A little bit of Co2 won't hurt ya. All it takes is a 2% concentration for you to start feeling it and 10% will kill ya. So don't tell me it's harmless. We're not designed to breathe it like plants are nor are most critters roaming the planet.

So don't try to sell this 'carbon is life' bullshit. Lets stick you in a sealed room and see how long you last.

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Rather than commenting here, go to
http://www.da.ks.gov/phonebook/
and find officials in Kansas to send emails to. Thell them that
Kansas will very soon be a desert if the burning of coal continues,
and that climate change could, soon after that, cause the collapse
of civilization and maybe the extinction of mankind. Tell them that, besides corbon, coal contains every element in
the periodic table. The important impurities are: URANIUM,
ARSENIC, LEAD, MERCURY, Antimony, Cobalt, Nickel,
Copper, Selenium, Barium, Fluorine, Silver, Beryllium, Iron,
Sulfur, Boron, Titanium, Cadmium, Magnesium, Thorium,
Calcium, Manganese, Vanadium, Chlorine, Aluminum,
Chromium, Molybdenum and Zinc. There is so much of these
elements in coal that cinders and coal smoke are actually valuable
ores. We should be able to get all the uranium and thorium we
need to fuel nuclear power plants for centuries by using cinders
and smoke as ore. Remember that, to get a given amount of
energy, you need about 100 MILLION TIMES as much coal as
uranium. That means the coal mine has to be 100 million times
larger than the uranium mine, not counting the recycling of
nuclear fuel.

The Kansas governor can be emailed at:
http://www.governor.ks.gov/comments/comment.htm

Kansas legislators can be found ordered by geography at:
http://www.ipsr.ku.edu/ksdata/vote/

Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali
Frick, and Benjamin Armbruster ought to have provided a petition
to sign since they work for an organization, AmericanProgress,
that is capable of setting up a web petition and delivering it, with
thousands of signatures, to the Kansas legislature.

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Every lump of coal bunred adds to the dieing of the oceans, the poisoning of our rivers and streams and the heating of our atmosphere. At some point coal company executives will be counted as exceeding all other candidates in the forced deaths of people for their own profit.

According to James Hansen we are already past the tipping point after which the arctic ice cap will melt and not recover leading to runaway global heating. Famine has already reared it's ugly head around the world and is projected to get worse this year. The oceans can no longer support fisheries which used to feed billions.

Nature bats last.

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Senator Hillary Clinton, who touted that coal "of course" must be a major player in our energy plan going forward, is losing to Senator Obama.

Thats even worse news for coal.

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I do not have the capability to make a web petition. I do not have
a web site of my own. I am a retired government scientist. I
have a DSL connection and an ancient PowerMac 5260 running
MacOS9.1 and ie5. I invite you to look up original references
rather than believe anybody. It would be better if you did your
own laboratory analysis. The first thing they teach you in college
if you are a science major is that people are not to be trusted.
You only trust experimental evidence and you do the experiment
personally, many times, before you believe it. And by the way,
there is room for further research on the subject of extinctions
caused by global warming. Here are some starting places for the
paleontologists' recent research:
http://www.sciam.com/
article.cfm?articleID=
00037A5D-A938-150E-
A93883414B7F0000&
sc=I100322

http://www.geosociety.org/
meetings/2003/
prPennStateKump.htm

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

There is the question of exactly how H2S takes over the ocean
from O2. Oxygen and H2S cannot exist in the same mixed
volume of water because O2 reacts with H2S by the equation:

6H2S + 9O2 = 6H2O + 6SO2

How hot do the oceans have to get before the chemocline pops up
to what depth?

