SOCS 325 Week 3 Article Summary (Review, Discover, and Comment)

SOCS 325 Week 3 Article Summary (Review, Discover, and Comment) Environmental Injustice of Clean Coal Clean coal is the dirtiest of all the fossil fuels used as an alternate ...

SOCS 325 Week 3 Article Summary (Review, Discover, and Comment) Environmental Injustice of Clean Coal Clean coal is the dirtiest of all the fossil fuels used as an alternate resource for many industry advances, but mainly for power generation. It is also used for many other useful things that most people are not aware of. Coal is used to break down & reduce the carbons in ore from the earth’s crust, therefore making 70 percent of steel production dependent on coal (WCA, 2016). In addition, coal uses fly ash which is a byproduct of combustion in coal power plants, as a supplemental resource for cement in concrete (WCA, 2016). With coal producing close to half of global electricity, it isn’t any wonder why there is so much debate on what effect it is having on our climate & the emissions it produces. This article specifies the intent to advance the conversation of clean coal without answering the concerns of why the industry uses coal, but to inform those on the way we currently use this alternate fossil fuel & the impact it has on our environment now (Tyree, 2009). Power generation plants use coal as a means of fuel by blowing the coal into the combustion chamber igniting it, increasing the temperature within the chamber. As the temperature increases, water flows through multiple metal tubes boiling the water, turning it into steam. The steam is then carried through the tubs into a steam drum, where the steam is used to turn steam powered turbine generators resulting in power generation. This electricity powers homes within each area, but what happens after the coal is burnt? This is the controversy behind the efficiency of coal usage. Together with power generation facilities, emissions control is a large part of this process in order to stay within regulatory limits, but not all emission particles are tested. These polluting components include sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, & mercury emissions. Sulfur dioxide is a colorless gas & has a pungent smell that is similar to a match that has just been struck. This gas is related to health concerns predominantly focused on particles collecting in the lungs & causing respiratory distress & difficulty breathing (NIH, 2015). Nitrogen oxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change & can cause respiratory issues, & reduce the amount of blood being carried through the body(NIH, 2015). Mercury at high temperatures is colorless & in vapor form can cause damage to the kidneys, irritation to the lungs & combined with carbon can form in water or soil (NIH, 2015).This can be transferred to animals in the surrounding environment which humans feed off of via the food chain, contaminating food sources with the potential for oversaturation, leading to death. It’s easy to see these concerns are a large portion of why coal has such an impact on our environment & on humans. Burning coal has never been clean no matter which side of the fence one may be on. This article mentions that capturing the CO2 would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere emitted from the coal plants that produce them. The underlying issue is the storage of these containers & the location of where they would be stored. Corrosion of these containment facilities has always been an issue, even with nuclear waste, & we cannot believe that it would be any different with carbon dioxide containment either. Although there are possibilities for the reduction of emissions, scientifically these solutions have not yet been found to be placed into action. As long as there is a cheap fuel, such as coal & a majority of this resource is available for countries & industries to exploit for consumption, it will always be at the front door step of production or destruction. Although carbon dioxide is one of the primary greenhouse gasses accompanying, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide & ozone, it is also not the most harmful of the group. Nonetheless, it is a contributing particle that must be dealt with along with the other greenhouse gases through research & environmental adaptability in order to maintain & solidify a health future for ecological residents alike. References Tyree, S., Greenleaf, M. (2009). The Environmental Injustice of ‘‘Clean Coal’’:Expanding the National Conversation on Carbon Captureand Storage Technology to Include an Analysisof Potential Environmental Justice Impacts. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Tox Town. (2015). Retrieved from:https://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/text_version/chemicals.php?id=29 World Coal Association. (2016). Retrieved from: http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/uses-coal