EarthTalk is a new weekly installment from E/The Environmental Magazine.

Dear EarthTalk: As I understand it, coal that is used to fuel power plants and other industrial activity is a key culprit in pollution and climate change. So what is “clean coal” and is it really? — Matthew Oliver, Minneapolis, MN

The term “clean coal” describes various processes that remove pollutants from coal, our cheapest, most abundant—and dirtiest—energy source. By reducing coal’s environmental footprint through technological wizardry, the coal mining industry and the Bush administration hope to keep coal, which currently produces more than half of all U.S. electricity, a big part of our energy picture for many years to come.

Clean coal proponents also want to liquefy coal to turn it into a form of automotive fuel that, according to the industry-sponsored Coal-to-Liquids Coalition, costs less and burns cleaner in some ways than the traditional diesel fuel it could replace. Several members of Congress from coal states are keen on having the government subsidize the production of so-called liquid coal—which can be used anywhere diesel fuel currently goes—as a “homegrown” alternative to foreign oil. Industry analysts say there is enough coal in America to last hundreds of years, saving us untold expense and trouble obtaining regular petroleum from unfriendly foreign governments.

But major environmental groups, from the Sierra Club to the Natural Resources Defense Council, say that “clean coal” is anything but. The process involves heating coal to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and mixing it with water to produce a gas, then converting the gas into diesel fuel. Although the Coal-to-Liquids Coalition says that carbon dioxide emissions from the entire production cycle of liquid coal are “equal to, or slightly below, those of conventional petroleum-derived fuels,” its claims are based on a single federal study, now six years old, that environmental leaders disagree with profoundly.

Jim Presswood, federal energy advocate of the Natural Resources Defense Council says, “Liquid CO2 emissions are twice as much as emissions from conventional petroleum-derived fuels.” He says that even if CO2 emissions were captured as part of the process, at best liquid coal would be 12 percent worse than the gasoline equivalent. As some environmentalists have put it, liquid coal can turn any hybrid Prius into a Hummer.

The Washington Post editorialized, “To wean the U.S. off of just one million barrels of the 21 million barrels of crude oil consumed daily, an estimated 120 million tons of coal would need to be mined each year. The process requires vast amounts of water, particularly a concern in the parched West. And the price of a plant is estimated at $4 billion.” Also, in recent years, particularly in Appalachia, mining companies have gone from simple excavation to blasting off the tops of mountains in an ecologically devastating process known as “mountain top removal.”

For their part, greens acknowledge the importance of cleaning up coal and other dirty energy sources, but would rather see more funding devoted to researching, developing and implementing alternative and renewable energy sources that don’t come with so much environmental baggage.

CONTACTS: Coal-to-Liquids Coalition; Sierra Club’s “Stopping the Coal Rush”.

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881 USA; submit it at EarthTalk; or e-mail us. Read past columns at our archives.

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Last weekend I was catching up on some reading and was checking out the December 2007 edition of the magazine Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and I ca…what’s that you say? Do I normally spend my weekends reading policy magazines on energy? Um, ahh…yea, I do. Ask my wife, it drives her crazy that I cannot even remember the last fiction novel that I read. But I guess that is why I have something to write here every day! Now, what was I saying…

Oh, right, what I came across in the magazine. It was an article on the world’s energy sources and how we are gobbling up all the resources faster than we can either dig for more and/or come up with alternatives. But this graph I saw was especially interesting, as it shows exactly what percentages of our energy came from different sources as of 2004:

In case you cannot clearly see the numbers, this is how it breaks down-

• Oil 35.03%
• Coal 24.59%
• Gas 20.44%
• Renewables 13.61%, including:
  Traditional Biomass 8.48%
  Modern Biomass 1.91%
  Geothermal .23%
  Wind .32%
  Solar .53%
  Small Hydro .41%
  Hydro, other 1.73%

That is pretty bad…only .23% from geothermal? Only .53% from the sun? Granted, the likes of solar photovoltaic has had a growth rate of 40% since 2001, but still…we gotta get on the ball and invest the kind of money that needs to be invested to get all these renewables up to snuff and taking on bigger percentages. That is, if we want to have any kind of a bright future for our grandkids! (Well, mine anyway - I am 35 and don’t even have kids yet!).

