Hump Day Humor July 2nd

We just finished with a Tornado Warning at the Coral Ridge Mall, and I thought a little Hump Day Humor was in order, even though the posts will continue in the energy series throughout the weekend. One quick note and that is to acknowledge how "bright" people are when severe weather approaches. The Mall security, and staff, were excellent, as well as the staff in Target (who does it better than anyone), in trying to make sure that customers would be safe in the event of an actual tornado.
However, as usual the vast majority of these "customers" are "genuises", and refused to accept what they were being told to do, which was to go to a safe areas, which are designated, such as the back hallways, etc., and several were verbally abusive to the staff~who graciously "took" it from these "people".
It amazes me that some of the worst offenders, are people with very small children. One parent had children, who had to be under 3 years old, and they took their multiple stroller and stood in front of the giant windows by the Carousel~~how is that for being a caring "parent". You can be assured that if a tornado did hit, these "genuises" would be the first to sue the Mall for injuries (if they survived), for not being "provided" a safe place~~even though the Mall does everything possible to get these people to safety.
I have been here a few years now, and the Mall is improving each time severe weather arrives, and it is too bad that people will not heed their warnings.
The one area that should be looked at still is the food court, which continued serving food throughout the warning, AND people straight out said "If the food court is open, it can't be that bad"! Perhaps the food court should not have any leeway when a tornado warning is issued, and they should have to stop serving immediately~~without exception~~just "food for thought" (pun intended) :) !!

Anyway on to a little humor as we close out this evening, and I prepare for my one day off a week, which is now going to be Thursdays!Hooray Me!! Take Care and Be Safe!!


Two Pigs
Two farmers were discussing politics and the first one says: "I believe in a share and share alike policy. One where we are all equal."

"Well" replied the other farmer "I'm not sure about that. What you mean is that if you have two horses you'd give me one?"

"Of course" says the first.

The second farmer continued: "and of you had two cars, you'd give me one of them too?"

"Absolutely"

"So" says the second farmer, "if you had two pigs then you'd give me one of them?"

"Ah, now hang on a minute" says the first, "you know I've got two pigs!"
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Making a Deal
After God had created Adam he noticed that he looked very lonely. He decided to help.

He said, "Adam, I've decided to make you a woman. She'll love you, cook for you, be sweet to you, and understand you."

Adam said "Great! How much will she cost me?"

The answer came back, "An arm and a leg."

"Well," said Adam "what can I get for a rib?"
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Arriving Late
A certain professor arrived late for a lecture to find a most uncomplimentary drawing of himself on the blackboard.

Fuming, he asked the class joker in the front row, "Who, pray, was responsible for this atrocity?"

The joker won tremendous prestige with his reply, "I really don't know, but I strongly suspect its' parents."
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Fascinate
A teacher asks her class if anyone can use the word fascinate in a sentence. Brian raises his hand and says, "The sky is fascinating."

The teacher says, "No that's fascinating."

Jennifer raises her hand and says, "When I saw the tigers at the zoo I was fascinated."

The teacher says, "No that's fascinated."

So finally Little Johnny raises his hand and says, "My mom bought a new blouse with 12 pearl buttons, but her chest's so big she could only fasten eight!"
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Sound of Drums
A researcher arrives in Borneo to gather data for his thesis. Accompanied by his trusty guide, he seeks out a very remote locale for researching the mating behaviour of the giant rat of Sumatra.

Around dusk of the first day, he's sitting by the campfire with his guide when in the distance, he hears tribal drums. They get louder. The guide announces, "I don't like the sound of those drums."

The dusk turns evening. The drums get louder. The guide says, "I really don't like the sound of those drums."

Evening turns to dead of night. The drums get louder and louder, until it is obvious that the drummers must be quite close. The guide says again, "I really don't like the sound of those drums."

Suddenly the drums stop, and a voice from the darkness cries out, "Hey man, he's not our regular drummer!"
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Magna Carta
A bus load of tourists arrives at Runnymede. They gather around the guide who says, "This is the spot where the barons forced King John to sign the Magna Carta."

A fellow at the front of the crowd asks, "When did that happen?"

"1215," answers the guide.

The man looks at his watch and says, "Darn! Just missed it by a half hour!"
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Social Worker
A social worker asks a colleague: "What time is it?"

The other one answers: "Sorry, don't know, I have no watch."

The first one: "Never mind! The main thing is that we talked about it."
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Experiment
You enter the laboratory and see an experiment. How will you know which class is it?

If it's green and wiggles, it's biology.
If it stinks, it's chemistry.
If it doesn't work, it's physics.
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Scavenger Hunt
A woman answered her front door and found two little boys standing there holding a list.

"Lady," one of them explained, "we're on a scavenger hunt, and we still need three grains of wheat, a pork-chop bone and a piece of used carbon paper to earn a dollar."

"Wow," the woman replied. "Who sent you on such a challenging scavenger hunt?"

To which the little boy replied, "Our babysitter's boyfriend."
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Use Computers to Look Busy
Any time you use a computer, it looks like work to the casual observer. You can send and receive personal e-mail, calculate your finances and generally have a blast without doing anything remotely related to work.

These aren't exactly the societal benefits that everybody from the computer revolution expected but they're not bad either.

When you get caught by your boss--and you will get caught--your best defense is to claim you're teaching yourself to use the new software, thus saving valuable training dollars. You're not a loafer, you're a self-starter.

Offer to show your boss what you learned. That will make your boss scurry away like a frightened salamander.
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Earring
A man is at work one day when he notices that his co-worker is wearing an earring.

This man knows his co-worker to be a somewhat conservative fellow, so naturally he's curious about the sudden change in fashion sense. The man walks up to his co-worker and says, "I didn't know you were into earrings."

"Don't make such a big deal, it's only an earring," he replies sheepishly.

"Well, I'm curious," begged the man, "how long have you been wearing an earring?"

"Ehr, ever since my wife found it in our bed."
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Beer Producers
There's a big conference of beer producers. At the end of the day, all of the presidents of all the beer companies decide to have a drink in a bar.

The president of 'Budweiser' orders a Bud, the president of 'Miller' orders a Miller Lite, Adolph Coors orders a Coors, and the list goes on.

Then the waitress asks Arthur Guinness what he wants to drink, and much to everybody's amazement, Mr. Guinness orders a Coke!

"Why don't you order a Guinness?" his colleagues ask.

"Naah. If you guys won't drink beer, than neither will I."
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Chuck Norris is One Bad Dude
- Chuck Norris does not use spell check. If he happens to misspell a word, Oxford will simply change the actual spelling of it.

- Before science was invented it was once believed that autumn occurred when Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked every tree in existence.

- In the original pilot for Star Trek Next Generation, Chuck Norris can be seen powering the USS Enterprise warp drive with his roundhouse kicks.

- It was once believed that Chuck Norris actually lost a fight to a pirate, but that is a lie, created by Chuck Norris himself to lure more pirates to him. Pirates never were very smart.

- When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axles, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.

- Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

- The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
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Six-Pack
Steve, Bob, and Jeff were working on a very high scaffolding one day when suddenly, Steve falls off and is killed instantly. After the ambulance leaves with Steve's body, Bob and Jeff realize that one of them is going to have to tell Steve's wife.

Bob says he's good at this sort of sensitive stuff, so he volunteers to do the job. After two hours he returns, carrying a six-pack of beer.

"So did you tell her?" asks Jeff.

"Yep", replied Bob.

"Say, where did you get the six-pack?"

Bob informs Jeff, "She gave it to me!"

"What??" exclaims Jeff, "you just told her her husband died and she gave you a six-pack??"

"Sure," Bob says.

"Why?" asks Jeff.

"Well," Bob continues, "when she answered the door, I asked her, 'Are you Steve's widow?''Widow?', she said, 'no, no, you're mistaken, I'm not a widow!'

So I said, "I'll bet you a six-pack you ARE!'"
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Stupid Cops
One evening, two Alabama State Trooper patrol cars were in hot pursuit of a Chevy Camaro going east on I-20 toward Georgia. When the suspect vehicle crossed the Georgia line, the first Trooper pulled over quickly.

The rookie Trooper pulled over right behind him and asked, "Hey Sarge, why the heck did you stop? We almost had that guy and his girlfriend."

The Sarge replied, "You stupid rookie! That Camaro is in Georgia now. They are an hour ahead of us, so we'll never be able to catch 'em."
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Great Story
"How have you managed to buy such a luxurious villa while your income is so low?" asked the IRS auditor.

"Well," the taxpayer answered, "while fishing last summer I have caught a large golden fish. When I took it off the hook, the fish opened his mouth and said, 'I am a magical fish. Throw me back to the sea and I'll give you the most luxurious villa you have ever seen'. I threw the fish back to the sea, and got the villa."

"How can you prove such an unbelievable story?"

"Well, you can see the villa, can't you?"
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Fairy Tale Taxes
The tax advisor had just read the story of Cinderella to his four-year-old daughter for the first time.

The little girl was fascinated by the story, especially the part where the pumpkin turns into a golden coach.

Suddenly she piped up, "Daddy, when the pumpkin turned into a golden coach, would that be classed as income or a long-term capital gain?"
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But Seriously
In class when students say to me, "Are you Serious?"

My reply is, "Yes...like the brightest star in the night-time sky, I am Sirius!"
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One Chair
Resolving to surprise her husband, an executive's wife stopped by his office. She found him with his secretary sitting in his lap.

Without hesitating, he dictated, "...and in conclusion, gentlemen, shortage or no shortage, I cannot continue to operate this office with just one chair."
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Rubber Ball Specs
A mathmatician, a physicist, and an engineer were all given a red rubber ball and told to find the volume.

The mathmatician carefully measured the diameter and evaluated a triple integral.

