Many people (balanced and otherwise) often state that recycled this-n-that
are great for the planet, yet those people have no idea where the power
comes from for the recycling facilities.. often coal generation.
Cars are still a huge air pollution contributor, but much worse are the
freighters operating on bunker oil, which pollute much more significantly
than all the worlds' autos.
Bunker oil is likely the filthiest fuel ever used, and is what freighter
ships use to transport most of the crap goods being produced these days.
So, as manufacturing of common products leaves one continent, more imported
goods are being transported from across the vast oceans.
When the low quality goods quickly fail, they're transported again by more
internal combustion engines to landfills and placed in the ground beside
fresh water resources.
Just because trash trucks operate in your neighborhood every week doesn't
mean the landfill is local.
Here in Pennsylvania, the landfills have been accepting waste from more than
12 other states, and it's easy to see that PA doesn't have 12 bordering
states.. so trash is trucked or transported across/thru entire states to be
dumped here.
As I've said for a number of years, job opportunities with real job security
are in the waste industry.
The cheap crap products that keep pouring into my, and your, country every
day have to be disposed of.
The biggest hoax of the last 50+ years is that products are cheaper because
they're made elsewhere (poor countries), instead of domestically.
The actual truth is that it's more profitable to have goods made elsewhere,
which involves much more than cheap labor.. it involves behind-closed-doors
deal making and power, influence and favoritism (our favorite communist
nation which holds huge domestic business debts).
China and other countries accept some of our waste products, then recycle
them with coal-generated power, then ship those products globally with
bunker oil.. so the recycled products have real-world costs that don't end
up in the cost effectiveness evaluations.. but keep perpetuating the
recycled-is-good mentality.
The total net gain is a loss.
LED and CFL lighting aren't the solutions, they only distract attention.
--
Cheers,
WB
..............
"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...
There are about 600 coal plants in the US. The numbers are a bit
misleading as coal fired power plants come in all shapes and sizes.
It's not the number, but the generation capacity that's important. In
the US, we built 10 new plants in 2010 for a total new capacity of
1.6GW (gigawatts). However, if you include decomissioned plants, the
net loss in capacity in 2010 was about -4.6GW lost. Most of the loss
was balanced by a transition to federally subsidized wind power. In
2010, there was also the cancellation of 10 additional plants mostly
due to legislative or EPA restriction. For example, California has a
ban on new coal plants (SB1368). Europe is doing much the same.
http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/refshelf/ncp.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_phase_out
If the EPA gets its way, it's likely that most of the older US coal
plants will need to close to meet emission requirements.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Existing_U.S._Coal_Plants
The loss of -4.6GW of coal generation capacity is not going to make
much of a dent in the mercury emissions. At this time, the US gets
about 45% of about 4 trillion kw-hr of electricity from coal. A few
gigawatts of capacity here and there isn't going to change much.
http://www.eia.gov/coal/
Note that capacity loss is usually balanced by burning more coal to
produce more electricity at other plants. Therefore, closing a plant
does NOT constitute an overall decrease in emissions. Only a decrease
in generated mw-hr can decrease emissions.
If you accept my coal generation logic at face value, every product
that uses electricity also dumps mercury into the environment. For
example, my electric water heater would be considered a major
contributor to coal based environmental pollution and far more
significant than a CFL lamp. While this doesn't do anything to help
one decide between CFL and incandescent, it does highlight some
priorities on the process.
Yep. Something like 90% of the really obnoxious atmospheric pollution
comes from burning coal. There are technologies that drastically
reduce coal fired plant emissions. They're expensive, messy, use huge
amounts of water, and are being largely ignored by the larger plants.
Not so with the smaller plants, a few of which use one or more
technologies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_coal_technology
As far as I can tell, neither India or China are doing clean coal
plants.
I don't have an answer to the "why". Most likely, both countries
economies will collapse without the generated power, which makes it
one of many "necessary evils".
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558