Left Wing Environmentalists fight Synthetic Fuel!

[Pure]

where's the meat?

well, we have amicus [read, rand's, von mises' and limbaugh's] views on everthing from medieval clerics to modern leftists, but we have heard NO reasons why converting coal to natural gas is a good idea. the process is well known for 50 years. the *end product* burns cleaner than coal, esp. bad coal. but the mess, measured from the start is arguably greater. and the energy expenditure is hardly trifling.

ami's averse to facts, like a vampire is to holy water. no surprise here. expect: 'pure hates life and civilzation and is a pansy; government always fucks up; what the coal industry says is true, and i amicus foresaw it all, but nobody listened.'

 

[Weird Harold]

People, especially the left, have a fear of new things and new ways, ...

If your premise is true, why are left-wing environmentalists fighting the 50+ year old technolgy of making synthetic fuels from Coal? One would think that true luddites would relish a return to the days of coal gas heat and light.

Why would anyone oppose a proven and time tested technology such as converting coal to cleaner and more easily distributed fuels that has been around in various forms for over a century?

Perhaps it's because it IS old technology that has already been replaced by cleaner, cheaper and better fuels which are now considered too "dirty" and gotten too expensive?

If nothing else, "Big Coal" has a long and atrocious reputation (worldwide and continuing to thepresent day in China) for ruthless exploitation of labor and total disregard for the environment of their neighbors. Coal mine owners only made safety and environmental reforms at the point of a gun -- literally at gun point in many cases. In some cases, such as the media depicts the recent Chinese Coal mining disasters, mine owners are still avoiding every expense they can in search of maximum profit.

The long, sad and sorry history of coal mining is one of the biggest arguments against the theory that unrestrained capitalism will make everything wonderful through enlightened self-interest.

And whatever "enviromentally friendly" tenchnology to clean up an essentially dirty and poisonous process the Montana Coal interests have added to the old technology, "Coal" has to convince the investors, environmental watchdogs, and the genral public that the leopard has really changed it's spots and isn't going to be dumping sewage down their neighbor's well.

 

[amicus]

Somewhere in the links I posted it mentioned that this process became economical only when crude oil prices surpassed $50.00 per barrel.

Every fuel used to create steam to turn turbines creates some form of pollution, over the years the technology has improved, so I read.

The coal mining industry stayed dangerous much longer than it should have because the Coal Miner's Union refused to mechanize fearing it would take jobs from the labor force.

Modern mining techniques require very few humans to be in a dangerous situation and the Montana deposits are surface and can be strip mined and the land restored afterwards.

You are mainly spouting bullshit just to be in opposition.

Amicus...

 

[Weird Harold]

The coal mining industry stayed dangerous much longer than it should have because the Coal Miner's Union refused to mechanize fearing it would take jobs from the labor force.

That's the bad side of Unions, but the Coal Miner's Union held one of those "Guns to the Head" to make Big Coal start cleaning up their act even a little bit.

I don't believe Chinese coal miners have a union to hold up modernization and mechanization and despite the economic motivations for providing gas detectors so the mines don't have to shut down to dig the bodies out after an explosion or using machines that can move more coal than human miners Chinese mine "owners" won't invest in in better methods while they have a few million starving candidates for to replace the human losses from unsafe, uneconomical practices.

From what I've read about their recent mine disasters, Chinese coal mines are technologically comparable to late 18th/early 19th century US mines. Chinese mine disasters in the News just reinforce the common perception that owning or managing a coal mine does something to a person's brain to make them totally uncaring about anything except production levels.

And that's probably this biggest part of the resistance to any "clean coal" or synthetic fuel from coal proposals -- the PERCEPTION that Coal is bad for the environment in just about every way possible and "Big Coal" requires constant supervision with a "gun to the head" to maintain the environmental measures that have been forced onto them by unions and legistlation.

Of course, for me, there is the simple fact that "synthetic fuel from coal" fails the "alternative to fossil fuels" requirement for weaning ourselves away from the economic and environmental problems fossil fuels cause.

IMHO, The last thing we need right now is a new, "cheap" source of fossil fuel that undermines the economic equation for building a non-fossil fuel infrastructure -- putting off the changeover to whatever non-fossil energy mix is ultimately going just make the changeover more expensive than it will be now.

Synthetic fuels are at best a stop-gap to delay development of non-fossil energy technologies. As big as the coal reserves are, they're still finite and still fossils; when they're depleted they're gone and can't be replaced.