The physicist filled a beaker with water, put the ball in the water, and measured the total displacement.

The engineer looked up the model and serial numbers in his red-rubber-ball table.
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Chemist Speak
A chemist walks into a pharmacy and asks the pharmacist, "Do you have any acetylsalicylic acid?"

"You mean aspirin?" asked the pharmacist.

"That's it, I can never remember that word."
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Physics vs. Math
A physics professor has been doing an experiment, and has worked out an emphirical equation that seems to explain his data. He asks the math professor to look at it.

A week later, the math professor says the equation is invalid. By then, the physics professor has used his equation to predict the results of further experiments, and he is getting excellent results, so he asks the math professor to look again.

Another week goes by, and they meet once more. The math professor tells the physics professor the equation does work, "But only in the trivial case where the numbers are real and positive."
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How to Tell
If you can pick it up, it's a PC.

If you can't pick it up but you can push it over, it's a minicomputer.

But when you can't pick it up or knock it over, it's a mainframe.
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Single-Minded
A man goes to a psychologist and says, "Doc I got a real problem, I can't stop thinking about relations."

The psychologist says, "Well let's see what we can find out", and pulls out his ink blots. "What is this a picture of?" he asks.

The man turns the picture upside down then turns it around and states, "That's a man and a woman having relations."

The psychologist says, "Very interesting," and shows the next picture. "And what is this a picture of?"

The man looks and turns it in different directions and says, "That's a man and a woman having relations."

The psychologists tries again with the third ink blot, and asks the same question, "What is this a picture of?"

The patient again turns it in all directions and replies, "That's a man and a woman having relations."

The psychologist states, "Well, yes, you do seem to be obsessed with relations."

"Me!?" demands the patient. "You're the one who keeps showing me the dirty pictures!"

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Ways the Internet Could Get Worse
- "MAKE MONEY FAST" posts protected by 1st amendment.

- Sun internet servers replaced with Pentiums.

- Al Gore appointed head of "bandwidth expansion tiger team."

- Free netcom account with purchase of Big Mac.

- Gameboy web browsers.

- Two words: "Microsoft Network"

- Rigorous user screening process abolished by America On-Line.
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Ten Years
An applicant was being interviewed for admission to a prominent medical school. "Tell me," inquired the interviewer, "where do you expect to be ten years from now?"

"Well, let's see," replied the student. "It's Wednesday afternoon. I guess I'll be on the golf course by now."
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Perils of Drink
Doctor: "It's no good. I can't find anything wrong with you. It must just be the effects of drinking."

Patient: "I'll come back when you're sober then!"
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If you get the chance, in particular if you are non-smoker like me, please purchase a pack of cigarettes, and burn them in a can in your backyard, so we can "mess" up the "clean" air for the "nannies" who got the ban through our weak willed legislature, and got Governor "Girly Man" Culver to sign it!!
It isn't the Boston Tea Party, but what the heck, this isn't America anymore either!!
Have A Nice Hump Night!! ;)

And as always if you have anything funny, please post a comment, or send me an email to danielcarvelkepler@yahoo.com. Thanks!!

Part VI: Biomass And Biofuels

Part VI: Biomass And Biofuels, is interesting as I live in Iowa, which is becoming huge in the Ethanol production business, and even though we need to use all of our resources, I think this is one with a potential for great harm,as more and more land is used for "fuel" needs instead of for food production. There is already shortages in many places on this planet, and when we put "our" energy needs ahead people who are starving, we may quickly slide down the "slippery slope" to our own destruction. So while this is another resource we need to exploit, we should do so with some trepidation, and not rely on it as a "long" term energy source~~The crop part of it anyway.
So we begin with an introduction to Biomass. Biomass is all plant and animal matter on the Earth's surface. Harvesting biomass such as crops, trees or dung and using it to generate energy such as heat, electricity or motion, is bioenergy.
Biomass is a very broad term which is used to describe material of recent biological origin that can be used either as a source of energy or for its chemical components. As such, it includes trees, crops, algae and other plants, as well as agricultural and forest residues. It also includes many materials that are considered as wastes by our society including food and drink manufacturing effluents, sludges, manures, industrial (organic) by-products and the organic fraction of household waste.
Farm waste such as cow manure is processed into biomass to form biogas. It can be used in bottled gas for gas cooking appliances. Crops such as switch-grass, corn and sugarcane are produced to form ethanol which can be used to fuel vehicles and presently are so, to great success. Waste heat harnessed by waste-to-energy plants can generate electricity for heating buildings. Among energy sources referred to as biofuels is domestic rubbish. About 15% of municipal solid waste is burned.
One of the major advantages of Biomass Energy as a source of fuels is its renewable. With approximately 140 billion metric tons of biomass produced every year and growing, we could see biomass fuels replacing fossil fuels in the near future as they deplete even further increasingthe demand for a cheap, efficient renewable fuel source.

Biomass can further be divided into more specific terminology, with different terms for different end uses: heating, power (electricity) generation or transportation. We tend to use the term 'bioenergy' for biomass energy systems that produce heat and/or electricity and 'biofuels' for liquid fuels for transportation. Bioenergy can also be used for cooling using absorption chillers that work on the same principle as your refrigerator.

In recent years, environmentalists and policymakers have struggled to evaluate the merits of various biomass resources. This has posed an enormous challenge, in part, because biomass brings together a host of environmental disciplines, including air, water, land-use, climate, and energy. Since few people have expertise in all of these areas, the full range of environmental impacts – both positive and negative – are not as readily apparent for biomass as they are for solar, wind, or traditional fossil resources. As a result, environmental groups, large and small, approach the topic of biomass with exceeding caution despite the fact that biomass has the potential to be one of the few carbon-neutral and renewable energy resources that is available on demand and has large-scale, commercially viable applications.
Biomass electricity generation, or biopower, is a multi-stage process that converts non-fossil fuel-derived organic material into electricity. Biomass can also be used to produce fuels – biofuels – that can be used in vehicles. Because the vegetation that is the base for all biomass can be regrown, biopower and biofuels can be renewable. This means that biopower and biofuels can help reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and nuclear power. If the biomass is regrown, then it will sequester all of the carbon dioxide released when the biomass is burned. This means that biopower and biofuels can help reduce the risks of climate change. Furthermore, since biomass can be stored and burned when needed, biopower can be available on demand, unlike wind and solar which are only available when the wind blows and the sun shines. A 1997 Energy Innovations report from a group of environmental organizations forecasts that by 2030 with proper incentives, biomass could provide more than half of all renewable energy in our economy and over 15% of all our energy needs.
However, in order for the United States to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and create a sustainable energy industry, biomass companies must substantially increase their market share of electric generation. Unfortunately, the biomass industry operates under a dark cloud that seriously impairs its ability to meet this challenge. This is due, in large part, to the poor environmental record of the incineration of municipal solid waste (MSW), a highly suspect category of materials that can be laced with deadly toxins that are emitted into the air when burned. Unfortunately, MSW is often considered to be a form of biomass, a cause of great concern for environmental and public health interests who would prefer to focus the developmental potential of this technology on the many clean and renewable organic alternatives. In addition, the negative environmental impacts of factory farms, poor forest management, and large-scale agribusiness have compounded the pessimism surrounding America’s biomass industry. Biomass developers have done little to alleviate this problem, as many fail to adequately distinguish sustainable projects from their toxic siblings.
The greatest challenge to policies intended to promote biomass is targeting them toward the environmentally preferable forms of biomass. To shed light on this question, a coalition of major environmental groups have crafted and endorsed a statutory definition that maximizes the clean and renewable energy potential of biomass projects. By adopting this definition, states have an opportunity to help shape the future of America’s biomass industry and ensure that biomass technology is implemented in a way that maximizes its clean and renewable potential.
That is where SERC Comes in: The State Environmental Resource Center (SERC) researches state environmental policies and assembles information and tools to help legislators make important decisions on key environmental issues. SERC identifies the most innovative and effective state policies, and exposes anti-environmental legislative trends. They have much more information at their website (www.serconline.org) with links, talking points, etc. A very interesting site.

Tomorrow Part VII: Hydropower

link to educational website on biomass and biofuels

Part V: Waves

Part V: Wave energy is one of the more interesting resources that the United States could utilize if we have the desire. It is available for use by our country, and would be another "renewable" resource that is currently, NOT being taken advantage of, in any appreciable way.

