煤炭真的可以清洁吗.docx

1、煤炭真的可以清洁吗煤炭真的可以清洁吗？我们每年要烧掉80亿吨，需求正在急剧上升。改革：控制碳污染。撰文：米歇尔尼基荷伊斯（Michelle Nijhuis）摄影：罗伯肯德里克（Robb Kendrick）海豆芽刘建光译自美国国家地理杂志2014年4月号Can Coal Ever Be Clean?一文英文原文地址：煤炭真的可以清洁吗？这是一种肮脏的化石燃料。我们每年要烧掉80亿吨，随之而来的是无尽的苦果。世界必须面对这个难题。撰文：米歇尔尼基荷伊斯（Michelle Nijhuis）摄影：罗伯肯德里克（Robb Kendrick）翻译：海豆芽刘建光原文地址：Can Coal Ever Be C

2、lean?Its the dirtiest of fossil fuels. We burn eight billion tonsof it a year, with growing consequences.The world must face the question.By Michelle NijhuisPhotograph by Robb Kendrick煤炭提供了世界电力的40%，产生了全球39%的二氧化碳排放。每年数千人死于煤矿矿难，因污染空气致死的更多得多。Coal provides 40 percent of the worlds electricity. It produc

3、es 39 percent of global CO emissions. It kills thousands a year in mines, many more with polluted air.环保人士说，清洁煤炭是一个神话。当然是的：只要看看西弗吉尼亚州，为了地下的煤炭，那里整个阿帕拉契亚山脉的峰峦已经被削平填进了山谷，溪流流淌着橙色的酸性水。或者看看目前的北京，那里的空气这些天常常比机场吸烟室的烟雾更加浓厚。中国的空气污染，大部来自燃烧煤炭，因每年超过100万的过早死亡而受到谴责。Environmentalists say that clean coal is a myth. O

4、f course it is: Just look at West Virginia, where whole Appalachian peaks have been knocked into valleys to get at the coal underneath and streams run orange with acidic water. Or look at downtown Beijing, where the air these days is often thicker than in an airport smoking lounge. Air pollution in

5、China, much of it from burning coal, is blamed for more than a million premature deaths a year. Thats on top of the thousands who die in mining accidents, in China and elsewhere.这些不是新问题。17世纪晚期，当威尔士和诺森伯兰郡的煤炭在不列颠点燃工业革命第一炉火的时候，英国作家约翰伊夫林已经有对缭绕伦敦的烟雾“阴郁而发臭”的抱怨。三个世纪之后，1952年月2月，一次浓厚的煤灰烟雾在伦敦上空弥漫、徘徊一个长周末，激发了一

6、次呼吸系统疾病的传染流行，在随后的一个月内造成多达12000人死亡。美国的城市也遭受了自己的创伤。1948年10月的一个周末，多拉诺的宾夕法尼亚小镇里，高中足球比赛的观众意识到他们可能会既看不球员也看不到球了：来自附近燃煤练锌炉的烟雾使运动场一片模糊。在接下来的那些天里，20人死亡，6000人患病（接近全镇的一半）。These problems arent new. In the late 17th century, when coal from Wales and Northumberland was lighting the first fires of the industrial re

7、volution in Britain, the English writer John Evelyn was already complaining about the “stink and darknesse” of the smoke that wreathed London. Three centuries later, in December 1952, a thick layer of coal-laden smog descended on London and lingered for a long weekend, provoking an epidemic of respi

8、ratory ailments that killed as many as 12,000 people in the ensuing months. American cities endured their own traumas. On an October weekend in 1948, in the small Pennsylvania town of Donora, spectators at a high school football game realized they could see neither players nor ball: Smog from a near

9、by coal-fired zinc smelter was obscuring the field. In the days that followed, 20 people died, and 6,000 peoplenearly half the townwere sickened.煤炭，用经济学家委婉的说法，是担心有“外部效应”，即把沉重的代价强加于社会。它无疑是我们最脏、最具杀伤力的能源。但是通过大量测算，它也是最便宜的，而且我们得依赖于它。因此，如今的大问题不是煤炭是否真的可以被“清洁”。它不能。重要的是煤炭是否真的足够清洁不仅要预防当地的空难，也要防止全球气候的根本改变。Coal

10、, to use the economists euphemism, is fraught with “externalities”the heavy costs it imposes on society. Its the dirtiest, most lethal energy source we have. But by most measures its also the cheapest, and we depend on it. So the big question today isnt whether coal can ever be “clean.” It cant. Its

