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  • From: Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] nuke power
  • Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 11:18:05 -0700

At 5/31/2005, you wrote:
The reason I'm calling them dirty coal plants is because, according to the
SF Chronicle lead story, if it's credible, they could make ones that turn
the exhaust into a gas that have virtually no particulate emissions. I
wonder is that coal gas, a useful fuel I believe?

Coal gas is an entirely different process. Coal is heated to drive off the gasses then those gasses are captured, very similar to generating wood gas. Most of the gas is hydrogen with some CO and CO2 mixed in. In many areas this is called "town gas" because the first city lighting in the late 1700s was with coal gas. The first IC engines in the early 1800s used coal gas.

The by products are coke and some nasty tars. Coke is used for heating and the tars gave rise to the German chemical and munitions industries in the 1800s.

Or if it's a slight of
hand like the electric car where there's no emissions there but emissions as
usual somewhere else?

Scrubber technologies are expensive and significantly reduce power plant efficiency. There are some raw materials that can be derived from exhaust gasses but they are very expensive when compared to normal extraction technologies. It is somewhat of a declining returns problem. To make up for the power lost in a scrubber you have to increase the coal consumption which needs more scrubbers which require more energy....... I have a friend who wrote a text book on scrubbers. As has been said many times but almost completely ignored by politicians and therefore the populace, "there ain't no free lunch."


Don Bowen Awl Knotted Up

My travel journal
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html

My present location is the star on the map in the link below
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?latlongtype=decimal&latitude=33.506083&longitude=-117.099019




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