President Barack Obama wants to develop a process for burning coal without releasing carbon into the atmosphere. He calls this “clean coal.” He says that a nation that put a man on the moon, surely should be able to develop clean coal.
It’s interesting to me that he makes that comparison. Putting a man on the moon was a very expensive government boondoggle. The moon program was conceived primarily as a response to the Soviets having beaten us into space with the first orbiting satellite, Sputnik. After about ten years and billions of dollars, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon on 20 July 1969. The last astronauts to walk on the moon did so in 1972. They left a plaque with this message: “Here man completed his first explorations of the Moon, December 1972.” In over 36 years we haven’t been back.
In other words, there was no real point in putting a man on the moon; we just wanted to show that we could do it.
Actually, I suspect that Obama’s comparison is more apt than he would like to admit. I have no doubt that given enough money and time we can develop a clean coal burning process. But once we’ve done it we will probably realize that it is too expensive to use for any practical purpose.
Have you seen the Coen brothers advertisement on “clean coal”? It is hysterical.
I understand the “solution” is to pipe the pollutants underground. Oh yeah, that would work. Then we could drink black water in Florida.
No, I haven’t seen that ad. I’ll watch for it.
Yes, I’ve read about the underground storage proposal. Most of the experts think it won’t be feasible. You’d think we could just separate the CO2 into C and O and then put them to productive use. I suppose, though, that the separation process would produce more CO2 than it uses. But trees do it, so why should it be so hard?
Send the spare CO2 to Coca-Cola and Pepsi.