Comments on: The “other” Achilles heel of coal

By: donald the duck

donald the duck — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 02:21:25 +0000

Georgia could use some solar panel factories. That could provide employment, no?

By: Kirk Sorensen

Kirk Sorensen — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:12:33 +0000

High temperature reactors (like the liquid-fluoride thorium reactor) can use closed-cycle gas turbines for power conversion, and air-cooling, thus getting them around the “achilles-heel” of water supply. It won’t be much of a hit to use air-cooling on high-temperature reactors.

By: David B. Benson

David B. Benson — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:58:52 +0000

Also, burning coal emits mercury, arsenic, selenium, …

Bad stuff, that coal.

By: john

john — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 17:49:22 +0000

You can add two more reason for not using coal to this growing list:

Mountaintop mining as practied in West Virginia destroys vistas and pollutes scarce water; Strip mining as practiced in Wyoming, Utah and the rest of the west does the same.

Mining kills men and women, and destroys their health.

Bad stuff, that coal.

By: Lou Grinzo

Lou Grinzo — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 14:04:21 +0000

We’re seeing yet another fundamental shift in how we use energy (not that we lacked them before now), in that we have to account for not just CO2 emissions and other pollution, fuel supply, etc., but water consumption. This is yet another reason to push hard to develop and deploy the non-thermoelectric technologies, wind, solar, wave, and tidal power.