hydroelectric plants produces 80% of its electricity with these "renewables". But wait is that all of the energy a country needs? Check again. New Zealands contribution of Renewables is in reality 40% of the energy need. Same btw goes for the other countries you stated.

Think transport. Think fuel for heating. Think!

Don't assume!

At no time did I exclude hydro!

No assumption there. Its plain in writing Jack had Hydro covered when he said:

"Alternative energy is nice but you still need the base load generation and it really comes down to coal, natural gas (or a combination cycle using both) unless you are fortunate enough to have areas suitable for hydro and geothermal generation."

And you asked:

"Renewable energy is unknown to you?"

Did you not exclude Hydro and Geothermal from Renewable there?

This part of renewables has a limited ability to provide a base load, but not the other ones generally mentioned in the space of renewables like solar and wind.

As Solar said, we covered that ad nauseam.

Define: Clean Fuel

I am surprised that the use of algae plants to clean up coal fired plants emissions has not gone anywhere. Algae plants not only use the smokestack CO2, but also much like to utilize the other coal burn pollutants being emitted.

I recall that the original experiments showed that the dirtier the smokestack emissions, the happier the algae were to feed on it. (Once the smoke is dissolved in a cooling tower looking solar algae plant). I watched those tv documentaries on the demonstration plants more than 5 years ago. I often wonder ; Why hasn't this been been spooled up in coal country.

Mercury is of course likely to be the fly in any coal ointment. If the fate of the trace mercury isnt being considered, then its just laying in wait to show its ugly self later.

Btw, the algae plants can supposedly be seeded and adjusted to produce animal feed or fuel oil (resembling bio diesel), or many types of useful products from CO2 and other burn wastes.

The best reason to start building CO2 eating algae plants is that it clearly represents the most natural transition path to sustainable solar production. From coal and oil. Eventually we just use algae plants to generate what we need. No smokestack feed needed.

S U S T A I N A B L E

Talk about a win win win idea.

[Rolling up my sleeves now...]

T

No matter how 'clean burning' you can make coal, you still have the fly ash to deal with....

..."In the United States about 131 million tons of fly ash are produced annually by 460 coal-fired power plants. "...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash

From the same source, "...(there are) laws that have reduced fly ash emissions to less than 1% of ash produced..."; i.e., only 1.31 million tons are released into the atmosphere. Not bad when you consider that the 660 million tons of coal that were consumed resulted in only 0.2% of the original coal mass being released as fly ash.

It is also important to note that approximately 40% of the ash produced and captured gets recycled into products like concrete, the same article has a long list of its uses in industrial commodities.

Correctamente RAMconsult.

While fly ash is part of the " dirty leavings" of burning coal, once it is collected, it qualifies as a "clean additive" for things like concrete. A claimable resource.

I have no doubt that the piles of fly ash will all get used up eventually. When used properly, it really does make a stronger concrete. [When given time]. And while that requires Pozzolan concrete trained process, testing, and civil engineers, this is not insurmountable. Its just something we will surely evolve to.