Coal is Toxic - need SPS

It is now official, seafood is becoming unsafe because of Mercury
contamination from burning coal.

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01038.html

http://www.epa.gov/ost/fishadvice/advice.html

Oil and Natural gas will be running out in a few decades and the
world will then rely essentially on coal for its primary source of
energy..

Seafood contamination will get worse.

We need Solar Power Satellites rather urgently, built from lunar
materials.

BTW, has anybody noticed how tiny the US Dept of Energy research
budget is ?

Out of a total budget of about $23 billion, less than half is for
energy research. This is less than the NASA budget.

Yet in a single year, the US spent over $100 billion on military
activities to defend sources of oil.

What is wrong with this picture ?

Cheers,

Charles F. Radley

(Charles F. Radley) wrote in
m:

It is now official, seafood is becoming unsafe because of Mercury
contamination from burning coal.

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01038.html

http://www.epa.gov/ost/fishadvice/advice.html

Oil and Natural gas will be running out in a few decades and the
world will then rely essentially on coal for its primary source of
energy..

Seafood contamination will get worse.

We need Solar Power Satellites rather urgently, built from lunar
materials.

BTW, has anybody noticed how tiny the US Dept of Energy research
budget is ?

Out of a total budget of about $23 billion, less than half is for
energy research. This is less than the NASA budget.

Yet in a single year, the US spent over $100 billion on military
activities to defend sources of oil.

What is wrong with this picture ?

Cheers,

Charles F. Radley


Gotta love the way you twist facts.

Yes, we all know mercure is bad for health, and fish are very good at
concentrating mercury levels in their bodies. Nasty if you eat contaminated
fish.
Yes, burning coal can release mercury into the atmosphere.
No, its not an unsolvable problem. Almost any of the smokestack-scrubbers
will trap 95%+ of mercury emissions. Its only primitive countries like the
usa (primitive in coal-power technologies, that is), that dont yet have
sufficient understanding of the issues involved. Or rather, the
understanding has not yet reached the legislation levels needed.

Gotta love the way you twist facts.

Yes, we all know mercure is bad for health, and fish are very good at
concentrating mercury levels in their bodies. Nasty if you eat
contaminated
fish.
Yes, burning coal can release mercury into the atmosphere.
No, its not an unsolvable problem. Almost any of the smokestack-scrubbers
will trap 95%+ of mercury emissions. Its only primitive countries like the
usa (primitive in coal-power technologies, that is), that dont yet have
sufficient understanding of the issues involved. Or rather, the
understanding has not yet reached the legislation levels needed.


Understanding isn't the problem. Payoffs by corporate interests is the
determinant.

"Charles F. Radley" wrote in message
m...
It is now official, seafood is becoming unsafe because of Mercury
contamination from burning coal.

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01038.html

http://www.epa.gov/ost/fishadvice/advice.html

Oil and Natural gas will be running out in a few decades and the
world will then rely essentially on coal for its primary source of
energy..

Seafood contamination will get worse.

We need Solar Power Satellites rather urgently, built from lunar
materials.

1. don't forget the problem of microwave radiation (Electromagnetic
radiation);
2. don't forget the health risk from all the propellant consumption (not
just from oil-based fuel, but also the small amount of nitrous oxides
created by all combustion within the atmosphere, including the small amount
created by LO2/LH2 combustion);
3. a way of avoiding point 2 would be to place the solar arrays on
residential and commercial roofs;
4. before you make such claims from an anonymous account such as google
(Organization:http://groups.google.com), establish your credentials first.


--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

Alan Erskine wrote:

"Charles F. Radley" wrote in message
m...
It is now official, seafood is becoming unsafe because of Mercury
contamination from burning coal.

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01038.html

http://www.epa.gov/ost/fishadvice/advice.html

Oil and Natural gas will be running out in a few decades and the
world will then rely essentially on coal for its primary source of
energy..

Seafood contamination will get worse.

We need Solar Power Satellites rather urgently, built from lunar
materials.

1. don't forget the problem of microwave radiation (Electromagnetic
radiation);
2. don't forget the health risk from all the propellant consumption (not
just from oil-based fuel, but also the small amount of nitrous oxides
created by all combustion within the atmosphere, including the small amount
created by LO2/LH2 combustion);
3. a way of avoiding point 2 ...

