Coal-Powered Poland Refuses to "Go Green". EU Ain't Happy.

you know - Russia was once at the forefront of communism - is it always good to be at the forefront? - btw Poland can actually be at the forefront: at the forefront against the surge of stupid ideology

Care to explain this agenda that has griped the scientific community and who controls it?

You are arguing yourself round in ever decreasing circles by attempting to deny man made global warming.

The arguments are all well known the albedo effect, the interplay between atmosphere and oceans, tectonic events and astrological orientation all these have been delt with as part of a dynamic open system, you are just tinkering around the edges with shady talk of agendas and brainwashing. If you have a conspiracy to reveal lets hear it.

Bravo! It's about time they did something intelligent. They should continue extracting "around 100 million tonnes of coal annually". They should continue to open the market for hydrolic fracturing. Poland is the 9th largest producer of coal in the world and second largest consumer in Europe after Germany. We got a market and it should stay that way. If Poland accepts the EU proposal, they would be in major debt and would never pay it back.

good god *rollseyes


Well, that's a good thing then, however, it won't always be there.


c'mon man, ya didn't ever read the article, ya didn't even give it a chance.


now, now, play nice :P

For all the things you've said so far man, you've only provided one link.,...about a coral reef....could you please provide links to where you're getting your other information? Teach me something new and put your money where your mouth is.

Correct.

Don't waste time 'debating' with The Deniers, they have swallowed the non-science based talking points of the oil industry.

you don't mind Private Messages smurf, do you? - there is a big chance the thread will be dead or you will miss newer posts - so I ask if you don't mind PM's from me about the topic

What Poland should be doing is using their coal and converting it into natural gas. This would make her power plants burn pollution free (or near so) and they would get co products out of the conversion process. Poland should also use her coal reserves for methanol conversion and use methanol for their transportation fuel instead of importing expensive oil, this also would cut down their emissions and repair her balance of payments in regard to trade. But instead they talk about nuclear power. Poland has a habit of not seeing the forest due to the trees.

Here's an article on coal gasification: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gasification

There is a strong push towards nuclear energy at the moment. I expect Poland to use nuclear power before 2025. We will see next week at the European Nuclear Forum... Anyone attending?

Meathead youre amazing solving many of the worlds most critical issues in a few mere sentences. BTW Im still waiting for your reply over here:

The new World order - A Resource Based Economy? not a monetary one
polishforums.com/off-topic-lounge-47/new-world-order-resource-based-economy-not-monetary-one-50651/14/#msg1234547

I guess sythetic fuel from coal made in Fischer-Tropff process was not economic in the times of low oil prices - there has been proposals for building such an installation in Poland though (and they will surely return whith oil prices rising)

however coal gas as a fuel is not without problems - first of all it's dangerous because it contains a lot of carbon monoxide (which is very toxic) - it also contains hydrogen and therefore is a serious explosive hazard - the productions isn't clean - there is an huge array of potential polutant by-products of which many are difficult to manage (benzene, tar-water emulsions) - then there still remains the question if the process is economical compared to simple coal burning in power plants - untill late 80's coal gas was used quite extensively - Silesia and nearby areas where supplied with 'gaz koksowniczy' (which is very similar thing) in the same manner natural gas is provided now

EU treaties provide that member states are independent in shaping their energy balance. EU should remember about it's own laws.


Poland already curbed more than 20% carbon dioxide emissions (20% is a level set for EU countries from 1990 by 2020). That goal was partly acheived by replacing communist-era power plants with more modern ones, though also fuelled with coal.

This plan is contradicting EU strategy to completely eliminate coal as the heaviest carbon dioxide emitter. Coal energy is to be costlier than gas or wind energy - thats the basic meaning of EU climate policy. So what gumishu wrote here is true:

My electric bills are already much higher since January 2012. Pantsless I don't know where you live, but it's probably not Poland. Your comment about gumishu's post shows that you clearly have no idea about effects of rising energy cost on Polish industry and ordinary people here.

"Pure coal" technologies, such as storing CO2 underground, will never be implemented, because it costs too much. At this point you can see enormous hypocrisy of EU. They only talk about pure technologies but in reality they introduce gas or nuclear power plants. It's probably not a coincidence that several countries that loudly bemoan Polish veto are countries that specialise in technologies they want to introduce in Poland. France with it's nuclear industry; Denmark and Gemany with their wind generators. West is already a saturated market for those commodities and they need to expand.

Moreover climate is a public good (also in economic terms), so it needs to be treated as such. Europe can't protect global climate by itself. In past 2 decades, when Europe cuted coal consumption by about 300 mil. tons per year (at great economic cost), China increased it's use by 2,5 billion tons per year. So whats the point of this?

Thanks for the article. That some really cool stuff. Why have I never heard of it? Why doesn't any politician support it?

