What are the pros and cons for clean coal and nuclear power? Which is better and what exactly is clean coal?

Question

Question for Joe B what else would you suggest?

Answer 1

Clean coal is the name attributed to coal chemically washed of minerals and impurities.

As which is better, you will have a debate which is best.

Nuclear power biggest problem is radioactivity.

Clean coal, has waste products from ash to the minerals and impurities wash out.  

Both leave holes in the ground from mining as well as rock piles.  

I did not look up cost for it would not be stable in todays market.

Answer 2

Nuclear power is way more efficient and alot safer, every year tons of people die mining coal.

Answer 3

The best and cleanest source would be space based solar. But we do not have that and will not for a long time because of Jimmy Carter who killed that part of the space program and Al Gore, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry that kept Reagan from restoring the program. Next is nuclear and to have more than we need requires only a congress that will allow the special order preventing the recycling of nuclear material to be canceled. GW tried this several times but the big oil democrats in congress kept him from doing it several times. Remember the energy bill that these democrats have killed every year for the last 7.

Clean coal is not as clean as natural gas would be but it is cheaper because Exxon got people to vote against the LPG ports where BP was going to bring in super cheap natural gas from Overseas and Alaska. So now because of some dumb voters that sold a phony bill of goods everybody is going to pay more for natural gas and electricity so Exxon can sell their coal and fuel oil.

Answer 4

Clean coal technology involves chenical pre-treatment of the fuel and scrubbing the exhaust from coal-burning power plants. We have enough coal to provide electricity for hundreds of years without building any new power plants.

Nuclear power plants produce radioactive waste that remains toxic for thousands of years, and in the 60 years that nuke power has been around there is still no plan for permanent storage of this waste, so it keeps piling up in larger quantities every year. Also, the carbon footprint of building only one nuke power station is larger than the footprint of operating one coal-fired plant operating for 128 years.

The real reason for building nuke power plants is the production of Plutonium for use in nuclear weapons,,,,,spent fuel rods are the only source of plutonium.

Answer 5

historically, clean coal has had a low sulfur content.

these days, it's misused by the global warming deniers to imply that it's somehow better than "ordinary" coal.

which it is not.

in other words, the way they use it, it's a lie.

it produces just as much CO2 as other coal.

at this point, i think nuclear is better.

there is still the possibility of accidents.

on the other hand, continuing to add CO2 to the atmosphere is guaranteed to cause a serious world wide problem.

again, one might ask, which is worse? is there any way to compare?  turns out, there is -- sort of.  chernobyl is likely the worst nuclear accident.  and Darfur is probably caused by climate change induced drought, that forced people to move to Darfur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_d...

"The 2005 report prepared by the Chernobyl Forum, led by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO), attributed 56 direct deaths (47 accident workers, and nine children with thyroid cancer), and estimated that there may be 4,000 extra deaths due to cancer among the approximately 600,000 most highly exposed and 5,000 among the 6 million living nearby."

Darfur has caused 200,000+ deaths, and is a long way from resolution.

climate change is several orders of magnitude more serious.

Answer 6

there are no pro's

coal causes global warming

nuclear plants cause radiation and kills people, and you can never get rid of the nuclear waste

call your congressman and tell him NO COAL, NO NUCLEAR

What else would I suggest?

RE-NEW-ABLE ENERGY, solar, wind, and ethanol, we  could have more corn for ethanol if most of the corn didn't go for cattle feed, to feed cattle for meat, give up eating meat and we would have the crop land to feed and fuel the world.

It would be beautiful, an Utopia

Answer 7

the main neg for nuclear is the radioactive wastes that must be stored (buried), aside from the fears of terrorist attacks on plants. the pos for nuclear is no CO2 waste, only steam. Clean coal is coal w/o sulfurous compounds that are naturally present in coal, which produces poisonous, gaseous sulfurous pollution. No matter how clean coal is, the main waste product is still CO2.

Answer 8

Coal is a fossil product, like oil & natural gas. Clean Coal is coal that has sulfur and other coal byproducts removed prior to burning. However, like oil and natural gas, CO2 is still a byproduct of coal burning.

Nuclear uses fission or fusion to produce energy. The byproduct is highly radioactive waste and plutonium that can be stored safely in radiation shielded containers, or reprocessed as nuclear fuel.

Nuclear is a cleaner answer to power production.

Answer 9

Nuclear---- nuclear --- and nuclear NO CO2--- and approximately 80% of the radioactive waste product can be recycled-- BUT Congress has prevented recycling of nuclear waste for YEARS! (the dummies) although France and other western countries recycle-- and wind up with only 20% that needs to be stored.

If you are against BOTH nuclear-- and coal -- and natural gas-- then nothing in our present technology can generate enough continuously RELIABLE power--- renewable sources of power are a small fraction of our electric energy production.

Here is a chart showing renewable at about 7% in 2005-- notice the 1% solar and 3% wind-- OF THE 7%!!!  Most folks hear 7% and think it's wind and solar --IT IS NOT! About 45% of the number is hydro-electric power plants.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/r...

The other 50% is BIOMASS-- which is really not a CO2 friendly power source. Wind and Solar are tiny components of our electricity grid.

Answer 10

The term "clean coal" is often used by politicians and power companies to refer to a coal fired power plant that does not emit CO2 into the atmosphere.  The CO2 produced from burning coal would be pumped into the ground and sequestered there.  This technology does not currently exist, but companies such as General Electric are working on it.

Because clean coal from the CO2 perspective does not yet exist, nuclear power is by far the best answer.  It is cleaner, safer, and much more friendly to the environment.  Coal actually puts more radioactive material into the environment than uranium does.  One pound of uranium produces as much energy as 64 tons of coal.  Storage of nuclear waste material is perhaps the biggest problem with nuclear power plants