Comments on: '60 Minutes' video: America's coal dilemma

Coal generates nearly half the electricity in the United States. Making it safe for environment and for human health will come at an astronomical cost.

[biffhenerson]

A perfect example of junk science. There is nothing humans can do to have any impact on something so large as our planet. Even larger than our plant is its atmosphere. All the coal plants in the world would fit on the head of a pin in comparison to the volume of our atmosphere. It is just another method to separate a person from his money and another technique to manage a large population and keep them civilized. Keep the population focused on a common objective. Any objective. Saving the world from invisible killers is a good one.

[crazynexus]

all you need to do is change the CO2, CO, and Methane component of the atmosphere by a few tenths of a percent to have a pretty major impact on things. Just check all the ice core records.

[martin1212]

Biff, your comment is actually a perfect example of junk science. Comparing the size of a power plant with the size of the atmosphere and claiming from that that humans can have no impact on the atmosphere? Are you kidding?

Note also that the power companies themselves now acknowledge the problem, and also note the recent expose on their previous cover-up. They knew this was a real problem long before they finally acknowledged it publicly. Thankfully they have now acknowledged the science, as have most who truly study the data. I guess if you standard of measurement is the size of a coal plant thought then no, you will not get it.

[ddoubledeuce]

I know you all watched "An Inconvienient Truth", so here, watch this.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=288952680655100870

I agree biff. I live and work in Alaska, I've worked with people who take and study ice cores, and none of them work on the IPCC's panel of 'scientists'. Why is it that power companies are now agreeing with the current global warming scare? Money and politics - not science.

[biffhenerson]

Crazynexus, Do you really know what the ice core records mean or do you rely on others for their translation?

Martin1212, Humans are insignificant flec's of dust in the grand scheme of things. Stop listening to others and start thinking for yourself. Get a globe. Stare at it. Learn. See how small Los Angeles really is. Its a spec. Power companies and others jump on board simply because it is the politically correct thing to do, pure pressure, AND they will get government $$$ to help clean it up. Who can say NO to a chunk of cash?

ddoubledeuce is very wise indeed.

[rcrusoe]

The latest reports from NASA point to clean air being a major cause of global warming. And the fact that the Obama administration has considered blowing particulates into the atmosphere as one "drastic" solution tends to support NASA's information.

Seems to me, since the clean air regulations of the past may have caused the problem, that burning coal may actually be a solution. If so, that would be a real "Inconvenient Truth" . :)

http://www.enn.com/climate/article/39648

[edgraf]

You need to read your own links.

One "solution" to global warming might be to increase particulates in the upper atmosphere. Soot would be detrimental as it would absorb energy, therefore burning coal would not help. Salt might make clouds "whiter" so as to reflect more energy back into space. The article does reference sulfur particulates, which makes acid rain, something likely not desirable.

[biffhenerson]

All of these sources for climate change data MAKE MONEY if they can convince us that we are the cause of the climate change. Just like a snake oil salesman from the early days.

[Joe Hanson]

I'm not worried. The federal government has an astronomical supply of money to make coal clean. This is technology we can give to China, India and other nations of the world to save us from disaster.

[ZetaZeta_]

Why would we spend effort to make coal clean when we could be instead building nuclear power plants which product so much less pollution?

[gsekse]

Hmmm, is it because we make more CO2?, or could it be that there are less acres of plant life converting CO2 back to O2? Like many problems, environmentalist tend to jump on ONE bandwagon and not pursue other aspects of the same problem. We burn coal, but we also, as a planet, strip rain forests and other plant life away. Maybe we need a few hundred billion trees planted instead?

[cwlqwp]

not a bad idea, but it won't solve the climate problem, but then again cutting all co2 emissions won't solve the climate problems either. whose ready for the inter ice age warm period.

[cp256]

CO² is not a pollutant. This junk science panic is so ridiculous. The planet automatically compensates for moderate changes in atmospheric CO² and tenths of a percent changes are not cataclysmic. Algore's BS rhetoric doesn't mean the argument is over and thousands of reputable scientists (who don't take money from the carbon industries, lobbying groups or the corrupt grant money game) firmly believe that there is no crisis.

It's about control people. The tranzis and the U.S. government wants to control more of your life and this is just another way to do it. Stop being sheeple and start thinking for yourselves.

[martin1212]

If even the power companies now acknowledge the problem, I think you need to do a whole lot better than that. CO2 has increased by far more than tenths of a percent and the impact of CO2 as a greenhouse gas has been well known for over 100 years. Your appeal to authority "thousands of scientists..." is also unpersuasive. Climate science is a highly specialized discipline, so I'm more interested in what the scientists who spend their lives doing research in this area have to say, and most of them say the same thing. My speciality is astrophysics. If a bunch of biologists want to claim that the big bang theory is false then they can do that, but you are not going to persuade me that is a convincing argument if most astrophysicists do not believe it.

