Letters to the Editor Issue 680

COAL: THE MYTHS & REALITIES

Editor, The Review;

In response to the very political comments about electric energy generation, there should be no political comments at all. Physics is a science that includes energy, and the natural laws have not changed in centuries.

CO2 is a natural gas needed to supply trees, plants, and farm crops. It is colorless, odorless and is inert and non-corrosive. When clean fuel is burned it produces water vapor (clouds) and CO2, neither of which are damaging to the environment, and are only part of the natural cycle of the natural world.

When coal is cleaned, the bad products are removed and land filled. Those bad products existed before and they continue to exist. Coal is not imported, it is mined in the US, and the US exports coal to other countries.

Nuclear energy is a very clean source of energy, but is politically bad-mouthed, although it is very safe.

The remaining fuel rods can be stored for reprocessing. The radiation was always there, when an ore in the ground. Man merely concentrated the ore to produce controlled heat. Uranium ore comes from Canada and the US.

Dick Von Berg
(Retired Navy Engineer)

(Editors Note: The following response to this letter was prepared by Peter Sinclair of Midland Cares)

While it is true that CO2 is "natural", the carbon that is going in to the atmosphere now, is carbon that has been sequestered out of the biosphere for tens or even hundreds of millions of years, and not part of the process that life has adapted to over recent geologic time.

Over long periods of geologic time, CO2 levels have varied in response to geologic processes, like volcanism, which adds more CO2, and carbonate weathering, in which rocks from rising mountain ranges like the Rockies and Himalayas gradually pull CO2 out of the air and into rock formations.

Over the last 55 million years, CO2 has been gradually in decline, and the decrease in CO2 has been a primary driver of gradually cooling planetary temperatures. (see NASA documents: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/)

For example, before 35 million years ago, there were no ice caps on the planet, and sea level was 2 or 3 hundred feet higher. Over time, primarily due to the rise of the Rockies, Himalayas, Alps and Andes, all young dynamic mountain ranges, the CO2 has continued to drop.

The slow change, only a few parts per million every million years or so, has been well tolerated by the biosphere and living organisms. When we look back in history and see times in the fossil record where CO2, and hence, planetary temperatures, have increased in shorter periods, even over thousands of years, what we see are extinction events, in which a large portion of existing species are unable to adapt quickly enough to changing conditions.

The most recent of these was the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, 55 million years ago. Currently, the major driver in the increase of atmospheric CO2 is industrial processes. Humans put 130 times as much CO2 in the atmosphere annually as volcanoes, according to the US Geological survey.

Therefore, we are driving planetary change at a level that may be unprecedented in the history of the planet. We are currently approaching the levels beyond which, in the last 100 million years, no icecaps have been able to exist. Therefore, scientists like those at NASA, the National Academy of Science, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and every professional Scientific organization on the planet, have warned that steps must be taken to back away from fossil fuel use, and begin moving as quickly as possible to a carbon free, or even carbon negative, economy.

The American Association of Engineering Societies, in fact, on their web page, has this to say about Climate Change:
"Man-made carbon dioxide emissions have been identified as a major potential cause of global climate change. Therefore, AAES supports strengthening U.S. research efforts into technologies to improve energy efficiency, utilize non-carbon energy sources, and minimize and sequester carbon dioxide. Results of such research would produce valuable benefits to society and the economy, whether or not carbon emission reductions will ultimately be required to address global climate change."

Those that wish to learn more about the dynamics of climate over long periods are advised to review the publication, "Origin and Evolution of Earth", by the National Academy of Science. Chapter 3, "A Habitable Planet", can be downloaded for $5.50, and is a very readable account of the most current science on the big picture of the last billion years or so. http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12161

Also, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report from 2007, Chapter 6, "Paleoclimate", is a great and readable resource on everything known about the long cycles of climate over the last 55 million years. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter6.pdf

Also, for pure info-tainment value, nothing beats the series, "Climate Denial Crock of the Week" on YouTube. The most recent installment is at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P8mlF8KT6I

Best,
Peter Sinclair
Midland, MI