On the subject of coal, start with:
http://www.ornl.gov/
ORNLReview/rev26-34/
text/coalmain.html

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References on coal chemistry:

OUR NUCLEAR FUTURE:
THE PATH OF SELECTIVE IGNORANCE
by Alex Gabbard
Metals and Ceramics Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, TN
Published by the SOUTHERN FUTURE SOCIETY
branch of The World Future Society
7910 Woodmont Ave. Suite 450 Bethesda, MD 20814

This paper may be very difficult to find. Alex Gabbard's
references are in libraries, not on the web:

1. "Senior Expert Symposium on Electricity and
the Environment", Key Issues Papers, Helsinki,
Finland, May 1991

2. Sun, Yuliang; "Gas-cooled Reactor Program in
China", Presented at ORNL, Mar. 3, 1995
(unpublished, you can't find it).

3. Judkins, R. R., and Fulkerson, W.; "The
Dilemma of Fossil Fuel Use and Global Climate
Change," Energy & Fuels, 7, pgs 14-22,1993.

4. "Coal Data: A Reference," USDOE/Energy
Information Administration, DOE/EIA-0064(93),
Feb. 1995.

5. Livingston, R. S., et al; "A Desirable Energy
Future, A National Perspective," pgs 37-41, Oak
Ridge National Laboratory and The Franklin
Institute Press, 1982.

6. Valkovic, V., "Trace Elements in Coal," Vol. 1,
CRC, 1983.

7. Geotimes, pg 20, Feb. 1994.

8. Lyon, W. S., et al; "Nuclear Activation
Techniques in the Life Sciences," IAEA, 1978.

9. Gabbard, W. A., "Coal Combustion: Nuclear
Resource or Danger?", ORNL Review, Vol. 26,
Nos. 3 & 4, pgs 2433, 1993.

10. Facer, J. F., "Uranium in Coal," Rep. GJBX-
56(79), USDOE, Grand Junction Office, Colorado,
May, 1979.

11. "Background Information Document
(Integrated Risk Assessment); Final Ruling for
Radionuclides," USEPA Report EPA 520/1-84-
002-2 Vol 11, 1984.

12. Beck, H. L., et al, "Perturbations on the
Natural Radiation Environment Due to the
Utilization of Coal as an Energy Source," Natural
Radiation Environment 111., Vol. 2, Proceedings,
USDOE, pgs 1521-1558, 1980.

13. Corbett, J. O., "The Radiation Dose From Coal
Burning: A Review of Pathways and Data,"
Radiation Protection Dosimetry, Vol. 4, No. 1, 5-
19, 1983.

14. Coal Fired Power Plant Trace Element Study,
Vol. 1, A Three Station Comparison, US Dept. of
Commerce, PB-257293, Sept, 1975.

15. McBride, J. P., et al, "Radiological Impact of
Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants,"
Science, Dec. 1978.

16. Cohen, B. L., "Letters," Physics Today, pg 97-
98, Oct. 1995.

17. "Radiation Exposure of the U.S. Population
from Consumer Products and Miscellaneous
Sources," National Council on Radiation
Protection and Measurement," Report No. 95, Dec.
1987.

18. Wilder, R. F. et al, "Recovery of Metal Oxides
from Fly Ash Including Ash Beneficiation
Products," Electric Power Research Institute, CS-
4384, Vols. 1-3, 1986.

The arsenic in Chinese industrial grade coal I found out about from another source.

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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.

Subscribe to www.realclimate.org It is by real scientists.

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Reference: "Web Dragons" by Witten, Gori and Numerico 2007.

The search engines do not understand the web pages they find for you. They are
just machines. They have no idea of whether or not the web pages they find tell
the truth. In the US, we have "freedom of speech," which means that nobody has
to prove that anything is true before publishing it. We also have a coal industry
that has a gross income of $100 BILLION per year. That $100 BILLION per year
could be easily sunk by the nuclear industry unless you can be persuaded that
nuclear power is dangerous. [The truth is that a coal fired power plant puts 100
times as much radiation into your environment as the nuclear power plant. The
truth is also that natural background radiation is 10 times what you get from a coal
fired power plant.] Do the coal companies have an incentive to lead you astray?
Yes. Is $100 BILLION per year enough incentive? Yes. Can the coal industry
afford to hire doctors, economists, environmentalists, website designers, computer
scientists, psychologists, advertising agencies, and lots of other people on $100
BILLION per year? Of course. Can the coal industry afford to set up hundreds
of web pages on hundreds of computers in hundreds of locations and "game" the
search engines on $100 BILLION per year? Yes. And they do.

How hard is it to find the truth on the web? Very hard. Most web sites have a
monetary reason for existing. People who know the truth and are willing to tell
you the truth don't have much economic reason to do so. It is hard to make money
by telling the truth. Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence
or overestimating the gullibility of the average person. So how are you going to
find out the truth for sure? There is only one way. You have to become a
scientist. You will have to spend a minimum of 4 years in college to get the
minimum degree, the B.S. You should really spend more like 15 years and get a
post doctoral degree.

THERE ARE ZERO HUMAN AUTHORITIES.
Scientists do not vote on what is the truth. There is only one vote and Nature
owns it. We find out what Nature's vote is by doing Scientific [public and
replicable] experiments. Scientific [public and replicable] experiments are the
only source of truth. [To be public, it has to be visible to other people in the
room. What goes on inside one person's head isn't public unless it can be seen on
an X-ray or with another instrument.]
Science is a simple faith in Scientific experiments and a simple absolute lack of
faith in everything else. Do not trust any human, not even yourself. Trust only
the experiments that you personally perform. Otherwise, you will be misled.

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U.S. Coal Samples: High Uranium Concentration

Location Uranium (ppm)
Illinois Perry 103.30
Illinois Montgomery 94.10
Wyoming Sweetwater 75.38
Illinois Perry 43 39
Iowa Wapello 42.93
Iowa Wapello 34.57
Iowa Wapello 29.59
Pennsylvania Northumberland 25.24
Illinois Montgomery 20.51
Wyoming Sweetwater 19.47
Missouri Adacon 19.28
Iowa Wapello 18.70
Iowa Appanoose 17.93
Nebraska Otoe 17.06
Nebraska Pawnee 16.74
Mississippi Scott 16.70

From: Facer, J. F., Uranium in Coal, Rep. GJBX-56(79) USDOE, Grand Junction Office, Colorado, May, 1979


Plutonium in earth's oceans

I) surface area of oceans = 3.61 x 10exp6 km exp2

average depth of ooeans = 3 km
volume of ooean = 10.8 X 10exp7 km exp3 = 1.08 X 10exp21 liters

II) reported plutonium content
in tth Padfic Ocean is 1.3 - 9.4 x 10exp-4 pCi/l
lowvalue:(1.3) 2.1x10exp-15 gm/l high value:(9.4) 15.2x10exp-15 gm/l
III) quantity of plutonium:
low value: (1.3) 2.27 x 10exp3 kg high valve: (9.4) 16.4 x 10exp3 kg

IV) conclusion:

1. Nuclear weapon testing is said to have deposited plutonium in the biosphere.
Quantity of material estirnated to be in a typical weapon is about 4 kg. Thus,
reported quantity of plutonium in ocean water is sufficient for low value: 567.5
weapons high value: 4,100 weapons

2. Insufficient number of weapons have been tested (a few hundred) to account
for this quantity of putonium in the biosphere.

(Land area has not been considered here.)

3. Natural origins may account for this discrepancy. Neutrons from cosmic ray
collisions, along with neutrons from natural radioactiviy, provide a constant
source of neutrons in the range of 10exp-2 1˚n/cm2-sec. Neutrons combined
with available 238U make 239Pu. Increasing quantities of 238U released in
coal combustion provide an increasing source of breedable material.

Coal-Plu AG ORNL



Radioactive Sources from Coal

Radioactive sources in coal result from:

Uranium-235 decay series
Thorium-232 decay series
Potassium-40 decay
Uranium-238 to Radium-226 decay
Radon-222 decay
Lead-210 to Polonium-210 decay

Primary concentration of constituents are:

Uranium ( > 1.3 ppm)
Thorium ( >3.2 ppm)
Potassium-40 ( ~0.054 ppm)

A 1000 MWe coal fired utility burns >4 x 10 exp 6 tons of coal/year.

