Speakeasy forum: BO War on Coal

a lot of people. Much air pollution in Toronto originates in northern Ohio, and is blown in. It is identifiable both by its composition, and by other monitoring stations on Lake Erie and north of Hamilton. Hamilton, Ontario used to be a source of pollution, but Stelco has closed down, it closed shortly after we got here. Toronto is a manufacturing and financial centre but has no heavy industry like steel plants or paper mills which are great polluters. I think the Long Branch generating station was switched over to being gas fired 20+ years ago.

The pollution from the Four Corners reaches a thousand miles through the US. It's the single largest coal fired generating station in the US, and farmers for a thousand miles down wind have been complaining for decades. Their farms are undervalued as a result of soil contamination, and livestock have more problems than outside the smoke plume area.

Sudbury, on top of Lake Huron, has a very tall stack which was designed with all sorts of scrubbers and anti pollution devices, but wasn't built that way, it was built with nothing to abate pollution from nickel refining, and it's pollution which had laid waste to the forests surrounding Sudbury is now destroying forests much farther away, all the way into Quebec. Images from space show a brown streak of trees a thousand miles long across Northern Ontario.

Asthmatics like me want coal gone, because it makes my life hard. It may have been the precipitating factor to my hospitalization for acute asthma in the 70's that ruined my PhD studies.

This isn't the 18th century when coal was the fossil fuel of choice, nor is it the 19th Century which was heated by Franklin stoves which could burn coal without killing any body with Carbon monoxide. It's the 21st Century. Stop standing in the way of progress.

Geez, even the Mickey Mouse Club TV program used to talk about "You, the leaders of the 21st Century."

Rob

a retired professor of 67 to be a 'leader of the 21th century'? Too much honor, I think.

Here in Europe some might herald the new French socialist president Francois Hollande as such, although he still has to prove he is.

There's a very good chance the real 'leaders of the 21th century' aren't even born yet. And it could very well be a lot of them are non-American.

Kees

The use of energy from coal burning probably played a large role in the research and development of medications

Ever the optimist.

Never mind the pollution from coal burning made the problem worse.

First you exasperate a problem, then you produce a product to alleviate the problem.

A BRILLIANT marketing plan

it is well known here in the UK that coal fired power stations located near urban areas, and the use of coal in industrial factories and in the home for heating, was the single source of poor air quality in our cities in the first half of the last century.

Smog in the cities caused by fog and smoke form the use of coal created high levels of smoke pollution and SO2.

In December 1952 the "Great Smog" was thought to have caused 12,000 fatalities in London and a further 8,000 in the following weeks, (source: BBC - Historic smog death toll rises and Wikipedia - Clean Air Act 1956), from respiratory tract infections from Hypoxia, Asthma and Bronchitis.

The introduction of the Clean Air Act in 1956 began the process of limiting coal in factories and residential homes to smokeless fuels only, and initially at least, replacing coal-fired power stations with nuclear and others.

Over the following years the air quality in our major cities improved dramatically, and mortality dropped significantly.

Mark

I remember most houses in the Cleveland, Ohio area were heating with coal burning furnaces and the coal truck would come once a month and fill our coal bin room that we had in the basement from which we would shovel coal into the furnace regularly. However, technology has changed considerably over the years....coal is no longer used to heat homes and coal mines and coal burned for electricity is 1000 times cleaner than in past years. There is absolutely no reason to abandon coal for electricity for a product that nobody wants or can afford....especially when the taxpayer's money is being used to invest in that. There is little or no demand for solar and wind and only the private investor should be putting up money for something that hasn't developed any further than it did over the past 40 years when it was first suggested. It isn't something this economy can afford with regard to government intervention and it isn't something our government should be forcing upon the people in the same manner it has forced Obamacare upon us.

"seacoaler"? They even have their own song done by Glasgow's Battlefield Band and written by Brian McNeill (just to give credit)



Damn the wind, damn the weans, damn the weather
as ye harness up old Betsy in the rain,
for yer knuckles are so cold ye can barely work the leather
so ye blow upon yer hands and start again.
Mind the pony's hooves upon the shingle.
Mind ye catch the turning o' the tide
and if ye find the load never let her harness jingle
or you'll lose it tae the lads on either side.

Seacoalers! On the water! Miner's sons and tinker's daughters!
Pick and shovel, mare and foal! Seacoal!

Ye're waiting for the sea tae bring your livin',
for the leavin's o' the colliers o'er the bay.
Dusky diamonds in the foam, that's a' that you've been given
tae keep yer children fed another day.
But now ye're cursing Lady Luck and a' her sisters
for there's barely half a bargain that you've won
and can ye meet yer lassie's eyes when ye know ye havnae kissed her
since the price went down by thirty bob a ton?

Seacoalers! Hard drinkers! Damn the lot of them for tinkers!
Catch the waves as they roll! Seacoal!

Arthur Scargill says the miners give no quarter
Auld McGregor says the miners for the dole
Gie them pick, gie them pony, stand them baith out in the water,
and tell me wha's the first tae find the coal.

Seacoalers! Hell mend ye! Where's the union tae defend ye
when the waters take their toll! Seacoal!

Coal in the water, coal in the sea. Coal in the sea, Seacoal.

Seacoalers! In the brakers! Fight the tide or meet yer maker!
Make a bargain for yer soul! Seacoal!

Seacoalers! Moonlighters! Bonny men and better fighters!
Tae the Devil wi' yer dole! Seacoal!

Dangerous work...or so I have heard but I see no hoodies at the site and I like the work ethic they present. "To the devil with your dole?" Won't hear that in parts of the US.

you have your head in the sand. On this topic and several others you seem to post regularly on in this forum, you could use some serious updating.

So classy.

ones wisdom but choosing to waste time by insulting the regulars instead. Perhaps you find it difficult to know the difference between wanting to be listened to and wanting to being heard.

Can we keep the direct insults to a minimum please?

That means none.

Mark

And I know it is not your style, nor anyone else's in this forum.

Mark

Everybody is in somebodies back yard.

Do you wish you were in theirs?