[sasquatch2]

With the current technology---yellow-cake to uranium--fission reactors and fossil fuels both of which are in finite supply......two things are required to continue the general membership of mankind's advancement and survival.

1. Research and development or something like fusion reactors....or maybe something undreamt of.

2. Putting this anti-social humbug of CO2 AGW behind us.

In the near term #2 is the most important.

The developing world has an energy requirement that staggers our current 1st world needs. The provision of clean water and better living conditions including better nutrition and health will require flexible energy which only our current fossil fuel technology can provide.

Oil sands and oil shale reserves are impressive but will require nuclear to extract and utilize. Petroleum supplies much much more than simple energy.

At the base of this CO2 AGW agenda is a eugenics agenda that dwarfs anything Hitler ever contemplated. It's covert goal is a major collapse of the world's population.

[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

The developing world has an energy requirement that staggers our current 1st world needs. The provision of clean water and better living conditions including better nutrician and health will require flexible energy which only our current fossil fuel technology can provide.

Which will result in a population explosion putting huge strains on other resources that are already being strained. This will result in a bad situation becoming even worse as forests are downed for agriculture and living space.

[romanP]

sasquatch2 sasquatch2:

At the base of this CO2 AGW agenda is a eugenics agenda that dwarfs anything Hitler ever contemplated. It's covert goal is a major collapse of the world's population.

That's pure crazytalk until you can prove it, which you can't.

[sasquatch2]

romanP

$1:

sasquatch2 wrote:

$1:

At the base of this CO2 AGW agenda is a eugenics agenda that dwarfs anything Hitler ever contemplated. It's covert goal is a major collapse of the world's population.

That's pure crazytalk until you can prove it, which you can't.

Easy! Al Gore bears the mark 666. There is no other explaination for this bizarre BS agenda.

No CO2 = No energy = massive population collapse

[Winnipegger]

Burning coal releases a lot of impurities into the air. All coal dug from the ground contains sulphur, burning sulphur becomes sulphur dioxide gas, which combines with water in the clouds using UV light as energy to form sulphuric acid. That's acid rain. Scrubbers can remove much of the sulphur dioxide but they are expensive and most importantly reduce energy produced, so power plants don't like them. There are also natural radioactive isotopes in coal, in fact a coal burning power plant releases more radiation into the environment per kilowatt hour produced than a nuclear power plant, and that doesn't include chemical pollution. Then there's soot and other pollutants; coal is the dirtiest of all power production technologies.

Clean coal uses high pressure steam to convert carbon from coal into natural gas, then burns that natural gas to boil water into steam. Some of the steam is piped into the conversion chamber, the rest goes through a turbine to generate electricity. A traditional coal burning power plant routes all the steam through a turbine so clean coal requires more coal per kilowatt hour, but the pollutants remain as ash in the conversion chamber. You can safely bury that ash.

As I've said before, Manitoba can build so many hydro dams we can shut down both thermal power generating plants and sell so much power to Ontario that they can shut down 3 of their 4 coal burning plants. Our 2 coal/natural gas plants can be converted to clean coal and reserved as backups. Ontario's 2 small coal plants in Atikokan and Thunder Bay can also be converted to clean coal, and the big Nanticoke plant near Hamilton can be demolished.

Alberta doesn't have an easy alternative. 90% of all power for central and southern Alberta, including Calgary and Edmonton, comes from 2 coal burning power plants. A few years ago an estimate of their coal reserves was 50 years left. Replacing one of them with nuclear would keep the Alberta economy going, the soon they convert the longer coal will last.

Converting tar sand production to nuclear would preserve natural gas. More than half the homes in Manitoba use natural gas because it was cheaper than electricity until Manitoba Hydro bought the natural gas utility. (grumble, grumble, grumble, Monopoly, grumble, grumble)

A nuclear power plant called "next generation" keeps radioactive coolant in the reactor core, preventing radiation from causing accelerated corrosion in pipes. That extends the life of the reactor and makes it safer. It was developed by AECL.

Another nuclear technology is reprocessing, if you combine reprocessing with a breeder reactor it dramatically reduces high level waste. CanDU reactors use non-enriched uranium oxide fuel. Natural uranium is 99.2745% by volume U-238. That doesn't fission, but it absorbs a neutron and through a two step decay becomes plutonium-239. That's more fissile than uranium-235. By separating the uranium and plutonium from spent nuclear fuel rods and putting them back in, and deliberately designing the reactor to use neutron radiation to convert U238 into Pu239, that converts roughly 99% of high level waste into fuel. The worse radioactive isotopes from waste are iodine-131, cesium-137, and strontium-90. These can be separated for safe disposal. Iodine will decay to non-radioactive xenon gas, it's half-life is 8.040 days so just separate iodine and store it until it decays. Iodine is liquid, xenon is gas. The xenon gas can be sold for profit or released into the atmosphere. Xenon is a natural part of air. Caesium and strontium can be exposed to neutron radiation from the reactor to decompose them.

