Jesse Tolkan says clean coal is "an absolute 100% lie"
Submitted by Eternity on Mon, 09/28/2009 - 10:45.
The Real News - Paul Jay speaks to Jessy Tolkan at the Tides Foundations' Momentum conference in San Francisco. They speak about Tolkan's coalition on climate change fighting Obama to establish a moratorium on all coal mining. Tolkan says that Washington's push for "clean coal" is not enough because the coal industry's and President Obama's argument that the production of coal can be clean is "an absolute, 100% lie." She also says that "the science is clear that if we don't address coal head on, it's almost "game over" for the planet."
Submitted by Norm Roulet on Mon, 09/28/2009 - 13:14.
Do our local scientists and engineers at our world-class Case Western Reserve University, which is heated by very dirty coal-burning, believe coal is already clean?
None of them seem opposed to burning coal, and the pollution, for their personal profit and benefit.
Perhaps Cleveland leaders and scientists and engineers are not well educated about pollution and public health. Or, perhaps they are too conflicted by local energy politics and greed to speak truthfully.
YouTube may enlighten them and any misinformed Case students - thanks Eternity.
Well..as I am quite sure you are already aware, it must still be said that effective education requires a certain amount of unpleasant confrontation. Because when it comes to the ongoing horror of pollution, it is fact and tangible reality that our very existence on this planet is absolutely at stake.
Coal mining was around long before you and I were born. It was around before our current President was born too. And yet, when our beloved President neglects to tell the truth and/or willfully engages in a house-of-cards fabrication relating to the coal industry or any other toxic economic modality, for that matter, he must be held to account.
The existing destruction that has already occured within the landscape of America as a direct result of the craziness of coal production is already done; was done before Obama got elected. And yet, as President Obama is the most prominent advocate of the extremely misleading "clean coal" campaign, does he deserve to be seen as an ally when he's standing in the way of progress?
Ultimately this problem will have to be solved regardless of who dwells @ 1600 Pennslyvania Avenue. Nonetheless, we should not be giving free passes to our Commander-in Chief, just because he's handsome and charming.
We must hold ourselves to full account, while also holding industry and government leadership to account as well.
Submitted by rnojonson on Thu, 10/01/2009 - 17:14.
I believe coal is already clean, even if you scrub it down to sub-atomic particles. The problem has always been burning it. Fire, that darn fire. You just can't get the fire hot enough to burn up the smoke too. I know, suspend it in a liquid or a gas. We'll grind it up, pulverized into minute particles and shoot it into a white hot whatever. How much energy to consume energy while extracting energy? Maybe if you nuked the coal!?!
Here's the plan we'll take the smoke and put it under ground with co2 and any other gas residue. Can't we just let go of burning rocks for profit?
We should take our coal and layer it with our garbage and fill in a portion of the Grand Canyon or the Badlands, let it settle for a million years, and let the gas companies siphon off the natural gas. We could build some mountain wind breaks in the Great Plains states.
How can we keep promoting our so-called natural beauty and ship our garbage to places that are twice as beautiful, all because we don't live there.
If you throw enough money and minds at coal, someday we will make it work. After all gasoline was a residue of oil processing, look what we did with that! There is no alchemy folks coal is clean if you don't burn it.
Submitted by rnojonson on Wed, 10/28/2009 - 08:16.
Education does not change reality in this case. If you could grow coal perhaps you could genetically alter it to be cleaner after you set it on fire. Coal has already gone through its organic process a million years ago, it is what it is.
Let's take another example of burning rocks, vulcanoes. Do you know of any "clean" vulcanoes? They spit out horrible plumes of smoke and ash. If they were more common our atmosphere would be in constant danger. Now we have harnested the power of vulcanoes in miniature containment units all over the earth, to make energy and steel, hamburgers, etc., and our atmosphere is in danger. Gee, how easily we justify the use because we need the end product, the heck with the garbage. We'll ask our kids to take out the garbage.
Men, educated and the idiots all become drunk seeking to turn LEAD into GOLD. The lead poisons their minds while the draw of gold fuels their motives. All because someone with education said turning COAL into CLEAN COAL is possible. Issac Newton the Alchemist was Dr. Jekyll, a brilliant man, Mr. Hyde, a sick man.
We all need to step out of the stone age or burning rocks age and stand upright. Perhaps raw limitless power is found elsewhere. Maybe harnessing tornadoes, or lightning bolts. Maybe to passively generate power is OK and we are addicted to pyrotechnics and machinery, noise, the outward show of power.
Someone said "can we better use what we already are using? That way we don't have to change anything!" (a very common thought!) Do we wean ourselves or go cold turkey?
