this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2026
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[–] RandomStranger@piefed.social 37 points 1 month ago (3 children)

but experts say coal emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and several other pollutant
What the hell is this crap reporting. It's not like this is a contested fact or an opinion.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 month ago (5 children)

"Experts say power plants 'burn coal to convert water into steam.'"

I mean, does anyone really know how these things operate?

[–] nulluser@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The tide comes in. The tide goes out.

[–] jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Omg, I've explained this so many times on here. The tide comes in because the tide goes out. See? Everything has an explanation.

[–] TimothyOilypants@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

Water, fire, air and dirt; fucking magnets, how do they work?

[–] BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Much of North America has enjoyed electricity steady enough not to think much past don't wiz on the electric fence.

That was a multi-generational achievement.

[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Every power source is a solar power source if you follow the trail back far enough.

[–] smeenz@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Deep sea vents aren't, unless you're including the formation of the solar system as 'solar'

[–] ptu@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

Also geothermal and nuclear power aren’t

[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

unless you're including the formation of the solar system as 'solar'.

I did say “if you follow the trail back far enough.” Same goes for uranium. Born from supernovae (exploding stars).

[–] EtherTide@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

*stellar, not solar, the carbon in coal wasn't formed by our sun but a different star far in the past

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah but the trees that made it into hydrocarbons were fuled by our sun.

[–] EtherTide@aussie.zone 1 points 1 month ago

Very weird of me to comment 2 weeks in the making, but this comment gave me a worm brain for some reason, like I'm RFK or something. Based on the idea that something is solar powered if it has any involvement with the sun at all, I wondered if I could think of a way to tie all non-solar powered sources to the sun.

  • Tidal used solar tides, but non-tidal hydro can also be solar power if you consider that earth was formed in Sol's accretion disk and water likely comes from comets pulled into the solar SOI (none of this is researched, just off the dome, no clue whether my yr 10 astrophysics is either outdated or completely misremembered)
  • ergo, the use of earth's gravity to power turbines via waterfalls etc is also solar power.
  • Originally, I thought I had a gotcha with nuclear power, bc uranium DEFINITELY doesn't have anything to do with Sol, no trees involved. But, because it uses water, you can use the same logic as hydro
  • even for Voyager, which afaik just uses the heat directly sans water, you can say that the uranium itself was first attracted to Sol's SOI before either being deposited on earth by asteroids or included in the accretion disk during earth's formation. (tangentially, not sure how you make a fission reactor without steel, which uses organic hydrocarbons. Titanium?)
  • The formation of the earth also allows attributing thermal and wind power to Sol. As a result of me realising I'm wrong despite desperately thinking I was right, I've decided to dedicate all 3 rubles in my possession to develop a power plant that only uses cosmic rays and other interstellar radiation (as well as neutrinos if I'm allowed to say they’re not really captured by the solar gravity well despite having mass, which I'm pretty sure I won't be allowed to do :c ) as well as fund interstellar colonisation efforts so that we can have extra-solar sun power, maybe hawking radiation and other fun stuff too. Escape the tyranny of the sun with me, brethren! Forego local Dyson-Swarms in favour of non-solar fossil fuels!
[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Now you’re just splitting hairs. I mean we’d still call solar panels “solar panels,” even if they were collecting energy from another star (say, on an interstellar spaceship).

[–] Einskjaldi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I only use pure clean hydrogen unchanged from the big bang.

[–] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

Anyone with a passing knowledge of chemistry and thermodynamics would know how it works in theory at least.

[–] Meron35@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sadly from personal experience, no, the general public does not know that coal power plants work by burning coal to boil water, and are horrified at how trashy the concept is.

High-key a great way to persuade them to support renewables. Associate coal with the image of people in underdeveloped countries burning fossil fuels in their own homes to exploit their own preconceived biases.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Alternatively you can depict it as filthy and Victorian. Something that was once an improvement, but these days really only belongs in a museum. You can compare it to child labor and accurately point out that the Victorian era was grimy and disgusting because of how much coal was burned then.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

But what about "clean coal"? Checkmate, Atheists!

[–] smeenz@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 month ago

Ah yes, whitewashed coal !

[–] Atropos@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I think they meant "an ALLEGED greenhouse gas"