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So Bush shoved EPA regulations down the throats of the coal industry forcing plants to shut down and rates to soon skyrocket? Bush made the stimulus and green jobs his economic agenda? Now I know you folks blame Bush for everything when it goes down the tubes for the great and mighty orator.........come to think of it that is all I hear is Bush blaming lately. I guess that's because everything Obama does goes down the tubes.
I'm not blaming Bush for anything. I'm just saying that the High Bridge and Riverside generating plants in the Twin Cities were planned for conversion to natural gas since the early to mid 2000's. You may be able to blame Clinton, I'm not sure.
Our local electric generating station uses gas, oil but mostly coal to power the steam that generates electricity. Its getting shut down next year due to the new clean power regulations.
Ash from coal-based power plants can be used. many years ago, I used to work for a cement plant which used to buy coal ash from local power plant and use it as one of the ingredients in cement manufacturing.
the problem isnt what the ash can be used for, the problem is that you wont get 100% of the ash, about 5% ends up in the atmosphere as particulate pollution. and that isnt bad considering where we came from in the old days where much higher amounts were put in the atmosphere.
actually cheaper to operate because they are more efficient.
In 2007 the cost of NG was rising right along with the cost of oil. Matter of fact many NG plants were mothballed becsue of the high cost. The difference now is the natural gas boom in the NE has produced a glut on the natural gas market driving the price down considerably. That won't last long for a variety of reasons starting with the natural gas producers scaling back production to drive the price back up so they can make some profit. In addition to that you're going to have all kinds of new strains on the NG supply like people switching to NG for heat. If you look at any fuel historically there is always up and downs and right now the NG market has bottomed out. If you want a recent example a little less than 15 years ago I could buy diesel for less than $1 per gallon.
The cost of coal is driven up by unnecessary regualtions like the new mercury rules that will reduce mercury deposition rates in the US from 1 to 10% and raise the IQ's on average 2/1000 of point. There is also a lot of uncertainty about future regualtions. The natural gas plants are the safe bet and if coal continue to decline due to the high costs of unnecessary regulations they will no longer have to compete with coal driving the costs up even further.
Enjoy it while you can, the cost of electricity is going to "necessarily sky rocket" to quote the Commander in Chief.
Ash from coal-based power plants can be used. many years ago, I used to work for a cement plant which used to buy coal ash from local power plant and use it as one of the ingredients in cement manufacturing.
Coal ash and coal ash byproducts are used in a lot of things, like synthetic gypsum in drywall for instance. <gasp>
FYI concrete produced with fly ash is ridiculously high strength. There's slabs of concrete puoured in my area 100 year ago whee ash was used in the mixture that are still in great shape. Whenever they have to demo anything like that they have all kinds of troubles.
There have been some very stupid and dumb comments on here, since I work in the industry I'll explain what goes on...
All plants except hydro, solar, and wind heat water into Super heated steam at about 1050 degrees Farenheight. They do this by burning gas, oil, coal, biomass, and nuclear.
The reason coal is king is it's a cheap dependable way to produce electricity. Fact right around 50% of plants in the US run on coal because coal can be extracted at a set amount which doesn't change more than 1 or 2% per year. Also almost all of the coal plants are already paid for and return a nice profit every year. This doesn't change that a coal power plant is a dirty air polluting operation.
#2 Natural gas, the modern day natural gas plant is called a CC combined cycle plant which operates at more than 50% efficiency because it reheats the water vapor a 2nd time through into super heated steam. This uses an extreme amount of natural gas but they are usually extremely large power plants more than 1000 mw's, can be run with a minimal amount of people, usually less than 50, contractors do the maintenance during outages. They also can go from complete shutdown to peak within minutes where as the other types of plants require days.
3.) Right now the trend is not to have all ones eggs in one basket that is why new nuclear is coming online, CC plants are being built, and coal is gradually being reduced in role. Understand this though the coal plants that are being shut down are the dirtiest and least inefficient plants out there.
Coal ash and coal ash byproducts are used in a lot of things, like synthetic gypsum in drywall for instance. <gasp>
FYI concrete produced with fly ash is ridiculously high strength. There's slabs of concrete puoured in my area 100 year ago whee ash was used in the mixture that are still in great shape. Whenever they have to demo anything like that they have all kinds of troubles.
again, i agree that the ash is good to use. that isnt my issue, but rather the fact that you wont get ALL the ash, but only 95%, which again is far better than even 25 years ago.
again, i agree that the ash is good to use. that isnt my issue, but rather the fact that you wont get ALL the ash, but only 95%, which again is far better than even 25 years ago.
You could make car that is 100% survivable in crash so why don't we build all cars like that? Because most people would not be able to afford such a car. You need to have practical and sane regualtions, spending 10's or 100's of billions to reduce mercury deposition rates in the US from 1 to 10% and raise IQ's 2/1000 of point is neither practical or sane.
You could make car that is 100% survivable in crash so why don't we build all cars like that? Because most people would not be able to afford such a car. You need to have practical and sane regualtions, spending 10's or 100's of billions to reduce mercury deposition rates in the US from 1 to 10% and raise IQ's 2/1000 of point is neither practical or sane.
i fully agree that the regulations being put out thee days are insane. in fact i love coal as a fuel for a variety of things. i would have the oil companies set up coal liquefaction plants to make gasoline and diesel from coal today if i had the power. i am just saying that my biggest issue with coal fired power plants is the ash, but it is far better than it was 25 years ago and i am happy with that.i believe in clean coal technology, and i think we need to use EVERY resource we have as a country, and keep our energy costs as low as possible.
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