Saturday~Coal
By: John Allen
Tags: Fossil Fuels, Environmental Issues, Culture, Coal, Conservation

“In less than 500 years human activity has burned through somewhere between 100 to 200 million years worth of coal as deposited from dead, mostly plant, material formed by time, pressure, and bacterial action. That is, human activity has totally disrupted the natural carbon cycle of Earth. The cycle from best scientific estimates is roughly a 100 million years. It flows from plate tectonics as Earth recycles the top layers with subsequent lower layers of Earth’s crust, the lithosphere, as it floats on the mantle below.

Thus plant material from dead plants over time forms an upper layer. In the constant turning of the crust, what was above becomes a lower layer. That’s where coal is formed. Human industrial activity has scrapped most of the coal from the upper layers of Earth’s crust and burned it for energy, fueling the industrial revolution. It has, most likely, fueled our demise. It continues unabated to this day.” J Allen

A Brief Lesson

Coal~~Yaroslav Maltsev~Unsplash

Mining Coal~~Dominik Vanyi~Unsplash

Human industrial activity is addicted to coal. Sure coal has been used as a fuel for millennia but starting in the 1700’s CE, coal became the dominant fuel for the developing steam engines. And when James Watt received a patent in 1784 for a reciprocating steam engine the industrial revolution began in earnest. Water wheels were used to power all sorts of mechanical activity for centuries. So were animals, and even human power were used for multiple tasks.

Water wheels required a river. They were stationary. Folks took their wheat, say, to the local milling wheel near their farms to get flour in larger capacities than in an individual endeavor at home. Then the excess flour could be sold off and the profit used for buying farm equipment, like mules, for plowing, or a new plow when the old one wore out, for example. Or a Sunday dress for little Jenny. Commerce.

Steam power took commerce to a whole new level and the landowners and the bankers could ‘invest’ in steam engine plants, bring workers there, and live on the excess in the produced items produced by the workers. Capitalism really began when big plants could produce a lot of goods, say, like, cotton cloth, with excess in the form of profits going either to the bankers, the landowners/factory owners, or principle investors, in the enterprise.

Never was there any concern that this may eventually damage our very way of living and being. Even after killer fogs in London, or other valleys where plants spewing coal soot and smoke(CO2, other residues from burning coal like sulfur dioxide, etc) were killing people back in the 19th century, did the owners, the capitalists, think this might not be the best thing for the continuation of the human species.

They still don’t. Now that there’s almost 8 billion people on Earth coal use is bigger than ever. Mountains are leveled for the coal underneath the topsoil. Large swaths of ecosystem are murdered in the mining of coal. Strip mines. Tunneling. All sort of ways have been used to get at this rich, dirty, fuel source. My PC, TV, fridge, motor for my heater are powered by coal. So I’m a small part of the problem also. I admit it. Without coal powered electric plants I die. My O2(for my lung disease) extraction requires coal powered plants. Sure some comes from another fossil fuel, natural gas(hence, methane) and even some electric generating wind turbines, or even solar panels. There are also nuclear power plants that I discussed before. The vast majority of electric power the world over comes from burning coal. Our culture was born of coal.

Schemes

Pixabay

Yes, now we have the schemers. The green grifters. Green hopium. All so we don’t have to change our dirty, wasteful, ways. No, we don’t need a technological fix. Technology got us into this mess. And I agree, I do like a lot of technical things, this PC, for instance, or my TV at night. All our modern conveniences that help make life easier; warmer in winter, and cooler in the hot, and getting hotter, New Mexico, summers. I’ve lived in two different pads, without coolers, for three different, hot as fuck summers. Back in the ‘70's. Never again.

Therefore we collectively need a plan to wean ourselves away from overuse of electric power. And without drastic human population reduction I don’t see any outs. This conglomeration of a huge overpopulated freight train is heading toward the hole of oblivion.

I suppose the biggest scheme being bantered around is the always popular “carbon capture” brand of false hope. Theoretically it sounds good. But since Elon Musk, nor NASA, has developed a ginormous vacuum cleaner to shoot up in outer space to suck all the excess carbon expelled into the atmosphere on a daily basis, the idea is dead before it starts. Just like Trump’s $2,000 stimulus package. Dead. Biden assured it behind the scenes. I digress.