Consequently, released primary radioactive material is:

Uranium = > 5.2 tons/yr
Thorium = > 12.8 tons/yr
Potassium-40 = >0.22tons/yr

Potassium participates directly in the food chain while uptake of U and Th is
slower. Thus, released K-40 may present greater health effect hazards than
larger quantities of U and Th.

CoalRad6 AG ORNL

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This happens after mountaintop removal (and sometimes entire mountain removal) across W. Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, which cavalierly included the destruction of millions of acres of pristine forest, along with the ruin of rivers and vast ecosystems. Nobody seems to ask if mountain removal is related to flooding in Tennessee and other changes in weather and flood patterns. Good riddance to dirty coal.

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......happened to wind in this discussion?

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Between Asteroidmier's constant diatribe against coal (who is for it?) and endless promotion of nuclear tech and totally ignores all the other kinds in use and will shortly be in use that are mostly begnine to the environment that are far better for the biosphere and hence for ouselves.

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Wind energy requires that Direct Current [DC] be transmitted
over enormous areas [more than one continent] to provide
continuous power because wind varies from minute to minute.
Direct current is required because the voltage and frequency of
AC would change minute by minute with wind speed. Long
distance DC transmission requires superconducting cable. DC
just doesn't go far otherwise.
Reference:
http://www.terrawatts.com: Liquid nitrogen is still required.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/69888

Following the http://www.terrawatts.com lead, you arrive at the
statement that the "high temperature" superconductor will be
cooled by liquid nitrogen. See:
http://www.azom.com/details.asp?
ArticleID=942#_When_will_HTS
The need for liquid nitrogen is the achilles heal of this scheme. It
isn't really a "room" temperature superconductor. Any accidental
warming brings the grid to a halt. Energy is required to make
liquid nitrogen. Dry nitrogen must be cooled to 77 degrees
Kelvin to make it a liquid. The cable has to be thermally
insulated and cooled its entire length. The cable also must be
physically separated into "out" and "return" wires, and the force
between the 2 wires will be large. As stated in the article, it won't
be cheap.

Any warming above the superconducting temperature or too much
magnetic field will cause the cable to quit superconducting at that
point. The cable will instantly melt, creating an electric arc. All
of the energy that was flowing through that spot will instead be
dumped there, creating an explosion. The power grid will be
disabled for some time since repairing a superconducting cable is
not as easy as splicing a wire. Is this the kind of electric service
you really want? We really don't have the technology yet.

What about storing wind energy as compressed air? Check the
efficiency, the availability of leak proof caverns, etc. Storing
wind energy as compressed air is a pie in the sky. What about
storing wind energy in batteries? We can't make that many
batteries. Another pie in the sky.

Wind energy wastes energy because the wind varies so much that
a "spinning reserve" is required in most locations. If you are
running the steam powered generator at the spinning reserve rate,
you may as well use the steam as your energy source and forget
about the wind. Wind turbines are decorations, not sources of
energy for the grid until we have room temperature
superconductors. There are special locations and circumstances
where wind energy is useful, but wind cannot replace coal and
nuclear any time soon.

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Sure Coal should be scuttled. But nuclear is being promoted to replace the coal expansion. Until there is Federal mobilization to adequately and fairly fund alternative energy R&D on a grand scale, we face the horrors of the Corporatist profit takers.

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I like solar voltaics but the problems with solar cells are:
1. Taking land away from trees and even cactuses. Even if it is
the roof of your house, trees will block sunlight from reaching
your solar cells, so you will cut the trees.
2. Price. Full power 20% of the time adds $195,500 to the
price of a modest 1500 square foot house. Solar cells are STILL
just too expensive and will be for many years.
3. If you live in town, as most of us do, the local city or town
government will not allow you to install solar cells.
4. You would have to cover your entire lot, not just your roof,
with solar cells to get enough energy to get off of the power grid.
Add $1 Million to the price of a $150,000 house.
5. Solar cells are dark in color, almost black. Solar cells convert
16% of the absorbed sunlight into electricity. The other 84% of
the absorbed sunlight is converted into heat. Suppose you cover a
desert with solar cells. Since solar cells absorb more sunlight
than sand, the desert would be hotter during the day. There is a
tradeoff between covering your roof with solar cells to run your
air conditioner and painting your roof white to reflect sunlight
back into space. Painting your roof white is a cheaper way to cut
your air conditioning bill.

