I just finished reading Jeff Goodell’s book Big Coal and it is a scary and disturbing book. Yet he does offer some hope in the final two chapters in the book that the best energy source we will ever have is, not technology, but human ingenuity.

He also seemed to be very fond of a new generation of coal fired electrical plants called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle or IGCC plants that work very much like coal liquefaction plants with the difference being that once the impurities (heavy metals, sulphur, etc) are cooked out and the carbon sequestered, we hope, the plants burn the gas product to turn a turbine. They are 40 % efficient beating a coal plant’s efficiency by 30% and all of the pollutants are captured and the CO2 sequestered before they go up the stack.

What is your take on IGCC plants?

Rick

The Drake Landing Solar Community in Okotoks, AB is an example of seasonal thermal storage used for district heating. This type of system could be readily combined with solar thermal power generation. In a home in Regina, even if it is built to R-2000 standards, winter heating costs are significant.

Unfortunately, SaskPower is now talking about additional Natural Gas power generation because it can be built cheaply.