The U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, A Consumer's Guide to Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: Ocean Wave Power, States:
Wave power devices extract energy directly from surface waves or from pressure fluctuations below the surface. Renewable energy analysts believe there is enough energy in the ocean waves to provide up to 2 terawatts of electricity. (A terawatt is equal to a trillion watts.)
Wave power can't be harnessed everywhere. Wave-power rich areas of the world include the western coasts of Scotland, northern Canada, southern Africa, Australia, and the northeastern and northwestern coasts of the United States. In the Pacific Northwest alone, it's feasible that wave energy could produce 40–70 kilowatts (kW) per meter (3.3 feet) of western coastline. The West Coast of the United States is more than a 1,000 miles long.
Technologies
Wave energy can be converted into electricity through both offshore and onshore systems.
Offshore Systems
Offshore systems are situated in deep water, typically of more than 40 meters (131 feet). Sophisticated mechanisms—like the Salter Duck—use the bobbing motion of the waves to power a pump that creates electricity. Other offshore devices use hoses connected to floats that ride the waves. The rise and fall of the float stretches and relaxes the hose, which pressurizes the water, which, in turn, rotates a turbine.
Specially built seagoing vessels can also capture the energy of offshore waves. These floating platforms create electricity by funneling waves through internal turbines and then back into the sea.
Onshore Systems
Built along shorelines, onshore wave power systems extract the energy in breaking waves. Onshore system technologies include the following:
Oscillating water column
The oscillating water column consists of a partially submerged concrete or steel structure that has an opening to the sea below the waterline. It encloses a column of air above a column of water. As waves enter the air column, they cause the water column to rise and fall. This alternately compresses and depressurizes the air column. As the wave retreats, the air is drawn back through the turbine as a result of the reduced air pressure on the ocean side of the turbine.
Tapchan
The tapchan, or tapered channel system, consists of a tapered channel, which feeds into a reservoir constructed on cliffs above sea level. The narrowing of the channel causes the waves to increase in height as they move toward the cliff face. The waves spill over the walls of the channel into the reservoir and the stored water is then fed through a turbine.
Pendulor device
The pendulor wave-power device consists of a rectangular box, which is open to the sea at one end. A flap is hinged over the opening and the action of the waves causes the flap to swing back and forth. The motion powers a hydraulic pump and a generator.
Environmental and Economic Challenges
In general, careful site selection is the key to keeping the environmental impacts of wave power systems to a minimum. Wave energy system planners can choose sites that preserve scenic shorefronts. They also can avoid areas where wave energy systems can significantly alter flow patterns of sediment on the ocean floor.
Economically, wave power systems have a hard time competing with traditional power sources. However, the costs to produce wave energy are coming down. Some European experts predict that wave power devices will find lucrative niche markets. Once built, they have low operation and maintenance costs because the fuel they use, seawater,is free.
There is much more information available from at the link below, which takes you to the OCS (Outer Continental Shelf) Alternative Energy And Alternate Use Programmatic EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) Information Center. It is very cool, with much more information, as well as illustrations, and photos, of the "devices" this post mentions. There is also a link to a PDF document at the bottom of the main page, which describes the "potential" available for "our" use: Titled~~technology White Paper On Wave Energy Potential on The U.S.Outer Continental Shelf. Please stop by and take a look at what is available. Thanks and Have A Great Day!!


link to OCS Alternative Energy Information Center

Part IV: Solar

Part IV of our energy series, takes a look at solar energy throughout history to the present. There is also a link to the United States Department of Energy~~Renewable Resources Site which has everything you would ever want to know about solar energy, and the big part it can play in providing energy independence for our Nation. There is also a great deal of information available from Wikipedia, ASES (American Solar Energy Society), www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/renewable/solar.html (which is a great resource for children, who may want to learn about solar energy), and SEIA (Solar Energy Industries Association), which is a National trade association for all solar businesses and enterprises in the fields of photovoltaics. They all have easy to understand information available, some of which is in this post, so my thanks to them all.

We shall begin with a little history:
We have always used the energy of the sun as far back as humans have existed on this planet. As far back as 5,000 years ago, people "worshipped" the sun. Ra, the sun-god, who was considered the first king of Egypt. In Mesopotamia, the sun-god Shamash was a major deity and was equated with justice. In Greece there were two sun deities, Apollo and Helios. The influence of the sun also appears in other religions - Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Roman religion, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Druids of England, the Aztecs of Mexico, the Incas of Peru, and many Native American tribes.
We know today, that the sun is simply our nearest star. Without it, life would not exist on our planet. We use the sun's energy every day in many different ways.
When we hang laundry outside to dry in the sun, we are using the sun's heat to do work -- drying our clothes.
Plants use the sun's light to make food. Animals eat plants for food. Decaying plants hundreds of millions of years ago produced the coal, oil and natural gas that we use today. So, fossil fuels is actually sunlight stored millions and millions of years ago.
Indirectly, the sun or other stars are responsible for ALL our energy. Even nuclear energy comes from a star because the uranium atoms used in nuclear energy were created in the fury of a nova - a star exploding.
Let's look at ways in which we can use the sun's energy.
In the 1890s solar water heaters were being used all over the United States. They proved to be a big improvement over wood and coal-burning stoves. Artificial gas made from coal was available too to heat water, but it cost 10 times the price we pay for natural gas today. And electricity was even more expensive if you even had any in your town!
Many homes used solar water heaters. In 1897, 30 percent of the homes in Pasadena, just east of Los Angeles, were equipped with solar water heaters. As mechanical improvements were made, solar systems were used in Arizona, Florida and many other sunny parts of the United States.
By 1920, ten of thousands of solar water heaters had been sold. By then, however, large deposits of oil and natural gas were discovered in the western United States. As these low cost fuels became available, solar water systems began to be replaced with heaters burning fossil fuels.
Today, solar water heaters are making a comeback. There are more than half a million of them in California alone! They heat water for use inside homes and businesses. They also heat swimming pools.
Panels on the roof of a building, contain water pipes. When the sun hits the panels and the pipes, the sunlight warms them.
That warmed water can then be used in a swimming pool.

Solar energy can also be used to make electricity.
Some solar power plants use a highly curved mirror called a parabolic trough to focus the sunlight on a pipe running down a central point above the curve of the mirror. The mirror focuses the sunlight to strike the pipe, and it gets so hot that it can boil water into steam. That steam can then be used to turn a turbine to make electricity.
In California's Mojave desert, there are huge rows of solar mirrors arranged in what's called "solar thermal power plants" that use this idea to make electricity for more than 350,000 homes. The problem with solar energy is that it works only when the sun is shining. So, on cloudy days and at night, the power plants can't create energy. Some solar plants, are a "hybrid" technology. During the daytime they use the sun. At night and on cloudy days they burn natural gas to boil the water so they can continue to make electricity.
Another form of solar power plants to make electricity is called a Central Tower Power Plant, sunlight is reflected off 1,800 mirrors circling the tall tower. The mirrors are called heliostats and move and turn to face the sun all day long.
The light is reflected back to the top of the tower in the center of the circle where a fluid is turned very hot by the sun's rays. That fluid can be used to boil water to make steam to turn a turbine and a generator.
This experimental power plant is called Solar II. It was re-built in California's desert using newer technologies than when it was first built in the early 1980s. Solar II will use the sunlight to change heat into mechanical energy in the turbine.
The power plant will make enough electricity to power about 10,000 homes. Scientists say larger central tower power plants can make electricity for 100,000 to 200,000 homes.

We can also change the sunlight directly to electricity using solar cells.
Solar cells are also called photovoltaic cells, or PV cells for short, and can be found on many small appliances, like calculators, and even on spacecraft. They were first developed in the 1950s for use on U.S. space satellites. They are made of silicon, a special type of melted sand.
When sunlight strikes the solar cell, electrons are knocked loose. They move toward the treated front surface. An electron imbalance is created between the front and back. When the two surfaces are joined by a connector, like a wire, a current of electricity occurs between the negative and positive sides.
These individual solar cells are arranged together in a PV module and the modules are grouped together in an array. Some of the arrays are set on special tracking devices to follow sunlight all day long.
The electrical energy from solar cells can then be used directly. It can be used in a home for lights and appliances. It can be used in a business. Solar energy can be stored in batteries to light a roadside billboard at night. Or the energy can be stored in a battery for an emergency roadside cellular telephone when no telephone wires are around.
Some experimental cars also use PV cells. They convert sunlight directly into energy to power electric motors on the car.
But when most of us think of solar energy, we think of satellites in outer space, and solar sails, like those on the space lab, hubble telescsope, and other satellites.
Here is just of the more promising "new" technologies to convert sunlight more efficiently.
On December 20, 2007 this article from gizmag stated: The inefficiency of solar cells in converting the sun’s rays into electricity is a key contributor to the high costs of solar energy, but new research into a novel shape of semiconductor nanostructures known as "nano flakes" may revolutionize the process and help improve the viability of clean energyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_energy derived from the sun.
Details of the research by Martin Aagesen, a PhD from the Nano-Science Centerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_center and the Niels Bohr Institute at University of Copenhagenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Copenhagen were recently published in nature nanotechnology.
If his "future solar cells" meet expectations, they may be a huge step towards boosting the world’s exploitation of solar energy. Aagesen believes that the nano flakes have the potential to convert up to 30 per cent of the solar energy into electricity and that is roughly twice the amount that the average solar cell converts today.
The discovery was made during Aagesen’s work on his PhD thesishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissertation when he found a new and untried material. “I discovered a perfect crystalline structure. That is a very rare sight. While being a perfect crystalline structure we could see that it also absorbed all light. It could become the perfect solar cell,” he said. The technology has the potential to reduce the solar cell production costs which rely on expensive semiconducting silicium. At the same time, the "future solar cells" will exploit solar energy more effectively and lessen the loss of energy.
Aagesen is also director of the company Sunflake Inc. which is pursuing development of the new solar cell.
Other recent efforts to address the issue of solar cell efficiency include a breakthrough from SANYO in June this year which saw the company broke its own record for the world's highest energy conversion efficiency in practical size crystalline silicon-type solar cells by demonstrating an efficiency of 22%. In December last year Spectrolab achieved a world record in terrestrial concentrator solar cell efficiency, using a photovoltaichttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics cell to convert 40.7 percent of the sun's energy into electricity. More recently, Global Warming Learning-to-Love-Global-Warming Solutions announced the development of new solar energy conversion technology based on a special coating that can be applied to existing solar cells.
There are many other companies working on this problem, trying to come up with better, more efficient designs, to utilize solar power, and more information in available at the United States Department of Energy Link Below.

Part V: Wave Energy is on tap for tomorrow. Have A Great Monday!!


link to usdoe solar resources page

Part III: Wind

Harnessing the wind is one of the cleanest, most sustainable ways to generate electricity. Wind power produces no toxic emissions and none of the heat trapping emissions that contribute to global warming. This, and the fact that wind power is one of the most abundant and increasingly cost-competitive energy resources, makes it a viable alternative to the fossil fuels that harm our health and threaten the environment.
Wind energy is the fastest growing source of electricity in the world. Global installations in 2005 reached more than 11,500 megawatts (MW)–a 40.5 percent increase in annual additions compared with 2004–representing $14 billion in new investments. In the United States, a record 2,431 MW of wind power was installed in 2005, capable of producing enough electricity to power 650,000 typical homes. Despite this rapid growth, wind power is still a relatively small part of our electricity supply–generating less than one percent of both the and global electricity mix. But thanks to its many benefits, and significantly reduced costs, wind power is poised to play a major role as we move toward a sustainable energy future.

