You Can't Polish a Turd

"Trump's plan to bring back the coal industry isn't that bad. The development of clean coal will make a big improvement." - My Dad

Jumping on the "Let's-Slam-Donald-Trump" bandwagon, I decided that it's time to show the world exactly what Mr. President's new energy plan really means. For my uninformed readers, America under Obama's presidency has seen wonderful funding to alternative energy sources like wind and solar. While there are still great hoops to jump through to install large powered solar and wind farms, states are still seeing progress. Texas has the largest on-land wind farm in the world and Iowa is leading the U.S. in wind energy. Meanwhile, California is running two solar farms and over 500,000 completed solar installation projects. Over 200,000 homes in California have solar panels installed.

2015 saw approximately 13.5% of total energy generation produced by renewables.

With about 13.5% percent of energy generation produced using renewable resources, where does the rest of the energy come from? Petroleum, Natural Gas and Coal all ring in with approximately 30%, give or take. Coal has fallen in recent years due to government regulations. Enter our main man, Donald J. Trump.

According to Trump's New Energy Plan, we are going to abandon climate-conscious decisions of focusing on renewables and give coal and natural gas a second shot (not to mention continue funding the war in the middle east as a not-so-subtle bid to keep funding our mining of petroleum). Trump and his administration are also committed to the clean coal technology as a bid to be more conscious about damaging our environment.

"What? Clean coal you say? So, like a coal that doesn't hurt the environment?" Well... not really. Let's start by introducing coal. Coal, or plants that died millions of years ago, is a carbon based substance that is burned to boil water and spin generators for energy production. Energy manufacturers love this stuff because there is a buttload of energy packed in all those bonds (the double bonds have a lot more energy) and the government doesn't mind if you dump the waste out into the environment (mostly because it's almost entirely CO2). Now, I said almost entirely CO2, but not 100%. You see, America uses Bituminous coal, which is approximately 45-86% carbon. There's a lot of other stuff trapped in there, such as mercury, nitrates, sulfates, and even some elements that will produce radioactive waste when burned. Ouch...

Clean coal technology does exactly what it says on the tin. It cleans coal. By using fancy chemical reactions with other gases and treating the coal at a range of temperatures, scientists have found that they can capture most of the sulfates and nitrates before the coal is burned, preventing them from getting into the atmosphere where they can turn into Sulfuric and Nitric Acids (acid rain). This technology doesn't mention removing mercury or the radioactive components of the coal because it can't get rid of them at all. So, let's put this simply: Clean coal cannot remove the CO2, the mercury or radioactive waste products, but it's supposed to be the environmentally conscious choice of the new presidential administration.

Let's look at these wastes a little more, with some special r/theydidthemath focus on CO2 emissions. When you light up your BBQ and cook up a juicy steak, you're using charcoal (which is slightly different from coal in that it's artificially made and pure carbon). That little piece of coal will produce approximately 85 liters of CO2.

That is the CO2 emissions from a 0.25kg, fist size piece of coal.

To put some nationwide numbers to it, let's use numbers from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, who states that 1 pound of bituminous coal (the most common coal used in America) will produce 2.86 pounds of CO2, which equates to roughly 655.25 liters of CO2 (at normal pressure and 0C). In 2015, the U.S. produced 4,500,000,000,000 pounds of coal which, when burnt, will produce 3,000,000,000,000,000 liters of coal. That's a lot of zeroes... Too many to really comprehend. Let's look at some other numbers to really help us.

• America drank approximately 53,000,000,000 liters of soda in 2015. Not even close.
• America needs approximately 63,000,000,000,000 liters of oxygen to live for a year. Closer...
• The Great Lakes contain 21% of the world's freshwater supply, coming in at 23,000,000,000,000,000 liters of water. There it is.

In one year, the production of coal alone would produce enough CO2 to fill one of the great lakes entirely! It doesn't seem like a very big amount when compared to the vastness of our atmosphere, but that's one country with one resource in one year. And it doesn't go away so easily. Let's look at some more math to figure that out! There are approximately 3,000,000,000,000 trees on Earth, which sucks in approximately 7,500,000,000,000,000 liters of CO2 per year. That means that America produces 25% of all the CO2 that the trees can handle per year. That's just coal (not oil, not petroleum, not biomass) and just American Energy (not forest fires, not volcanoes, not EU energy, not human respiration). This does not include ocean sequestration, however the ocean about matches plant based sequestration.

So, while big man Donald Trump insists that clean coal is the way forward to for environmentally conscious energy production, remember that coal is coal. Combustion of coal with oxygen will lead to CO2. You can't fix that. What you can fix is your method of producing said energy. We have environmentally friendly ways, which are becoming more efficient every year.

Additionally, Trump insists that reducing regulations on coal mining will bring more jobs to America. While he is not wrong, more people will have jobs, his statement implies that a focus on renewable energy does not bring jobs. That, much like many other statements of his, is untrue. Below is a graph showing the number of jobs per energy source and shows that increases in solar technology has created an enormous number of jobs, ranging from installation technicians to maintenance engineers. 

Don't abandon renewables research, as it is healthy for the environment, healthy for society and healthy for the economy.