Science news of the day thread.

[Brian Peacock]

It's clean because they wash it before setting it alight.

[pErvinalia]

It's not even cheap anymore, particularly when you take out the subsidies.

[macdoc]

The biggest crime is the subsidizes for all the fossil fuel.
How much does Australia subsidize the fossil fuel industry?

This report estimates Australia's subsidies to fossil fuel producers and major users from all governments totalled $14.9 billion in the 2024–25 financial year, an increase of 3% on the $14.5 billion recorded in 2023–24.

[Svartalf]

It's clean because they wash it before setting it alight.

which magically takes away all the sulfur and trace elements? nice

[Svartalf]

It's not even cheap anymore, particularly when you take out the subsidies.

But it IS subsidized

[pErvinalia]

Yes, but it's not an inherently cheap energy source. Even with the subsidies wind and hydro is cheaper. Solar voltaic not far behind.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Everybody is saying coal is a great power source. That's why the US has made sure it's subsidized. According to a bought and paid for liar it's clean, affordable, and reliable.

reliable, I can get, at least until it runs out, affordable, ditto, but clean?

It's political noise. I think the 'clean coal' falsehood was invented by the American coal industry but it's also seen some use in Australia. From 2017:

While President Donald Trump continues to tout “clean” coal, coal baron Robert Murray says it’s just a fantasy.

“Carbon capture and sequestration does not work. It’s a pseudonym for ‘no coal,’” the CEO of Murray Energy, the country’s largest privately held coal-mining company, told E&E News.

Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), also called carbon capture and storage, is the process of trapping carbon dioxide from a power plant (during or after burning a hydrocarbon like coal) and then storing it permanently, usually underground.

It’s a technically challenging and expensive process — especially problematic in an era of cheap natural gas and renewable energy. Mississippi pulled the plug on one of the country’s biggest CCS efforts last month after the company spent billions on trying, and failing, to make it work.

While many clean energy analysts (including me) have long been dubious of CCS for economic, environmental, and practical reasons, the coal industry has touted “clean coal” as the long-term savior of the industry in a carbon-constrained world.

That’s why it’s so stunning a top coal CEO like Murray would now say that clean coal isn’t a real thing.

“It is neither practical nor economic, carbon capture and sequestration,” he said last week. “It is just cover for the politicians, both Republicans and Democrats that say, ‘Look what I did for coal,’ knowing all the time that it doesn’t help coal at all.”

And this is from a guy who is a member of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — which has spent tens of millions of dollars trying to persuade the public that clean coal is the solution to global warming.

[source]

[Tero]

They already use pig heart valves.

Chinese scientists have successfully transplanted a pig lung into a human being for the first time, with the organ partially functioning before it was removed.
Researchers used CRISPR technology (see 101) to make six gene edits to the left lung of a pig whose organs are roughly human-sized. They then transferred the lung into a brain-dead 39-year-old man. At first, the lung succeeded in delivering oxygen to his blood and removing carbon dioxide. Within 24 hours, however, there were signs of damage, and indications that the body was rejecting the organ on days three and nine. Scientists ended the experiment following fluid buildup. The patient was removed from life support per his family's wishes.

1440 Media 222 W Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 1212 Chicago, IL 60654

[Brian Peacock]

The grim reality of medical science.

[macdoc]

Why is it grim ?

[pErvinalia]

Probably because the pig needs to die for it.

[Svartalf]

like we don't kill millions of them to eat them

[pErvinalia]

Bacon is different.

[Brian Peacock]

Why is it grim ?

"Grim reality": A harsh or bleak truth about a situation emphasising the seriousness or severity of the circumstances as they truly are, rather than how one might prefer them to be.

Probably because the pig needs to die for it.

Mostly the experimenting on the un/brain dead.

[macdoc]

Reality would suffice....grim is pejorative without purpose. If we enjoy bacon then sacrificing a pig for progressing medical understanding is not grim.