Wind power is both old and new. From the sailing ships of the ancient Greeks, to the grain mills of pre-industrial Holland, to the latest high-tech wind turbines rising over the Minnesota prairie, humans have used the power of the wind for millennia. In the United States, the original heyday of wind was between 1870 and 1930, when thousands of farmers across the country used wind to pump water. Small electric wind turbines were used in rural areas as far back as the 1920s, and prototypes of larger machines were built in the 1940s. When the New Deal brought grid-connected electricity to the countryside, however, windmills lost out.

Interest in wind power was reborn during the energy crises of the 1970s. Research by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in the 1970s focused on large turbine designs, with funding going to major aerospace manufacturers. While these 2- and 3-MW machines proved mostly unsuccessful at the time, they did provide basic research on blade design and engineering principles. The modern wind era began in California in the 1980s. Between 1981 and 1986, small companies and entrepreneurs installed 15,000 medium-sized turbines, providing enough power for every resident of San Francisco. Pushed by the high cost of fossil fuels, a moratorium on nuclear power, and concern about environmental degradation, the state provided tax incentives to promote wind power. These, combined with federal tax incentives, helped the wind industry take off. After the tax credits expired in 1985, wind power continued to grow, although more slowly. Perhaps more important in slowing wind power's growth was the decline in fossil fuel prices that occurred in the mid-1980s.

In the early 1990s, improvements in technology resulting in increased turbine reliability and lower costs of production provided another boost for wind development. In addition, concern about global warming and the first Gulf War lead Congress to pass the Energy Policy Act of 1992–comprehensive energy legislation that included a new production tax credit for wind and biomass electricity. However, shortly thereafter, the electric utility industry began to anticipate a massive restructuring, where power suppliers would become competitors rather than protected monopolies. Investment in new power plants of all kinds fell drastically, especially for capital-intensive renewable energy technologies like wind. America's largest wind company, Kenetech, declared bankruptcy in 1995, a victim of the sudden slowdown. It wasn’t until 1998 that the wind industry began to experience continuing growth in the United States, thanks in large part to federal tax incentives, state-level renewable energy requirements and incentives, and–beginning in 2001–rising fossil fuel prices.

In other parts of the world, particularly in Europe, wind has had more consistent, long-term support. As a result, European countries are currently capable of meeting more of their electricity demands through wind power with much less land area and resource potential compared with the United States. Denmark, for example, already meets about 20 percent of its electricity demand from wind power. Wind generation also accounts for about six percent of the national power needs in Spain, and five percent in Germany. Serious commitments to reducing global warming emissions, local development, and the determination to avoid fuel imports have been the primary drivers of wind power development.

The Wind Resource
The wind resource–how fast it blows, how often, and when–plays a significant role in its power generation cost. The power output from a wind turbine rises as a cube of wind speed. In other words, if wind speed doubles, the power output increases eight times. Therefore, higher-speed winds are more easily and inexpensively captured.

Wind speeds are divided into seven classes–with class one being the lowest, and class seven being the highest. A wind resource assessment evaluates the average wind speeds above a section of land (usually 50 meters high), and assigns that area a wind class. Wind turbines operate over a limited range of wind speeds. If the wind is too slow, they won't be able to turn, and if too fast, they shut down to avoid being damaged. Wind speeds in classes three (6.7 – 7.4 meters per second (m/s)) and above are typically needed to economically generate power. Ideally, a wind turbine should be matched to the speed and frequency of the resource to maximize power production.


link to all about wind energy and charts


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Wind power is capable of becoming a major contributor to America’s electricity supply over the next three decades, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Energy. The groundbreaking report, 20% or more if a monumental effort is put forward for Wind Energy by 2030 or sooner: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply, looks closely at one scenario for reaching 20% wind energy by 2030 and contrasts it to a scenario of no new U.S. wind power capacity.

This DOE report includes contributions from
• U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) − Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE), and Power Marketing Administrations (PMAs) − National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) − Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) − Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) Black & Veatch engineering and consulting firm American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) − Leading wind manufacturers and suppliers − Developers and electric utilities − Others in the wind industry
Wind power can play a major role in meeting America's increasing demand for electricity, according to a groundbreaking technical report, 20% Wind Energy by2030: Increasing Wind Energy's Contribution to U.S. Electricity Supply, prepared
by the U.S. Department of Energy with contributions from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the American Wind Energy Association, Black & Veatch and others from the energy sector.

The report explores one scenario for reaching 20% wind electricity by 2030 and contrasts it to a scenario in which no new U.S. wind power capacity is installed. It examines costs, major impacts and challenges associated with the 20% Wind Scenario. It investigates
requirements and outcomes in the areas of technology, manufacturing, transmission and integration, markets, environment
and siting. The report finds that the Nation possesses affordable wind energy resources far in excess of those needed to enable a 20%
scenario.

To implement the 20% Wind Scenario, new wind power installations would increase to more than 16,000 MW per year by 2018, and
continue at that rate through 2030, as shown in Figure A. Wind plant costs and performance are projected to improve modestly over the
next two decades, but no technological breakthroughs are needed. In the 20% wind scenario, 46 states would experience significant wind
power development.

The report finds that, during the decade preceding 2030, the U.S. wind industry could: support roughly 500,000 jobs in the U.S., with an annual average of more than 150,000 workers directly employed by the wind industry; support more than 100,000 jobs in associated industries (e.g., accountants, lawyers, steel workers, and electrical manufacturing);

support more than 200,000 jobs through economic expansion based on local spending; increase annual property tax revenues to more than $1.5 billion by 2030; and increase annual payments to rural landowners to more than $600 million in 2030. Using more domestic wind power will diversify the nation's energy portfolio — adding wind-generated electricity at stable prices not subject to market volatility
— and strengthening national energy security through reduced reliance on foreign sources of natural gas. The 20% Wind Scenario would alter U.S. electricity generation as shown in Figure B. In this scenario, wind would supply enough energy to displace about 50% of
electric utility natural gas consumption by 2030. This amounts to an 11% reduction in natural gas across all industries. Also, coal consumption would be reduced by 18%. In addition, electric utilities are learning how to accommodate wind's variability while maintaining system reliability.


Carbon dioxide (CO ) is the principal GHG in the earth's atmosphere. Approximately 40% of total U.S. CO emissions come from power generation facilities. Since substantial amounts of coal and natural gas fuels would be displaced, the 20% Wind Scenario could
reduce CO emissions in 2030 by 825 million metric tons – 25% of the CO emissions from the nation's electric sector in the no-new-wind scenario. As shown in Figure C, this reduction could nearly level projected growth in CO emissions from electricity generation.

The report examines siting issues and effects that an increase in wind power facilities may have on compatible land uses,
water use, aesthetics, and wildlife habitats. Wind energy avoids many of the undesirable environmental impacts from
other forms of electricity production, such as impacts from fuel mining, transport and waste management.

Unlike fossil-fuel and nuclear generation, which use significant quantities of water for power plant cooling, wind
power generation consumes no water during operations. Generating 20% of U.S. electricity from wind would reduce
water consumption in the electric sector in 2030 by 17%.

Costs incurred by the 20% Wind Scenario exceed those of theno-new-wind scenario by about 2%. Although the 20% wind
scenario would incur higher initial capital costs, a large portion of those costs would be offset by $155 billion in lower
fuel expenditures. The estimated incremental investment would be $43 billion (net-present-value basis; 2006$). This corresponds to about
0.06¢/kWh of total generation, or about 50¢ per month for the average household. These monetary costs do not reflect other potential offsetting positive impacts. Major challenges along the 20% Wind Scenario path include these:

Investment in the nation's transmission system is needed so that the electricity generated is delivered to urban centers that need the increased supply; Developing larger electric load balancing areas, in tandem with better regional planning, are needed so that regions can depend on a diversity of generation sources, including wind power;

Significant growth is needed in the manufacturing supply chain, providing jobs and remedy the current shortage in parts for wind turbines; Continued reduction in wind capital cost and improvement in turbine performance through technology advancement and improved manufacturing capabilities is needed; and Addressing potential concerns about local siting, wildlife, and environmental issues
within the context of generating electricity is needed.

The 20% Wind Scenario is not likely to be realized in a business-as-usual future. Achieving this scenario would involve a major national commitment to clean, domestic energy sources with minimal emissions of GHGs and other environmental pollutants.

Tomorrow is Part IV: Solar. Have A Nice Sunday!!

Part 2 of Part II: Coal

Here is Part 2 of Part II: Coal, and a look at the latest "clean" coal technologies:

As We Have Seen Over The Last Few Years With Fuel Prices Climbing Ever Higher, Oil Dependency Has Become Hazardous to Our Economic Health!
Over half of the oil that fuels America's economy is now sold to us from foreign sources . Growing Foreign Dependence, But these sources may not always be reliable.
In 1973 and 1979, America experienced dual "oil shocks" -- cutoffs of supply that provided an important warning about our vulnerability to foreign disruptions. Those crises should have served as lessons about dependence on unreliable offshore sources. Instead, our dependence on foreign sources stands at an even higher level today than it did during the embargoes that plunged America into serious recessions in the past.
Today, America is vulnerable.

