Coal Power Online

Terence Young asked:


“There is a powerful, driving force inside every human being that, once unleashed, can make any vision, dream, or desire a reality.” - Tony Robbins

Tony is arguably one of the most renowned speakers in the world, millions of people from all over the globe have attended Anthony Robbins’ live seminars. As one of America’s most prominent self help gurus, during the year of ‘04 I had sparsely heard of him. I hadn’t read any of his books, nor listened to any of his audio recordings yet by the end of the year I was to credit Robbins for transforming my life.

How did he do it?

In 2004 I attended Tony Robbins “Unleash The Power Within” seminar. It was one of the best decisions of my life and without a doubt a pivotal moment in my life. Here is what I learned at the “Unleash The Power Within” 4 day seminar?

Day One (Friday) - The Firewalk Experience

So with excitement and a touch of trepidation the day had arrived. The larger than life American brought with him a well polished rock style show. His energy and enthusiasm is mesmerizing and oddly infectious. He has over the decades perfected an innate ability to hold the audiences attention in the palm of his hand.

The first day is full of laughing, hugging and massaging strangers on the shoulders, high fives and a lot of clapping and jumping to well chosen music. War cries resonated the auditorium and this becomes the culture for the Robbins seminar over the next few days.

By the time the Firewalk came round at the end of the first evening I was pumped and ready to go. We were told that the coals were up to 1200 degrees and I sure wasn’t going to argue the point. The actual Firewalk is over within seconds but the impact lasts a great deal longer.

The walking on coals was a symbolic way to show that fear can be overcome and reinforces the power that each of us has the ability to conquer anything we put our minds to.

Day Two and Three (Saturday and Sunday) - Conditioning Yourself For Success

After the amazing experience of Friday night everyone enters the second day with a notable buzz. Both Saturday and Sunday turn out to be very long sessions going for more than 12 hours straight but the time fly’s and I didn’t find myself looking at my clock to see when it ends.

The weekend is spent largely listening to Tony’s instruction and doing exercises with other attendees. The focus was about creating an extraordinary you, breaking old patterns that are holding you back in life and overcoming limiting beliefs that are preventing you becoming the best you can be. I learnt to face issues in my life that I would have otherwise never faced had it not been for this event and being able to deal with them in a supportive environment made all the difference. The weekend continues with focusing on deciding what you want out of life and how to create massive momentum to make it happen.

Day Four (Monday) - Health and Vitality

As many would know, Tony is a vegetarian who chooses to live a healthy lifestyle. He sees it as a key to his success, after all what good is it to achieve everything you want in life if you don’t have the health to enjoy it. This final day is conducted without Tony, with one of his Trainers stepping in to conduct it in conjunction with video recordings. The room was noticeably smaller with many attendees opting not to attend the final day, I guess many knew what was to come.

Before Robbins my diet was atrocious. Meat was a large part of my daily intake and salad was something I ate with a burger. I ate junk food several times a week but I wasn’t over weight so I continued with this diet thinking to myself that I was going to be okay. But the next 8 hours changed all that. We learned to breathe better so we could oxygenate our bodies, we learnt about healthy eating and how to create a healthy lifestyle by eliminating unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking.

By the time the presentation came around about the virtues of living a vegetarian diet I knew I was in big trouble. Robbins never once tried to convince you to go vegetarian, nor did he force his beliefs on you, rather he provided information and suggested you make up your own mind. By the time we left we were all given a 10 day challenge to live this healthy way of life and then make up our own minds whether we wanted to stick with it.

I stayed vegetarian for three years and I never regretted it, I must add that I did eat seafood. Once I got momentum it was surprisingly easy to modify my lifestyle and today while I now have introduced meat back into my diet it is in far greater moderation and balance then it once was.

“The man who has inspired millions to change their lives! [Tony] brings out the best in all of us. The world is a better place because of him.” - Larry King (Host of Larry King Live on CNN)

So How Has It Changed My Life Since The Event

1. By doing the exercises I got a chance to deal with some of the emotional baggage in my life and learn to find forgiveness.

