... for your blunt and accurate assessment of the 60 Minutes snow job on coal. The argument for rapidly expanding our reliance on coal in the face of near certain - and potentially cataclysmic - climate change impacts boils down to, "because it's too important to get rid of." If we listen to this siren song, it becomes a self-fulling prophecy and we forfeit out last chance to preserve a planet capable of sustaining civilization. Ken Ward

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What else do you expect from a corporate controlled media?

Part of the "deregulation" phase that has so screwed us is the fact that our media was deregulated as well. Since then we haven't been able to believe a fucking word they put out without double checking their "facts" and doing our own research to uncover what little bit of the whole picture and both sides of an issue that we can.

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Our kids will pay big time for our energy decisions. Massive nuclear AND conservation started when we did not elect the guy who could pronounce it, as a bridge to better technologies, was, repeat WAS our only chance. 8 years of hummers, mountain top removals etc, later, now it is too late. We can only hope our technology adapts to the new world at a price we can afford, and the starving hordes are not able to sucessfully invade. Only a huge and cruel pandemic could potentially advert the climate tipping point. Hopefully those I love will survive whichever outcome. None of them are acceptable.

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The WaPo had a piece last week about how the mouthpiece of the fossil fuel industry, The Global Climate Coalition, censored its own scientists who said in a report that global warming "is well established and cannot be denied". That part was redacted prior to publication.

We can find out about such things now that we have entered Phase II - convincing the public that "Clean Coal" exists and is absolutely necessary for civilization to move forward. Ditto for nuclear power.

And we see the MSM whores pick up the baton when the corporate pimp trips and falls on his lying traitorous face.

And as always - zero accountability - the entire massive lying machine is now "inoperative" - time for the new lie, the new shifty shuffle.

Why are we allowing this to happen?

peace,
Paul

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but I don't trust any hack-journalist's "scientific" opinion about whether this century's energy programs are working or not, to produce a cleaner planet.

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One error in the story. CO2 is not a principal greenhouse gas.
Significantly we put vast unnatural amounts of the principal greenhouse gas into the atmosphere through farming and it is never mentioned as it is impossible to study over time.
Lastly, science clearly demonstrates that the globe is warming and that CO2 is a greenhouse gas but it does not follow that cutting CO2 emmissions will have any more effect than piss in the ocean. There are other more difficult things we must do to protect Earth and her inhabitants.

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I am certain that the comments will pile up here, very fast. Antagonists, activists, doomsayers and deniers will proliferate. But the opening comment, "snow job on coal" is a great way to start. And yes, CO2 is a terrible source of greenhouse gases and, yes, there are other sources and lying to ourselves will not help. And how many people know that suburban lawnmowers, edgers,trimmers and chainsaws cause more flat-out air pollution that most of the modern day autos in Los Angeles?

When "60 Minutes" pulls this stuff, they should be reduced to 60 seconds and then pre-empted by football.

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International Energy Agency

“Clean coal technologies (CCTs) have been developed and deployed to reduce the environmental impact of coal utilisation over the past 30 to 40 years.”

The IEA has a Clean Coal Centre

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jude 1321 refers to clean coal actions already in place. These target reduction of NO2 and a side effect is a slight increase in CO2 since a little more coal must now be burned to produce the same saleable electricity.

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When I watched that segment Sunday night the most telling comment made by "Mr. Rogers", CEO of Duke was his pronouncement that Duke would have a solution in FORTY years, by 2050. Wow, I guess he's playing his part since he won't be around to see his ill-fated strategy/tactics not work. We need solutions in 10 years at the most and unfortunately for Mr Rogers that means no more coal burning, retraining his employees in green jobs, and disappointing his greedy stockholders by turning off the refinery.

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Their solution of 'clean coal' was to spend trillions of dollars to bury the CO2 deep in the ground and hope it didn't leak. What a joke!

When you look beyond the dollars coal spends on publicity for clean coal, the real substance is zero.

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The $$$$ being spent with all major media from the Clean Coal industry would just go away if they told the truth.

Most telling was the fact that CEO from Duke is not even pursuing clean coal technology. No investment. He knows he doesn't need to.