An Important Step
Toward Reducing Our Vulnerability
One logical alternative is coal. American coal and waste coal reserve estimates vary wildly . World Recoverable Oil Resoucres~~Pennsylvania, a prime coal state, is estimated to have 34 billion tons of in ground reserves.
But until recently, environmental concerns about coal posed a large obstacle to attaining greater U.S. self-sufficiency in energy. The environmental impact of mining and burning more coal was considered by many people to be too great to justify.
Today, new technology has made it possible for us to turn back to domestic energy sources -- and to do it cleanly. Coal gasification/coal liquefaction will now allow us to tap the abundant energy stores within our own borders -- without compromising our standards of environmental quality. In fact, these technologies may be our best hope for environmental progress in future years.
Using more of our domestic energy reserves would free us from reliance on potentially unstable sources and the economic drain that results from buying oil from overseas. It would result in greater stability in fuel pricing, jobs and job security, and enhance our national security by lessening our dependency on foreign sources.
The "US Geological Survey estimates the total identified coal resources as being 1,600 billion tons. Another 1,600 billion tons of unidentified resources are postulated." Currently the US produces approximately 1.06 billion tons of coal annually.
If the US were to produce, from coal alone, the amount of oil equivalent to what the US imports, the US would consume an additional .912 billion tons annually.

Total coal production/consumption would then = 1.972 billion tons annually. (Not even considering the benefits of energy efficiency, biomass, renewables, high mileage vehicles etc., all of which would significantly extend our energy reserves.)
1,600 billion tons of coal / 1.972 = 811 years of fuel reserves.
Given these new conversion technologies the US is, in effect, sitting on a minimum of 811 years of worth of fuel reserves.
To the extent this message becomes clear to off shore oil suppliers, the perception of a sellers market should diminish and the US would be positioned to purchase oil on its own terms.
Coal Gasification/Liquefaction Link
Coal conversion technologies - - such as Coal Gasification / Liquefaction Coal Gasification/Liquification-- are process technologies adapted from proven production methods that have been in use for decades.
In sum, the process utilizes carbonaceous matter -- coal, coal waste, biomass, refinery waste and other materials -- to produce liquid fuel products that are environmentally friendly, known as Ultra Clean Fuels.
Ultra Clean Fuels are zero-% nitrogen, low in aromatics
with a high cetane (energy density) number.
Fuels meeting these criteria are already required in some areas of the country with strict emissions standards. Ultra Clean Fuels would not only be plentiful, they could also play a large role in helping us meet the new goals for energy efficiency and cleaner air.
In addition, the production process extracts sulfur and other materials which can be used for other manufacturing and commercial purposes.

Economic Benefits Of
Choosing Ultra Clean Fuels Technology
Making a commitment to Ultra Clean Fuels Technology will have substantial and long-lasting benefits, according to a study by the Center for Forensic Economic Studies. Among them:
Adoption of Ultra Clean Fuels Technology would re-energize the domestic coal production industry (Anthracite, Bituminous, Sub Bituminous, Lignite).

Construction and operation of Ultra Clean Fuels production facilities would create high-quality jobs, improve job security and productivity, and result in numerous spin-off benefits throughout the economy.

Reliance on domestic coal resources would revitalize communities in coal producing regions across the country.

Lessening dependence on foreign oil sources would improve the U.S. balance of payments dramatically and reduce the outflow of dollars to overseas suppliers.

Diversifying our sources of energy would reduce the threat of war or economic blackmail by foreign powers that control a portion of oil reserves, with potential savings of billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

Environmental Benefits Of Choosing
Ultra Clean Fuels Technology
Ultra Clean Fuels are cleaner both in production and consumption than standard fossil fuels.

Utilizing Ultra Clean Fuels would reduce the overall amount of greenhouse gases introduced into the atmosphere.

Ultra Clean Fuels are generally more environmentally friendly than the production of electricity for electric "non-polluting" cars.

Coal wastes that have blighted the landscapes of coal producing regions for decades would be utilized for production, resulting in wholesale reclamation of those regions.

The Private/Public Partnership
Moving Ultra Clean Fuels Technology from the drawing board into production will require an enormous effort and sizable startup costs. For this reason, the Private / Public Partnership for Ultra Clean Fuels Technology represents the best means for making Ultra Clean Fuels Technology commercially viable in the near future.
In this partnership, private industry would be responsible for financing and construction as well as operation of the production facilities.
The public sector role would center around adoption of tax incentives that help offset the enormous capital expenditures required to make plants operational. This step will ensure a more reasonable level of risk for commercial financing purposes.


Conclusion
The benefits of applying Ultra Clean Fuels Technology are substantial:
better utilization of domestic coal and other carbonaceous feedstock

an alternative to continued dependence on unreliable oil imports Energy Dependency

rebuilding our energy industry Energy Independence

creation of new high-quality jobs

reclamation of the nation's coal regions

economic benefits of lessening foreign debt burden incurred from imports
These factors are only the highlights of a program that will have an enormous positive impact on the living standards and quality of life of the American people.
Implementing Ultra Clean Fuels Technologies through a Private/Public Partnership represents a true "win-win" for the economy and the environment.
The time to act is now.