So you see, that is the kind of thing that catches my eye on the weekend. Maybe I need to get out more? Honey?

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I have written before that I don’t think that biofuels are the way of the future, and it seems that the Nature Conservancy and the journal Science think the same. A new study says that biofuels will actually make global warming worse, rather than helping us escape from it.

From the NY Times:

Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded. The benefits of biofuels have come under increasing attack in recent months, as scientists took a closer look at the global environmental cost of their production. These latest studies, published in the prestigious journal Science, are likely to add to the controversy. These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development. The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

I will say it again - we need to get away from the idea of using anything that needs to be burned to produce power. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but whenever you burn something it cannot be good for the environment, and we need to stop thinking this way of the future of energy.

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Let’s be honest with ourselves here for a moment; we have a problem with oil. Sure, it wasn’t a problem before because there was plenty of it and we did not use that much. But we have a problem now - and some of our politicians want you to believe that our problem is with foreign oil, not with oil itself.

What a load of crap.

It’s all oil from all ends of the earth - from the deepest shale in Canada to the deepest offshore well in South America to the deserts of Saudi Arabia - we are slowly running out of oil. You wouldn’t know it judging by the sizes of the cars that American manufacturers still make, or the amount of cars being put on the road in China and India each year, or by the fact that companies across the globe leave their lights on all night - you would think we were rolling in the stuff. Energy crisis? No way man! There is plenty of oil in the ground.

Um, no there isn’t.

But back to some of our politicians. One side in particular wants you to think that we need to drill for oil on every inch of the United States of America to ween ourselves off foreign oil, and nothing could be further from the truth. In order to extract the oil from every corner of this country, we would need to expend so much energy that it just is not worth it in the end. Use more energy then we can get out of the ground? What sense does that make? Not much - but the politicians are very crafty because by saying “foreign oil” they get you to think of oil in far away lands that might be in the hands of a terrorist, thus we should allow them to dig anywhere they want here in this country. Don’t fall for it - oil is oil is oil - and the only solution to “fixing” the problem is to find alternative sources of energy, not continually drilling everywhere looking for a few drops.

Saudi Arabia is one of our government’s best friends, so foreign oil from them cannot be too bad, right?

Oil has been used to create our entire society - from your car, to your roof, to your toothbrush, makeup, trash cans, street signs - and that is just a tiny handful of things made directly from oil, never mind the stuff that we just need energy from oil to create. I wrote before about the many things made from oil and it is a pretty amazing list. What would happen if we did not have it anymore?

Personally, I don’t want to find out.

That’s why we need our politicians to stop lying about “foreign oil” and get real - we don’t need to drill for more oil here in the U.S., but rather we need to get off the stuff completely. We need to start spending money on research rather than exploratory drilling in our National Parks. We need to get private enterprises with money excited and interested in alternative energy. We need to start conserving every last drop that we can so we allow ourselves the time to figure it all out. And we need to start today.

Oil is running out - both foreign and domestic, whatever that truly means. Our politicians need to act accordingly instead of trying to convince us that one kind of oil is better than another. When it’s gone, it’s gone, no matter where it came from.

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We hear a lot of talk on the internet (and the news, once in a while) about biodiesel being one of the “fuels of the future”. And I think a lot of people have a misconception about what biodiesel is, thinking that it is some kind of french fry oil that hippies use to power their old VW vans…and while they are half right, there is a lot more to the story than that.

Biodiesel is a broad term applied to any fuel that is derived from plant matter or animal fat. It could mean soybean oil, canola oil, vegetable oil, or numerous other types of oils. From Journey To Forever, here is the basic rundown on making biodiesel:

Vegetable and animal fats and oils are triglycerides, containing glycerine. The biodiesel process turns the oils and fats into esters, separating out the glycerine. The glycerine sinks to the bottom and the biodiesel floats on top and can be syphoned off. The process is called transesterification, which substitutes alcohol for the glycerine in a chemical reaction, using lye as a catalyst. The alcohol used can be either methanol, which makes methyl esters, or ethanol (ethyl esters).

