T. Boone Pickens Goes on the Record about Coal

Some of our staff attended T. Boone Pickens’ speech at the National Press Club this afternoon, at which he spoke about reducing U.S. dependency on foreign oil and the need for a comprehensive energy plan using American-only resources, confirming: “I’m for everything that’s American when it comes to energy.”

Naturally, his “everything American” stance appeals to us, as coal is the country’s most abundant resource. And we were (mostly) pleased to hear Pickens talk about American coal during the Q-and-A session.

A questioner asked if he thought there was a place for coal in the overall American energy plan. Without hesitating, Pickens responded, “I’m ready to go [on coal]. Coal is fine with me, but we’ve got to clean it up.”

We’ve got a small bone to pick with the latter half of that statement, as Mr. Pickens seems unaware that we’ve been cleaning up coal. In fact, coal is 70 percent cleaner today than it was in 1970, based on the regulated pollutants per unit of energy produced.

This is due in large part to the more than $50 billion electricity providers have invested in clean coal technologies. And as far as we’re concerned, we’re just getting started.

Comments

[mike johnston]

Coal is somewhat misunderstood by many people and to pin someone down to a one sentence opinion on it is not really the right thing to do.

Coal gassification, such as with the FutureGen technology, can indeed be as clean as natural gas. In fact coal gas, or hydrogen from reacting coal and water, like biogas can be used as a fuel in cars and trucks which have been converted to using compressed natural gas.

From this perspective I believe that coal can be a big part of our domestic energy supply in years to come. Part of the technology for this though must remove sulfur and mercury from the coal gas and I believe this is now being done.

Many people see only the old style coal plants where coal is burned directly under a boiler and the gasses produced are released to the atmosphere. Even with "scrubbers" on the stacks many pollutants are still released.

Coal gassification technology is different however in that these pollutants can be removed and the resulting gas is as clean as natural gas as a fuel.

For that mater, I believe that, as cars and trucks begin to use CNG fuel more and more, electric plants that currently use natural gas as a fuel could be converted to run on coal gas, hydrogen or syngas produced from coal on site and thereby avoid any competition between transportation and power generating sectors for natural gas supplies.

So, while the Pickens Plan does not specifically mention coal, I believe that there is room for modern coal technologies such as I have described in our energy future and I am sure that Mr. Pickens would agree.

[Sam]

I am all for Clean Coal if we really think that we can totally reduce our emissions, but I would even so like to decrease the amount of electricity that comes from coal just to make more renewable and nuclear sources bigger. I think that about 25% of power should come from coal, so we can still use it without being addicted to it.

[Franco]

Clean coal can only be achieved by putting more energy into the process to produce hydrogen: mixing coal and water does not spontaneously produce hydrogen, there is an energy input. The result may be cleaner, but the net energy usage and carbon emissions of the entire process may not be.

[tobias]

Franco - burning coal produces a lot of energy, and some of that could be used to pump the CO2 fumes of the coal-burning to long-term sequestration, making it "CO2 neutral", in the parlance of our times. This CO2 neutral energy could be used to split H20 into hydrogen and oxygen, I wouldn't consider that to be 'putting more energy in'.

[Lonna Barker]

I am a 68 year old, informed West Virginia woman who has gone to the mountains to view the devastion and toxic use of coal. Let me say it as clear as I can. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN COAL! The methane gas released into the air after a mountain is blown up and has been leveled, is more toxic to the enviroment than almost anything else. And if anyone thinks this is not affecting Global Warming they do not listen to the scientist who have proven otherwise. After this election I plan to fight Mountain Top Removal with the masses and Ms. Phalin can go back to Alaska and futher destroy the enviroment she promotes.