This process would result in less than 1% of high level waste of current reactors, and that waste would not have anything that could be used for a bomb. The most dangerous radioactive stuff would also be removed. In fact, although a reprocessing reactor requires fresh uranium to get it started, once the reactor is operating stored waste from a CanDU reactor could be used as fuel.

Never mind CO2, this is just sound management of non-renewable resources and eliminating acid rain, soot, and the other crap from coal.

Sound like a plan?

[ziggy]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

I've heard it said that every 2 gallons of fuel from the tar sands requires 1 gallon of fuel. That's a simple ratio, but they don't use synthetic crude directly, they use natural gas to boil water to extract oil from tar sands. And their trucks use diesel fuel. But using nuclear power to boil water into steam to extract oil from tar sands would eliminate the need to burn natural gas. It doesn't eliminate the diesel fuel, or the gasoline for cars that the oil will eventually become, but at least it eliminates use of natural gas. That's a reduction, not elimination. At least it's something.

More importantly, we need natural gas to heat our homes. I read that we only have 25 years of natural gas deposits left in this country, and that was a couple years ago. Using natural gas to either generate electricity or extract tar sands is irresponsible use of a non-renewable resource.

25 years???? Better read up on coal bed methane and maybe check out the abundance of coal in every province in Canada before you start falling for that line.

[ziggy]

Never did figure this claim out.

$1:

A few years ago an estimate of their coal reserves was 50 years left.

is this at the current rate of mining? I'll call bullshit on this one.

[Winnipegger]

ziggy ziggy:

Never did figure this claim out.

$1:

A few years ago an estimate of their coal reserves was 50 years left.

is this at the current rate of mining? I'll call bullshit on this one.

Yup. That includes all coal reserves in Alberta. That doesn't include coal imported from outside the province. That's what happens you power the entire province on a fossil fuel.

[Winnipegger]

ziggy ziggy:

Better read up on coal bed methane and maybe check out the abundance of coal in every province in Canada before you start falling for that line.

Are you honestly advocating coal bed methane? Do you know how that works? Montana tried it, they are paying the price. It works by pumping steam down a drill hole into a coal deposit still in the ground. Up comes hot water, steam, and methane. Steam combines with carbon in coal to form natural gas, mostly methane. Some of that natural gas is burned to boil well water to generate the steam. However, the hot water that comes up has a lot of other things in it. Not all the hydrocarbons produced are methane, there are heavier hydrocarbons as well. The hot water has mud, minerals, a lot of salt and other junk from the ground, and all those heavy hydrocarbons. That dirty water is dumped on the ground, after all they have to replenish the aquifur. All the salt and heavy hydrocarbons contaminate the soil so you can't grow anything, not grain or forage. Montana ranchers thought they could operate coal bed methane operations on their ranch, but they're finding it kills the land so they can't grow feed for their cattle. Water runs down hill so neighbouring ranches get contaminated too. This is a really bad idea, you would be better off strip mining the coal. At least then you could put the top soil back after the mine was played out.

Yes, the estimate was 25 years of all natural gas reserves in Canada if we continue at the current rate, and was a couple years ago. That doesn't include coal bed methane.

[Numure]

sasquatch2 sasquatch2:

Numure

$1:

Well, not all of Canada uses Natural Gas to heat their homes. Most homes in Québec are heated using electricity. Electricity that is produced from Hydro-Power plants (95% of it).

Some nuclear but the majority comes from Labrador's Churchill Falls @ pre-inflation prices and a lot of James Bay power that they then sell to New York.

One Nuclear power plant, that is the remaining 5%. Hydro produced 35,190 MW. only 5,429 from Churchill.

[sasquatch2]

I recall back in the 60-70's oil shortage scare, prior to North Sea, Hybernia and Alaska discoveries about how finite our supplies of petroleum and NG were but that had we centuries of coal resources.

It seems we have found a hell of a lot more oil and NG but have revised our coal estimates.

[Winnipegger]

Be careful where the reports come from. The United States has a lot of coal. They have centuries of coal deposits, Alberta doesn't. At the rate Alberta is consuming coal they will run out in the time frame given. Continuing to consume coal at the current rate means Alberta is intending to become dependant on the United States for energy. Ironic for an oil province.

[ziggy]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

Be careful where the reports come from. The United States has a lot of coal. They have centuries of coal deposits, Alberta doesn't. At the rate Alberta is consuming coal they will run out in the time frame given. Continuing to consume coal at the current rate means Alberta is intending to become dependant on the United States for energy. Ironic for an oil province.

Alberta run out of coal????? Dude,I dont know where ya get your info from concerning coal,you may want to read up on it some more.

Canada like the USA also has "centuries" of coal,actually the coal beds were laid down after every ice age so were talking millions of years,not centuries. If you took every mining company in the world and started stripping overburden off Alberta's coal seams it would still take thousands of years to even make a dent in them.You have to know a bit about geology and the folding and faulting of the rocky mountains to really get the gist of what is under our feet.

