Several media outlets, along with Senate, and the FutureGen Alliance websites were praising the July 8th and July 11th votes by the The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee and Senate Appropriations Committee respectively. In both votes, the Senate chose to protect $134 million in federal funding for the FutureGen plant at Matoon, Il.
In two separate FutureGen Alliance news releases, CEO Michael Mudd applauded the decision as helping to move the world's first near-zero emissions coal plant closer to reality.
NCC - Urgency of Sustainable CoalFrom the Introduction to the National Coal Council's latest report, the "Urgency of Sustainable Coal".
On October 12, 2007, the Secretary requested the National Coal Council conduct an additional study to “focus on several technological options to increase coal use consistent with the environmental goals of the country.” Pursuant to this request, the NCC submits the current report, The Urgency of Sustainable Coal. Significant energy-related events have occurred in the past several years that have far reaching implications for the United States and for the central role coal will play in the world’s future. The present 2008 report follows the Secretary’s directive and refines and extends the findings and recommendations in the earlier reports, particularly in regard: 1) Carbon management technologies; 2) Legal and regulatory issues; 3) Hybrid electric vehicles; 4) In-situ coal gasification and; 5) Converting coal to liquid fuel (CTL) and substitute natural gas (SNG).
A June 18th, 08 Powerspan/Basin Electric Power Cooperative (BEPC) news release describes their efforts to advance an industry-leading carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project in North Dakota.
Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 Years
Review of: Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1,500 years (updated & expanded edition)
By: S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery
Rowman & Littlefield, 2008
Review by: Jason Hayes, M.E.Des., Communications Director, American Coal Council
A few years back, I was asked to give a few presentations on the science of climate change. So I discussed the claims that a broad scientific consensus existed on the causes of global climate change. Proponents of that theory argued that science had determined human use of fossil fuels was releasing CO2 into the atmosphere and thereby causing unprecedented and potentially dangerous warming. This theory is often called anthropogenic global warming (AGW).
I suggested that the average person could be excused for thinking that AGW was the cause for our changing climate. Governments, media, and NGOs all swore that was the case and since that time their rhetoric has become even more pervasive. They also informed us that so-called skeptics who question their theory were isolated loners, resident on the outermost fringes of the discussion. They have also created and presented expensive and prestigious awards for their frightening epics on AGW that depict the dangerous outcomes of using of fossil fuels. Some have even charged skeptics as being morally akin to holocaust deniers, actually borrowing and reworking the term into “climate denier.” It is their influence that has brought on a call for the immediate enacting of carbon-control legislation that is making its way through governments around the world.
Given those circumstances, no one could still seriously consider questioning the science. What would be the point? Even if the science wasn't settled when I gave my presentations a few years ago, it has to be now so raising the question again would be a waste of time, right?
The authors of a newly released book would tell you that thought is wrong.
From the Wed. May 7, 2008 edition of the Columbus Dispatch,
The federal government said yesterday that it will spend $61.1 million for a clean-coal project in Ohio, a major step in deciding whether it is commercially feasible to burn Midwest coal without emitting the carbon dioxide thought to cause global warming.
The money will be funneled to a demonstration project in the Mount Simon Sandstone formation in Darke County in western Ohio.
About 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from an ethanol facility will be injected 3,000 feet into the sandstone formation.
