China Outpaces U.S. in Cleaner Coal-Fired Plants

Nonno

Habari Na Mijeldi
"TIANJIN, China — China’s frenetic construction of coal-fired power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined, making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet.

But largely missing in the hand-wringing is this: China has emerged in the past two years as the world’s leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost.

While the United States is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at a rate of one a month.

Construction has stalled in the United States on a new generation of low-pollution power plants that turn coal into a gas before burning it, although Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday that the Obama administration might revive one power plant of this type. But China has already approved equipment purchases for just such a power plant, to be assembled soon in a muddy field here in Tianjin."

More at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/asia/11coal.html?ref=todayspaper
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Don't expect this admnistration to lift a finger for "clean coal" technology. Enough on the left have emphatically stated there just ain't no such thing, so they are against it.

Obama has already established a record for talking out both sides of his mouth when it comes to energy. He's pretty much AGAINST nuclear energy, but he will carefully parse it to say he is for it as long as we don't dispose of the wastes in Yucca or anywhere else in an unsafe manner or some such. And he leaves that determination open wide enough to say - nope, not happening.

Energy independence and renewable energy is one thing that I do expect this administration will still be talking about come 2012, just as Bush was still talking about drilling in ANWR eight years later. They don't mean it.
 
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