EEK! Those Power Plants Are Spewing Water Into the Atmosphere!

Yet another media article on CO2 illustrated with steam plumes

Postscript:  This is even funnier, potentially, since given the size and design of those cooling towers, this is very likely a nuclear plant, which of course has no CO2 emissions at all.

Postscript #2:  I tried a reverse image search to try to confirm my guess this is a nuclear plant.  This is what Google returned:

co2_fail

That will give you some idea how often the media has used this stock image of water vapor to illustrate CO2 articles.

13 Comments

  1. abe:

    DHMO ! We are all Doomed! It is in our air we Breathe! Obama Save Us !

  2. Matthew Slyfield:

    Please don't give him ideas, he might actually try it.

  3. Jerryskids:

    That's the Boxberg Power Station in Germany - it is indeed a coal plant and even though it's been down-sized and retro-fitted to be as clean as possible it's the European poster child for "dirty energy". The CO2 reference you found was probably due to Greenpeace occupying the plant and hanging a bunch of "Stop CO2" banners back in 2008. It's a case of the enviros demanding it be shut down and replaced with clean energy even though there's nothing that can scale economically. They're demanding unicorn farts.

  4. Not Sure:

    Headline: "Earth's CO2 levels have permanently crossed the 400ppm threshold"
    Article: "According to climate scientists, it is extremely unlikely that the planet will ever drop below those levels again in our lifetimes."
    Extremely unlikely in our lifetimes = permanently?

  5. joe:

    both molecules have 1 atom of oxygen - its all the same - just ask any scientist - especially a climate scientist - they are absolutely infallable

  6. abe:

    He IS trying it !

  7. ano333:

    Ironically, water vapor is also a greenhouse gas according to NASA. Still doesn't make sense to have pics of water vapor on articles about CO2 though...

  8. Jason Calley:

    The ultimate irony will happen when the greenies, worried about H2O greenhouse pollution from the oceans, propose massive oil tanker spills to seal off the sea from evaporation.

  9. niccolom777:

    Here is another shot of the power station taken by the same photographer. More info on the plant here

  10. Jason Calley:

    "Extremely unlikely in our lifetimes = permanently?"

    The way the MSM report things, "will last more than two years = permanently"!

  11. obloodyhell:

    Well, water vapor IS a GHG.... LOLZ.

  12. Blackbeard:

    Before the Industrial Revolution CO2 concentration was about 250 ppm. This was dangerously low as at about 180 ppm photosynthesis stops and all oxygen breathing life on Earth ends. Luckily we industrialized and now we have a decent safety margin. Nevertheless, 400 ppm is still quite low on a geological time scale.