Your final paragraph shows your true motivation - it's not the science you don't like, it's the implications of that science on your political beliefs.

[edgraf]

"Algore's BS rhetoric doesn't mean the argument is over and thousands of reputable scientists (who don't take money from the carbon industries, lobbying groups or the corrupt grant money game) firmly believe that there is no crisis. "

I am certain you can find thousands of "reputable scientists" who, apparently, have no idea about what they speak.

This is about control, saving ourselves from ourselves. I cannot quite understand why industries for whom lifetimes of resources have solidified their positions, now that they are in the position of the buggy whip industry of the early 1900s, will not change.

[subslug]

What about all the climate changes Earth has undergone without any human input? This planet has an extremely long history of climate changes that have flushed all the life off of it. Who's to say this isn't just another one of those changes?

Isn't it pretty arrogant of humans to believe that we can change an entire planets climate, for the bad or the good? I'll never say it isn't good for us to try to leave a smaller footprint on the planet, we all should do better.
I guess if I was ever going to place a bet on any one organism that's ever lived on this planet destroying it then it would be on humans, we're an amazingly destructive species and We do seem to have ourselves placed at the center of the universe.

Why worry though, we've even made up a special place that we go when we die, none of the other creatures on this planet go there....just us. Humans rock!

[getsustainable]

The entire atmosphere of the planet is so thin that it is equal to a film of water around a wet basketball. If you are a conservative person, why do you think it is OK to plunder and pollute your neighbor's? If you are a Christian, why would you think that God did not give us dominion over the earth? We have the science now to predict the impact of our pillaging on earth's climate, and the technology to make the necessary changes in our carbon impact. But, the mass of humanity is unwilling to get educated or make even minor changes in lifestyle.

[cwlqwp]

What i really think is funny is that even though 99.9% of people believe in global warming, and something like 95% or more of research about global warming conclude that it exists, there is still research on fossils, ocean conditions ect, that seem to support that global warming is far over hipped and what were worrying about is about 5% of what will naturally happen as we move between ice ages. I mean look, the actual impact of global warming is going to be caused by more than just our co2 emissions, that's why those estimates of how man made co2 is increasing the temperature are flawed, but if i say any more people will start accusing me of working for the coal companies or something so do research on your own.
ps. those percentages are only estimates (that's why you should do the research)

[meh130]

Lost me on the third sentence, which contains an undeniable falsehood. Water vapor is the leading greenhouse gas, not CO2.

Why read further? It is unfortunate a respectable tech journalism site was taken over by a bunch of glorified stenographers at CBS.

That said: Coal is dirty. Atomic energy is clean. Anyone who claims to support clean energy who is not an emphatic supporter of atomic energy cannot , and should not, be taken seriously.

[Burnsie001]

There is insufficient supplies of radioactive materiel to run nuclear fission reactors for more the a hundred years. Then what? Back to coal? Geothermal HFR technology is cleaner than nuclear and will last for 10,000 years. why bother with nuclear fission when you can build an HFR geothermal plant for less upfront cost, less running costs, no ongoing fuel cost (except royalties to the Govt.) and no waste product to deal with.

[maeckg]

With a human world population of over 6.7 billion, I think it is clear that humans have actually made a difference to the planet and atmosphere burning more and more fossil fuels and wood over thousands of years and exponetially more in last 200 years. Look around your own city and state; you do not need an expert.
What concerns me more with this 60 minutes report is not following up on some questions it put. The most obvious one is why it would not be more effective to spend the hundreds of billions or more than a trillion possibly on a set of alternative power generation sources than CO2 sequestration. Wind and solar thermal, photovoltaic, biofuel, wastestream fuel, nuclear power generation plant all offer electricity without or a lot less CO2.
Coal fired power plant are so embedded into our infrastructure right now that we are stuck with existing ones for decades, but CO2 sequestration is bate and switch stategy again to get even more subsidies from the taxpayer after decades of subsidies and tax advantages and research dollars. It is time that the coal industry, which constantly points out that is such a low cost producer, to start to compete with cleaner technologies on fair terms. Duke is popular with stock investors because it is such a lucrative business. Time to pay it's own way.
There are far more jobs to be created in cleaner technologies if we would finally give them a fair chance with a comprehensive energy policy not written by the oil, gas and coal industries.

[blieberman]

This man speaks with a forked tongue. If he was so interested in doing something about the environment, instead of putting money into breaking ground and creating 2 new coal burning facilities which will pollute our air even more, for which even his family will be effected by, he should be taking that money and issuing grants and loans to businesses and individuals to replace their dirty energy source with a clean energy source
By stating "I am following through on what is job one for me, making sure my customers have affordable, reliable, clean electricity," he sounds like the "Nazis" who were doing their job too. it is time to think outside the box.It is time for a major change in this country before it is too late for everyone.