arnab wrote:Already opinions on BRF
and fiction are being forwarded as data points. So atleast let us get the 'JMTs' based on factual evidence
Exactly!
Fiction - some of it science fiction - is being forwarded as data points by folks who ooze of knawledge from all pores and openings.
Clean coal based thermal plants is one of them. Clean coal is an oxymoron and a urban legend rolled into one. Everybody has heard about it but nobody has seen it work. Or perhaps the last part is not correct. Plenty of folks have seen that it
doesn't work on a commercial and economically viable scale.
Take this rather old Time report:
Exposing the Myth of Clean Coal Power for example.
If you paid any attention to last year's Presidential campaign, you'll remember ads touting the benefits of "clean coal" power, sponsored by the industry group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. {Please note the lobby which is sponsoring this myth} (The ads featured lumps of coal plugged into an electrical cord.) Designed in part to respond to the growing green campaign against coal power — which accounts for about 30% of U.S. carbon emissions — the ads promised high-tech and eventually carbon-free power, emphasizing coal's low cost compared to alternatives, its abundance in America and its cleanliness.
The "clean coal" campaign was always more PR than reality — currently there's no economical way to capture and sequester carbon emissions from coal, and many experts doubt there ever will be. But now the idea of clean coal might be truly dead, buried beneath the 1.1 billion gallons of water mixed with toxic coal ash that on Dec. 22 burst through a dike next to the Kingston coal plant in the Tennessee Valley and blanketed several hundred acres of land, destroying nearby houses. The accident — which released 100 times more waste than the Exxon Valdez disaster — has polluted the waterways of Harriman, Tenn., with potentially dangerous levels of toxic metals like arsenic and mercury, and left much of the town uninhabitable.
That's because, even putting aside climate change–accelerating carbon dioxide, coal remains a highly polluting source of electricity that has serious impacts on human health, especially among those who live near major plants. Take coal ash, a solid byproduct of burned coal. A draft report last year by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the ash contains significant levels of carcinogens, and that the concentration of arsenic in ash, should it contaminate drinking water, could increase cancer risks by several hundred times. A 2006 report by the National Research Council had similar findings. "This is hazardous waste, and it should be classified as such," says Thomas Burke, an environmental risk expert at Johns Hopkins University who has studied the health effects of coal ash.
The above para shouldn't come as a new data point to readers of this thread. Amber and a few others have posted tons of data points.
The biggest advantage of coal power has been cost — in most cases, it remains much cheaper than cleaner alternatives like wind, solar or natural gas. But the cheapness of coal depends on the fact that external costs — climate change, or the health impacts of air and water pollution from coal — remain external, paid for not by utilities or coal companies but society as a whole. The coal industry itself estimates that taking better care of fly ash could cost as much as $5 billion a year — and if the government imposed a tax or cap on carbon dioxide, the price of coal would certainly rise.
I'm amazed as how the debate has been deftly turned into one between renewables vs nuclear and not renewables vs coal. This leads me to question as to whether folks are really worried about the environmental impact or are they worried about the politics (and business interests) of power generation. One needs to remember that in India, at least, nuclear generation is public sector while coal -especially the UMPPs - are all in the private sector. The UMPPs are reeling from the increase in coal prices and most of them have become unviable leading to RBI issuing a diktat to stop funding new projects. Success of nuclear power plants is the last thing they would want.
Its also interesting that it's virtually impossible to get a comment out of some regarding the problems with coal prices, pollution and financial viablity of the UMPPs. Heck if we abandon nuclear as is being passionately being advocated the power has to come from somewhere. I know there's always the possibility of faithfools generating enough gas to power 1000 MW gobar gas plants but even then...
Meanwhile in other news:
Plans for UK's first 'clean coal' plant collapse over £1.5bn cost
Britain's coal industry has been dealt a blow as plans for the UK's first "clean" plant collapsed because it was too expensive.
And we are taught the LWRs are "too expensive". I wonder, who would fund a "clean coal" carbon capture and sequestration plant in India. And if someone did, the technology would push the CO2 into aquifers (since we don't have underground oil fields) - would environmentalists agree?
who seek to find different meanings in my words. I have clearly outlined what my views are 