Electric cars are another way to feel less guilt about driving. They still need batteries and electric juice from somewhere. yep, the handy coal fired power plant powering the grid. I haven’t looked into actual efficiency of electric compared with fuel powered autos, but I’m guessing there’s not too much difference overall. Judging by their underwhelming popularity they may just be another scheme in the culture of individual transportation. A way for owners of Teslas to not feel guilty. Of course you have to be in the professional class to afford one. Or for GM not to feel guilty when they close an bto plant making gas engine cars here in the US. Chevy Volt’s, anyone? Didn’t think so. Carbon capture still leads the charge of, “hope we don’t have to change”, yet, ever?

There is no way there will ever be carbon capture technology to solve burning coal the way we do. Or methane, or liquid fuels of any sort. I suppose an alien could land on Earth, see our dilemma and offer some never before imagined technological help. Or just say, “stop making so many babies and having over consumption run the economies of the world”. So, no, I don’t see any magic skyhooks, or deus ex machinas, on the near horizon. Which is the big dilemma. Humans have painted themselves into the proverbial corner. And other than a few suggestions which I’ve written about many times in the past, there are no real answers to our immediate crisis. It is too late to stop this bullet train from hitting El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.

El Capitan~~Austin Neill~Unsplash

A Few Words

Enjoy your lives now while you can. Enjoy your joys, your lover, your family, your kids, your ornery kitty, or the faithful dog your kids adore. Try your best to not increase the damage that already exists.

For example: I like real books. I have hundreds. I have a bunch of eBooks, some of which I did read, James Hansen’s, “Storms of My Grandchildren”, for one. A few others also. But they tire my old eyes faster than paper. One of my guilty pleasures. Styrofoam cups are another. I don’t own a car, yet. I may next year depending. But I won’t use it for joyrides like I did in high school when I could use the family Dodge wagon, with a 440 CI monster. 10 MPG was a good goal. Usually I got a lot less when I gunned it a lot. Those days are done. Back then gas was 33.9 cents a gallon. For a buck I could go to the drive in, race it a few times and not worry that Ol’ Dad would run out of gas. Oops, he did once. I didn’t get to use it near as much after that. I digress again.

So try your best not to waste what we still have. Water, food from the market, wasted car trips, plan a little first, you’ll save gas money and not feel as guilty for driving around. Shaming the neighbor because they drive a big Escalade, or an bigger Hummer, does no good, except licit unwanted hostilities. They know not what they do. Our culture insures that folks play in the system, not fight against it as I do. I do try to keep my conscience clear. Practicing that helps us all. Starting a fistfight with a neighbor because they buy a huge 4- door giant pickup truck they don’t need isn’t the way to change minds. Subtle is better. Or stay quiet. Remember, I’m all about peaceful living.

Lastly, just be kind to those that matter in your lives. Coal, as nasty as it is is part of our living in industrial civilization. Conserve your power use. I sleep with one light on now instead of the two or three I used to. Yep, I need a light on to sleep. I don’t like being blind in the dark, never have. Another little guilty encumbrance.

Fine’

Maybe this little lesson on coal will shed some light on our collective plight. The energy companies have expended large sums of capital to sow doubt and change school circulars so folks won’t know about conserving our resources. Profit is all they care about. It would be nice to have a wayback machine, to go back in time and knock some sense into John D. Rockefeller and get him away from total exploitation of the oil that flowed so freely at the 1st turn of the 20th century. That’s gone. Or going further back in time, and finding a way of using far less coal than was used to get this giant train moving. I don’t know the names involved back then except James Watt.

Lesson done. My arm’s tired. I need some coffee. Just try to live a nice simple life as best you can. Always be as kind as possible. Weather the c-virus storm as best you can. Stay safe. Peace, The Ol’ Hippy

P.S. Here’s a link to a Narwhal article about coal mining in Canada for further exploration to mining’s harm. The photos are eye opening and heartbreaking. It shows the utter devastation of coal mining. And it’s happening the world over. Wherever coal is to be found. : \/