harrysin

Clearing the Smog of Beijing with
“Coal by Wire.”



A statement by Viv Forbes, Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition.

4 August 2008



As the TV turns nightly to Beijing, we can expect chilling pictures and doomsday comments about the “Asian Pollution” and the “Beijing Smog”. This will induce media and political scaremongers to use these images to sell dud products like the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”.



It is not carbon dioxide from burning coal that pollutes the skies of Asia and Africa. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a naturally occurring, clean, invisible, beneficial gas. CO2 is an essential part of the natural world but a very minor trace constituent of our atmosphere.



The major gases in the atmosphere are Nitrogen (78%), Oxygen (21%) and Argon (less than 1%). These three gases make up 99.9% of the atmosphere (ignoring the variable water vapour which can rise to 4%). Seven other trace gases, including CO2, together make up less than 0.1% and CO2 is less than 0.04%.



This trace amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is the aerial food store for all plants, and thus also sustains all animals, including humans. CO2 is a boon to life, not a pollutant.



Moreover, the claim that man’s emissions will cause dangerous global warming is strongly and increasingly disputed by scientists and is not supported by historical evidence. It also defies common sense to believe that such a minor natural gas can cause all the climate disasters that are blamed on it.



We are about to hang an innocent hero.



Asia’s visible pollution is largely caused by the crude and inefficient open air combustion of low quality fuels. It is caused by millions of open-air cooking fires in India, China, North Korea and Africa using scavenged fuels like cow dung, cardboard, wood, and low quality coal and coke; by thousands of backyard brickworks and small dirty furnaces along the Yangtze River and in other places; by forest clearing fires in Indonesia and bush and grass fires elsewhere; and by millions of small obsolete and dirty wood, charcoal and coal stoves, heaters, boilers and furnaces all over Asia and Africa. Similar pollution is obvious in places in South America. “Open fires” was the cause of similar smogs in England as recently as the 1950’s.



Open-air combustion of poor quality carbon fuels produces not only the harmless clean so-called “greenhouse” gases of water vapour and carbon dioxide, but also real pollutants such as soot, smoke, ash, dust, unburnt fuel and chemicals containing sulphur, chlorine, nitrogen, fluorine, and metals. In confined unventilated places, open fires can also produce the very poisonous gas, carbon monoxide – this is the one that will quickly kill the canary. China also emits more sulphur dioxide than anywhere else in the world. This chokes their people, causes acid rain and damages buildings.



The elements contained in smoke pollution all came from rich ancient soils in the first place, and are needed in soils today in trace quantities to maintain the health of plants and animals. In dilute quantities, they are not a problem in the atmosphere, and rain recycles them to enrich the soil. But when concentrated in city air, they can be visible, annoying, corrosive or even toxic.



The “Asian Brown Cloud”, is a haze of pollution about 3 km thick and sometimes covering an area as big as Australia. The brown haze obscures the sun in some polluted Asian cities and at times this cloud drifts right across the Pacific Ocean and is noticed as far away as the west coast of America.



This pollution is already affecting local climate and community health. In Arctic areas, soot drifts onto snow making it darker in colour which allows it to absorb more heat from the sun. This process may be contributing to melting glaciers in China and the Himalayas.



The western world went through this pollution phase half a century ago, and although improvements can still be made, we have banished the notorious smoke pollution in places like London, Manchester and Pittsburgh.



Today’s Beijing Smog is a tame affair compared some air pollution events of the past.



For the century ended in about 1960, London smoke pollution was so bad that the city became known as “The Big Smoke”. Children developed rickets from the lack of sunshine, plants and animals died and lung disease was widespread. Mike Williamson, a Brisbane resident who lived in Yorkshire at that time, says that the smog was sometimes so dense that a driver could not see the curb, and the passenger was obliged to walk along the edge of the road with a torch to lead the way. Mike says “Buses stopped running and trains ran with difficulty because signals could not be seen. Detonators were placed on the rail tracks to warn trains of potential dangers.”



England’s last and worst ever pollution event, “The Black Fog” of 1952, was triggered by a temperature inversion over London. Visibility was reduced to less than one foot and 4,000 Londoners died from SO2 poisoning (50 in one small London park alone).



This shock brought action.



