Environmental Load Of Coal Gas

In the United States, 42 percent of the nation’s electricity is generated by burning coal as coal is cheap and plentiful.

Clean coal technology usually addresses atmospheric problems resulting from burning coal. Historically, the primary focus was on sulfur dioxide and particulates, since it is the most important gas in the causation of acid rain. More recent focus has been on carbon dioxide (due to its impact on global warming) as well as other pollutants. Concerns exist regarding the economic viability of these technologies and the timeframe of delivery, potentially high hidden economic costs in terms of social and environmental damage, and the costs and viability of disposing of removed carbon and other toxic matter. More, the byproducts of coal power production range from fly ash sludge ponds full of mercury, arsenic, and sulfur in unlined ponds that can leak into the water supply.

Carbon emissions are changing the planet for the worse. Energy production (mostly coal) is producing a one third of the US 's global warming emissions. Renewable sources produce little to zero percent. The balance of coal and renewable energy in the U.S. needs to be evened out with renewable techniques. Statistics from the Union of Concerned Scientist’s “Benefits of Renewable Energy Use” show that most renewable resources emit less than one pound of CO2E/kWh. These have significantly less of a carbon footprint than coal, which emits 1.4 to 3.6 lbs. CO2E/kWh or natural gas, which emits .6 to 2 lbs. CO2E/kWh. This impressive difference of carbon emissions between renewable and fossil fuel is the key to caring for our environment. A 2009 USC study found that if 25 percent of the US 's

Jason Hayes, communications director for the American Coal Council says “the industry over the past few decades had invested over $100 billion in cleaning up emissions and it’s already been effective. All of the important noxious pollutants have decreased markedly over the last 30 to 40 years. We’ve been doing all of this on top of dealing with everything else.” Coal may not be green, but it is a source of energy American needs. It is cheap and efficient. Without coal, America wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is today. The coal mined here isn’t just used for energy. America’s

A shift towards wholesale AES usage would entail a significant reduction of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, our use of fossil fuels and consequent greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change, destroying natural habitats, and causing ill effects in terms of our population’s health, through pollution-related illness (Atabani et al., 2012). While AES is proposed to be the most viable solution to decreasing the ill effects of fossil fuels, some propose there are ways that California can and should utilize our current fuels in more environmentally safer ways for before shifting directly towards alternative fuel. With regards to CO2 emissions from coal, some propose that so-called “Clean Coal,” or “Carbon Capture and Storage” (CCS) represents an environmentally-viable energy production strategy whereby the United States and California can use their abundant coal reserves, and trap the CO2 emissions, thus burning the product without damaging the environment (Noorden,

Since its first commercial use in powering the industrial era during the 1700s, coal has been the dominate fuel for industry and power generation. At its peak in 1947, the coal industry in the United States employed over 500,000 miners and removed over a billion short tons of coal from the earth [1][2]. In recent years, these numbers have dropped to employing 80,396 people and mining 984.8 million short tons of coal in 2013 [3].

Many of these are released into the atmosphere as hazardous air pollutants…and many of them are harmful to health” (Lockwood 17). The EPA has done many studies to determine the elements that are released from the burning of coal and the amount of each is measured. While the amounts may be minute, over time with exposure they can damage to human organs. For this reason many activists desire to eliminate or slow down the use of coal for generating electricity. While it is true that the elements and compounds are harmful to humans, the amount of some of these elements is not truly harmful. The benefits of having cheap energy far out way the negatives from the pollution. The average life expectancy is on the rise around the planet and cheap energy has improved the lives of many in poor countries. The U.S. government and the EPA have created many laws to protect citizens and to force coal burning facilities to reduce emissions. Renewable sources for energy are good, but the sun does not always shine, nor the wind blow, and at those times, coal is

Imagine your daily life and how much technology is integrated into it, now, even if you don’t think that you use a lot of technology, remember that most of what we use today in our daily lives, need some sort of electricity to make it, or run it. We live in a world that is almost dependent upon electricity, modern life is unimaginable without electricity. Coal produces almost half of the electricity we use. There is much controversy about coal and why we rely on it so heavily. The question that emerges from this controversy is “should we be mining and processing as much coal as we do on a daily basis, and should we downscale, or find alternatives?”

James Goodell is a long-time contributing columnist for Rolling Stone Magazine and the New York Times Magazine. Goodell’s main contributions are writing about environmental issues, such as industrial pollution, and the problem of long-term environmental sustainability. Goodell does meticulous research through interviews with coal miners, coal industry executives, and other participants in the chain-linked process of coal production and usage.

The coal industry has shaped our world for over 200 years. Its need is based on the cheap price of energy that it provides to its consumer. Today, coal is still cheap in price and a reliable product for its consumers, but it provides harmful CO2 emissions to our planet and can be expensive to build new plants. Still the coal industry is something that will never go away. It will continue to decline as renewables and other energy resources come into play for specific developed nations, but will never be taken completely from these economies and younger nations.

For many centuries coal has been used to generate energy, steel production, cement manufacturing and liquid fuel (Uses of Coal, n.d.). To access the coal, humans mine areas that have a big resource of the rock. Studies have shown the decrease of coal mining in the economy, the people not agreeing with their land being used due to the culture of the land that the coal is on and the harmful effects that coal mining causes to the environment.

Coal has been one of the main and most used resources of energy, although it is a non-renewable resource and is a fossil fuel. Most countries depend on the combustion of coal when it comes to generating electricity. Burning coal has its advantages, like efficiently releasing energy in the form of heat, but it also has its disadvantages. The combustion of coal contributes to many environmental issues like climate change and acid rain, which lead to many health problems. One of the main polluting products of coal combustion is

CO2 is the most significant greenhouse gas, which mainly comes from the use of fossil fuels. Many people feel that content of CO2 in the atmosphere is the main reason for manmade global warming. The main sources of CO2 emissions involve electricity generation, industrial processes, fumes from transportation and commercial buildings and use. Emissions of greenhouse gases, such as CO2, to the atmosphere are expected to cause even more of a significant change in global climate (Davison, 2007). The main focus to try to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is to reduce the amount that is released from coal-fired power plants. Greenhouse gas emissions that involve the productions of electricity come from natural gas production and coal-fired power plant operations. Natural gas production accounts for twenty-four percent and coal-fired power plant operations accounts for seventy-five percent, while the other one percent is caused by other electricity generation operations. The main reason why coal-fired power plants have a higher percentage of emissions is because the sulfur content of coal is much higher than that of other fossil fuels (Jarmaillo et al., 2007). This proves that there is a great need to find an alternative fossil fuel to use instead of coal. Although coal is easy to mine, transport and process for the electricity generation process, it is also the

China has been the world 's leading coal producer and consumer in recent years. China accounted for 47 percent of total global coal consumption and 20 percent of world energy-related CO2 emissions in 2012. China held an estimated 126 billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves in 2011, the third-largest in the world behind the United States and Russia. Coal comprised 69% of China 's total energy consumption in 2011. Characterized by increasing domestic production and importation, coal’s dominance in China’s energy consumption sector is likely to sustain in the future. Thus, the regulatory and price reform regarding coal would bring significant influences in transforming China’s energy sector. The gradual reform

CO2 emission related problem is a major culprit for the increasingly degrading air quality and power industry is considered a major culprit for this. In case of United States, Kansas holds the 27th position in terms of CO2 emission by the power industry [1]. Coal has