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To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (50371)	5/24/2004 10:01:23 AM
From: Tommaso	Respond to of 74559

Is that supposed to be some kind of put-down?

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (50371)	5/24/2004 12:17:21 PM
From: Toby Zidle	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

"hydrocarbon - (noun) An organic compound containing only carbon and hydrogen and often found occurring in petroleum, natural gas and coal." "improper - With clean burning coal one could stop consuming hydrocarbons to generate electricity." You misconstrue the definition of 'hydrocarbon', Elroy. Coal is carbon, contains no hydrogen, and thus is NOT a hydrocarbon. The definition should be read as stating that hydrocarbons are "often found occurring in petroleum, (in) natural gas and (in) coal." Methane (CH4) is a hydrocarbon closely associated with coal deposits. It is also called "coal gas". However, it is NOT coal. It is an associated impurity. "Clean-burning" coal is coal processed at high cost to remove methane and sulfur impurities. It is often portrayed as an ideal solution for replacing oil and gas in fuel and power generation. It is not. Problems with "clean-burning" coal: 1. Cost of removing impurities. 2. Disposal of extracted impurities -- can not be burned, buried, or dumped into the oceans. 3. Environmental permits for developing new mines. The U.S. now has more high-grade coal that can be developed that it has oil that can be economically produced. Yet do you know of a new mining property that has been opened to production in the last 20-30 years? Why is that? New production would be from coal deposits in "pristine" parts of the country, e.g., Wyoming, Montana, etc. No one wants to destroy the economic value of "scenery" by allowing huge new 'open pits' in what would otherwise be a calendar picture. Add to that, the traffic, noise, air pollution, new housing and infrastructure required to serve a mining community populated with 'outsiders'. The Sierra Club and other environmental watchdogs take these inevitable bad side-effects and tie up proposed projects in the courts for decades. This is the NIMBY effect -- Not In My Back Yard! The same applies to public housing, new prison construction, and nuclear waste disposal. I don't want them in my back yard either, but when applied to the country as a whole, the result is to derail many of the high-priority programs to better our national quality of life as a whole. When no one sacrifices, we all suffer.