Solar power doesn't work at night and the needed research
includes dividing the price by 10 to 100 and energy storage. Is
there enough lead in the world to make enough lead-acid
batteries? At what price? Storing solar energy by melting salt
has been proposed. What is the price of storing trillions
of watt hours as heat in molten salt? Where are you going to put
molten salt heat storage facilities? All of these questions need to
be answered before you have a viable solution. Solar power is
excellent for peak load in the middle of the day, but solar power is
not there at all at night and is limited during most of the day.
Solar power isn't there for the base load without these energy
storage schemes that may not be feasible. Another scheme that
won't work: Store energy by pumping water up hill. The
problem is that lakes are rarely found at the tops of mountains.

Geothermal is great where feasible, but again, that isn't
everywhere. There are very few geothermal sites and they are not
where we need them.

We need 2 or 3 more Earths to make biofuel work. If we had
more planets already, we wouldn't have global warming yet.

Nuclear power is well proven, safe and abundant. We have been
improving it for 60 years. Nuclear power is excellent for base
load application, which is what is required. Nuclear power saves
14.7 Million tons of carbon dioxide per year per 1000 megawatts.
112 COAL fired power plants are on order in the US. Building
nuclear power plants to replace them and the coal fired power
plants we already have is not such a big task that the US cannot do
it. We certainly can. Not providing electricity is not an option.
Just try the no electricity option and see how fast you get a
revolution. Nuclear power is the only option that actually works
NOW. All others except coal need research to get them to work
providing base load. Coal will kill us all if we keep using it.

As I have said many times, invest YOUR money in wind, solar,
etc. Get rich or go broke. I'm betting you will do the latter.

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There are many wind farms on line now feeding AC grids. In the Mid-Columbia, where I live, there is a large scale installation of wind generators going on and feeding the Bonneville Power Administration lines along the Columbia River in Eastern Klickitat County.

There is no need for a parallel and duplicated DC power grid requiring liquid nitrogen. All the power is transformed into 60 cycle appropriate voltage 3 phase power. Its happening all over the world.

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This propagandist has been promoting Nukes for months on Alternet. For example, his histrionics and shameless fabrication of facts go from unfounded wind bashing to the solar one above. Solar energy by photovoltaics is often dissed by the power industry as being 'uneconomic'. 1) Yearly, great advances are being made to make photovoltaics cheaper and more efficient. 2) The cost efficiency of direct solar water heating is undisputed by any but the disreputable. For example, in China, low tech, light weight aluminum reflector/glass tube solar collectors are on virtually every building in the nation. They are normally used for hot water, but many have space heating radiators and loops. Storage tanks are either integrated in the roof top apparatus or larger tanks indoors. Across the border in Russia and in North America you will see nary a one! Why? For social, not scientific reasons.

Basically, the real lesson was learned in the North West at the time of the North West Power Planning and Conservation Act of 1980.

See: http://www.nwcouncil.org/LIBRARY/poweract/default.htm

This Act placed top priority for power generation in the NW on conservation, followed by non-hydro renewable, hydro, coal and lastly nuclear power generation. The Act was quickly effective and had the effect of scuttling the WUPPSS nucear plants resulting in the biggest bond default in US history. See: http://www.scripophily.net/wapuposusybo.html

Simply stated, the greatest source of coal replacement is possible through conservation; both reduction of consumption, through use of conservation techniques already employed in Europe and social reorganization to reduce power needs.

Meanwhile, Alternet should not allow multiple and willful shill misrepresentations to reccur and dominate postings like Asteroid boy has on this article.

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