Coal Fuels Climate Challenge

Coal Fuels Climate Challenge

Apr 11 - Charleston Gazette, The

By Ed Peeks

Some scientists take exception to the prevailing belief that the Earth is warming dangerously toward foreseeable destruction of the planet long claimed by devout world-enders.

Yet, scientific thought prevails that the threat is real. It's attributed mainly to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels, led by coal and oil.

There are those who, nonetheless, take exception to the global warming theory and also to leading exponent former Vice President Al Gore and his bully pulpit.

Some say Gore and company have as well as stolen the thunder of world-enders and replaced their biblical prophesy with shaky scientific theory.

Let me be clear that there are still others, unlike the pundits and partisans on talk radio, who say there's more to global warming than meets the eye in the Academy Award-winning documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," starring Gore.

The full truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth has yet to be told about global warming, according to truth-seekers like Henry E. Payne III, founder and managing director of Payne Engineering, based in Scott Depot.

The models used to show global warming trends leave a lot to be desired, Payne says. The climate has been changing slowly for eons, but nothing as drastic as now reflected by current models.

Besides, skeptics say, there's no absolute link between global warming and greenhouses gases. But I say it's not to be forgotten that environmentalists and citizen groups have sought for long to protect the air, water and land from all sources of pollution.

Payne Engineering is no newcomer or Johnny-come-lately to the question of global warming and the nature of the universe. The company has designed and supplied control devices for rockets of the U.S. space program ever since the first astronauts walked on the moon.

"Since 1968, NASA has relied on our products' uncommon reliability and cost-effective, high-powered silicon technology," Payne says.

Indeed, he and his colleagues are rocket scientists in Teays Valley. They are in touch with the universe and climate change.

No doubt, they and others of their stripe can help the power industry meet the challenge of removing carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of electricity generator plants. It's marked as a major cause of greenhouse gas that comes from burning coal, on which the nation relies for about 50 percent of its electricity.

A pilot project is underway in Pleasant Prairie, Wis., to test a new process that captures carbon dioxide and stores it underground. The project is jointly sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute and Alston, a French manufacturer of power equipment.

Closer to home, American Electric Power has a larger $80 million project in the works at the Mountaineer Plant in New Haven. A major role looms for West Virginia to help meet the challenge for cleaner and safer coal to keep the country going.

Peeks is a former business/labor editor of the Gazette.