And here is how coal is seen from the prespective others, with this assessment from the World Nuclear Association:
Clean Coal Technology:
Coal is a vital fuel in most parts of the world.
Burning coal without adding to global carbon dioxide levels is a major technological challenge which is being addressed.
The most promising "clean coal" technology involves using the coal to make hydrogen from water, then burying the resultant carbon dioxide by-product and burning the hydrogen.
The greatest challenge is bringing the cost of this down sufficiently for "clean coal" to compete with nuclear power on the basis of near-zero emissions for base-load power.
Coal is an extremely important fuel and will remain so. Some 23% of primary energy needs are met by coal and 39% of electricity is generated from coal. About 70% of world steel production depends on coal feedstock. Coal is the world's most abundant and widely distributed fossil fuel source. The International Energy Agency expects a 43% increase in its use from 2000 to 2020.
However, burning coal produces about 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year which is released to the atmosphere, about 70% of this being from power generation. Other estimates put carbon dioxide emissions from power generation at one third of the world total of over 25 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions.
New "clean coal" technologies are addressing this problem so that the world's enormous resources of coal can be utilised for future generations without contributing to global warming. Much of the challenge is in commercialising the technology so that coal use remains economically competitive despite the cost of achieving "zero emissions".
As many coal-fired power stations approach retirement, their replacement gives much scope for 'cleaner' electricity. Alongside nuclear power and harnessing renewable energy sources, one hope for this is via "clean coal" technologies, such as are now starting to receive substantial R&D funding.
Managing wastes from coal
Burning coal, such as for power generation, gives rise to a variety of wastes which must be controlled or at least accounted for. So-called "clean coal" technologies are a variety of evolving responses to late 20th century environmental concerns, including that of global warming due to carbon dioxide releases to the atmosphere. However, many of the elements have in fact been applied for many years, and they will be only briefly mentioned here:
Coal cleaning by 'washing' has been standard practice in developed countries for some time. It reduces emissions of ash and sulfur dioxide when the coal is burned.
Electrostatic precipitators and fabric filters can remove 99% of the fly ash from the flue gases - these technologies are in widespread use.
Flue gas desulfurisation reduces the output of sulfur dioxide to the atmosphere by up to 97%, the task depending on the level of sulfur in the coal and the extent of the reduction. It is widely used where needed in developed countries.
Low-NOx burners allow coal-fired plants to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by up to 40%. Coupled with re-burning techniques NOx can be reduced 70% and selective catalytic reduction can clean up 90% of NOx emissions.
Increased efficiency of plant - up to 45% thermal efficiency now (and 50% expected in future) means that newer plants create less emissions per kWh than older ones.
Advanced technologies such as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) and Pressurised Fluidised Bed Combustion (PFBC) will enable higher thermal efficiencies still - up to 50% in the future.
Ultra-clean coal from new processing technologies which reduce ash below 0.25% and sulfur to very low levels mean that pulverised coal might be fed directly into gas turbines with combined cycle and burned at high thermal efficiency.
Gasification, including underground gasification in situ, uses steam and oxygen to turn the coal into carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
Sequestration refers to disposal of liquid carbon dioxide, once captured, into deep geological strata.
Some of these impose operating costs without concomitant benefit to the operator, though external costs will almost certainly be increasingly factored in through carbon taxes or similar which will change the economics of burning coal.
However, waste products can be used productively. In 1999 the EU used half of its coal fly ash and bottom ash in building materials (where fly ash can replace cement), and 87% of the gypsum from flue gas desulfurisation.
Carbon dioxide from burning coal is the main focus of attention today, since it is implicated in global warming, and the Kyoto Protocol requires that emissions decline, notwithstanding increasing energy demand.
Capture & separation of CO2
A number of means exist to capture carbon dioxide from gas streams, but they have not yet been optimised for the scale required in coal-burning power plants. The focus has often been on obtaining pure CO2 for industrial purposes rather than reducing CO2 levels in power plant emissions.
Where there is carbon dioxide mixed with methane from natural gas wells, its separation is well proven. Several processes are used, including hot potassium carbonate which is energy-intensive and requires a large plant, a monoethanolamine process which yields high-purity carbon dioxide, amine scrubbing, and membrane processes.
Capture of carbon dioxide from flue gas streams following combustion in air is expensive as the carbon dioxide concentration is only about 14% at best. This treats carbon dioxide like any other pollutant and as flue gases are passed through an amine solution the CO2 is absorbed. It can later be released by heating the solution. This amine scrubbing process is also used for taking CO2 out of natural gas. There is an energy cost involved.
The Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plant is a means of using coal and steam to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide (CO) which are then burned in a gas turbine with secondary steam turbine (ie combined cycle) to produce electricity.
If the IGCC gasifier is fed with oxygen rather than air, the flue gas contains highly-concentrated CO2 which can readily be captured by amine scrubbing - at about half the cost of capture from conventional plants. Ten oxygen-fired gasifiers are operational in the USA.
Development of this oxygen-fed IGCC process will add a shift reactor to oxidise the CO with water so that the gas stream is basically just hydrogen and carbon dioxide. These are separated before combustion and the hydrogen alone becomes the fuel for electricity generation (or other uses) while the concentrated pressurised carbon dioxide is readily disposed of.
Currently IGCC plants have a 45% thermal efficiency.
Capture of carbon dioxide from coal gasification is already achieved at low marginal cost in some plants. One (albeit where the high capital cost has been largely written off) is the Great Plains Synfuels Plant in North Dakota, where 6 million tonnes of lignite is gasified each year to produce clean synthetic natural gas.
Oxy-fuel technology has potential for retrofit to existing pulverised coal plants, which are the backbone of electricity generation in many countries.
Storage & sequestration of CO2
Captured carbon dioxide gas can be put to good use, even on a commercial basis, for enhanced oil recovery. This is well demonstrated in West Texas, and today over 3000 km of pipelines connect oilfields to a number of carbon dioxide sources in the region.
At the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, North Dakota, some 13,000 tonnes per day of carbon dioxide gas is captured and 5000 t of this is piped 320 km into Canada for enhanced oil recovery. This Weyburn oilfield sequesters about 85 cubic metres of carbon dioxide per barrel of oil produced, a total of 19 million tonnes over the project's 20 year life. The first phase of its operation has been judged a success.
Overall in USA, 32 million tonnes of CO2 is used annually for enhanced oil recovery, 10% of this from anthropogenic sources.
The world's first industrial-scale CO2 storage was at Norway's Sleipner gas field in the North Sea, where about one million tonnes per year of compressed liquid CO2 separated from methane is injected into a deep reservoir (saline aquifer) about a kilometre below the sea bed and remains safely in place. The US$ 80 million incremental cost of the sequestration project was paid back in 18 months on the basis of carbon tax savings at $50/tonne. (The natural gas contains 9% CO2 which must be reduced before sale or export.) The overall Utsira sandstone formation there, about one kilometre below the sea bed, is said to be capable of storing 600 billion tonnes of CO2.
West Australia's proposed Gorgon natural gas project from 2009 will tap natural gas with 14% CO2. Capture and geosequestration of this will reduce the project's emissions from 6.7 to 4.0 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
Injecting carbon dioxide into deep, unmineable coal seams where it is adsorbed to displace methane (effectively: natural gas) is another potential use or disposal strategy. Currently the economics of enhanced coal bed methane extraction are not as favourable as enhanced oil recovery, but the potential is large.
While the scale of envisaged need for CO2 disposal far exceeds today's uses, they do demonstrate the practicality. Safety and permanence of disposition are key considerations in sequestration.
Research on geosequestration is ongoing in sevaral parts of the world. The main potential appears to be deep saline aquifers and depleted oil and gas fields. In both, the CO2 is expected to remain as a supercritical gas for thousands of years, with some dissolving.
Large-scale storage of CO2 from power generation will require an extensive pipeline network in densely populated areas. This has safety implications.
Economics, R&D
The World Coal Institute notes that at present the high cost of carbon capture and storage (US$ 150-220 per tonne of carbon, $40-60/t CO2 - 3.5 to 5.5 c/kWh relative to coal burned at 35% thermal efficiency) renders the option uneconomic. But a lot of work is being done to improve the economic viability of it, and the US Dept of Energy (DOE) is funding R&D with a view to reducing the cost of carbon sequestered to US$ 10/tC (equivalent to 0.25 c/kWh) or less by 2008, and by 2012 to reduce the cost of carbon capture and sequestration to a 10% increment on electricity generation costs.
More recently the DOE had announced the $1.3 billion FutureGen project to design, build and operate a nearly emission-free coal-based electricity and hydrogen production plant. The FutureGen initiative would have comprised a coal gasification plant with additional water-shift reactor, to produce hydrogen and carbon dioxide. About one million tonnes of CO2 (at least 90% of throughput) would then be separated by membrane technology and sequestered geologically. The hydrogen would have been be burned in a 275 MWe generating plant and in fuel cells.
Construction of FutureGen was due to start in 2009, for operation in 2012. The project was designed to validate the technical feasibility and economic viability of near-zero emission coal-based generation. In particular it aimed to produce electricity with only a 10% cost premium and to show that hydrogen can be produced at $3.80 per GJ, equivalent to petrol at 12.7 cents per litre.
In December 2007 Mattoon Illinois was chosen as the site of the demonstration plant. However, in January 2008 the DOE announced that it would pull its funding for project, expressing concerns over escalating costs. The DOE has said that funding would be made available to assist other projects that aim to add carbon capture and storage (CCS) to existing coal plants, but will no longer include hydrogen production as part of the project.
In the UK a competition was launched by the UK government in November 2007 to support a coal-fired power plant demonstrating the full chain of CCS technologies (capture, transport, and storage) on a commercial scale. The winning project bid will need to demonstrate post-combustion capture (including oxyfuel) on a coal-fired power station, with the carbon dioxide being transported and stored offshore. The project will have to capture around 90% of the CO2 emitted by the equivalent of 300MW-400MW generating capacity. The successful project bid should demonstrate the entire CCS chain by 2014. The winning project bid will be chosen by May-June 2009.
In Denmark a pilot project at the 420 MWe Elsam power plant is capturing CO2 from post-combustion flue gases under the auspices of CASTOR (CO2 from Capture to Storage). Flue gases are passed through an absorber, where a solvent captures about 90% of the CO2. The pregnant solution is then heated to 120°C to release pure CO2 at the rate of about one tonne per hour for geological sequestration. Cost is expected to be EUR 20-30 per tonne.
A 2000 US study put the cost of CO2 capture for IGCC plants at 1.7 c/kWh, with an energy penalty 14.6% and a cost of avoided CO2 of $26/t ($96/t C). By 2010 this is expected to improve to 1.0 c/kWh, 9% energy penalty and avoided CO2 cost of $18/t ($66/t C).
Figures from IPCC Mitigation working group in 2005 for IGCC put capture and sequestration cost at 1.0-3.2 c/kWh, thus increasing electricity cost for IGCC by 21-78% to 5.5 to 9.1 c/kWh. The energy penalty in that was 14-25% and the mitigation cost $14-53/t CO2 ($51-200/tC) avoided. These figures included up to $5 per tonne CO2 for transport and up to $8.30 /t CO2 for geological sequestration.
Gasification processes
In conventional plants coal, often pulverised, is burned with excess air (to give complete combustion), resulting in very dilute carbon dioxide at the rate of 800 to 1200 g/kWh.
Gasification converts the coal to burnable gas with the maximum amount of potential energy from the coal being in the gas.
In Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) the first gasification step is pyrolysis, from 400°C up, where the coal in the absence of oxygen rapidly gives carbon-rich char and hydrogen-rich volatiles.
In the second step the char is gasified from 700°C up to yield gas, leaving ash. With oxygen feed, the gas is not diluted with nitrogen.
The key reactions today are C + O2 to CO, and the water gas reaction: C + H2O (steam) to CO & H2 - syngas, which reaction is endothermic.
In gasification, including that using oxygen, the O2 supply is much less than required for full combustion, so as to yield CO and H2. The hydrogen has a heat value of 121 MJ/kg - about five times that of the coal, so it is a very energy-dense fuel. However, the air separation plant to produce oxygen consumes up to 20% of the gross power of the whole IGCC plant system. This syngas can then be burned in a gas turbine, the exhaust gas from which can then be used to raise steam for a steam turbine, hence the "combined cycle" in IGCC.
To achieve a much fuller clean coal technology in the future, the water-shift reaction will become a key part of the process so that:
C + O2 gives CO, and
C + H2O gives CO & H2, then the
CO + H2O gives CO2 & H2 (the water-shift reaction).
The products are then concentrated CO2 which can be captured, and hydrogen. (There is also some hydrogen from the coal pyrolysis), which is the final fuel for the gas turbine.
Overall thermal efficiency for oxygen-blown coal gasification, including carbon dioxide capture and sequestration, is about 73%. Using the hydrogen in a gas turbine for electricity generation is efficient, so the overall system has long-term potential to achieve an efficiency of up to 60%.
Present trends
The clean coal technology field is moving very rapidly in the direction of coal gasification with a second stage so as to produce a concentrated and pressurised carbon dioxide stream followed by its separation and geological storage. This technology has the potential to provide what may be called "zero emissions" - in reality, extremely low emissions of the conventional coal pollutants, and as low-as-engineered carbon dioxide emissions.
This has come about as a result of the realisation that efficiency improvements, together with the use of natural gas and renewables such as wind will not provide the deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions necessary to meet future national targets.
The US DOE sees "zero emissions" coal technology as a core element of its future energy supply in a carbon-constrained world. It has in place an ambitious program to develop and demonstrate the technology and have commercial designs for plants with an electricity cost of only 10% greater than conventional coal plants available by 2012.
Australia is very well endowed with carbon dioxide storage sites near major carbon dioxide sources, but as elsewhere, demonstration plants will be needed to gain public acceptance and show that the storage is permanent.
In several countries, "zero emissions" technology seems to have the potential for low avoided cost for greenhouse gas emissions.


Tomorrow is Part III: Wind!!

Part II: Coal

In Part II we shall explore coal, and all of the things that it can do for this country as a resource toward the ultimate goal of energy independence. As with the post on oil I will give some attention to the negative aspects of coal on the environment and the people who live with its' use, but the primary exercise of this post is to explain one more valuable tool for this nation to use, until better, cleaner energy sources can be exploited.