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The vast majority of the people who watched that crap today believe they are informed on the issue and will vote accordingly. You need to remember who funds the mainstream media in theis country. The very industries they promote.

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I agree it is a lie.

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We can make coal "clean". Cheaply. Just "plunk your magic twanger, Froggie", and boing!. Clean coal. No more mercury, carbon 14 (radioactive, by the way), or sulphur impurities. All gone with a wave of the magic twanger. You STILL infuse the atmosphere with vast amounts of CO2, and THAT'S the problem in the first place, way too much CO2. Burning ANYTHING is NOT a solution to a problem brought on by burning stuff in the first place, it only adds to the problem. This is where President Obama needs to be brought up to date, and NOT reinforcing the already abysmal ignorance of our population with cries of "clean coal".

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Haven't watched 60 minutes for years. It's just a corporate Viacom ass-kisser.
60 minutes has joined the rest of the MSM and spreads the corporate BS. For example, Swine Flu is fast approaching OJ type coverage!

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...corporate ass-kissing media hypsters like 60 minutes?

Their excuse of 'carbon sequestration' makes it sound like these corporate robbers actually will sequester the 'dirty' part of 'cleaned' coal. Unfortunately it seems that they might have snowed our President as well. But Barack's a quick study, so I haven't got too much worry for the future.

The reason that I know that the corporate slime is as full of shit as a Christmas turkey, is that they muddy the water and they do it deliberately.

There's a HUGE difference between "de-SULPHURED" coal, and "cleaned" (de-carbonized) coal.

De-Sulphured coal is coal which has had the sulphur taken out of it. Admittedly, that coal is cleaner than before--but only because it has had the one type of poison removed from it. The sulphur.

The Carbon, though: that, remains. Just wait until President Obama's children, God Forbid, develop asthma? Living in Chicago it's hardly likely that they developed it--it'll be unmistakable if they develop it now. And it will be entirely due to the CARBON EMISSIONS from nearby coal-burning power plants.

If these lying sacks of Corporate shit were actually sequestering the carbon from their coal--then that would indeed be great, for two reasons: one, the immediately cleaner air, and, two, the fact that the removed carbon be sequestered in huge underground storage tanks...

And by the way--exactly where is this all supposed to take place??! I missed the part when they told us exactly where their 'underground carbon-sequestering storage facilities' will be located. (Probably because by then I was taking a much-needed bathroom break, LOL!)

While global warming's no walk in the park, the climate change that's most to be feared on this planet, isn't global warming: it's, rather, global freezing. This planet Earth is what's known as a 'snowball'--subject to repeated ice ages of millions of years' severity.

We better be off this planet before the next Ice Age. But here's where carbon sequestration would help--as the climate cools, the sequestered carbon could be GRADUALLY released into the air, postponing the Big Freeze. BUT--

That's only if you trust these slimy Corporate pricks to do what they say and actually sequester the stuff. I don't trust any of them. HOWEVER--in the civilized world (anywhere but here) where the people go into the streets if their Corporate Slime gets too big for its britches--there, there's REAL carbon sequestration being prepared for.

I hope the Chinese follow the European model and actually sequester their carbon. They need to, they're doing worse for climate change even than we are.

Meantime, 60 minutes is entertainment--just that. They're there to make you think that, somehow, things are back where they used to be before these cockroaches that we just stepped on, took over with Ronnie Dearest.

And remember, people--step on one cockroach, but don't forget the 30,000/or so eggs it's laid, for some future time when we've forgotten the Second Great Depression--much as we obviously forgot the First Great Depression...

So be entertained by 60 minutes. But don't for one minute let them fool you. If you want to know what's REALLY going on in the US of A, watch the BBC. It's on KERA (13) at 5:30PM--just before the Jim Lehrer NewsHour (at 6PM), same channel--the only program on American TV today, that deserves the title "News" Hour--instead, of 60 (Bullshit) Minutes.

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I was disappointed in the segment. It had way too much Duke Power and way too little James Hansen, the real global warming expert on the show.

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for fusion research because it was clear fission was too dangerous. In those days we just figured coal would just go away along with the horse and buggy. It didn't. I pulled some back room politics to get the Coolwater coal plant to be a powdered coal plant because we believed that more thorough combustion would reduce pollution. I visited the plant a few years ago and the powdered coal generation system had been discontinued. I asked the engineer in charge why that might be. He said that it was impossible to get pumps to move the coal slurry. My response was a non-commital "Oh". The oil patch pumps all weights of slurry at fabulous volumes and at pressures in excess of 16,000 pounds per square inch. In other words they lied to me.

The people at the top in the energy business are dishonest. They lie. Robert Reich says that if you don't like it make it illegal. That is the nature of democracy.

Some of us have been fighting for 30-40 years for first clean air and now for global warming. Captains of industry, like the 19th century robber barens, will lie, cheat and steal to avoid doing what is right and needed.

Our young lady is right about one thing. Modern coal mining is permanently disruptive of the earths surface. That is an esthetics call. But then when you go to four corners, HWY 58 AND 395, the aesthetics of solar energy isn't all that wonderful. They scraped off 400 year old greasewood bush clusters. It will take 400 years to replace such delicate desert fauna.

I look at the windmills in Banning, or Tehachapi, or for that matter my own beloved Wichita Mountains (hills to you) and they seem to impose themselves on the landscape. Then there are the bird strikes. Yes strip mining is awful. But as I write this my home sits in an old sand pit. The ground is moist and supports great and wonderful red oak, maple, and gum trees. Have you ever been to Buchart gardens on Victoria Island? It is an old gravel pit.

My point goes like this. Its more important what you are for than what you are against. Man can create beauty. Man can enhance nature with applied intelligence. And that is what we absolutely must have, applied intelligence.

Energy has serious problems. In my view the single most serious problem is the absence of compact, inexpensive, efficient energy storage. If we had storage we could use solar when the sun went down, we could use wind when the wind died, and we would not have to count on carbon as our storage device. As it is we store our energy as coal, oil, and natural gas. In most cases it is even adequately compact.

What do we do? Almost everything at the same time. We skip fission. Man has shown NO capacity to think 25,000 years in the future. We do put money into research. We need storage. The nickel metal hydride batteries in the Toyota Prius were first patented as Nickel Cadmium batteries by Thomas Edison. Things are little improved since then. The controls on the batteries would have had old Tom Edison marveling.

Most of our bio notions for energy are going to end up competing with food. Mostly they will die there. We need to spend what is necessary to make research march. NASA buys solar cells that convert 50% of the sun's power to electricity. But when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing we are going to use carbon to fill in the deficit. The coal, oil, and natural gas people know that.

In the 60 minute interview you may have noticed something. The guy from Duke energy wasn't going to do anything unless he got government money to do so. Notice he was plumping for all carrots and no sticks. There is no reason why he should get what he wants. He wants us to pay for sequestered coal with tax dollars. But if we don't pay for it with tax dollars it will certainly show up in our utility bills. If we pay for it with tax dollars I'm not certain we need him for anything.

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Go to CBS, 60 Minutes and post a comment on the show:

There is a perpetual source of energy less than 10 miles from everywhere on earth: straight down! Most people know about residential "geothermal" or "Iceland"... but few have explored deep geothermal. Right here in the USA, more energy is generated from almost deep geothermal than anywhere else on earth, including Iceland.

For the captial required to build a CO2 sequestration plant, one could build several deep geothermal plants that could generate electricity directly from the intense heat only a couple of miles below -- no deeper than many mines and oil wells already in existence.

The really cool thing about deep geothermal that should appeal to the hearts of conventional oilmen is that it requires drilling ... the same technology required to drill for good old oil.

The Dept. of Energy; Santa Clara, CA; a recent patent regarding deep drilling technology; and MIT all have given the idea -- and practice -- strong support. The generation equipment ... good old GE steam turbines and electrical generators are best located almost entirely underground; occupy a very small footprint, require no external fuel or decommissioning costs; operate with electricity and clean water as the only emissions; and any given plant can be developed, on-line and competitive in less than two years! What?! See http://thnktnk.net/drill.html for a list of solid references.

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