We are going to need electricity for our cars ... but not from coal!
Time and time again, from expert after expert, we hear that the nations of the planet must start turning to clean sources of energy, and fast. Vinod Khosla recently suggested that we use solar thermal sources, and he also mentioned that nuclear may be an option for the future. Solar arrays seem to be popping up, many times by individual companies looking to save on their own energy costs. Wind farms have been making the news as of late as well, sometimes we hear more from the people against them, but we hear about them anyway. When was the last time you heard about a new coal fired power plant being built? How about today?
That may just be a reality in the U.K., as Greenpeace reports. It seems that a company by the name of Eon has proposed a few new coal plants, ones that are only able to achieve 45 percent efficiency at that! In case you were wondering, the last new coal plant built in the U.K. 33 years ago. Progress? More like on step forward, two steps back!
[Source: Greenpeace via Hugg]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tony Belding 12:58PM (5/02/2007)
Not sure why this is news? Here in Texas, TXU recently floated plans to build 11 new coal-fired power plants. After a lot of lobbying from environmentalists, TXU agreed to cancel eight of those. That is progress, I suppose, but it means three of them are going ahead.
TXU has also ordered two of the biggest nuclear reactors that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries offers.
What about wind? Texas recently surpassed California as the state producing the most wind power. (Red tape in California gets the blame for slowing their projects and increasing their costs.) Despite the growth in wind, it has many limitations that I think will prevent it from displacing coal, natural gas and nuclear power on a wide scale.
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Jimmy 2:52PM (5/02/2007)
"only able to achieve 45 percent efficiency" ??
The *most* efficient coal power plant (at least as of early 2003) is the Tomatoh-Atsuma Power Station No. 4 in Japan. This Hitachi plant has a thermal efficiency of 49.83%, making it the best coal power plant in the world.
The Greenpeace article is claiming higher efficiencies is a bit misleading. If I cook a potato on my muffler does that mean my car is more efficient? Also, the urban combined heat and power systems they propose generally use increasingly scarce natural gas rather than coal.
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Tormod Henne 5:22PM (5/02/2007)
Big deal.
In China, they are planning 600 new coal fired plants.
(Sorry, the references are in Norwegian, but still..)
http://www.tu.no/energi/article90585.ece
In Beijing, they stopped traffic for 3 days because of as summit meeting,
and the effect on the air quality was visible from NASA's satellites.
http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/miljo/article1767073.ece
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J 8:52AM (5/03/2007)
here in western PA the have billboards that say somethign about new coal tech being the green power soure of the future...
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TuuSaR 11:10AM (5/03/2007)
In Finland efficiency goes to around 80-90% when same plant produces heat for housing.
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