Also on the continental divide the coal is very low in sulpher,that's why the elk valley in BC is known as the clean coal capital of the world.
Theres massive coal seams under every part of Alberta and BC,in fact in BC we were mining 11 coal seams and most of it go's to China for steel making,only the shitty stuff is used for thermal power generation.Met coal is worth 4 times as much as thermal so you can see why thermal isnt what the mining companies want to mine unless it's close to their plant like genesee or sheerness.
Exshaw concrete out of Bragg creek is a good example of what happens in Alberta when gas prices get too high,they switched to coal to fire their furnaces.With the met prices out of this world it's allmost a nuisance now to keep filling those contracts.

Another point,we in Canada regularly sell our low sulpher coal to the USA so they can blend it with their high sulpher product and then meet the regs for emmisions.It's also a good way to make some money off met coal seam outcrops which would usually get wasted due to oxidization from being in contact with oxygen.

I dont listen or pay much attention to reports,with 23 years under my belt in the coal industry I can tell whats bullshit and someone fed you a full plate of it.
Mining companies are greedy,I participated in one project that cost millions to develop and wouldnt start paying for a few years,when a new company took over that project was scrapped and the mountain was glory holed for 2 years,effectively wasting and burying about 50 million tons of good met coal and ten more years off the life of the mine(never mind the jobs that were wasted).

So Peg,do some more research on coal,then do some on CBM(coal bed methane)and you will see that Alberta will be a leader in the energy industry for many years to come,even after the US has run out of easily accessible coal. I wont even mention the zero emmision coal fired plants that Alberta will be putting online as soon as possible.

Alberta has allways been the leader in energy and will continue to do so because we have the people that look at it proactively instead of a just mine and make money thing.
Also do your homework dude,Alberta's major energy exports are gas,not oil. Seems I have to remind non Albertans of this all the time. Shows that some folks have a bias.

I assisted in getting a mine kyoto compliant when most never even heard of it,wrote the manual for the worlds first ISO coal mine and how it's mined,I know my coal.

[ziggy]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

ziggy ziggy:

Never did figure this claim out.

$1:

A few years ago an estimate of their coal reserves was 50 years left.

is this at the current rate of mining? I'll call bullshit on this one.

Yup. That includes all coal reserves in Alberta. That doesn't include coal imported from outside the province. That's what happens you power the entire province on a fossil fuel.

We dont.Want me to post some pics of the hundreds of wind turbines that are 30 miles from me?

And we dont import coal,we export it or burn it.
BC exports allmost all of it's coal,Exshaw is the only Alberta company that gets coal from BC.

Ahhhh,the ignorance of some is astounding!

[ziggy]

Winnipegger Winnipegger:

ziggy ziggy:

Better read up on coal bed methane and maybe check out the abundance of coal in every province in Canada before you start falling for that line.

Are you honestly advocating coal bed methane? Do you know how that works? Montana tried it, they are paying the price. It works by pumping steam down a drill hole into a coal deposit still in the ground. Up comes hot water, steam, and methane. Steam combines with carbon in coal to form natural gas, mostly methane. Some of that natural gas is burned to boil well water to generate the steam. However, the hot water that comes up has a lot of other things in it. Not all the hydrocarbons produced are methane, there are heavier hydrocarbons as well. The hot water has mud, minerals, a lot of salt and other junk from the ground, and all those heavy hydrocarbons. That dirty water is dumped on the ground, after all they have to replenish the aquifur. All the salt and heavy hydrocarbons contaminate the soil so you can't grow anything, not grain or forage. Montana ranchers thought they could operate coal bed methane operations on their ranch, but they're finding it kills the land so they can't grow feed for their cattle. Water runs down hill so neighbouring ranches get contaminated too. This is a really bad idea, you would be better off strip mining the coal. At least then you could put the top soil back after the mine was played out.

Yes, the estimate was 25 years of all natural gas reserves in Canada if we continue at the current rate, and was a couple years ago. That doesn't include coal bed methane.

I did hundreds of builds for energy outfits and they were ALL for CBM,not one was for an oil rig. I also know my CBM,you dont have to post the propaganda that you did that most people(sadly) fall for.

Now if you knew your CBM you would also know that you dont have to pump anything down a drill hole in a coal seam to get methane,it's produced by the coal oxydizing or burning when it comes into contact with oxygen so it's just sitting there trapped untill someone or something releases it. Steam injection is used to make a low producer into a high producer and is why the energy companies want to do that,just pure greed on their part. Just drilling a hole into any of the 1500 miles of underground shafts here where I live will give you a high producer,the tunnels are allready there and serve as a storage area of sorts,where no mining has been done they drill pretty well anywhere on Alberta's prarie and hit coal seams,making them profitable is another story,you need lots of holes and that means lots of pipelines and infrastructure,steam injection is cheaper and not really researched much yet,
So I'm for CBM but not steam injection,it's not been studied enough yet as CBM is still fairly new in the big scheme of things.Yet I never heard one farmer in person say their water was bad,only on tv have I seen that claim.