A new National Academies report was released yesterday in prepublication format: Liquid Transportation Fuels from Coal and Biomass: Technological Status, Costs and Environmental Impacts.
This is the first major report in a series associated with the Academy’s project, America’s Energy Future: Technology Opportunities, Risks and Tradeoffs. You can find more information about the Academy’s America’s Energy Future project at www.nationalacademies.org/energy and the National Academies Press for the full liquid fuels report here.
2 comments:
Re: coal- a very important excerpt here, from the press release:
"It should not be assumed that there will be enough coal mined to support the demands for both electrical power and for transportation fuels."
Our coal reserves are often presented in units of years, assuming current rates of consumption (of course the consumption rate is actually growing), and this also neglects to account for the expanded use of coal through non-traditional technologies such as liquification. My main fears about expanding the use of coal in this country are that 1) CO2 sequestration will lag far behind new coal rates, exacerbating our climate problem, and 2) in the rush to expand coal mining yields we will see an expansion of the most destructive mining techniques, especially mountaintop removal mining, across the Appalachians.
I'm happy to see that they aren't proposing more corn-derived ethanol but instead grass-derived. Again, use caution when interpreting their suggestion that biomass could displace 15 percent of our oil use by 2030. 1.6 M barrels of *projected* oil equivalent is 15 percent of 10.7 M barrels of oil, while our *current* transportation-sector consumption is quoted as being 14 M barrels sper day. I've yet to read of a projected decrease in our transportataion energy demand, so it's not clear to me how they arrive at this number.
I share your fears about the expansion of coal plants. In particular, I find it interesting how mountaintop removal has somehow managed to stay under the radar for quite some time. I think a recently developed google earth layer does a fantastic job of helping visualize the potential consequences. You can see it here (I recommend opening the link in a new window to view it properly). And if you don't care to install Google Earth, don't worry as there is a youtube clip there to preview it and learn more about the issue.
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