Two things cleared the Big Smoke from London and Manchester. Firstly was the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1956 - cooking and heating with open fires of wood and coal was banned in big cities. But bans would not have worked without other better heating options. No matter what the laws say, people will use whatever fuel they can find to keep warm and cook their food. Londoners only stopped burning wood and coal in their homes when electricity and smokeless fuel came available. The government encouraged people to use electricity – it was called “Coal by Wire”. Clean coal-powered electricity saved the forests from destruction and cleared the smog from the air.



The western world has largely beaten its city smogs, firstly with inventions such as the chimney and the stove, secondly with clean air legislation and anti-pollution technology and finally with the magic of electricity – the clean, silent, invisible “Coal by Wire”.



This clean energy can be generated reliably 24 hours a day, using high quality coal in non polluting power stations located far from densely populated areas. It is then transported silently and cleanly with zero pollution and minimal loss of energy to deliver lighting, heating, cooling, cooking and motive power into the most humble home in the poorest suburb. It is the magic of the modern world.



To fly over a modern non-polluting coal-fired power station at say 10,000 m is to put things into perspective – a puny cooling tower or two emitting wisps of water vapour (steam). They also emit carbon dioxide, but this is invisible and harmless (in fact generally beneficial). These wisps of steam are regularly displayed dishonestly on TV to illustrate the supposed pollution caused by coal power (or they dig up a picture of an old dirty polluting power station). There is almost no pollution, no noise, no smoke and no landscapes of forests of whirling blades and solar panels in a modern coal burning power station. In fact those wisps of steam are often the only visible evidence that massive energy conversion is taking place inside - coal into electricity.



Yet that facility and its linked coal mine can supply a whole city with heat, light and power for machines as diverse as the handyman’s drill, the kitchen toaster or the locomotives that move train-loads of commuters in safety and comfort during rain, hail, snow or heatwave.



“Coal by Wire” has already banished most of the terrible pollution that affected cities such as London, Manchester and Pittsburgh, and allowed the regrowth of American forests. City pollution now comes not from coal, but from cars sitting in traffic jams caused by poor road design, inefficient traffic controls and lack of sensible pricing for congested roads.



Today’s irrational and hysterical focus on harmless carbon dioxide by governments and media is misdirected and counter-productive. It is diverting attention and resources from damaging pollution which is altering local climate and affecting many areas of the world. And it is delaying the spread of coal powered electricity to many areas now desperate for clean invisible power.



It is also giving an enormous boost to the demand for nuclear power, for all the wrong reasons.



The world pollution problem which is most obvious now in Asia, presents a real opportunity for Australian energy companies to make profits and clean up the environment. All Australians will benefit from a stronger economy and from the satisfaction that will come from being able to point to the contribution we can make to cleaning up the REAL pollution represented by the smog over the Olympic Stadium.



Instead of trying to lead the world to commit Kyoto suicide, Australian politicians should be promoting clean non-polluting modern power stations burning high quality Australian coals. Just one well designed, well scrubbed, Australian designed coal power plant running on Australian coal could provide the light, heating, cooling and entertainment silently and invisibly to the front door for about 3 million Asian homes, housing maybe 10 million people. No wonder the Chinese are importing coal and building modern power stations as quickly as they can. They recognise clearly that their huge cities need “Coal by Wire”.



History shows that people cannot and will not live without energy in their homes. Unless we allow coal to supply clean silent invisible electric energy, the people will continue to burn dung, wood, cardboard, trees, oil, charcoal or reject coal to get their warmth or cook their food.



If Asians had access to better fuel, it would allow cow dung to be used for soil improvement and would encourage forest regrowth in areas denuded by centuries of scavenging for fire wood.



Russian scientists are not conned by the Kyoto hysteria focussed on the harmless natural gas, carbon dioxide. In fact the Russian Academy of Science advised President Putin that the Kyoto Protocol had “no scientific foundation” (Putin joined Kyoto for other very sound political and economic reasons that had nothing to do with global warming).



Man’s emissions of CO2 are a miniscule factor in determining Earth’s temperature. But while we are wasting decades of time and buckets of money trying to catch and imprison this harmless Will o’ the Wisp, an ominous brown smelly choking cloud of real pollution is growing in our northern skies.



Russian ecologist Dr Sergei Golubchikov has the last word:



“Ecological treaties should seek to curb emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals and other highly-toxic pollutants instead of targeting carbon dioxide, which is a non-toxic gas whose impact on global warming has not been proved.”



Link:

http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/10/stor...1055521000.htm

__________________
Harry

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harrysin

I thought this post might have stirred up some debate!

