96 comments on Coal in an Engine does not need Fischer Tropsch
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Sigh...
DMathew1 and Oegon7, Heading Out isn't advocating the use of coal to deal with Peak Oil. He's discussing the science so that we are better informed.
Hello IntoTheBlack,
If Heading Out doesn't speak about the negative consequences of using coal in this manner he is doing the readers a disservice. The fossil fuels industries prefers to not think about the consequences.
But the consequences are important to me. Coal is an obscenely dirty fuel source. The carbon in coal is best sequestered in the ground as coal.
David Mathews
http://www.geocities.com/dmathew1
Sigh...
IntoTheBlack, I was afraid that what was going on. He is taking a "just the facts" approach, and it is being published because the facts are believed to be morally neutral.
So... a serious discussion of a new way to build an atomic bomb is just an exploration of physics and engineering... an informed public discussion of a new way to build a computer virus for Windows Vista is just an exploration of practical computer science issues... an IBM sale of computing technology to Nazi Germany in the 1940s was just a way of helping a foreign government keep track of details....and so on?
It is certainly possible to have a discussion about oil and its alternatives, but let's not imagine that such a discussion can be value neutral when the recent IPCC report suggests that we are on a sinking ship.
People on The Oil Drum like to take the big picture about the future of the global economy... shouldn't we consider how the choices made in the global economy affect the global ecology? Is it really possible to discuss technologies that could if successfully promulgated kill the planet and human life on it as value neutral alternatives?
I suppose you could say climate change is beyond the mandate of The Oil Drum... but isn't the word "future" in "discussions about energy and our future"?
Is there any more basic fact about our future than the fact that the earth is rapidly warming due to global carbon emissions.
So, sigh, no, I don't see how it is possible to have a value neutral discussion about potential ways to use our vast coal resources to enable the economy to keep chugging along and using the atomosphere as a carbon sink.
I just don't get an effort at value neutrality when coal is involved.
I'm not against a discussion of the science/engineering of using coal as a fuel... but I'd expect at least a few comments by the author to the effect that, "if scaled up to widespread use, and if the technological challenges are met, this technology has the potential to enable the increased use of coal, which could hasten the end of human life on earth."
Just a note. A little comment. Some indication of contextual awareness. Since he didn't provide it, I found it necessary to do it myself.