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Clean Coal: Myth or Reality?

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Commonwealth Club of California

Commonwealth Club

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Will Google Phase Out Coal Plants With Wind & Solar?

04 min 45 sec

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Panelists hotly debate Google's proposed plan to phase out all coal plants by 2030 and replace them with alternative energy plants.

Clean coal advocate Joe Lucas draws from an example of a North Dakota town to prove the vulnerability of wind power.
Experts Contrast Bush and Obama on Clean Energy Policy

02 min 45 sec

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Panelists express their optimism on the Obama administration's policies concerning coal and alternative energy sources.

Sierra Club’s Bruce Nilles says, "We now have an EPA that believes in science."
The Quest for Clean Energy: Wind Versus Coal

04 min 15 sec

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Sierra Club's Bruce Nilles argues for complete replacement of outdated coal power plants while Joe Lucas and Ray Lane challenge him, arguing that wind and coal are complementary.

Lucas declares, "There's no such thing as a perfect energy source."
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01 hr 07 min 39 sec

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There are 3 comments on this program

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Previous FORAtv comments:

mszlazak

Posted: 08.22.09, 09:11 AM

The other real myth is that solar and/or wind are good solutions to CO2 emissions and providing cost effective demand following and base load electric energy. These are supplemental sources at best because of their intermittent nature and schemes to use these for base load and demand following energy require wide distribution, storage or back-up generation. For the same generation, the costs are estimated to be 20 times greater than what nuclear generation would cost, emit more CO2 than nuclear, have a much bigger foot print than nuclear and are either fantasies or technology that are not mature unlike nuclear, etc. Nuclear generation is safe (big misperception and a big PR issue in the US), nuclear waste is small and storage is very safe and they now recycle wastes, there are no real proliferation issues, nuclear reactors are CO2 emission free, fuel is virtually unlimited (despite what one hears) and cheap, plants can be large or small like garage-size plants that produce enough to power towns of 25000 people or drive ships which currently use a lot of fossil fuels. Nuclear has always provided load following base energy. The problem for nuclear is mostly PR.

DLau

Posted: 05.16.09, 07:50 PM

Watch http://fora.tv/2009/01/16/Saul_Griff...e_Recalculated first. Whole debate on clean coal is set into perspective with Saul's slides at 35:10 and 35:30 . If we could halve Carbon output per kW with clean coal, then we're allowed to double the kW sourced from coal, and let's just add that to our consumption as icing on the cake.

heybd

Posted: 05.05.09, 04:18 PM

I'm all for capturing carbon from the burning of coal, but then where does all that carbon go? If not into the atmosphere it has to go somewhere. And what about all the other pollutants from coal burning?