Coal is still king? Well, the US certainly has an abundance of coal. And, a slew of power plants around the world are still running on coal. (Admittedly, many of them are in China.)
Continue reading Power Plants and Carbon Dioxide Emissions
It’s been an interesting year. We had folks in Charleston, West Virginia banned from using water for several days. (I wrote about this as a terrorist act, because a company managed to have its toxic chemicals leak into the drinking water source. (You would think this would make folks in West Virginia demand their government do a better job of regulating chemical storage. But, they haven’t. Proof that it takes all kinds.) Or, folks in the Carolinas and even Virginia have Duke Energy pollute their waters with toxic sludge. By pumping the coal ash into the Dan River. (Again, no citizen outcry.)
Continue reading Water everywhere. But, not a drop to drink.
I’ve written a lot about ethanol for our fuel supply- both good and bad. (Ethanol as fuel stock and how the business case is provided, among others- check for ‘ethanol’ in the search at the right.) And, now that fuel demand is down, it’s not surprising that the stipulation that gasoline be augmented by ethanol is creating lots of problems. (For example, ethanol production is about 13.2 billion gallons- which is about 10% of the US petroleum production. With the drought, and the requirement that 14 billion gallons be combined this year, and lower gasoline demand, something has got to give.) So, it’s not surprising that the ethanol producers are looking at other things into which they can convert their corn, to insure the high returns (i.e., prices) they yield.
Continue reading It’s way more than popcorn!