2. I was able to find a clearer direction with my life with much more defined life goals.

3. I am a much more patient, open minded and less stressed person.

4. The Firewalk enabled me gain greater confidence in myself to deal with life’s obstacles and uncertainties.

5. I became a vegetarian and drastically altered my diet and lifestyle for the better.

6. I was an atheist before the event, and Robbins helped me find God which has made a profound difference in my life.

7. Overall I realized the world isn’t so bad, you got to see the good side of humanity being at the seminar.

If you have been thinking about attending a Tony Robbins seminar here are my tips to help make your experience the best it can be:

1. Come with an open mind and without any preconceived expectations. It was easy for me as I had little exposure to any of Tony’s work. But I know there were people who attended that questioned everything and were closed off to some of the activities that Tony got us to do. You’ve spent good money to attend so why not let loose and just enjoy the experience. You can analyze all you want after the event is over.

2. Upgrade to VIP. I attended with Gold tickets. This basically means that you don’t have assigned seating and your further from the stage. At the time I wasn’t in a position to get VIP tickets but if I was to do it again I would. The reason being is not just about being closer to the stage but rather your assigned seating enables you to get to know the people around you and share the journey together. Plus an added bonus is you don’t have to get there early every morning to try and get the best seats you can.

3.Consider booking a hotel room close by. If you are coming from out of town then that’s a no brainer. But we were local to where Tony was conducting the seminar and drove home every night. With some of his sessions going to close to midnight and beginning at 9am the next day we would have been better served just booking a hotel room close by so we could squeeze in an extra few hours sleep.

4.Dress in layers and bring snacks. For some reason the room temperature was set to cold. Maybe it’s to enable us to concentrate better but by dressing in layers at least you can take some off during the day if you get too cold. I would also suggest bringing water and snacks so that you don’t feel as hungry as the sessions can be long.

5. Get your own information. If your relying on the sales people to give you advice on the seminar then you are probably going to be sold a well polished sales pitch. If your not sure if a Tony Robbins seminar is right for you, take some time to find out the information yourself.

Dr.Badruddin Khan asked:


