What’s Eating Big Coal?

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/02/29/whats-eating-big-coal

February 29, 2008, 3:40 pm

What’s Eating Big Coal?

Posted by Keith Johnson

Carolyn Cui reports:

The prospect of government caps on greenhouse-gas emissions may be the least of coal’s concerns.

Skyrocketing capital costs already are making coal a tougher sell. The cheap and abundant fuel source—which provides half the power in the U.S.—isn’t so cheap anymore.

Duke Energy Carolinas estimates that new coal-fired power plant capital costs basically doubled since 2002, according to a recent report unveiled by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a long-time coal gadfly. Over the past three years, capital costs in the industry as a whole have risen more than 50%, as power companies grapple for designers, resources, and equipment, the report says. Of course, facilities powered by nuclear fuel, natural gas, and wind and solar power all have seen costs rise too.

Against this backdrop, uncertainty over the shape and scope of the U.S. climate change legislation has utilities at a loose end. The idea of making coal clean by capturing its carbon-dioxide emissions and shooting them underground is still futuristic. Big banks, meanwhile, are re-thinking the wisdom of backing power projects that could get stuck with the short straw of carbon policies.

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[sam sarrha]

1. have you seen this.. >>Link>

http://www.wesjones.com/death.htm

http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html

[hunter]

2. It's built of oil and natural gas. Ooops.

So is nuclear, so is solar, so is wind...

Look around folks, this is the highest point of the roller coaster.

We start out as a developing nation, we become a developed nation, and next we become an undeveloping nation.

The only improvements we can make now to the nation's infrastructure will be a creative sort of dismantling and reformation.

[kristopher]

3. Such pessimism. Sustainability is achievable. nt

[hunter]

4. Well, yeah... mother nature is funny that way.

But superhighways, personal automobiles, houses in the country, low density suburbs, and enough food for everyone on the planet probably isn't part of the deal.

What can you do?

[GliderGuider]

6. Planetary systems are always sustainable

The question is whether we're one of the components that get sustained. The decision isn't really up to us any more.

[lectrobyte]

5. Can you elaborate just a bit more?