The reason why the bioprocessing of coal, if it materializes, is momentous is not its evident cleanliness, safety or environmental friendliness. It is a sad but well established fact that people do not adopt major technologies because of their safety; the issue of safety perceived safety, that is
¾has only served to delay a technology.The railroads were delayed, by decades in some cases, by false accusations about their danger. When they did arrive, it was not because of their superior safety (in spite of bigger accidents, they were far safer per passenger mile than stage coaches), but because of their technical and economic superiority. The steamboat, the automobile, electric power, and other technologies had a similar history.
Like the stage coaches, coal is unlikely to be abandoned for environmental or safety reasons
¾and at this point let me repeat for the nth time that I am not anti-coal, even though I support nuclear as far safer; for what is far more dangerous than coal is no coal: the lack of energy which is inexorably implied by the "soft" energy promoters and no-growth advocates for everybody but the "better" people.The reason why coal in its present form is likely to be abandoned in the long term (in two or three decades, perhaps) in spite of its plentiful reserves for centuries is that it is tied to an ancient and obsolescent infrastructure, both social and technological. Socially, it is highly labor-intensive, and that means not only trouble with labor unrest, but an outdated institution which even before the advent of the computer could not compete with higher technology and automated production. If in doubt, look at what Japanese technology (yes, technology, not wages!) has done to the US steel industry
¾for starters, and you will find plenty of other examples to make the point. (I may pity the individual American steel worker, but looking at things through the eyes of mankind and history, I say Bless the Japanese!)Technologically, coal is tied to an outmoded form of transporta-tion, the railroads. They are labor-intensive themselves, and in the long run (again, I am talking decades) they cannot compete with the transportation of energy in pipelines (oil, gas), over transmission lines (electric power, and one day, light), or in a form that is some three million times more concentrated, as is the case with nuclear fuel. The energy fed to a coal-fired power plant in 38,000 railroad cars of 100 tons each is fed to a nuclear plant in six lowly automobile trucks.
But all of this wonderful wisdom flies out the window if coal can be bio-processed in situ for shipment by pipeline as liquid or gas. What was labor-intensive becomes microbe-intensive, and the railroads will die while coal lives on. And that is why the bioprocess-ing of coal
¾if it materializes as a commercially viable process¾is truly momentous.By extension into the uncharted energy sea, there may be even more in the offing. With an influx of l.2 kW/sq. meter, solar energy is far too dilute to be used as an energy source for anything but its tradi-tional applications in food, light and natural heat, with exceptions for small power consumption and difficult access to the utility net (or alternatively, to a bank account with a Lovinsian balance). But here again, biology may change things if bacteria or other organisms can turn the energy absorbed by vast areas of forest (for example) into a form that is easily transported and distributed to the places where it is needed.
Utopia? Perhaps. But many other absurdities have stopped being absurd at the dawn of the Age of Biology.
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Vol. 15, No. 3
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 15, No. 3 Date: November 30, 2004 03:51 PM Title: Gulf oil
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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