naturally occurring combustible material consisting primarily of the element carbon. It also contains low percentages of solid, liquid, and gaseous hydrocarbons and/or other materials, such as compounds of nitrogen and sulfur. The physical, chemical, and other properties of coal vary considerably from sample to sample. Coal is usually classified into subgroups known as anthracite, bituminous, lignite, and peat. At some periods in Earth’s history, however, conditions existed that made other forms of decay possible. The bodies of dead plants and animals underwent only partial decay. The products remaining from this partial decay are coal, oil, and natural gas—the so-called fossil fuels. To imagine how such changes may have occurred, we may consider the following possibility. A plant dies in a swampy area and is quickly covered with water, silt, sand, and other sediments. These materials prevent the plant debris from reacting with oxygen in the air and decomposing to carbon dioxide and water, a process that would occur under normal circumstances. Instead, anaerobic bacteria attack the plant debris and convert it to simpler forms: primarily pure carbon and hydrocarbons, the simplest compounds of carbon and hydrogen. The initial stage of the decay of a dead plant is a soft, woody material known as peat. In some parts of the world, peat is still collected from boggy areas and used as a fuel. It is not a good fuel, however, as it burns poorly and produces a great deal of smoke. If peat is allowed to remain in the ground for long periods of time, it eventually becomes compacted. Layers of sediment, known as over-burden, collect above it. The additional pressure and heat of the overburden gradually converts peat into another form of coal known as lignite or brown coal. Continued compaction by overburden then converts lignite into bituminous coal and finally, into anthracite coal. Coal has been formed at many times in the past, but most abundantly during the Carboniferous Age (about 300 million years ago) and again during the Upper Cretaceous Age (about 100 million years ago). Today, coal formed by these processes is often found layered between other layers of sedimentary rock. Sedimentary rock is formed when sand; silt, clay, and similar materials are packed together under heavy pressure. In some cases, the coal layers may lie at or very near Earth’s surface. In other cases, they may be buried thousands of feet underground. Coal seams usually range from no more than 3 to 200 feet (1 to 60 meters) in thickness. The location and configuration of a coal seam determines the method by which the coal will be mined. Coal is classified according to its heating value and according to the percentage of carbon it contains. For example, anthracite contains the highest proportion of pure carbon (about 86 to 98 percent) and has the highest heat value of all forms of coal. Bituminous coal generally has lower concentrations of pure carbon (from 46 to 86 percent) and lower heat values. Bituminous coals are often subdivided on the basis of their heat value, being classified as low, medium, and high volatile bituminous and subbituminous. Lignite, the poorest of the true coals in terms of heat value, generally contains about 46 to 60 percent pure carbon. All forms of coal also contain other elements present in living organisms, such as sulfur and nitrogen, that are very low in absolute numbers but that have important environmental consequences when coals are used as fuels. By far the most important property of coal is the hard fact that it burns. When the pure carbon and hydrocarbons, found in coal burn completely, only two products: carbon dioxide and water are formed. During this chemical reaction, a relatively large amount of heat energy is released. For this reason, coal has long been used by humans as a source of energy for heating homes and other buildings, running ships and trains, and in many industrial processes. However, the complete combustion of carbon and hydrocarbons rarely occurs in nature. If the temperature is not high enough or sufficient oxygen is not provided to the fuel, combustion of these materials is usually incomplete. During the incomplete combustion of carbon and hydrocarbons, other products besides carbon dioxide and water are formed. These products include carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and other forms of pure carbon, such as soot. During the combustion of coal, minor constituents are also oxidized. For example, sulfur is converted to sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide, and nitrogen and its compounds are converted to nitrogen oxides. The incomplete combustion of coal and the combustion of these minor constituents results in a number of environmental problems. For example, soot formed during incomplete combustion may settle out of the air and deposit an unattractive coating on homes, cars, buildings, and other structures. Carbon monoxide formed during incomplete combustion is a toxic gas and may cause illness or death in humans and other animals. Oxides of sulfur and nitrogen react with water vapor in the atmosphere and then settle out in the air as acid rain that is thought to be responsible for the destruction of certain forms of plant and animal, especially fish -life. In addition to these compounds, coal often contains a small percentage of mineral matter (quartz, calcite, or perhaps clay minerals). Since these components do not burn readily, they become part of the ash formed during combustion. This ash then either escapes into the atmosphere or is left in the combustion vessel and is discarded. Sometimes coal ash also contains significant amounts of other elements such as lead, barium, arsenic etc. Whether airborne or in bulk, coal ash can therefore be a serious environmental hazard. Coal is extracted from Earth using one of two major methods: sub-surface or surface (strip) mining. Subsurface mining is used when seams of coal are located at significant depths below Earth’s surface. The first step in subsurface mining is to dig vertical tunnels into the earth until the coal seam is reached. Horizontal tunnels are then constructed off the vertical tunnel. In many cases, the preferred way of mining coal by this method is called room-and-pillar mining. In room-and-pillar mining, vertical columns of coal (the pillars) are left in place as the coal around them is removed. The pillars hold up the ceiling of the seam, preventing it from collapsing on miners working around them. After the mine has been abandoned, however, those pillars may collapse, bringing down the ceiling of the seam and causing the collapse of land above the old mine. Surface mining can be used when a coal seam is close enough to Earth’s surface to allow the overburden to be removed easily and inexpensively. In such cases, the first step is to strip off all of the overburden in order to reach the coal itself. The coal is then scraped out by huge power shovels, some capable of removing up to 100 cubic meters at a time. Strip mining is a far safer form of coal mining for coal workers, but it presents a number of environmental problems. In most instances, an area that has been strip-mined is terribly scarred. Restoring the area to its original state can be a long and expensive procedure. In addition, any water that comes in contact with the exposed coal or overburden may become polluted and require treatment. Coal is regarded as a nonrenewable resource, meaning it is not replaced easily or readily. Once a nonrenewable resource has been used up, it is gone for a very long time into the future, if not forever. Coal fits that description, since it was formed many millions of years ago but is not being formed in significant amounts any longer. Therefore, the amount of coal that now exists below Earth’s surface is, for all practical purposes, all the coal available for the foreseeable future. When this supply of coal is used up, humans will find it necessary to find some other substitute to meet their energy needs. Large supplies of coal are known to exist or thought to be available in many parts of the world. For many centuries, coal was burned in small stoves to produce heat in homes and factories. As the use of natural gas became widespread in the latter part of the twentieth century, coal oil and coal gas quickly became unpopular since they were somewhat smoky and foul smelling. Today, the most important use of coal, both directly and indirectly, is still as a fuel, but the largest single consumer of coal for this purpose is the electrical power industry. The combustion of coal in power-generating plants is used to make steam, which, in turn, operates turbines and generators. The gravity of the situation may be realized from the fact that for a period of more than 40 years beginning in 1940, the amount of coal used in the United States for this purpose is said to be doubled in every decade. Although coal is no longer widely used to heat homes and buildings, it is still used in industries such as paper production, cement and ceramic manufacture, iron and steel production, and chemical manufacture for heating and for steam generation. Another use for coal is in the manufacture of coke. Coke is nearly pure carbon produced when soft coal is heated in the absence of air. In most cases, 1 ton of coal will produce 0.7 ton of coke in this process. Coke is valuable in industry because it has a heat value higher than any form of natural coal. It is widely used in steelmaking and in certain chemical processes. A number of processes have been developed by which solid coal can be converted to a liquid or gaseous form for use as a fuel. Conversion has a number of advantages. In a liquid or gaseous form, the fuel may be easier to transport. Also, the conversion process removes a number of impurities from the original coal that have environmental disadvantages. One of these conversion methods is known as gasification. In gasification, crushed coal is forced to react with steam and either air or pure oxygen. The coal is converted into a complex mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons with appreciable heat values. One day it may be possible to construct gasification systems within a coal mine, making it much easier to remove the coal, in a gaseous form, from its original seam. In the process of liquefaction, solid coal is converted to a petroleum-like liquid that can be used as a fuel for motor vehicles and other applications. On the one hand, both liquefaction and gasification are attractive technologies because of its very large coal resources. On the other hand, the wide availability of raw coal means that expensive new technologies have been unable to compete economically with the natural product.