Maybe it's not coal but fire is the problem, that darn fire, just can't get it hot enough. We'll need the power of the sun to do this thing right. Folks, we have harnessed the power of the sun without burning rocks, the solar cell, please come out of the stone age!!
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I'd like to see Case scientists' and engineers' opinions on coal
Do our local scientists and engineers at our world-class Case Western Reserve University, which is heated by very dirty coal-burning, believe coal is already clean?
None of them seem opposed to burning coal, and the pollution, for their personal profit and benefit.
Perhaps Cleveland leaders and scientists and engineers are not well educated about pollution and public health. Or, perhaps they are too conflicted by local energy politics and greed to speak truthfully.
YouTube may enlighten them and any misinformed Case students - thanks Eternity.
Keep our education about dirty coal coming...
Disrupt IT
Education requires some confrontation
Norm,
Well..as I am quite sure you are already aware, it must still be said that effective education requires a certain amount of unpleasant confrontation. Because when it comes to the ongoing horror of pollution, it is fact and tangible reality that our very existence on this planet is absolutely at stake.
Coal mining was around long before you and I were born. It was around before our current President was born too. And yet, when our beloved President neglects to tell the truth and/or willfully engages in a house-of-cards fabrication relating to the coal industry or any other toxic economic modality, for that matter, he must be held to account.
The existing destruction that has already occured within the landscape of America as a direct result of the craziness of coal production is already done; was done before Obama got elected. And yet, as President Obama is the most prominent advocate of the extremely misleading "clean coal" campaign, does he deserve to be seen as an ally when he's standing in the way of progress?
Ultimately this problem will have to be solved regardless of who dwells @ 1600 Pennslyvania Avenue. Nonetheless, we should not be giving free passes to our Commander-in Chief, just because he's handsome and charming.
We must hold ourselves to full account, while also holding industry and government leadership to account as well.
Eternity
I believe coal is already
I believe coal is already clean, even if you scrub it down to sub-atomic particles. The problem has always been burning it. Fire, that darn fire. You just can't get the fire hot enough to burn up the smoke too. I know, suspend it in a liquid or a gas. We'll grind it up, pulverized into minute particles and shoot it into a white hot whatever. How much energy to consume energy while extracting energy? Maybe if you nuked the coal!?!
Here's the plan we'll take the smoke and put it under ground with co2 and any other gas residue. Can't we just let go of burning rocks for profit?
We should take our coal and layer it with our garbage and fill in a portion of the Grand Canyon or the Badlands, let it settle for a million years, and let the gas companies siphon off the natural gas. We could build some mountain wind breaks in the Great Plains states.
How can we keep promoting our so-called natural beauty and ship our garbage to places that are twice as beautiful, all because we don't live there.
If you throw enough money and minds at coal, someday we will make it work. After all gasoline was a residue of oil processing, look what we did with that! There is no alchemy folks coal is clean if you don't burn it.
That is soooooo funny
HILARIOUS
education without applied wisdom is learned stupity
Education does not change reality in this case. If you could grow coal perhaps you could genetically alter it to be cleaner after you set it on fire. Coal has already gone through its organic process a million years ago, it is what it is.
Let's take another example of burning rocks, vulcanoes. Do you know of any "clean" vulcanoes? They spit out horrible plumes of smoke and ash. If they were more common our atmosphere would be in constant danger. Now we have harnested the power of vulcanoes in miniature containment units all over the earth, to make energy and steel, hamburgers, etc., and our atmosphere is in danger. Gee, how easily we justify the use because we need the end product, the heck with the garbage. We'll ask our kids to take out the garbage.
Men, educated and the idiots all become drunk seeking to turn LEAD into GOLD. The lead poisons their minds while the draw of gold fuels their motives. All because someone with education said turning COAL into CLEAN COAL is possible. Issac Newton the Alchemist was Dr. Jekyll, a brilliant man, Mr. Hyde, a sick man.
We all need to step out of the stone age or burning rocks age and stand upright. Perhaps raw limitless power is found elsewhere. Maybe harnessing tornadoes, or lightning bolts. Maybe to passively generate power is OK and we are addicted to pyrotechnics and machinery, noise, the outward show of power.
Someone said "can we better use what we already are using? That way we don't have to change anything!" (a very common thought!) Do we wean ourselves or go cold turkey?
Maybe it's not coal but fire is the problem, that darn fire, just can't get it hot enough. We'll need the power of the sun to do this thing right. Folks, we have harnessed the power of the sun without burning rocks, the solar cell, please come out of the stone age!!