I don't know why you haven't heard of it. And "clean coal" is a joke. It's not popular among progressive politicians because it's a messy process that produces some vile contaminants, not the least of which is cyanide.

newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/05/however-you-spin-it-coal-gasif.html

@ Alliagtor - the whole idea of global warming and climate change is a scam. It's just an excuse to allow the government to have more control over our lives. Electricity prices have already risen over the summer because of the closing down of significant energy suppliers which have been privatized and sold to foreign companies (mainly the West).

An idea can't be a scam. An idea is merely a suggestion. For it to be a scam, the scientific community and anybody capable of understanding their research would have to be in on some grand conspiracy. More is know about global climate change than about gravity, which is also just a theory. Or biological evolution, for that matter. Do you believe in gravity, or is that just a scam, too?

Huge increases in installed capacity can be achieved through efficiency upgrades at existing power stations. Clean coal is not a joke, by the way, although clean nuclear obviously is.

The scam is deniers propaganda machine trying to promote an image of scientific discussion, whereas there is scientists on one side being denied by journalists, Oil company PR, politicians and ignorant bullshitters.

I've heard of coal liquefaction and carbon sequestration.

/wiki/Coal_liquefaction (coal to fuel)
/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_sequestration (gas containment)

Carbon sequestration is astonishingly difficult on a technical level.

Well the EU isn't always gonna get what they want, tough. Poland can't afford it yet, it's not gonna go out of its way.

Are you high? Gravity exists: "what goes up, must come down". Go back to school and read your textbook. The concept of gravity was observed and measured: roughly 9.81m/s.

a lot of that is to fund renewable obligations, i.e. to pay for renewable energy....... You know if the govs come up short its always the same story, get the people to pay for it. How do you think the banks go so fcuking rich.....

Right at the heart of the debate is the precautionary principle. This states that even if anthropogenic global warming isn't happening, or if it is happening and its effects are not bad, we must adopt the stance that we have to bankrupt everyone in a vain attempt to stop it, whatever "it" is. Robespierre used similar logic - until his head parted company from his neck.

EVEN if global warming isnt happening we still need the shite to burn to actually make energy, as it stands Russia (gas) and the Middle East (oil) have the lions share. KaBoom there it is, right there. An economic - financial war on resources. They dont give a fcuk about the planet....only their respective countries financial power and the effects of buying OIL and Gas at Russian and Middle Eastern prices.

As usual its all about the money, are we surprised?

Nonrenewable resources verses renewable...
If a country becomes independent that would upset some people in these industries.

I'm amazed that everyone is not looking for a clean, self-reliant, renewable energy source without screaming bloody murder about C02 emissions.

Biofuel makes me laugh, it sounds great BIO FUEL, doesn't that sound great?

Its basically wood. Sure there are other biofuels but they all require burning in order to extract the energy, renewable - YES, eco friendly - NO.

get ready for the b-i-o f-u-e-l age...

That is slowly coming to an end, as their economies need to diversify as those resources are being depleted. Poland has been blessed by recently uncovering large amounts of shale gas. It can use this gas and greatly improve its market or it can sit on it and raise dependence on foreign imports from Russia.

Ohh fcuking hell here we go with the shale gas, sure Poland has vast resources of shale gas, so has the UK, so has every country...... you dont seriously believe that shite do you? Poland isnt that lucky, never has been.

If Poland has VAST RESOURCES of shale gas at 313,000 sq miles, how much will Russia have at 17,000,000... 51 times bigger?

Shale gas is just another money spinner for the corporations.... and at what environmental cost?

Since when have they ever gave a rats ass about the environment in Poland?

The destruction of the national parks in recent years by massive over-building says it all to me.

Biofuel that is mostly used in cars and in power plants (maybe in future) is not made from wood but jatropha. It grows easily in arid zones ill adapted to agriculture. However jatropha requires more irrigation than it was previously forecasted and plantations often replace forest lands.

The demand for biofuels is spurred by EU. Since 2011 petrol stations the EU have to increase the percentage of fuels with low carbon dioxide emissions.The goal is to reach 10% by 2020. The trick is: Europe does not have sufficient arable land to produce the required amount of biofuels. Because of that EU countries are buying large areas of land in Africa (currently 4 million hectars). In total 19 millions hectars in Africa is occupied by biofuels plantations.

At the global level, replacing food crops with jatropha contributed to the rise in food prices in 2007 and 2008. That coused in many countries famine. About 2 months ago there was a radio BBC4 documentary about the consecuences of biofuel plantations in South America. In many instances tropical forests were cut down to make place for jatropha. Local communities were suffering because of lack of land for their crops. The same thing is happening right now in Africa.

I think that biofuels maybe are somehow eco friendly, but definitely they are not human friendly.