 

[amicus]

"...The last thing we need right now is a new, "cheap" source..."

~~~

I-5 is the Interstate Highway that runs North and South from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. In the state of Washington it runs past what was the Trojan Nuclear Plant, which is actually across the Columbia River in Oregon.

I was doing a talk radio show and interviewed my anti-nuke advocates back when the issue was going hot and heavy. I also toured the Nuclear Plant twice, the second time, shepherding a group of my listeners who took the challenge.

Those listeners, civilians were nervous inside the plant, one woman rushed off to a bathroom to throw up she was so frightened. Another time, I was driving on the interstate past the plant and my passenger in the car scooted as far away on the front seat, putting more distance between her and the nuclear plant.

PERCEPTION, you put in bold print; the rhetoric of the anti nuke propaganda, had frightened people to the extent they were actually frightened to even be near a plant. Not fact mind you, but the public's perception that the plant was dangerous had an emotional and psychological effect on people.

The Left has once again created the PERCEPTION that industry is dangerous to the environment and that using fossil fuels is a dangerous and destructive thing. Consequently no more Nuclear plants were built, partly based on public perception and Californians went through electricity brown-outs, rationed electricity and high prices for electric service.

The ideological thrust you advocate, let us suffer through the energy crisis with shortages, high prices, reduced economic production, hardship and a slowing of growth, "because the last thing we need is cheap energy based on fossil fuels..."

Do you really know what you are saying? Do you really mean what you are saying? You are truly willing to advocate starving people, destroying the economy just to fulfill your ideology of the hatred of industrial America to a point you would destroy it?

Yes, the answer is yes, you are and would. Those of you on the left, with the faith of righteousness, would indeed ration energy and destroy an economy just to fulfill your quest to be anti industrial, anti progress, anti growth and anti American.

Now I have been shouting this for forty years and was not able to stop or even slow the insanity of the left, I doubt this latest attempt will do any better, but at least I can draw attention to the horror that you so easily place upon a nation.

Amicus...

 

[Weird Harold]

Do you really know what you are saying? Do you really mean what you are saying? You are truly willing to advocate starving people, destroying the economy just to fulfill your ideology of the hatred of industrial America to a point you would destroy it?

Yes, the answer is yes, you are and would. Those of you on the left, ....

Only you would consider me to be "on the Left" -- everybody else accuses me of being a neo-con shill.

Yes, I know exactly what I'm saying. Yes I really mean what I'm saying.

However, I harbor no hatred of "industrial America" and I'd rather the world suffer the economic dislocation of converting to a non-fossil energy ecnomy NOW when the economic disruption and human misery will be as low as it ever will be -- I'd rather accept the inevitable losses now than accept much greater losses in the future

 

[amicus]

Oh, my God, Jesus has returned! A real live Prophet among us! Hey, I got some futures questions on commodities! Can ya hep me?

Amicus...

 

[Weird Harold]

Oh, my God, Jesus has returned! A real live Prophet among us! Hey, I got some futures questions on commodities! Can ya hep me?

Amicus...

It doesn't require a great deal of foresight to predict that inflation and population growth will continue world wide and if changing to a non-fossil economy is going to cause pain and suffering then waiting to make the change will cause cost more and caue morepain and suffering -- because everything will cost more and there will simply be more people to experience the suffering.

We're supposed to learn from History and History shows that waiting to implement anything always adds to the cost and procrastination eventually solves nothing.

You've apparently run out of arguments again, so I'll quit responding to you and let others play.

 

[amicus]

You miss the point entirely and withdraw from the discussion because you are totally in the wrong. Thas okay, it was inevitable.

You err as Malthus did; his predictions of a geometric growth in population and a linear growth in food supplies led him to a wrong conclusion, just as your has.

As Roxanne pointed out earlier, a free market agricultural business in the heartland could feed the entire 6+ billion population of the world. There will be no food shortages with men free to create, innovate and produce without the parasites in government sucking them dry.

You doom and gloomers amuse me.

Amicus...

 

[Weird Harold]

You miss the point entirely and withdraw from the discussion because you are totally in the wrong. Thas okay, it was inevitable.

You err as Malthus did; his predictions of a geometric growth in population and a linear growth in food supplies led him to a wrong conclusion, just as your has.

As Roxanne pointed out earlier, a free market agricultural business in the heartland could feed the entire 6+ billion population of the world. There will be no food shortages with men free to create, innovate and produce without the parasites in government sucking them dry.

You doom and gloomers amuse me.

Amicus...

One last response, because I do NOT make the same error Malthus made -- I said nothing about population growth causing a collapse, I said population will continue to grow and provide more victime when something else -- like depleted fuel supplies or climate change -- causes the collapse.

Population isn't going to be the problem, it's just going to make the collapse more painful.

 

[amicus]

Sighs...as I said, America can feed the world, let the market function there will never be 'depleted' food supplies. The same holds true for energy requirements, the left has strangled the industry for over a generation. Set it free and the energy problems will always have a solution.

Your command economy, control, conservation and management is the only real and present danger to the future.

Amicus...