Jun 10, 2010

Want to "really" stop CO2? Really? Stop the coal fires.

IF this whole things was about mitigating CO2 emissions... we would start by reducing energy and extinguishing CO2 waste like the 1000's of coal seam fires contributing nearly as much CO2 as our 'target' to reduce by 2030?

DISCOVERY:
There are thousands of coal fires actively burning around the world.
It is estimated that China, the world's largest coal-producing country, lost anywhere between 10 and 200 million tons of coal a year to wildfires, or between 0.5 and 10 percent of national production.

Team member Leonard Levin of the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., said that fires could emit 200 tons of mercury each year, but he called the figure a "wild guess."

A report issued by the USGS earlier this year suggests just 48 tons are emitted annually, but even that is roughly equivalent to all of the mercury generated by coal-fired power plants in the United States.
Coal fires are emitting air pollution and carbon dioxide but are not even generating useful electricity... 

Seriously, if it was about CO2 why would we not start here?  Or at a minimum... if we could not stop the fire, capture and convert the source for electricity.

That is IF it were about CO2.