A. No practical disagreement. Again, I support electrical generation through any means economically viable. I don't support ruling out any economically viable means without concrete reasons to do so.
B. I don't understand this. First, "we" is not defined. Are you talking about use in the currently developed world, or use in the entire world? My figures are based on US consumption. United States coal consumption is decreasing as is coal's share of electricity generation also falls, and so your generalization does not consider current US trends but rather assumes trends that no evidence exists for. Half-electrified, semi-industrialised America in 1910 burned 12.71 quadrillion Btu's worth of coal. A century later we burn 19.76 quadrillion Btu's to generate 48% of our electrical power with fifteen times the GDP and the population tripled. That's less coal used per capita today compared to 100 years ago, and the trend is that we will continue to use less and less coal per capita as time goes on. Meanwhile the US population is expected to effectively level off in the next decade or so. In recent history, we're using less coal today than we did ten years ago, so when you assume coal demand will rise, I don't think you're considering the real long term trends. Secondly coal is not going to be widely used, in the US at least, because it will continue to trend downward as easier coal is mined and more expensive coal has to be brought up. As fuel costs increase for coal power, other sources will become more profitable. Companies, in their drive for profits, will shift to nuclear power because they can produce electricity for less. Any company attempting what you suggest, raising prices to stay profitable, will find themselves undercut by competitors who already made the switch and can provide kWh for less. So in the end, what you propose is government coercion to make a decision. I do not, however, understand why you feel making that decision can't wait until it is economically viable on the open market. For developing countries to use this resource requires it to still be mined and burned, so there is still pollution. You want them to be able to buy the resource from the world, and that means developed nations selling coal they mine, with the associated pollution. But the US is already a net exporter of coal, and honestly its bottleneck is a lack of port capacity on the west coast. Meanwhile we still move closer to this non-issue of running out of coal. So aside from just wanting to force the US coal industry out of business, I just can't see a reasoning for what you suggest. There is no looming crisis of running out of coal in the US. Coal consumption is declining and being overtaken by other power sources in the US. The pollution problems have largely been solved in the US. Nuclear power competes with price, and photovoltic solar cells are starting to become marketable for home or business needs. There is really no need to "ensure that renewable energy replacement will be viable and desirable for everyone sooner rather than later," especially if it means tweaking the market through subsidies and taxes. This so-called problem is manufactured at best and will sort itself out over the next few decades to half century as plants wear out and get replaced. Forcing a switch will only increase energy costs (harming everyone) unless you subsidize the alternative (requiring federal money). Coal power is still economical unless you penalize it (harming some 100,000+ workers). In the end you have a lot of negatives caused only out of impatience, running from a crisis that will never happen given current trends.
It seems to me we inherited a vast wine cellar, and after realizing the bottles will eventually run out for our grandchildren (assuming we become alcoholics and our children are worse and none of us find some more bottles in the back or just get sick of wine), decided to switch to beer.
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Topic: Alternative energy sources (Read 19913 times)