Worth a Thousand Words

Via Dave Roberts, a New York Times graphic on the carbon impact of liquid coal:

"

The upshot is that it would be radically better for the environment to just build more coal power plants (normally the gold standard for bad environmental policy) and spend the money on subsidizing plug-in hybrids. This is to say nothing of the potential environmental benefit of targeting our subsidies away from things that are harmful and toward things that are helpful.

Comments

Back in 1973-74, National Review ran a very persuasive-sounding article about how liquefied coal was going to solve the Energy Crisis.

Coal is the fuel of the future, and always will be.

Posted by Steve Sailer | May 29, 2007 10:49 PM

The US is the Saudi Arabia of coal, plus China, yadda yadda...

As for the pretty graph, I happen to strongly agree with the proposition that "Electricity" is in fact a "fuel" that will be at the forefront of the global economy for the foreseeable future. But, I'd always thought this was an eccentric position of over-educated stoners living in the DC metropolitan area. Maybe the EPA has been infiltrated? Nevertheless, I feel duty-bound to ask what type of fuel was used to make the Electricity referred to in the chart.

Posted by fnook | May 29, 2007 11:25 PM

Maybe we should try running the economy on pimp juice instead?

Posted by Pimp Juice | May 29, 2007 11:39 PM

Huh? The chart seems to say the opposite of what you're saying, Matt. Going to coal would produce a 119% increase in greenhouse gases, no?

Posted by dj moonbat | May 29, 2007 11:39 PM

moonbat: Coal-to-liquid to create diesel fuel causes a giant increase over petroleum. Matt is talking about building more electric plants that burn coal directly and then using that electricity to power electric cars.

Posted by Antid Oto | May 30, 2007 1:08 AM

This is sad. We finally get Congress's attention about energy and the response is competing environmentally destructive subsidy boondoggles: Corn ethanol! No, coal-to-liquids! No, cellulosic! We're not going to make it this way, folks.

Posted by SqueakyRat | May 30, 2007 3:31 AM

"Nevertheless, I feel duty-bound to ask what type of fuel was used to make the Electricity referred to in the chart. "

Most likely it is just an extrapolation of everything we do to run power plants now, but it might involve everyone charging battery packs as they scuff their feet on carpets throughout the day.

Posted by Njorl | May 30, 2007 9:17 AM

I would venture to say that the "electricty" column assumes that quite a bit of that electricity is generated by nuclear and hydroelectric. It might not look quite as good if the electricity were assumed to be generated by burning coal without carbon sequestration.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | May 30, 2007 9:23 AM

No, coal-to-liquids! No, cellulosic!

Yet these two alternatives seem to reside at opposite ends of Matt's chart. What's wrong with cellulosic ethanol, exactly?

Posted by Steve | May 30, 2007 9:24 AM

PJ,
I sense a conflict of interest.

Posted by theCoach | May 30, 2007 9:49 AM

What's wrong with cellulosic ethanol, exactly?>

EROEI is not so good. There are unsolved technical/cost problems. It doesn't really scale up to anything more than useful drop in the bucket unless we devote ridiculous amounts of land to growing feedstock.

Posted by SqueakyRat | May 30, 2007 11:12 AM