Clean Coal Industrial Scale - Article Example

This industrial scale has three vital parts, including storage, capture and transport of carbon dioxide. According to this article, CCS has gained popularity in the U.S economy since it is a somehow cost-effective means of producing energy and, therefore, affordable by the majority. For the past two centuries, as the article identifies, energy from coal has consistently been one of the cheapest sources of energy. Its price is independent and has no trickle-down effects over the price of other resources. The defence of this industrial-scale suggest that coal produce the largest supply of energy used across the world, and its extraction, production and combustion shall be maintained up to the unforeseeable future. Proponents of clean coal base their argument on the large supply of electricity and recommend that research and development (R&D) efforts should be integrated to meet the global demand for electricity (Tyree & Maron, 2009). Developing nations, including India and China, has shifted the demand for coal electricity upward, therefore, requiring a sustainable renewable source of energy.

On the contrary, the article exemplifies in clarity that CCS only focuses on limiting the emission of global warming gases at extraction, production and transportation of coal. It, therefore, increases environmental injustice since it ignores the emission of carbon dioxide in its usage. Finally, the article suggests that carbon capture storage brings about unacceptable risks, among other environmental injustices beyond those directly linked with coal-fired power plants (Tyree & Maron, 2009).

Clean coal industrial scale is an incomplete mechanism to combat the global warming gases. Carbon capture storage attempts to eliminate the possibility of carbon dioxide emission during extraction, combustion and transportation. Relative 20% of global warming gases are produced during the consumption stage (Miller, 2010). Failure to combat this emission render the effectiveness of CCS unrealistic and one-sided. Although the energy produced through burning coal is relatively more, the production is conducted at the expense of environmental degradation and pollution. This perspective is grounded on the fact that besides carbon dioxide, combustion and extraction of coal result in the emission of other harmful products. To be precise, there are minor components of radioactive elements, thorium and uranium, which burn when coal is burnt.
It is somehow obvious that coal causes water, air and thermal pollution that result from the coal plant.

During power generation, a large amount of water is consumed. In fact, the production is the second from agriculture largest domestic user of water. Coal seams are serves as underground aquifer and, therefore, their extraction may result in drastic changes in hydrology. In the united state, coal combustion waste is the second-largest waste (Miller, 2010). Most commonly, this waste is disposed of in landfills lined with a plastic sheet or compacted clay soil or both. As a result, these products form toxic elements with the rain known as toxic metals, which are leached out into the local environment. Read More