There are also different blends of biodiesel, from B100, which is an all natural 100% biodiesel product to B20 which is a 20% natural and 80% diesel fuel mix. Depending on your climate, diesel fuel cars can run this stuff straight with no modifications necessary…although they do say that fuel lines might need to be upgraded or a filter installed, depending on the clarity of the final fuel product. B100 tends to gel up in cold temperatures, that is why I said depending on your climate. But some people have even figured out how to heat it up or install switches in their cars in order to switch between regular diesel and biodiesel once their engines warm up.

I have been reading an incredibly informative and interesting book titled Biodiesel Power: The Passion, The People, And The Politics Of The Next Renewable Fuel and it is has been very educational. I learned that there is actually a national biodiesel board (NBB) that is working to get biodiesel into the mainstream, but I also learned that a lot of the ingenuity and push for this fuel is coming from the grassroots, who is not too thrilled with yet another regulatory board and their government connections. It’s a good read if you are interested in what goes on behind the scenes of the biodiesel movement.

For me, this fuel has a lot going for it. It is completely renewable, can be used in different blends, can be used in any car with a diesel engine, and can even be brewed at home if you so desire. I don’t know if my wife would want a biodiesel station in our garage, but to be able to create a cleaner-burning, non-toxic fuel from waste product for mere pennies is quite intriguing. I know there are biodiesel co-op’s in some cities who you can buy the fuel from, but part of the fun would be in making it yourself! I think the minute we have our own house and I have my much-wanted workshop space, I am going to have to investigate this even further. For right now, we only share a car between us and have no need for another one. But when the time comes that we need two cars, I think I might have to pick me up an old VW Diesel Rabbit and have some fun! If you want more info on biodiesel, check out these sites:

NBB
Biodiesel Now
Piedmont Biofuels
Journey To Forever

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Recently, Rep. John Dingell, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee introduced draft legislation to Congress that would add a $.50 tax to each gallon of gas sold in the United States. Why is this such big news across the internet? Because people are screaming about being taxed an additional amount on gasoline, which already has some of the highest taxes of any product. However, I personally think it is a good idea, and here is why.

A $.50 tax on each gallon of gas would go a long way to changing the way people view transportation. If they were thinking of buying a big SUV, for instance, this might make them change their mind because it could cost them an additional $20 per week for gas. It would make people alter their driving habits, perhaps encourage car-pooling, mass transit use and/or bicycling to work. Sure, it may not sound like much…I mean, what is $.50? But $.50 X 15 gallons of gas each week X 4 weeks a month equals an additional $30 per month in gas, or $360 per year. That just might be enough to make people really start thinking about their transportation needs.

When a gallon of milk costs more than a gallon of fuel, you know we are trouble. A gallon of fuel can put you 25 miles away from home, it should cost a lot more than $3.00 or so! I know everyone has been complaining about $3.00 per gallon, but the truth is that gas is very cheap…even with a barrel of oil being up over $80 and hovering around all time highs. For some reason the price at the pump has not reflected this fact yet, but I hope it will soon enough.

I fully support a $.50 per gallon tax…in fact, I wish it were going to be even more. Something has to convince people that they do not need a giant SUV to drive themselves to work in; they do not need a pickup truck if they live in suburbia and have landscapers and gardeners doing the work around their house. Adding $.50 or more to gas prices just to encourage less consumption is an idea long past it’s due here in the United States…most other countries on earth pay more than double what we pay here per gallon. Isn’t it about time we took control of our own destiny and worked towards weaning ourselves off petroleum products? I think the only way to do so is to charge a lot more for it and force people to consider their options. Unfortunately, as with anything else regarding the oil industry, Congress will never pass a tax bill like this one…they are in too deep with the oil lobbyists. But maybe, just maybe, people will think about a time in the future when gas will be at $10 per gallon, and a light bulb goes off in their head that we could have had it easier if only we had started conserving sooner. If only…

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