Green Daily

If you want to know the state of the science on carbon capture and storage, the so-called "clean coal" Gore is so opposed to, try reading the I.P.C.C. Special Report on Carbon Capture and Storage. This is the same IPCC that won all the Nobel prizes for doing the same thing as Gore, i.e. raise awareness about climate change.

They take a completely contradictory line to what Gore is promoting. They say the technology is ready to go. The last research that needs to be done is to build a number of full scale sized plants to fully prove out the costs and see if there are any problems with the scale. Otherwise they believe that electricity can be produced for around 6 - 7.5 cents a kw/hr compared to 5 cents a kw/hr for a coal plant without carbon capture.

Obama had a plank in his platform stating he would make sure five full scale coal fired plants using carbon capture would be built. If Gore has his way, these will never see the light of day. What is happening here? If you study what Gore is saying, after you get through the sound bites where he wants you to take away his clean coal doesn't exist line, you get to where he says more research should be done. But he's confusing the issue, as the research is just to go ahead and see what its like to build a number of full scale plants. It isn't like this is still far out lab stuff where its all a gleam in someone's eye.

Gore is way off base here. This is not how he won his Nobel.

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It's unfortunate that Gore has seized on hybrids as the savior - he's totally overlooking a much more obvious and effective alternative.

Hybrid capacity adds hundreds of pounds of weight (redundant second electric engine, enormous battery), substantially reduces available volume for passengers or cargo, and worst of all, costs THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS EXTRA per vehicle.

And what to we get for all this? Just a few more miles per gallon of oil, while keeping our transportation fleet neatly locked in to petroleum fuel only, and only slowing down the galloping rate of growth of oil demand.

That's working hard for not much benefit.

Instead we should work smart.

The real solution is to mandate that all new cars sold in America (not just made, so as to include the foreign companies) have flex fuel capability, able to burn not just gasoline, but also alcohol fuel whenever they can find it.

Adding this capability is much less onerous. It only involves using better materials in the fuel tank and fuel line, adding a sensor to determine what the fuel mix (gasoline v. alcohol) currently is, and some different software for the electronic fuel inejctor. That's it! And it COSTS ONLY $100 PER CAR when part of the original design and installed at the factory.

Making flex fuel a standard component, like seat belts, means that from only 3% of cars on the road being alcohol capable now (and even that is several times more than the over hyped hybrids), we'll go to 100% of each year's produciton being alcohol capable. In 3 years that's 50 million cars on the road being alcohol capable.

Right now very few gas stations offer alcohol, but with all new cars being able to have it, the market for it will exist.

Especially because alcohol fuel is CHEAPER. Drop the tarrifs on Brazilian ethanol and the price will drop like a stone, far below gasoline. Methanol is even cheaper than that. Best of all, because ethanol crops can be grown anywhere and any kind of biomass without exception (including trash, sewage, weeds, crop residues, and more) can be turned into methanol, no one can do an OPEC and corner a big chunk of the market and throttle production to jack up the price.

Consumers will know with confidence that at least the alcohol fuel will be cheap in the future no matter what the economy and OPEC do. That increased stability and confidence will also help the economy a lot.

How is all this relevant to greens? Unlike gasoline, alcohol fuel:

-is not a carcinogen or mutagen;

-biodegrades quickly (a day or so) into safe components if spilled from a tanker ship/truck or leaked from an underground storage at a gas station rather than lingering in the environment (the Exxon Valdez is still killing wildlife);

-burns clean, emitting no particulate matter (smog) or CO2 (global warming!!!!)

Gore needs to use his large megaphone to push for flex fuel.

Is it ideal? No, but it's surprisingly effective and a has huge potential for little effort. Why not do it??

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Oh, I almost forgot - methanol can be made from coal.

THAT is clean coal, folks. No CO2 emissions, just clean alcohol fuel.

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