So we shall start with the damaging aspects of coal on us and our neighbors to the north, with special thanks to the IEN for this information:

IEN (Indigenous Environmental Network)INFORMATION SHEET:
ENERGY: FOSSIL FUELS
And Impacts to Indigenous Peoples
Statement of Fact on Energy Policy and its Impact to Indigenous Communities of North America
Indigenous peoples in Canada, the United States and throughout the Americas hold valuable land and water resources that have long been exploited by the provincial, state and federal governments and by corporations trying to meet the energy needs of an industrialized world. Indigenous peoples have disproportionately suffered impacts due to the production and use of energy resources - coal mining, uranium mining, oil and gas extraction, coal bed methane, nuclear power and hydropower development - yet are among those who benefit least from these energy developments. Indigenous peoples face inequity over the control of, and access to, sustainable energy and energy services. Territories where Indigenous peoples live are resource rich and serve as the base from which governments and corporations extract wealth yet are areas where the most severe form of poverty exists.
FACTS ON THE IMPACTS OF FOSSIL FUELS
Fossil fuels supply over 80% of the world’s energy needs. All fossil fuels, whether solid, liquid, or gas, are the result of organic plant materials being covered by successive layers of sediment over the course of millions of years.
Human consumption of oil, gas, coal bed methane and coal (fossil fuels) increases the production of greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide (CO2) that is a major cause of climate change, global warming and changes in weather patterns.
Oil drilling and related activities fragment the landscape, leading to increased symptoms of neo-colonization, development, and deforestation. It also pollutes the land and water causing irreparable damage to fragile ecosystems.
The mining and drilling of coal, oil, gas, and other minerals result in substantial local environmental consequences. This includes severe degradation of air, forests, watersheds, rivers, oceans, fisheries, agricultural lands and biodiversity. Cultural impacts of fossil fuel development include the loss of access to traditional foods, the forced removal of people, land appropriation, the destruction of sacred and historical significant areas, the breakdown of Indigenous social systems, and violence against women and children. Fossil fuel development in these areas results in the accelerated loss of biodiversity, traditional knowledge, and ultimately in ethnocide and genocide.
Coal burnt to generate electricity produces toxic material and acid rain that severely pollutes the air, soil and water. It also releases mercury into our lakes where it contaminates our fish, traditional crops, wild rice, other aquatic life and traditional food systems. The burning of fossil fuels for energy is a major source of air pollution, contributing in particular to acid rain and the greenhouse effect contributing to climate change and extreme weather events.
Coal is the single largest source of electricity in the United States. Coal-fired power plants provide fifty-three percent of the electricity used in the United States. The United States contains some of the largest coal deposits in the world. Coal is the United States most abundant fossil fuel. Coal deposits are found in 38 of the 50 states of the United States as well as on several Indigenous territories, for example, the Navajo (Dine’) and Crow territories.
Coal mining on Indigenous lands in the United States causes environmental and human rights violations. Coal mining in the Hopi and the Navajo territories has forced Navajo and some Hopi Indigenous peoples to be relocated, to leave homelands that have sustained them for generations. Coal mining operations cause the displacement of communities, destruction of natural habitat, disruption of sacred sites,water depletion from surface, subsurface and aquifers, as well as the diversion of water away from our communities. Several Indigenous Peoples are also being approached to develop projects for the production of coal bed methane gas, which is associated with additional, long-term groundwater depletion and contamination problems.
Oil companies continue to seek development within Indigenous peoples’ territories and within biological regions that sustain Indigenous peoples. In the United States arctic region, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, home to the Gwich'in peoples and the porcupine caribou herd, is threatened with oil development. Oil drilling and development of a petroleum industrial infrastructure within the pristine and fragile arctic ecosystem would devastate the calving grounds of the caribou and the lives of the Gwich'in. Gwich’in peoples’ relationship with the caribou is beyond food subsistence. The relationship is both cultural and spiritual as well.

UNITED STATES
The United States is home to 4% of the world's population, yet consumes 26% of the world's energy. The United States is currently the largest energy market in the world and is right behind Canada when it comes to per capita consumption.The United States uses about 17 million barrels of oil every day, fossil fuels account for nearly 80% of United States energy, with natural gas, a third form of fossil fuel, accounting for roughly 23% of the United States energy usage. I t takes the equivalent of 7 gallons of gasoline per day for every man woman and child to keep this country running at its current pace.
The United States consumes one quarter of the world’s total oil production, but controls a mere 3 percent of known oil reserves. Oil comprises about 40 percent of the energy Americans consume and 97 percent of U.S. transportation fuels.
The United States Energy Plan proposes 1,300-1,900 new power plants, 38,000 miles of new gas pipelines, consider new nuclear-power plants, build new refineries and open new areas to oil exploration. Almost all of these power plants generate electricity by using fossil or nuclear fuels to heat water to produce the steam that spins the generators. While the exploration for new sources of fossil fuel, particularly natural gas, is currently underway, the availability of both water and water rights may actually be the key and limiting factor in the operation of new energy generation plants.

CANADA
Canadians consume more energy per capita than any other country. Canadians use more total energy than the 700 million people of Africa. Canadians are the third-largest per capita producers of greenhouse gases in the world. Each year the Alberta (Canada) Energy and Utilities Board processes more than 20,000 applications for new wells, pipelines and gas plants.
Canada's greenhouse gas emissions are increasing. Energy consumption grew about 13 per cent between 1990 and 1998, while emissions rose at a rate of 1.5 per cent annually, 17 per cent since 1990.
Canada’s energy plan proposes to expand oil and gas production, particularly in the Alberta oil sands. The primary source of climate changing emissions is the burning of fossil fuels- oil, gas, and coal. Canada’s emissions have risen 15 percent due to increased oil and gas production and increased coal-fired electricity production. The Alberta Tar Sands refinery (which produces 150,000 barrels of oil a day) releases the same amount of CO 2 per year as 1.35 million new cars.
Alberta Canada currently supplies more than 12 percent of American natural gas use. New pipelines designed to carry Canadian power south to United States markets are in all stages of development across the western boreal region - from Alaska, the Yukon and Northwest Territories to British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Very few, if any, of these projects will be assessed for their social and cultural costs or their cumulative environmental and health impacts, which would cause critical fragmentation of the boreal forest, disruption to Indigenous cultural life-ways and the production of greenhouse gases.
The social, ecological and cultural risks involved in a Canadian-United States northern oil and gas pipeline are huge. Alaska's North Slope holds an estimated 35 trillion cubic feet of known reserves. The Mackenzie Delta holds about nine trillion cubic feet. The exploration potential is even larger, with an estimated 65 trillion cubic feet waiting to be discovered in Alaska and a similar volume in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Athabascan tribal members are concerned about mega-p ipeline developments linking Arctic gas along the Mackenzie Valley from the Beaufort Sea to Alberta, Canada. This development is planned by some of the largest energy companies in the world.
The Lubicon Lake Cree are an Indigenous peoples living deep in the boreal forest zone of Canada's Alberta province that have been living for decades with the impacts of oil and gas drilling on their traditional lands. Like other Indigenous peoples across the Americas, the Lubicon Cree have been battling for years to receive recognition of their land rights and compensation for stolen wealth and environmental damage. They have struggled to halt and reduce the rapid pace of exploration and excessive destruction by roads and pipelines. The traditional homelands of the Lubicon Cree, near Peace River, Canada are now surrounded by 1,000 oil and gas wells.
Historically, energy development activities in Indigenous communities have been based upon western values of monetary profit to raise gross domestic product at the expense of the rights of Indigenous peoples and the recognition of our basic human rights. Indigenous values teach us that money cannot fully compensate for cultural losses, losses of traditional lands, debilitating illnesses, death, impure water, threats to long-term food security, or diminished economic autonomy.
FOSSIL CONNECTION TO CLIMATE JUSTICE its Impact on Indigenous Peoples
The burning of oil, gas, and coal, known collectively as fossil fuels is the primary source of human-induced climate change. By burning these fuels, humans are releasing carbon that has been sequestered in the ground for hundreds of million of years and are emitting carbon dioxide into the planet’s thin and chemically volatile atmosphere at an unprecedented rate.
For over 150 years, industrial societies have been releasing carbon from underground coal and oil reserves, adding about 175 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Another 6 billion tons are being added each year, resulting in a 31% increase of CO2 in the atmosphere since 1750.
Within the next 20 years, temperatures over land areas of North America, Europe and Northern Asia will increase as much as 5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit over today's normal temperatures, well in excess of the global average (IPCC Report 1998).
Climate change, if not halted, will result in increased frequency and severity of storms, floods, drought and water shortage, the spread of disease, increased hunger, displacement and mass migration of people and ensuing social conflict.
The grave damages caused by a changing climatethe pollution and the loss of our Indigenous territories, deterioration and destruction of our forests, our food security and our rich and diverse ecosystems. Climate change crisis is very evident in arctic regions where ice is thinning, thus affecting the land-based subsistence cultures of the Indigenous peoples. The climate change crisis is also most evident in low-lying coastal regions and in small Pacific Islands that are being flooded.
The United States energy plan not only promotes the increased burning of CO2-producing fuels, it also plans to open pristine forests for drilling stations, pipelines, transmission lines and roads - a process that would increase global warming by releasing the carbon currently locked securely in the living trees and soil. The increasing demand and use of fossil fuels continues to impact vital areas through deforestation and pollution from drilling operations and ultimately forest degradation from the global climate imbalance.
What We Need to Do
The people of the Earth have too much of an reliance on fossil fuels, natural gas, coal, coal bed methane and oil. In order to halt the damages resulting from their use, we must find more ecologically sound and sustainable sources that do not threaten the Indigenous way of life or the entire Circle of Life. Sustainable energy can be defined as energy with minimal impact on the healthy functioning of the local and global ecosystem. Sustainable energy is energy with very few negative social, cultural, health and environmental impacts, and which can be supplied continuously to future generations on earth.
We must respect our traditions and responsibility to protect the sacredness of our Mother Earth.
We must get involved in federal energy legislation and oppose any legislation that supports the continued dependence on fossil fuels to supply the countries energy needs.
Governments, utility and environmental regulators, energy producers, and energy resource tribes must shift energy supply away from fossil fuels, mega-hydro dams and nuclear power and toward clean renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and fuel cells. This must be done in ways that create living-wage jobs and build community wealth.
Tell your Tribal government/First Nations to carefully consider the environmental and cultural consequences when looking at, or continuing any fossil fuel energy development (oil, gas, coal mining, coal-fired power plants, coal bed methane) on, or near Indigenous lands. We also know that local fossil fuel energy activities impact far and wide, even in other countries.
Industrial countries of United States and Canada must immediately start phasing out its national dependence on a fossil fuel economy, support policies to immediately reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and seek legislative action for a just transition of workers, Tribes/First Nations, and communities that are impacted from a phase-out and reduction of CO2 emissions.
Support tree cover and improved management of forests, energy efficiency and conservation initiatives, and increased fuel economy standards. Innovative, affordable and prudent solutions are available to help reduce the severity of climate change.
Support and invest in our Tribes/First Nations to pursue clean renewable energy projects where the abundant wind and solar resources can meet the growing demand for clean, renewable energy.
Governments, industry and multi-lateral institutions should adopt and abide by a precautionary principle in all energy development decisions and policies, recognizing that each decision will have impacts on the future generations of all Peoples.
We must tell the fossil fuel and coal mining industries to take corporate responsibility for their polluting ways.
overnments must impose a legally binding obligation to restore all areas already affected by oil, gas, dams, coal exploration and exploitation by the corporations or public entities that are responsible. This restoration must be done such that Indigenous peoples can continue traditional uses of their lands.
Governments must integrate external costs, such as human illness, environmental illness, cultural and spiritual degradation, and long-term cumulative effects into energy policy and pricing decisions and regulations. The governments must compile and compare the true costs of national energy policy and data for energy policy and planning purposes.
Governments and utility regulators must adopt electricity-restructuring policies that offer affordable and stable electricity rates to Indigenous communities and local communities and eliminate subsidies to nuclear and fossil fuels, and expand cleaner energy solutions.