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Harry

mftha

Harry, it certainly should stir up some debate. Without carbon dioxide, earth would be much too cold to support life. The real issue is how much carbon dioxide. In spite of the statement of the Russian ecologist, there is very little debate that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that does cause temperature increases. It is essential for life as we know it. However, excessive levels are harmful to plants, and at about 2 1/2 times the current levels interfere with human breathing. At the current rate of increase, that concentration will be achieved before 2050. My greatest concern however is that warming which is now underway is causing the wetlands formerly known as the Siberian permafrost to release methane. The IGPCC estimates that the 100 year warming potential of methane is 23 times that of carbon dioxide, but the 20 year warming potential is about 75. The universally agreed upon warming effect of carbon dioxide is 6° C for each doubling. The actual warming effect of a greenhouse gas is of course related to the concentration and the warming potential.

More later.

__________________
Tom (NOT Template Tom; I'm nowhere near his league)
One does not know what they are doing until they can make a mistake and correct it.
DO Something, DO ANYTHING to Stop Global Warming

Check twice!

OK Harry, I just got to jump in. Likely with foot in mouth....

Global warming is debate on both sides and no answer is found that will get the majority to agree on causes, effects, potential outcome. I feel like a dog with fleas every time there is another theroy I feel like I just got another flea.

Is mankind the culpurit or is it evolution? I am sure mankind is playing a role in this process, but could it be we are facing the inevitable,,, evolution... A theroy that can't be ruled out.

To take this deeper "will mankind become extinct", my thinking is no, we are a very adaptable spieces and innovative ,,,,, we are an intelligent speices but not very smart,,,,,,,

We will evolve as the caveman did and as a speices we will survive!

Told you Harry,,,,,, with foot in mouth.

John

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John

Cleaning my glasses will not make me look any better, but will make what I'm looking at better!

harrysin

John, I don't think you put foot in mouth, I tend to agree with you. So called experts are divided in their "theories", just who do we believe, both sides sound convincing to us lay people. It is a fact that scientists generally seek publicity, and it is not uncommon for results of research to be "fiddled" for want of a better word.

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Harry

mftha

Harry, it is certainly true that scientists put the best spin on their own ideas and their own work,and many are under great pressure to publish. Consequently there is a large amount of incomplete and sometimes wrong work published. But those who "fiddle" their results are usually soon found out and become outcasts with no future in science. I know of several cases of "fiddled' results and ended careers. I changed my career direction (within molecular biology) because I did not want to spend my career cleaning up after a data fiddler who published prolifically but always of a "me too" nature, and who missed several important novel findings because he did not believe and so changed data points. In the end that line of research sank from great prominence to almost irrelevancy.

The essence of scientific research is repeatability. Climate change is a difficult field because predictions can be made then we have to wait and see what happens. What is happening now is far ahead of the predictions. Among the scientists who work with relative independence, there is no dispute that global warming is underway. Many of the scientists who speak out against global warming are in the employ of big energy companies, the current U.S. government (the best exception is Dr. James Hanson, the leading voice of the reality of human-caused global warming. He is too well respected for even the current administration to fire him.) or think tanks given a veneer of independence although ultimatley funded by big energy or their allies. The response of the present U.S. government is one of the best reasons for the actions of Her Majesty you relayed to us in your post.

The Russian ecologist is absolutely correct in the first part of his statement:“Ecological treaties should seek to curb emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals and other highly-toxic pollutants". Sulphur dioxide becomes sulfuric acid, and the nitrogen oxides can become nitric acid, and some are themselves very strong greenhouse gases. The toxicity of heavy metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium is well established and much more needs to be done to reduce or if possible abolish the use of these metals.

John, you are absolutely correct that climate change is one of if not the major driving forces in evolution. We cannot be certain how quickly climate change occurred in the past. It is certain that four of the five major extinctions of the last 550,000 years are due to naturally caused climate change probably related to periods of very active volcanism, and release of methane with consequent reduction of atmospheric oxygen as methane oxidizes to carbon dioxide and water, and to relatively rapid increase in global temperature. Our problem is that climate change is happening too fast for us, and many other organisms to adapt. The most adaptable are the bacteria and the archaea (a group that I study because they are found in what we consider extreme environments. One group of archaea, the methanogens are responsible for production of almost all the methane on earth today, and are probably one of the earliest forms of life on earth).

I lean toward the idea that it is not warming itself but the side effects that will do us in.

I should also point out that we have oxygen in our atmosphere because the first photosynthetic organisms produced free oxygen as a waste product. Oxygen is highly toxic to many organisms, including some of the oxygen producers! In other words, organisms have been polluting themselves to extinction since shortly after life originated on this planet.

Climate experts do agree on three things: they really do not know what is going to happen, they do not how fast it is going to happen, and they do not want to find out.

By the way, scientists use the term "theory" to describe ideas that best explain what has happened, that has withstood repeated testing and has not been proved wrong, and makes predictions that can be tested. All three conditions must be satisfied. As I tell my students, the best translation of the scientific term "theory" for popular use is most likely "fact".

__________________
Tom (NOT Template Tom; I'm nowhere near his league)
One does not know what they are doing until they can make a mistake and correct it.
DO Something, DO ANYTHING to Stop Global Warming

harrysin

Tom, like most of the scientific set on the "other side", you are most eloquent in the way you state your case, is it any wonder that the general public are so confused. One thing that I heard a member of "your side" say that I'm warming to (no pun intended) went something like this," even if we turn out to be wrong about the causes of global warming, is it worth taking the chance by doing nothing?"
One thing we appear to agree on is evolution rather than the big bang theory.

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Harry

curiousgeorge

Gentlemen, you are all far ahead of me in your education and eloquence of presentation. But, take a look at this sh..... Oh! Sorry! Just kidding.
I really do think that this could "possibly" be a good start in the right direction, if handled correctly...

http://www.valcent.net/i/misc/Vertigro/index.html


What do you think?

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George

PLEASE! PLEASE! Fill in your first name and location in your profile. I like to know who you are and where you are from. If you don't want me to know who you are, then I don't want to talk to you.

Check twice!

George

There are many ways of getting a point across, and your point is very clear. I do agree this would be a great resource that wiould solve a lot of energy concerns. I feel it could go along way towards helping a growing population that is so dependant on fosscil fuel.

As I see things now, oil is the "controling grip" on world domination. There are some very rich oil men that will support it on the surface and find ways to drag it out. I look at a simple thing like the electric car, wind power, solor power, why are these alternatives not supported like the nuclear, gas, oil related industries. Hum, I know why.... they have not found a way of controlling the wind or sun yet so no one can make money off it.

I guess my point is this, I think that will go the same way other effective ways to help the world has gone,,, behind the shed. I do not want to sound cynical but I do not see mankind being that smart,,, intelligent yes.

Hey, think of the bright side, as we evolve we will learn to live on smog and breathe out oxygen.

Just another theroy!

Have a great day
John

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John

Cleaning my glasses will not make me look any better, but will make what I'm looking at better!

mftha

I have heard of similar efforts, but this one does appear to be by far the most efficient. The more I watch it the more I like it. Thank you for sharing this video, George. This and related processes have advantages over fossil fuels in that the carbon is being recycled quickly, so in principle it does not add any new carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

This process also has tremendous advantages over food for biofuels in that food is not being taken off the market, and it beats the switchgrass efforts because the turn around time is much shorter than three years, and again agricultural land is not taken out of food production.

Brazil is held up as a model for the world for use of biofuels, and they are not dependent on imported fossil fuels. However, they are doing so at the expense of the Amazon rainforest, which controls to greater or lesser extents weather and climate for all of South America, Central America, and North America, and even for the whole world. If they were to adopt the technology of this video, the Amazon would have a chance to recover, and the value of that cannot be overstated.

The process shown in the video could indeed be a valuable intermediate step. However even if we were to stop adding carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, there would continue be warming for several years. Hence my call for an international effort to make practical and economical energy sources that do not depend on carbon combustion. This effort must be of such magnitude that makes the Manhattan Project, and the American and Russian Space programs look collectively like me on a Saturday afternoon.

John, although I am sounding the alarm, I am optimistic enough to believe that we can save ourselves. We know what needs to be done, we do have much of the technology in hand. The main missing ingredient at this point is governmental leadership willing to fund the necessary efforts, and I do think that in a few months the world's self-proclaimed technological leader will have such leadership.

Harry, I take it as high praise that you call my words eloquent. I had a couple of paragraphs for you but something happened and they got lost so I will try to regenerate them later. I basically agree with you.

__________________
Tom (NOT Template Tom; I'm nowhere near his league)
One does not know what they are doing until they can make a mistake and correct it.
DO Something, DO ANYTHING to Stop Global Warming