11、 whether coal can ever be clean enoughto prevent not only local disasters but also a radical change in global climate.去年6月华盛顿特区又闷又热的一天，巴拉克奥巴马总统发表了关于气候的演讲，自他2009年就职以来第一次指出美国的煤炭和电力工业令人恐怖，这也是环保人士所希望的。在他爽直而偶尔停顿皱眉的演讲时，奥巴马宣布到2014年6月，环境保护署（EPA）将出台新的法令，“结束从我们的发电厂无限制地排放碳污染。”这项法令将以“清洁空气法案”名义发布，法案部分起因于多拉诺灾难。那项

12、法案已经引人注目地减少了美国发电厂的二氧化硫、氮氧化合物和煤灰的排放。但是全球变暖的主要原因二氧化碳排放是一个完全不同等级的问题。，Last June, on a hot and muggy day in Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama gave the climate speech that the American coal and electric power industries had dreadedand environmentalists had hoped forsince his first inauguration, in

13、2009. Speaking in his shirt-sleeves and pausing occasionally to mop his brow, Obama announced that by June 2014 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would draft new rules that would “put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution from our power plants.” The rules would be issued under

14、the Clean Air Act, a law inspired in part by the disaster in Donora. That law has already been used to dramatically reduce the emission of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and soot particles from American power plants. But carbon dioxide, the main cause of global warming, is a problem on an entirely

15、 different scale. 2011年人均煤炭使用量 磅 磅 磅 全世界 美国 澳大利亚（世界最高值之一）平均每人每天 平均每人每天 平均每人每天煤炭消费量 煤炭消费量 煤炭消费量资料来源：美国能源信息管理局 S OURCE: U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION 2012年全世界来自化石燃料的二氧化碳估测达到345亿吨的纪录，煤炭的比例最大。近来便宜的天然气使美国的煤炭需求量下降，但是无论其它哪里的需求量都在急剧上升，特别是中国。在未来的20年内，全世界将有数亿人头一次用上电，如果以现在的趋势持续下去，大多数会使用煤炭发电，即使最佳的替代能源开

16、发和保护也不能取代煤炭，至少不会马上取代。In 2012 the world emitted a record 34.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. Coal was the largest contributor. Cheap natural gas has lately reduced the demand for coal in the U.S., but everywhere else, especially in China, demand is surging. During the next t

17、wo decades several hundred million people worldwide will get electricity for the first time, and if current trends continue, most will use power produced by coal. Even the most aggressive push for alternative energy sources and conservation could not replace coalat least not right away.北极会融化得多么快，海平面

18、会升得多么高、热浪会有多么火辣所有这些未来变化无常的因素取决于怎么使用煤炭，特别是取决于美国和中国怎么作。我们是要继续燃烧煤炭并将碳排放大气之中而毫不减少吗？还是象我们处理化石燃料中的硫和氮那样，要寻求捕获碳的方法，并将之贮存到地下呢?How fast the Arctic melts, how high the seas rise, how hot the heat waves getall these elements of our uncertain future depend on what the world does with its coal, and in particular

19、 on what the U.S. and China do. Will we continue to burn it and dump the carbon into the air unabated? Or will we find a way to capture carbon, as we do sulfur and nitrogen from fossil fuels, and store it underground?“我们必须象推进可再生能源与能源效率一样采取采取强硬措施，以减少来自煤炭的碳排放，”专门研究碳贮存的斯坦福大学研究员萨莉班森说：“我们将需要大量的接入点（ands）这

20、不是一次对老红砂岩（ors）的关注。”碳问题实在太大了。“We need to push as hard as we can for renewable energy and energy efficiency, and on reducing carbon emissions from coal,” says Stanford University researcher Sally Benson, who specializes in carbon storage. “Were going to need lots of andsthis isnt a time to be focusing

21、 on ors. ” The carbon problem is just too big.美国电力公司的登山者发电厂位于西弗吉尼亚州纽黑文市俄亥俄河畔，每小时要吞噬阿100万磅巴拉契亚煤炭（约454吨）。煤炭是用驳船运来的刚从地下开采出来的原煤，也有用横越道路的皮带输送机直接从矿井送来的。一旦到了电厂内，高尔夫球大小的煤块被磨成擦脸香粉细的煤粉，然后吹进一个世界上最大锅炉的燃烧室钢制燃烧室可容易地吞下自由女神像。发电厂的三个蒸汽涡轮用白星油漆漆成蓝色，昼夜不停地为七个州130万用户提供电力。那些用户支付大约每千瓦小时一角电费，普通家庭一个月大致113美元，用电的有冰箱、洗衣机、烘干机、宽屏电

22、视机，没必要说灯泡。象登山者电厂的管理员查理鲍威尔常常说的一样，即使环保人士也喜欢一直开着灯。American Electric Powers Mountaineer Plant, on the Ohio River in New Haven, West Virginia, inhales a million pounds of Appalachian coal every hour. The coal arrives fresh from the ground, on barges or on a conveyor belt from a mine across the road. Once

23、 inside the plant, the golf-ball-size lumps are ground into dust as fine as face powder, then blown into the firebox of one of the largest boilers in the worlda steel box that could easily swallow the Statue of Liberty. The plants three steam-powered turbines, painted blue with white stars, supply e

24、lectricity round the clock to 1.3 million customers in seven states. Those customers pay about a dime per kilowatt-hour, or roughly $113 a month, to power the refrigerators, washers, dryers, flat screens, and smartphones, to say nothing of the lights, of an average household. And as Charlie Powell,

25、Mountaineers plant manager, often said, even environmentalists like to keep the lights on.可是，登山者电厂每年从1000英尺高烟囱排放600700万吨二氧化碳进入大气,用户却不用为此支付一分钱，美国电力公司（AEP）也不要付。这是个难题。碳无限制地堆积，因为大多数地方这么干没有成本，也因为至今仍没有违反美国的法律。但在2009年似乎不久会有一个法案，那年夏天美国众议院已经通过了一项法案。AEP为了其信誉决定要走在其前面。The customers pay not a cent, however, nor

26、does American Electric Power (AEP), for the privilege of spewing six to seven million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year from Mountaineers thousand-foot-high stack. And thats the problem. Carbon is dumped without limit because in most places it costs nothing to do so and be

27、cause there is, as yet, no law against it in the U.S. But in 2009 it looked as if there might soon be a law; the House of Representatives had already passed a bill that summer. AEP, to its credit, decided to get ahead of it.那年10月，登山者电厂开始进行碳捕获首创性试验。鲍威尔负责这项试验，他的父亲在弗吉尼亚一家燃煤电厂工作了30年，他自己的职业生涯全在登山者电厂度过。工作

28、很简单，他说 ：“我们烧煤，制造蒸汽，然后驱动涡轮。”但在实验期间要复杂一点。AEP在电厂的后面附设了一个化工厂，冷却了大约1.5%的登山者电厂的烟，并通过一个碳酸铵解决方案转化装置吸收CO2。CO2然后被彻底压缩并注入俄亥俄河岸边一英里多深的多孔砂岩层里。That October, Mountaineer began a pioneering experiment in carbon capture. Powell oversaw it. His father had worked for three decades at a coal-fired power plant in Virgin

29、ia; Powell himself had spent his career at Mountaineer. The job was simple, he said: “We burn coal, make steam, and run turbines.” During the experiment, though, it got a bit more complicated. AEP attached a chemical plant to the back of its power plant. It chilled about 1.5 percent of Mountaineers

30、smoke and diverted it through a solution of ammonium carbonate, which absorbed the CO. The CO was then drastically compressed and injected into a porous sandstone formation more than a mile below the banks of the Ohio. 2011年 化石燃料 CO2排放量 来自主要用于供热 来自主要用于 来自主要用于 发电的天然气燃烧 制造各种运输 发电的最便宜 全球化石燃料的CO2 燃料石油的C

31、O2 最脏的燃煤CO2 资料来源：美国能源信息管理局 SOURCE: U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION 这套系统运行起来了，接下来的二年里美国电力公司（AEP）捕获和贮存了37000吨以上的二氧化碳。那些CO2仍然埋在地下，没有进入大气。这仅只是四分之一的百分之一烟囱出来气体，但那应该只是开始。AEP计划按比例扩大这项工程，以捕获四分之一的电厂排放量，也就是说每年150万吨CO2，公司已经同意投资3.34亿美元。美国能源部（DOE）同意配套投资，而份量取决于AEP收回投资的能力。但气候变化立法在参议院未获通过后，国家电力监管机构通知电力公司，不能支付

32、其还不是法律上必须技术的费用。The system worked. Over the next two years AEP captured and stored more than 37,000 metric tons of pure carbon dioxide. The CO is still underground, not in the atmosphere. It was only a quarter of one percent of the gas coming out the stack, but that was supposed to be just the beginning. AEP planned to scale up the project to capture a quarter of the plants emis