andyhix asked:

The second annual Climate Camp in the UK was held 4-11 August 2008 at Kingnorth in Kent to protest against the building of a new Coal Power station. This is a film about the march on Kingsnorth on the Saturday of the camp.

deathstarmygnr asked:

BNSF SD70MAC 9812 still with it’s BN logos and BNSF SD70MAC 9491 lead a coal train out of North La Crosse Yard to Chicago then to the Powder River Basin in Wyoming with BNSF SD70MAC 9649 and BNSF 9650 trailing as helper units. Filmed 6/23/2008

edpvideo asked:

How do you make electricity from coal? This is a 2 minute clip from a 10 minute COMPLETELY 3D ANIMATED tutorial I created for FirstEnergy Corp.

SumTing2u asked:

A series of pics of London in 1952,along with anti-coal for energy themes, to the music of Pink Floyd

undercurrentspaulo asked:

Burning coal is a leading source of global warming pollution.

Burning coal is the dirtiest way we produce electricity.

The coal industry is spending millions advertising “clean” coal, but not a single “clean” coal power plant exists in the U.S. today.

James Nash asked:


Some people enjoy baking cookies in the oven, some people enjoy baking themselves in the backyard. Even if oil-soaked sun-worshipping Saturday afternoons are the most direct experience most of us every get with the energy of the sun, we know picture of the sun instinctively that the sun is essential for life. It turns out it’s also essential for just about any type of energy you can think of.

Solar energy is free and inexhaustible, and has been for the 5 billion years or so that the planet has been in existence. In the broadest sense, solar energy supports all life on earth and is the basis for almost every form of energy we use.

1) The sun makes plants grow, which are burned as fuel or rot in swamps and are compressed underground for millions of years to become coal and oil.

2) Heat from the sun causes temperature differences between areas, causing the wind to blow.

3) Water evaporates because of the sun, falls on high elevations, and rushes down to the sea, spinning turbines as it passes.

But the term “solar energy” usually refers to ways the sun’s energy can be used as heat, lighting, and electricity.

One simple, obvious use of sunlight is to light our buildings. The sun can also affect a building’s heating and cooling costs: If properly designed, a building can capture the sun’s heat in the winter and reject it in the summer, while using daylight year round for lighting. With the exception of that guy down in the bowels of the Grinning Planet accounting department who seems to thrive on flickering fluorescent lighting, most of us prefer natural light.

Besides using design features to maximize use of the sun, some buildings have active systems to gather and store solar energy. Solar collectors sit on the rooftops of buildings to collect solar energy for space heating, water heating, and space cooling. Most solar collectors are large flat boxes, painted black on the inside, with glass covers. In the most common design, pipes in the box carry liquids that take the heat from the box and bring it into the building. This heated liquid, usually a water-alcohol mixture to prevent winter freezing, is used to heat water in a tank or is put through radiators to heat the air.

Oddly enough, because of the cooling effect moist air has when it evaporates, solar heat can also drive a cooling system. Such systems are currently at work in humid southeastern climates, like that of Florida.

By using mirrors and lenses to concentrate the rays of the sun, solar thermal systems produce high temperatures that can be used to heat water for producing picture a trough style solar energy system steam to drive an electric turbine or for industrial applications, like boiling water to sterilize soup cans.

Solar concentrators come in three main designs: parabolic troughs, parabolic dishes and central receivers. The most common is parabolic - long, curved mirrors that concentrate sunlight on a liquid inside a tube that runs parallel to the mirror. Parabolic dish concentrators and central receivers can produce much higher temperatures and produce electricity more efficiently but are more complicated and are not in common use.

In 1839, French scientist Edmund Becquerel discovered that certain materials would give off a spark of electricity when struck with sunlight. Solar cells work because the silicon substrate has a weak grip on its electrons. The cells are made of two layers of silicon, one with too many electrons (the n-layer) and one with too few (the p-layer). When light hits the first layer, electrons are knocked loose. As they flow toward the layer with too few electrons, they pass through an electric circuit, the current from which can be used to power equipment and devices.

In the 1970s, a serious effort began to produce photovoltaic panels that could provide cheaper solar power. Experimenting with new materials and production techniques, solar manufacturers cut costs for solar cells rapidly, as the following graph shows.

Many solar panels are used today to power cellular phone transmitters, road signs, and water pumps, as well as millions of solar watches and calculators. But most of the market for solar electric is concentrated in off-grid homes, in the villages of developing countries and the vacation homes of industrial countries. Developing nations see PV as a way to avoid building long and expensive power lines to remote areas.

Recently, even utilities in developed countries have been attaching photovoltaics to their power grids. In some locations, it is less costly and politically difficult to install distributed solar panels than to upgrade the transmission and distribution system needed to meet ever-growing electricity demand.

This distributed-generation approach provides a new model for the utility systems of the future. Small generators, spread out in a city and controlled cartoon drawing of a solar panel by computers, could replace the large coal and nuclear plants that dominate now.

