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Comment by jillesvangurp | Hacker News Reader

I live in a former east german neighborhood in Berlin. When I moved here 10 years ago, lots of apartments were still coal heated. Buildings had lots of dirt on them and you could smell it in the winter. Burning coal creates lots of smelly smog. That's also a huge problem in places like China.

Smog kills people by the millions. It's a slow killer that's why nobody gives a shit. Average lifespan decreases measurably by many years in areas with heavy smog. Living next to a busy street or coal plant is not good for your health.

That's why diesel, coal, etc. need to get banned in a hurry. Suing coal plants for killing their neighborhoods is just as logical going after tobacco companies. It will basically kill that industry in no time. Good riddance; the sooner the better. Meanwhile, make them pay for the damage they do. Incentivize them to clean up their act or pull the plug on their operations.

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That's also a huge problem in places like China.

And, much closer, Silesia.

I drive through this region every once in a while and I fail to understand why anybody would willingly subject themselves to such an environment.

I recently settled there, AMA :) My main reason was proximity of friends and relatives, and super cheap flats. As for the smog, it sucks but it's mostly limited to cold, windless days during winter time (November-March).

So the stories of 80k PLN apartments are true after all? :)

Can you tell me something about Wrocław, or specifically: say I want to spend a few years there and possibly start a family. Which district or part of town should I choose?

Yep, mine was 70k PLN :) I'm in Bytom, in Upper Silesia region and unfortunately I know nothing about living in Wroclaw. I suspect flats there are 3-4x more expensive than what I paid though!

PS. Regarding smog, I was considering leaving the area altogether because of it, but an air purifier turned out to be a life-saver. Now I can have clear air inside the flat and only have to deal with the pollution when outside.

Buy some air purifiers, stay at home on the bad days and then enjoy the long summers

If that doesn't sound dystopian, I don't know what does. So glad I don't live in a major city with lots of pollution.

That there was indeed a very cyberpunk reply.

That being said rural areas are actually worse in this regard because there's a critical mass of people who'd throw just about anything in the fire to stay warm.

Throw anything in the fire, yes. Critical mass, no. If it was a critical mass, it wouldn't be rural.

What do you propose as replacement for coal? Both for electricity and heating up homes?

Clean energy + batteries seem to be eating that up rapidly in places where they invest in that kind of thing. Simply ramp up investments there and this problem can be solved.

Even the US is doing this. Meanwhile, force remaining plants to install filters and fine them appropriately for killing their neighbors every month they don't do this. Of course, there's no such thing as cheap coal when you factor that in. Most of this stuff is already unsustainable from an economic point of view. That's why plants are shutting down, plans for new ones are getting shelved, etc.

Coal without subsidies and government protection, is not going to last long.

I agree with you, but interesting part about this suit is that it does not claim that contaminants are being emitted via the smoke. There are essentially large hills of radioactive coal ash just sitting on the site, the residue from the burned coal. They are just sitting in the open and the wind is blowing it into the surrounding area.

Ironically, these piles are usually produced by the electrostatic filters that prevent smog and smoke. IIRC most plants keep them in (really toxic) ponds specifically to prevent the dust issue.

Can't we process that into something useful? There has to be some useful thing that can be done with that.

They use some of it to make cinder blocks.

If the world was run in current nuclear power tech and coal power was invented, it would never be allowed to exist. It would be seen as some sort of crazily dangerous idea invented by mad scientist to kill people. It is too bad we don't use our education system to educate people so that we can to reasonable things like exchange coal plants for nuclear ones.

If these radioactive piles of waste are OK for coal plants, why can't nuclear plants just mix there waste with dirt till it is at the same activity and pile them up. Nuclear is so cool in that almost all the waste is just a little bit of stuff easily stored somewhere and if people were not so irrationally afraid of it, we could power most of civilization with it.

I think this is actually a great opportunity to green power generation. Build a solar and wind infrastructure. This is in Florida so they have plenty of sun all year round. Its not an overnight fix and will of course require large amounts of money but it can be the beginning of something big. In addition, the US is beginning to face a clean water crisis, and desalination could be a fix. Take the left over salt and send it to the power plants to use for molten salt power storage. Build turbines off shore along the coasts. The US needs another 'man on the moon' mission to unite us, this could be it. Maybe I am naive but all things are impossible until someone does it.

If you can make that profitable to the Koch brothers, then it's viable ;-)

Well, if it is not profitable (net positive in generating wealth) then, yes, its not viable. Its too bad the negative externalities of fossil fuel burning are not placed on those that use it (CO2 tax please) so that we could find out which energy sources are actually profitable.

Nuclear

In Sweden and Germany there are heat-plants, which for example burn garbage instead of sending it to a dump.

If the garbage is clean enough, and doesn't contain things like heavy-metals, the process can be surprisingly clean due to the very high temperatures of combustion and exhaust filtering used.

Additionally in Sweden we have quite a lot of heat pumps, so those not connected to very efficient district heating systems can heat electric.

Already in 2014 we didn’t use much fossil fuel for heating. [1] (Swedish electricity production is essentially CO2 free. [2])

[1] https://bjelkeman.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/sustainable-energ...

[2] https://bjelkeman.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/sustainable-energ...

It can also be relatively carbon-neutral, if you pull most of the plastic out of the waste stream first. The rest is going to be mostly wood, paper and cardboard.

He doesn’t have to propose anything, but can just describe what actually replaced coal in Berlin: gas, trash, and wind energy.

Residential heating was converted to natural gas and “remote heat” with trash + gas power stations that circulate waste heat to surrounding neighborhoods. With sorting and smoke filters, these plants emit nothing but CO2 that poses no direct threat to those nearby.

Plus, old coal plants turned into temples of hedonism like Berghain, producing rather different types of power and heat.

Electric heat pumps operate at > 100% efficiency, depending on ambient temperature. Even if your coal power plant was still coal, switching everyone to electric heat pumps would reduce smog and CO2.

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