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And now to the OUTLOOK for coal in 2008 and beyond, with thanks to the NMA for their assessment:
NATIONAL MINING ASSOCIATION FORECAST
THE OUTLOOK FOR COAL IN 2008
Production of coal will return to near record levels in 2008 reaching 1.160
billion tons, just 2 million tons shy of the record set in 2006 and 1.1 percent
higher than the 1.147 million tons produced in 2007. Coal production is
driven by the demand for affordable and reliable coal that electric generators
will use to produce half the electricity expected to be used in the United
States this year. There continues to be a strong interest in coal as a base
load fuel, and the National Mining Association expects that over the long
term coal production and use will frequently set annual records as coal is
used not only for electricity but also finds new markets in the industrial,
commercial and transportation sectors through gasification and liquefaction.
In 2008, U.S. coal production is expected to total 1.160 billion tons, 1.0
percent more than the 1.148 billion tons mined in 2007. Production in the
East, including Appalachia, Illinois, Indiana and West Kentucky, will
approximate 480 million tons, essentially unchanged from the 482 million
tons produced last year. Production in the West, including the Powder River
Basin, will total 680 million tons, up 2.1 percent from the 666 million tons
mined in 2007. The increases in production will meet new demand for coal
by utilities and for export. Production and transportation capacity to handle
these levels of production are fully adequate.
Demand for U.S. coal for use within the United States and for export to
Canada and overseas destinations, will reach 1.209 billion tons, 15 million
tons, or 1.3 percent, more than the record demand of 1.194 billion tons set
in 2007. Because inventories on a national basis are at adequate levels,
there will be little demand in 2008 for coal for inventory build , putting coal
supply (that includes production and imports) and demand in balance for the
first time in several years.
Imports of coal, which have increased significantly this decade, remained
level at 36.5 million tons in 2007and are not expected to change in 2008.
Approximately 70 percent of the coal imported into the U.S. is from
Columbia. Venezuela, Indonesia and Canada account for another 25 percent.
There shares are expected to be approximately the same in 2008.
Almost 95 percent of the coal used in the United States is consumed for the
purpose of generating electricity (this equates to approximately 93 percent of
domestic production). In 2007, electric generators used 1.050 billion tons of
coal to produce 50.1 percent of the electricity sold through the grid.
Commercial and industrial consumers used another 27 million tons to
generate electricity for their own use. Coal use for electricity generation was
2.9 percent higher than in 2006 due to higher overall demand for electricity
caused in part by stronger than expected economic activity and in part by
the warmer than normal fall. Overall, the demand for electricity increased by
2.9 percent in 2007 versus the 0.2 percent increase experienced in 2006.
In 2008, given more normal weather patterns and taking slower economic
growth into account, electricity production is expected to increase in the 1.3
– 1.7 percent range. Should economic growth be lower than forecast (NMA
is assuming a growth rate of just less than 2 percent), electricity demand
could be lower than forecast.
Consumption of coal will increase at a lower rate in 2008, or by 0.7 percent
to 1.157 billion tons, and coal’s share of the market will decline slightly to an
even 50 percent. Coal generation, especially in the Western grid, is nearing
a peak, and there is little potential for increase without new capacity. Two
coal plants will come on line in 2008—the 90 MW Black Hills unit in Wyoming
and the 203 MW unit begin built by Newmont Mining in Nevada. This follows
the addition of three units in 2007: the Hardin Generator Project Unit 1 in
Montana, the Springerville Unit 2 in Arizona and the Cross Unit 3 in Iowa.
Nuclear generation performed at top levels in 2007 and is expected to do the
same in 2008. Nuclear generation should remain at 2006 – 2007 levels this
year. There are no uprates expected, and 2008 is a year of refueling for
many units. However, the return of Brown’s Ferry #1 to full operation will
more than offset any reduction in production due to refueling. Generation
with natural gas is expected to increase in 2008 as new generating capacity
comes on line.
Demand for metallurgical coal for use at steel mills showed a small decline in
2007 as steel production declined slightly. Although steel production is
expected to decline again in 2008, demand for metallurgical coal should
increase by one-half million tons and is forecast to be 23.5 million tons. A
new coke oven is coming on line in Ohio, and any decline in demand for
coke, should there be a decline, will be met with a decline in imports.
Industrial coal use, led by an increase in coal use at cement plants and at
new ethanol plants, will total 36.5 million tons, 4.3 percent above the 35
million tons used by industry in 2007.
Exports—the story for 2007—will remain strong into 2008. Last year, despite
a decline in shipments of both metallurgical and steam coal to Canada,
exports increased by 17 percent. Exports to overseas destinations totaled 40
million tons in 2007, 34.7 percent, or 10.3 million tons, more than in 2006.
The U.S. coal export industry clearly benefited from increased demand, a
weak dollar and production issues in other supplier countries. Strong world
demand for coal persists. China has rapidly moved from a net exporter of
both steam and metallurgical coal to a net importer. Production and
logistical problems continue in many supplier countries, and the U.S.
continues to benefit from a weak dollar. As a result, export of U.S. coal to
overseas destinations is expected to increase again in 2008 – although at a
slower rate. Metallurgical coal shipments to overseas destinations are
expected to increase to 34 million tons (30 million in 2007), and steam coal
shipments are expected to increase to 11 million tons (10 million in 2007).
Thus total shipments of U.S. coal to overseas destinations is expected to be
45 million tons in 2008, 12.5 percent higher than shipments in 2007. There is
an upside potential to this forecast, especially for high grade U.S.
metallurgical coal, and exports could be more. Shipments of coal to Canada
will return to more normal levels—15 million tons steam coal and 4 million
tons of met coal.
Coal inventories, which increased sharply in 2006 after several years of
decline, increased again in 2007, but at a lower rate. Inventory build totaled
8.2 million tons in 2007. Because electric utility inventories—on a national
basis—are at or near desired levels, NMA does not expect demand for coal
for inventory build this year. As a result coal demand for actual use and
export will approximately equate with coal supply—or with coal production
and imports.
The outlook for coal remains positive for 2008, despite our expectations for
slower economic growth. In 2007, most analysts believe U.S. economic
growth, as measured by real GDP, will approximate 2.2-2.3 percent.
Economic growth was, however, stronger in the first three quarters than in
the fourth quarter. At the time this forecast was prepared (late November
2007), most analysts were forecasting that year-on-year economic growth in
2008 would be in the range of 1.9 – 2.4 percent. These forecasts were
completed before the release of 4th quarter 2007 data, which will certainly be
affected by slower than expected spending over the holiday period as well as
the continued financial pressures caused in part by the sub-prime mortgage
crisis.
Economic growth in 2008 will continue to be affected by the same factors
that caused a reduction in economic activity in the 4th quarter of last year,
and the costs of energy, and now higher costs of food, will certainly put a
damper on consumer spending. It remains to be seen whether the
administration and the Congress can agree on a short-term stimulus package
to push consumer spending to higher levels.
Globally, economic growth is expected to be lower in 2008 than in 2007. The
Economics Intelligence Unit has forecast that globally economies will grow by
4.5 percent in 2008 as compared with an estimated economic growth of 5.1
percent in 2007. This growth is led by China, expected to grow its economy
by 9.9 percent, and India, which has a projected growth rate of 7.7 percent.
Forecasts for inflation (as measured by the Consumer Price Index) are in the
2.5-3.5 percent range, and forecasts for unemployment have increased to
approximately 5 percent, although worker shortages will still exist in some
industries, including mining.
And Finally We Shall Take A Look At Clean Coal Technology in Part 2 of Part II: Coal: