Well, the article gives some detail (not a lot!) as to Clinton's and Obama's connections to Big Coal, but I really don't think "half of the country's power is supplied by coal" is really a connection to Big Coal. The fact is that Edwards is far more environmentally progressive than Clinton or Obama, and far less tied to Big Coal or other corporate entities. Anyone who's actually looking for real "change" might want to support Edwards.

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What in the world is "advanced, lower-carbon coal"?
Carbon is what coal is all about, except for the
Aluminum Chromium Molybdenum
Antimony Cobalt Nickel
Arsenic Copper Selenium
Barium Fluorine Silver
Beryllium Iron Sulfur
Boron Lead Titanium
Cadmium Magnesium Uranium
Calcium Manganese Vanadium
Chlorine Mercury Zinc
etc. that coal also contains. The amount of any one
element in coal varies wildly from place to place, and varies
widely even within one mine. Take uranium as an
example of what else you get besides CO2. The average
concentration of uranium in coal is 1 or 2 parts per million.
Illinois coal contains up to 103 parts per million uranium.
A 1 billion watt coal fired power plant burns 4 million tons
of coal each year. If you multiply 4 million tons by 1 part
per million, you get 4 tons of uranium. Most of that is
U238. About .7% is U235. 4 tons = 8000 pounds. 8000
pounds times .7% = 56 pounds of U235. An average 1
billion watt coal fired power plant puts out 56 to 112
pounds of U235 every year. There are only 2 places the
uranium can go: Up the stack or into the cinders. Get
yourself a degree in chemistry and a laboratory and analyze
a few thousand lumps of coal yourself.
What is advanced, lower-carbon coal? Is it
coal that contains More of the other pollutants? My best
guess is that "advanced, lower-carbon coal" is just a new
propaganda buzz phrase intended to confuse people.
Advanced, lower-carbon coal is just as non-existent as
"clean" coal. And yes, coal is a $100 Billion per year
industry in the US, and that is a lot of clout. You can buy
a lot of congressmen with an income like that.
"Advanced, lower-carbon coal" would really be
humorous if it weren't our funeral. Reference: Scientific
American article "Impact from the Deep", October 2006
pages 65 to 71. If business continues as usual, we will go
extinct in 1 or 2 centuries because hydrogen sulfide will bubble
out of the oceans and kill us. You can download the article
from:
http://www.sciam.com/article.
cfm?articleID=00037A5D-
A938-150E-A9388341
4B7F0000&sc=I100322

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October 2006 Scientific American

"EARTH SCIENCE
Impact from the Deep
Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not
asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions.
Could the same killer-greenhouse conditions build once again?
By Peter D. Ward
downloaded from:
http://www.sciam.com/
article.cfm?articleID=
00037A5D-A938-150E-
A93883414B7F0000&
sc=I100322
....................Most of the article omitted......................
But with atmospheric carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm
and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900
ppm by the end of the next century, and conditions that bring
about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. How soon
after that could there be a new greenhouse extinction? That is
something our society should never find out."

Press Release
Pennsylvania State University
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, Nov. 3, 2003
downloaded from:
http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2003/prPennStateKump.htm
"In the end-Permian, as the levels of atmospheric oxygen fell and
the levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide rose, the upper
levels of the oceans could have become rich in hydrogen sulfide
catastrophically. This would kill most of the oceanic plants and
animals. The hydrogen sulfide dispersing in the atmosphere would
kill most terrestrial life."

www.astrobio.net is a NASA web zine. See:

http://www.astrobio.net/
news/modules.php?op=
modload&name=News&
file=article&sid=672

http://www.astrobio.net/
news/modules.php?op=
modload&name=News&
file=article&sid=1535

http://www.astrobio.net/
news/article2509.html

http://astrobio.net/news/
modules.php?op=modload
&name=News&file=article
&sid=2429&mode=thread
&order=0&thold=0

These articles agree with the first 2. They all say 6 degrees C or
1000 parts per million CO2 is the extinction point.

The global warming is already 1 degree Farenheit. 11 degrees
Farenheit is about 6 degrees Celsius. The book "Six Degrees" by
Mark Lynas agrees. If the global warming is 6 degrees
centigrade, we humans go extinct. See:
http://www.marklynas.org/
2007/4/23/six-steps-to-hell-
summary-of-six-degrees-as-
published-in-the-guardian

ALL COAL FIRED POWER PLANTS MUST BE
CONVERTED TO NUCLEAR IMMEDIATELY TO AVOID
THE EXTINCTION OF US HUMANS. 32 countries have
nuclear power plants. Only 9 have the bomb. The top 3
producers of CO2 all have nuclear power plants, coal fired power
plants and nuclear bombs. They are the USA, China and India.
Reducing CO2 production by 90% by 2050 requires drastic action
in the USA, China and India.

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Downloaded FROM: Environmental Defense
http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/
climate411/2008/01/14/global_winds/

This post is by James Wang, Ph.D., a climate scientist at Environmental Defense.

You may have heard about the persistent droughts in the western U.S., Australia,
and other regions. The Upper Colorado River Basin is experiencing a protracted,
multi-year drought that started in 1999. Australia's record drought is threatening
the livelihood of traditional farmers and ranchers.

At what point does a passing drought become a permanent shift to desert
conditions, and why would such a thing happen?

It can happen because of global warming. Climate change can alter global winds,
the strength and location of high and low pressure systems, and other climate
factors.

.........shortened.........Graphics and URLs omitted.

Global winds shape the Earth's climate, determining - in broad strokes - which
areas are tropical, desert, or temperate. Here's a simplified overview of how it
works.

The Sun heats the Earth most intensely in the tropical zone around the equator. The
heated air rises, cools, and then dumps its moisture as rain. That's why there are
rain forests in the tropics.

The now drier air is forced by the continuously rising equatorial air to move
towards the temperate latitudes on either side of the equator. At roughly 30° N and
S - called the "horse latitudes" - it can move no further due to the Earth’s rotation,
and settles to the surface. As the air sinks, it compresses and warms, creating hot,
rain-free conditions. This circulation pattern, called a Hadley cell, is why the
deserts of the world are located just poleward of the tropics, to the north and south.

Poleward of the desert belt, strong, high-altitude winds known as the jet streams
flow from west to east, carrying large storms with them. These mid-latitude,
temperate-region storms are an important source of rain and snow, especially
during the winter season. Much of the world's population lives in the temperate
region. It includes most of the U.S. and southern Canada, most of Europe, East
Asia, southern South America, southern Africa, and southern Australia and New
Zealand.

But climate regions aren't fixed. Several independent studies have found that
global winds are shifting due to global warming, and the shifts are faster than
predicted by climate models. Most recently is this new study in Nature
Geoscience. The tropical belt has widened by several degrees latitude since 1979.
This is consistent with other observations suggesting that the jet streams and storm
tracks have moved poleward.

The drought-stricken Upper Colorado River Basin, which includes Lake Powell, is
located just poleward of the horse latitudes at around 37° N. This has historically
been in the temperate zone, but the desert zone may be gradually encroaching upon
it. (Since nothing is simple, there are other factors contributing to this particular
drought, as well.) Similarly, water-starved Sydney, Australia at 34° S is just
poleward of the southern horse latitude.

What we may be seeing here is not so much drought as desertification - a shift in
global climate patterns due to global warming. Areas that used to be in temperate
zones may be shifting into desert, while areas that had been arid receive more
precipitation.

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Great damage has been done, but we still have 8 years before natural positive
feedbacks lead to our extinction. Sea level will continue to rise even if we
disappear right now, but that is "minor" compared to poison gas bubbling out of
the ocean and killing almost everything including all of the people.
See the chart on page 274 of "Six Degrees" by Mark Lynas. We have until 2015
to BEGIN REDUCING our total CO2 output and we have until 2050 to actually
reduce our CO2 output by 90%. The curve has to start down by 2015, not we
have to think about it by then. The peak of our CO2 production has to happen in
the next 8 years. Sorry, but we can't wait for research, no matter how interesting.
We have to implement what we know right now. The only technology we have
right now to replace coal fired power plants is nuclear power plants. I like solar,
wind, hydro, and geothermal, but all of them together cannot replace the base load
capacity of coal. Sorry, but nuclear is the only option. If we don't follow the
schedule in Six Degrees, we will encounter positive feedbacks which will take the
control of the climate out of our hands. Civilization may fall anyway well before
2050, but we can avoid going extinct by 2100. We have to hold the CO2 level to
400 parts per million to have a 75% chance of avoiding the positive feedbacks.
The natural positive feedbacks are explained in Six Degrees.

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See "The Long Summer" by Brian Fagan. Climate change has caused the collapse
of dozens of civilizations, and is well on the way to causing the collapse of our
civilization. See: "Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared
Diamond. "Collapse" extends and amplifies what was said in "The Long
Summer." No government be able to prevent the collapse of world
civilization if global warming continues. In the US, the problem is that the
population has been thoroughly propagandized by the coal industry and is now
paranoid of all things nuclear. The building of coal fired power plants continues.

We don't recycle nuclear fuel because spent fuel is valuable and people steal it.
The place it went that it wasn't supposed to go to is Israel. This happened in a
small town near Pittsburgh, PA circa 1970. A company called Numec was in the
business of reprocessing nuclear fuel. I almost took a job there, designing a
nuclear battery for a heart pacemaker. [A nuclear battery would have the
advantage of lasting many times as long as any other battery, eliminating many
surgeries to replace batteries.] Numec did NOT have a reactor. Numec "lost"
half a ton of enriched uranium. It wound up in Israel. The Israelis have fueled
both their nuclear power plants and their nuclear weapons by stealing nuclear
"waste." It could work for any other country, such as Iran or the United States.
It is only when you don't have access to nuclear "waste" that you have to do the
difficult process of enriching uranium, unless you have a Canadian "Candu"
reactor that runs on unenriched uranium.
Numec is no longer in business. The reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the US
stopped. That was the only politically possible solution at that time, given that
private corporations did the reprocessing. My solution would be to reprocess the
fuel at a Government Owned Government Operated [GOGO] facility. At a
GOGO plant, bureaucracy and the multiplicity of ethnicity and religion would
disable the transportation of uranium to Israel or to any unauthorized place.
Nothing heavier than a secret would get out.

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In "Collapse, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," Jared
Diamond discusses how religion has played a role in the collapse
of many civilizations. Christianity contributed to the collapse of
the Greenland Viking civilization. If the Greenland Vikings had
spent their money on iron to make weapons and tools, they would
have had a better chance of survival. Instead they bought stained
glass windows and religious goods at a time when their sickles
were worn down to the point of looking like box cutters. The
Greenland Vikings stuck to their "Christian" and European values
when the Inuits [Eskimos] could have taught them how to hunt
whales and some kinds of seals. The Greenland Vikings stuck to
their dislike of fish while starving to death. The climate got
colder as well, but the Greenland Vikings could have survived if
they had been willing to give up their old time religion and values.
The Greenland Vikings killed the Inuits [Eskimos] they met when
they should have married into Inuit [Eskimo] society to get the
benefit of the successful Arctic lifestyle and culture of the Inuits
[Eskimos].
The inhabitants of Easter Island destroyed their environment and
caused their civilization to collapse to make more of their statue
gods.
If the Americans continue to choose religion and coal burning
over science and nuclear power, the civilization you are now part
of will collapse when global warming causes the drought in
Atlanta, Georgia, California, Australia, Greece, Turkey, the Sahel,
China and other places to grow to the point that agriculture
collapses.
Religionists will, of course, resist any change in values
regardless of the fact that a change in values is necessary for
survival. This is an issue of the preachers' income. In the end,
the preachers may be eaten, but it is too late by that time.
[Cannibalism has been proven in the case of the fall of Anasazi
civilization in Chaco Canyon. The Anasazi hunted their
neighbors at the end.]

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Al Gore's Live Earth Pledge has a fatal flaw: "the capacity
to safely trap and store the CO2." There is no safe way to
confine trillions of tons of CO2 at high pressure for ever.
For Ever is a lot longer than the 100000 years that people
want nuclear "waste" to be stored. The CO2 WILL
leak out and suffocate millions of people. CO2 is denser
than air and displaces air at ground level. CO2 has caused
suffocation in Africa. See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1155057.stm

"Cameroon's 'killer lake' degassed"
"More than 1,700 people died after deadly gases spewed
from Lake Nyos 15 years ago. "
"In August 1986, the lake released a cloud of carbon
dioxide which hugged the ground and flowed down
surrounding valleys to suffocate thousands of local villagers
and animals.

The rare phenomenon also occurred at Lake Monoun in the
same volcanic zone two years earlier killing 34 people. "

The CO2 storage facilities proposed by Al Gore, besides
being prone to leak, will be a target for terrorists. A
terrorist has only to cause a leak to kill more people than a
nuclear bomb would. Leaks are very easy to cause in high
pressure containers. CO2 storage is a silent disaster
waiting to happen.

The pledge Should read: "I will learn enough about nuclear
physics so that I will no longer be paranoid about nuclear
power. I will advocate the replacement of coal fired power
plants with the newest nuclear power plant designs."

I [Asteroid Miner] have no financial or other interest in
nuclear power and no connection with the nuclear power
industry.

It is HOT CO2 that goes up smolestacks. Being hot it is
less dense so it goes up and disperses. Stored CO2 is cool.
A gas gets colder as it leaks out from high pressure to low
pressure. That is the secret of air conditioning. CO2 at
the same temperature as air is denser than air because CO2
is a heavier molecule than N2 or O2. The cold CO2 will
stick to the ground and suffocate people and other animals.
No other gas is required to explain the deaths in Cameroon.
Here in the US, more CO2 will leak out into areas with
more people, so the death toll could be in the millions.

I am not being paid by the nuclear industry. I have no financial
stake in nuclear power of any kind. I am posting here because I
am against the EXTINCTION OF THE HUMAN RACE and I am
against the collapse of civilization.

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The comparison has to be with extinction. Do you understand what the word
"extinct" means? If we keep burning FOSSIL fuels containing CARBON,
EVERY PERSON will be DEAD. THERE WILL BE ZERO SURVIVORS.
EXTINCTION means NO MORE HOMO SAPIENS, EVER. NOT EVEN the
worst possible nuclear war, a "general exchange" between the United States and
the old Soviet Union could achieve the extinction of Homo Sapiens. That would
mean exploding 40,000 H bombs all at once in the old days or maybe only 20,000
H bombs now.

The simultaneous deaths of 6,400,000,000 people would not even be noticeable in
the geologic record. Human population would rebound too fast for the dip to be
noticeable in the rocks. But extinction would clearly be noticed by some future
space alien or future intelligent earth species geologist. He would find no more
humans after the extinction event.

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Not if you use trees to sequester it. But you have to keep the lumber industry and Big Ag away from them. The lumber people makes lots of money chopping down trees and selling everything form lumber to build houses that no one can afford to pulp for paper and so on - instead of using hemp for paper and a great many other uses. Lumber fights that all the way, because it's money out of their pockets, until we run out of trees. Big Ag is backing destruction of the Rain Forests because the resulting, super-inefficient pasture land can then be used to raise cattle - an environmentally and physiologically destructive food source.

In other words, it's the big internationals again who are blocking the solutions in the name of instant profits.

Ian

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Hmmm. AsteroidMiner has a very good point (as usual - yes, I've been reading your posts with great interest).

Lots of uranium from coal. All going into the atmosphere or into unregulated and unprocessed waste.

Nuclear power plants are regulated like no tomorrow, emitting virtually NO pollutants.

Yet, the coal industry is the largest producer of environmental radiation on the planet.

Breast cancer anyone? A rise in the number of cancer cases in GENERAL? Is there a connection? Who's checking on that one?

And that's just radiation. There are known issues with mercury and arsenic as well as C02.

Good god. We've created a Frankenstein.

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Could service our base needs for electricity. ioo square miles of a solar farm in souther Nevada would do it. Concentration of wind turbines in the wind swept areas of north and south Dakota would also fulfill that need alone. No waste products as in coal sluckge &nuclear waste that we can't store well and for 100,000 to 4 million years isn't within our competence at this time. Think about it.

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