Would be to do what we should have done thirty years ago: build a
****load of nuclear and breeder reactors.


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

In article ,
"Alan Erskine" wrote:

We need Solar Power Satellites rather urgently, built from lunar
materials.

1. don't forget the problem of microwave radiation (Electromagnetic
radiation);

What problem? I've read about SPS quite a bit and haven't seen any
evidence of a problem. Please elaborate.

2. don't forget the health risk from all the propellant consumption (not
just from oil-based fuel, but also the small amount of nitrous oxides
created by all combustion within the atmosphere, including the small amount
created by LO2/LH2 combustion);

This seems like a stretch to me.

3. a way of avoiding point 2 would be to place the solar arrays on
residential and commercial roofs;

But I suspect the manufacturing by-products of so many solar cells made
on Earth would far outweight the contaminants produced under point 2.

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Joseph J. Strout Check out the Mac Web Directory: |
| http://www.macwebdir.com |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'

Scott Lowther writes:

Would be to do what we should have done thirty years ago: build a
****load of nuclear and breeder reactors.

Scott! Don't say the "n" word, it will get you into trouble. ;-)

Seriously, nuclear energy today isn't the same as nuclear energy back
when we had Three Mile Island. After watching a documentary on the
Three Mile Island accident, it's clear that may of the problems were
with communication. There was *one* phone line in the control room.
Luckily communications are cheap today.

That and monitoring equipment is better today than it was back then.
With modern equipment, you can do *far* better today than when nuclear
power was actually popular (i.e. pre-Three Mile Island).

Jeff
--
Remove "no" and "spam" from email address to reply.
If it says "This is not spam!", it's surely a lie.

"jeff findley" wrote ...
Seriously, nuclear energy today isn't the same as nuclear energy back
when we had Three Mile Island. After watching a documentary on the
Three Mile Island accident, it's clear that may of the problems were
with communication. There was *one* phone line in the control room.
Luckily communications are cheap today.

That and monitoring equipment is better today than it was back then.
With modern equipment, you can do *far* better today than when nuclear
power was actually popular (i.e. pre-Three Mile Island).

'can' I have no trouble with, it's 'will' that leaves me a little uncertain.

"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Alan Erskine" wrote:

We need Solar Power Satellites rather urgently, built from lunar
materials.

1. don't forget the problem of microwave radiation (Electromagnetic
radiation);

What problem? I've read about SPS quite a bit and haven't seen any
evidence of a problem. Please elaborate.

Several problems, but a quick search on SPS's will elaborate. I used
webcrawler (www.webcrawler.com) and came up with the following:
http://www.wws.princeton.edu/cgi-bin...981/8124/81240
3.PDF (page 10 - Environment and Health) which states: "Too little is known
about the biological effects of long-term exposure to low-level microwave
radiation to assess the health risks associated with SPS microwave systems."

How do you assess this? Lab experiments.

Then there's the Electromagnetic interference to be considered (comms).
Such an amount of radiation would be hazardous to long-distance metal comms
systems in the same way as a nuclear weapon is, but not to the same level.
Find me areas in the size range of New York (for the rectennas) without
copper cables anywhere near a city that would use these systems.

It has been estimated by SSI that only 10% of the mass of an SPS would have
to come from Earth, but that is still somewhere near 10,000 tonnes - 83
Saturn V's or similar, for each SPS and the U.S. alone would require how
many? Multiply that number by 83 and see the environmental damage.

With air filtration equipment, PV cell production is not going to do
_nearly_ as much environmental damage as an SPS. In addition, there is
Solar Thermal which is already more cost-effective than large scale PV, but
not as aesthetic (personally, I like the look of the metallic blue PV
panels - replace roof tiles quite nicely, in my opinion), but for factories
and warehouses, Solar Thermal (ST) is the preferred option. This is called
a Grid Connected system and provides electricity when it's most needed -
during daylight. Before you chuckle at this, imagine all the offices,
warehouses and factories - most energy is consumed in daylight hours - use a
(comparitively) small SRC/TDP/gassification system for night-time
electricity generation.

--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

"Joe Strout" wrote in message
...
What problem? I've read about SPS quite a bit and haven't seen any
evidence of a problem. Please elaborate.

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep533/FALL2001/lecture34.pdf

--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge