Thread: Trump 'does believe in climate change', as US ambassador to UN

Trump 'does believe in climate change', as US ambassador to UN

39 minutes ago
June 3, 2017

US President Donald Trump "believes the climate is changing and he believes pollutants are part of the equation", says the US ambassador to the UN.

He know "the US has to be responsible for it and that's what we're going to do," said Nikki Haley.

The president provoked widespread condemnation when he announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate change agreement.

The US becomes one of only three countries outside its framework.

When he made the announcement, Mr Trump said the deal would hurt the US economy. He made no mention of climate change science.

During his election campaign, Mr Trump had said that climate change was a hoax and, since his announcement on Thursday, has avoided questions on the subject, as has White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

"Just because the US got out of a club doesn't mean we aren't going to care about the environment," Ms Haley told CNN, adding that the terms of the Paris agreement, reached in 2015, were "too onerous".

Scott Pruitt, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, said: "The world applauded when we joined Paris. And you know why? I think they applauded because they knew it would put this country at a disadvantage."

Mr Trump said the agreement would cost the US $3tn (£2.3tn) in lost GDP and 6.5 million jobs - while rival economies like China and India were treated more favourably.

The president is "absolutely intent on making sure that we have clean air, clean water, that he makes sure that we're doing everything we can to keep America's moral compass in the world when it comes to the environment," said Ms Haley.

Only war-torn Syria and Nicaragua, which believes the accords don't go far enough, failed to sign the Paris agreement.

China, the EU and India, which along with the US make up the four biggest emitters of carbon dioxide, ehave restated their commitment to the accord.

"The protection of the environment and the mother planet is an article of faith," said India's President Narendra Modi, after meeting France's President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Saturday.

The Paris agreement committed countries to keeping rising global temperatures "well below" 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels and "endeavour to limit" them even more, to 1.5C.

The World Meteorological Organisation said that, in the worst scenario, the US pullout could add 0.3C to global temperatures by the end of the century.

France and India are members of the International Solar Alliance, set up following the Paris agreement, which aims to generate $1tn of investment in solar power by 2030.

What was agreed in Paris?

Climate change, or global warming, refers to the damaging effect of gases, or emissions, released from industry, transportation, agriculture and other areas into the atmosphere.

The Paris accord is meant to limit the global rise in temperature attributed to emissions. Only Syria and Nicaragua did not sign up.

Countries agreed to:

Keep global temperatures "well below" the level of 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times and "endeavour to limit" them even more, to 1.5C

Limit the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally, beginning at some point between 2050 and 2100

Review each country's contribution to cutting emissions every five years so they scale up to the challenge

Enable rich countries to help poorer nations by providing "climate finance" to adapt to climate change and switch to renewable energy

Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies says the world's average temperature has risen by about 0.8C since 1880, two-thirds of that since 1975.

US think tank Climate Interactive predicts that if all nations fully achieve their Paris pledges, the average global surface temperature rise by 2100 will be 3.3C, or 3.6C without the US.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-40147749

Clean coal technology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about technological innovations related to coal pollution mitigation. For the general concept of mitigation, see Coal pollution mitigation.

Clean coal technology is a collection of technologies being developed to attempt to help lessen the environmental impact of coal energy generation and to mitigate worldwide climate change.[1] When coal is used as a fuel source, the gaseous emissions generated by the thermal decomposition of the coal include sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), mercury, and other chemical byproducts that vary depending on the type of the coal being used. These emissions have been established to have a negative impact on the environment and human health, contributing to acid rain, lung cancer and cardiovascular disease. As a result, clean coal technologies are being developed to remove or reduce pollutant emissions to the atmosphere. Some of the techniques that would be used to accomplish this include chemically washing minerals and impurities from the coal, gasification (see also IGCC), improved technology for treating flue gases to remove pollutants to increasingly stringent levels and at higher efficiency, carbon capture and storage technologies to capture the carbon dioxide from the flue gas and dewatering lower rank coals (brown coals) to improve the calorific value, and thus the efficiency of the conversion into electricity.

Clean coal technology usually addresses atmospheric problems resulting from burning coal. Historically, the primary focus was on SO2 and NOx, the most important gases in causation of acid rain, and particulates which cause visible air pollution and deleterious effects on human health. Concerns exist regarding the economic viability of these technologies and the timeframe of delivery,[2] potentially high hidden economic costs in terms of social and environmental damage,[3] and the costs and viability of disposing of removed carbon and other toxic matter.[4][5]

Contents

1 Technology
2 Demonstration projects in the United States
3 Clean coal and the environment
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links
8.1 Magazines and Journals
8.2 Websites
8.2.1 Government Web Sites
8.2.2 University Web Sites

Technology

Several different technological methods are available for the purpose of carbon capture as demanded by the clean coal concept:

Pre-combustion capture - This involves gasification of a feedstock (such as coal) to form synthesis gas, which may be shifted to produce a H2 and CO2-rich gas mixture, from which the CO2 can be efficiently captured and separated, transported, and ultimately sequestered,[6] This technology is usually associated with Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle process configurations.[7]
Post-combustion capture - This refers to capture of CO2 from exhaust gases of combustion processes.
Oxy-fuel combustion - Fossil fuels such as coal are burned in a mixture of recirculated flue gas and oxygen, rather than in air, which largely eliminates nitrogen from the flue gas enabling efficient, low-cost CO2 capture.[8]

The Kemper County IGCC Project, a 582 MW coal gasification-based power plant, will use pre-combustion capture of CO2 to capture 65% of the CO2 the plant produces, which will be utilized/geologically sequestered in enhanced oil recovery operations.[9]

The Saskatchewan Government's Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Sequestration Demonstration Project will use post-combustion, amine-based scrubber technology to capture 90% of the CO2 emitted by Unit 3 of the power plant; this CO2 will be pipelined to and utilized for enhanced oil recovery in the Weyburn oil fields.[10]
An oxyfuel CCS power plant operation processes the exhaust gases so as to separate the CO2 so that it may be stored or sequestered

An early example of a coal-based plant using (oxy-fuel) carbon-capture technology is Swedish company Vattenfall’s Schwarze Pumpe power station located in Spremberg, Germany, built by German firm Siemens, which went on-line in September 2008.[11][12] The facility captures CO2 and acid rain producing pollutants, separates them, and compresses the CO2 into a liquid. Plans are to inject the CO2 into depleted natural gas fields or other geological formations. Vattenfall opines that this technology is considered not to be a final solution for CO2 reduction in the atmosphere, but provides an achievable solution in the near term while more desirable alternative solutions to power generation can be made economically practical.[12]

Other examples of oxy-combustion carbon capture are in progress. Callide Power Station has retrofitted a 30-MWth existing PC-fired power plant to operate in oxy-fuel mode; in Ciuden, Spain, Endesa has a newly built 30-MWth oxy-fuel plant using circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFBC) technology.[13] Babcock-ThermoEnergy's Zero Emission Boiler System (ZEBS) is oxy-combustion-based; this system features near 100% carbon-capture and according to company information virtually no air-emissions.[14]

Other carbon capture and storage technologies include those that dewater low-rank coals. Low-rank coals often contain a higher level of moisture content which contains a lower energy content per tonne. This causes a reduced burning efficiency and an increased emissions output. Reduction of moisture from the coal prior to combustion can reduce emissions by up to 50 percent.[citation needed]

The UK government's is working towards a clean energy future and supports clean coal projects across the country. In August 2010, UK-based company B9 Coal announced a clean coal project with 90% carbon capture to be put forward to DECC. This would help the UK raise its profile amongst green leaders across the world. This proposed project, gasifies coal underground and processes it to create pure streams of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen is then used as an emissions-free fuel to run an alkaline fuel cell whilst the carbon dioxide is captured. This UK project could provide a world-leading template for clean coal with CCS globally.
Demonstration projects in the United States

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) began conducting a joint program with the industry and State agencies to demonstrate clean coal technologies large enough for commercial use. The program, called the Clean Coal Technology & Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI), has had a number of successes that have reduced emissions and waste from coal-based electricity generation.[15] The National Energy Technology Laboratory has administered three rounds of CCPI funding and the following projects were selected during each round:[16]

