"Squeeze-dried" coal -- Aussie innovation may reduce greenhouse gas by 33%
The Age -- a Melbourne paper, registration optional -- has the details:
Victorian scientists have found a way of drying brown coal [lignite] which could cut greenhouse emissions by a third - they squeezed it.
[The] process [...] removes 70 per cent of the water from brown coals found in Victoria and South Australia, resulting in huge reductions in greenhouse gases when the coal is burnt in a power station.
The Cooperative Research Centre for Clean Power from Lignite has found that by drying the coal through a process of mild heating and squeezing, it is reduced to a state far more suitable as a feed for efficient power generation.
The next step is a $5 million pilot plant in Australia's Latrobe Valley.
(via Slashdot Science)
UPDATE: The article doesn't specify how much of the greenhouse gas reduction is water vapor vs. C02 vs. the less-prevalent greenhouse gases.
At least one IPCC TAR chapter lead author considers mention of the effect of water vapor upon the Earth's greenhouse effect to be misleading as water vapor can not be controlled by humans
This bit underscores how the use of the term "greenhouse gas" can be misleading since many people read it as a synonym for C02.
MTBE leaks in Fallston, Md: scarce data, hard choices & unintended consequences
The Sun has run a series of stories in the last two weeks about contamination of wells by MTBE in Fallston (Harford County).
Scarce data:
EPA says there are no studies of the effects of drinking MTBE-contaminated water, it has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals at high doses in inhalation studies. The federal agency has not set any safe drinking-water level for the substance, but recommends action if concentrations exceed 20 to 40 parts per billion -- the threshold at which people can taste or smell it. [June 16th Sun, Emphasis added.]
Because of the leakage, quite a few people -- residents, businesses and regulators -- face some hard choices. This stuff ain't easy.
A morsel of good news:
Dr. Andrew Bernstein, [Harford] county health officer, [...] said that unlike other chemicals, MTBE does not accumulate in the body. He said the body usually excretes it in a day or two. [June 23rd Sun]
Unintended consequences:
MTBE [...] is added to gasoline to make it burn more cleanly. [EPA] has required [its use] since 1990 in areas, including Baltimore, that have unhealthy summer air quality. Federal officials say MTBE has helped to reduce carbon monoxide and ozone air pollution levels nationwide. [June 24th Sun]
Shrinking rates-of-return on highway spending...little progress on congestion
Virginia Postrel writes about the economics of highway infrastructure in the NY Times and asks "What are we getting for our money?"
She gets part of an answer from an article in the Journal of Urban Economics (March 2004):
the rate of return [of highway infrastructure projects has] plummeted [...] from more than 15 percent in the 1970's to less than 5 percent in the 1980's and 1990's. (These figures are corrected for inflation.)
The authors are Chad Shirley of the RAND Corporation and Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution.
Other research by Dr. Winston and Ashley Langer "suggests that highway spending isn't doing much to reduce congestion costs either."