As the cost of photovoltaic systems continues to decline, they will find increasingly larger niches. No other electrical generator is as easy to install or maintain. Even among the various types of renewable energy, photovoltaics have great potential. The cells are made of silicon, one of the most plentiful materials on earth, and they draw power from the everlasting sun, so they will never run into the problem of fuel scarcity. As PV prices continue to fall, solar power will become a significant source of electricity in the 21st century.

We now pause to remember our dear departed surfing Uncle Sandy, who once started a referendum in Beach City to annex “the warmth of the sun and all of the gnarly waves.” We suspect that all those years of sunlight striking his head must have knocked loose a few cranial electrons.

Juan Trevino asked:


A home solar dish that activates a Stirling engine and moves a 3 kilowatt/hour power generator would make most electrical power generation and distribution grids, obsolete. This small, apparently insignificant Solar Generator installed at each of the 124 million households in America would deliver the energy that is needed to power up homes for heating, lights, cooking, water heater, TV sets and all the electrical amenities required to provide modern human comfort, now and years to come. A small equipment or appliance could solve a problem of gigantic proportions and would surely provide a more sustainable and new world order.

A series of articles along these topics will explore the solar power generation equipment, the centralized power generation and distribution system, demand for electricity and world growth, international energy agency position, sustainability of the electric industry and more related issues. These articles wish to make a modest contribution toward world sustainability and fairness in energy distribution. Finding investors that can contribute in developing the home solar power generator would be the largest plus for these articles.

Solar Equipment.- The Appliance

Homes in the US require an average of 25 to 35 kilowatts per day, or about one megawatt per month. Average homes need about 12 megawatts per year which may cost about 1,800 USD, every years. On the other hand, a home solar generator with an electrical storage system should cost less than $1,800 for the equipment and free sun power from then on. The solar generator receives about 10 hours of sun light per day, and can produce the temperature change needed to activate a Stirling engine. The Stirling engine in turn would drive a 3 KW hour power generator during sun light hours and deliver a direct current that is stored in a battery bank. Then the battery bank would provide on demand, 24 hour electricity to the home outlet.

Centralized Power Generation

Our current electrical power grids are the product of big business, big lobbyist and big government because they require large investments. An electrical power grid can be integrated using Nuclear, Coal, Gas, hydro power, or thermal turbines, to generate the steam which drives the power generator. The electrical energy is then sent though cables thousands of miles and delivered to homes, offices, and industrial buildings. Consumers need to be tied to electrical grids to have power. Having large number of consumers in a location maintains the electrical delivery systems within cost. This central power generation and distribution system, needs a large institutional infrastructure, including institutions such as the Department of Energy, a Nuclear Commission, an International Energy Agency, agencies to handle clean coal, liquid Natural gas to say the least. This complex power development model established in the past century and current today, increases entry cost to all societies and furthers development and underdevelopment of nations, in favor of countries that created the model and can afford the energy.

Power Plants require either carbon base fuels, uranium, thermal or hydo power as the energy source. Powerful special interests exists for the carbon based fuels, such as coal, natural gas and petroleum, to continue its usage and its proliferation. American foreign policy has been shaped to protects fuel supplies, and inhibit US participation in Green House Gas emission treaties. The centralized power generation model is so strong that it has elevated the initial investment for these plants, and position them at the Billion dollar marks. This situation has further contributed to the need for a World Bank, and an International Monetary Fund, who would fund those countries that need to buy Power Plants.

Freeing homes from electrical power grids implies that any home, anywhere, can power up if they have installed their $1,800 home solar generator, having the same human comfort that city dwellers now enjoy. . Governments or Power Companies would no longer need to invest 5 billion USD per Nuclear reactor to provide 1.5 Gigawatt capacity. Land used for the electrical transmission cable, would be recovered once the electrical power grids were dismantled.

 

 

Reklamfjolla asked:

Commercial for a electricity company that has decided to eliminate coal power.