Round 1 CCPI Projects
Advanced Multi-Product Coal Utilization By-Product Processing Plant
Demonstration of Integrated Optimization Software at the Baldwin Energy Complex
Gilberton Coal-to-Clean Fuels and Power Co-Production Project
Increasing Power Plant Efficiency: Lignite Fuel Enhancement
TOXECON Retrofit for Mercury and Multi-Pollutant Control on Three 90-MW Coal-Fired Boilers
Western Greenbrier Co-Production Demonstration Project
Commercial Demonstration of the Airborne Process
Integration of Advanced Emission Controls to Produce Next-Generation Circulating Fluid Bed Coal Generating Unit
Round 2 CCPI Projects
Airborne Process Commercial Scale Demonstration Program
Demonstration of a Coal-Based Transport Gasifier
Mercury Species and Multi-Pollutant Control Project
Mesaba Energy Project
Round 3 CCPI Projects
American Electric Power Project
Antelope Valley Station Post-Combustion CO2 Project
Hydrogen Energy California Project
NRG Energy Project
Southern Company Carbon Capture Kemper Project
Summit Texas Clean Energy Project

These programs have helped to meet regulatory challenges by incorporating pollution control technologies into a portfolio of cost-effective regulatory compliance options for conventional and developmental coal-fired power plants. This portfolio has positioned the U.S. as a top exporter of clean coal technologies such as those used for SOx, NOx and mercury, and more recently for carbon capture, consistent with a goal of deploying advanced coal-based power systems in commercial service with improved efficiency and environmental performance to meet increasingly stringent environmental regulations and market demands, leading to widespread, global deployment which will contribute to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The DOE continues its programs and initiatives through regional sequestration partnerships, a carbon sequestration leadership forum and the Carbon Sequestration Core Program, a CCS research and development program.[17]

According to a report by the assistant secretary for fossil energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, clean coal technology has paid measurable dividends. Technological innovation introduced through the CCT Program now provides consumers cost-effective, clean, coal-based energy.[18]

According to United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the burning of coal, a fossil fuel, is a major contributor to global warming. (See the UN IPCC Fourth Assessment Report). As 25.5% of the world's electrical generation in 2004 was from coal-fired generation (see World energy resources and consumption), reaching the carbon dioxide reduction targets of the Kyoto Protocol will require modifications to how coal is utilized.[19]

Coal, which is primarily used for the generation of electricity,[20] is the second largest domestic contributor to carbon dioxide emissions in the USA.[21] The public has become more concerned about global warming which has led to new legislation. The coal industry has responded by running advertising touting clean coal in an effort to counter negative perceptions and claiming more than $50 billion towards the development and deployment of "traditional" clean coal technologies over the past 30 years; and promising $500 million towards carbon capture and storage research and development.[22]

Some in the coal industry(C2ES)and the U.S. Department of Energy refer to carbon capture and sequestration (CCUS) as the latest in clean coal technologies. CCS is a means to capture carbon dioxide from any source, compress it to a dense liquid-like state, and inject and permanently store it underground. Currently, there are more than 80 carbon capture and sequestration projects underway in the United States.[23] All components of CCS technology have been used for decades in conjunction with enhanced oil recovery and other applications; commercial-scale CCS is currently being tested in the U.S. and other countries.[by whom?] Proposed CCS sites are subjected to extensive investigation and monitoring to avoid potential hazards, which could include leakage of sequestered CO2 to the atmosphere, induced geological instability, or contamination of aquifers used for drinking water supplies.[24][25]

Supporters[who?] of clean coal use the Great Plains Synfuels plant to support the technical feasibility of carbon dioxide sequestration. Carbon dioxide from the coal gasification is shipped to Canada where it is injected into the ground to aid in oil recovery. Supporters[who?] admit that carbon sequestration is expensive.[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_coal_technology

I like the idea of the clean coal technology. Makes perfect sense and this needs to be implemented as soon as practical to do so. It grabs the greenhouse gases with the scrubbers. Our Clean Air Act required scrubbers years ago, yet many stacks still do not have them. This needs to be corrected and scrubbers installed as soon as possible.