Vibrant economy based on cheap energy – no way!
Eco-kooks are such kill joys.
Smart scientists called chemical engineers have figured out how to make gas from coal with less energy than ever thought possible:
Glasser’s new production method allows them to set a lower limit on the amount of energy that would be needed to transform solid coal into fuel. The very best possible CTL process would require 350 megawatts of input to make 80,000 gallons of fuel; the current process uses more than 1,000 megawatts.
That is pretty exciting news isn’t it. Unless you live in fear that somewhere, somehow, somebody might take a family vacation or Sunday drive without having to refinance their house:
"What they’re proposing is simply not allowable if we want to avoid the perils of unconstrained anthropogenic climate change," Karecha said.
The Karecha quoted actually works for you and me, at NASA. So when he spends his days trying to make your life miserable, please do enjoy that you are paying for it.
I’m for this. I’m for using nuclear plants to make electricity that we use to squeeze coal into gas that drives my Expedition. Yes, I’m definitely for that.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Since the only energy product from a nuclear reactor is heat, the most efficient coal conversion would come from direct application of that heat to the coal. Get all the chemists and ChEs working on a mechanism for thermally driven coal conversion. Unfortunately, the technical uncertainty is so high that only government will tackle it, with R&D funding of unknown size for an unknown time with no guarantee of an economically useful outcome. For that funding we will need to raise your taxes.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
No need to raise my taxes, just stop wasting trillions on the UAW, bridges to nowhere.
This is the kind of stuff government should do. That they don’t is just more testament to how our government is broken.
March 27th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
BTW: That was a another false choice. do nothing with coal or raise your taxes.
stop it!
March 27th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Sorry ’bout that CWN, the little neutrino goes zipping off undisturbed by such low forms as concrete, iron, steel, lead, mountains, or the whole earth and its vast oceans.
http://www.tpub.com/content/doe/h1019v1/css/h1019v1_86.htm
All the “heat” is not useful or we could skip the containment vessel!