Coal Power: Clean and Green?

While traveling along Interstate 70 in Pennsylvania, I saw several billboards like the one shown here. The message reads: "Welcome to Coal Country. COAL. Pennsylvania's #1 fuel for Electricity. NOW Clean and Green with New Technologies".

Amazing! Coal power is not only Clean, but also Green? Really? Ironically, one of the billboards was sited right in front of a wind farm! The wind turbine blades were spinning around, generating REAL Clean and Green Electricity. No need for a billboard advertising clean and green wind power when you've got the real thing! Big Coal is funding ads for the clean & green coal myth in order to remain in power, in more ways than one. Who are they fooling?

I don't know about you, but my image of coal is quite different than that portrayed by the coal power industry and their advocates. Everything about coal is dirty, and certainly not green: from extraction (including mountaintop removal, mining, and toxic runoff into waterways), to transportation (CO2 emissions plus coal dust from open railroad cars), incineration (massive CO2 emissions plus mercury, oxides of sulfur and nitrogen causing smog and acid rain, ozone pollution) and waste disposal. The photo of the two coal miners portrays some of the realities of coal...Not clean, Not green. Everything about coal is also Not healthy for people and other living things.

Coal power is on the way out, and renewable energy is moving in. Al Gore recently raised the bar on the clean energy time-line, calling for 100% renewable energy within 10 years. The coal industry is desperately fighting this sort of thinking, and is struggling to clean up its act and even trying to green it's image. Don't buy it. There's no such thing as clean coal power, and there never will be. And coal will be green...when pigs can fly.

A transition to 100% renewable energy would mean that coal miners will loose their jobs. Aware of that important concern, Al Gore said "We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them." I agree wholeheartedly.

Sustainability & Global Warming: Get It?

Once we've sucked out all of the oil and natural gas from under the land and the sea floors, blown up every mountaintop and stripped the Earth of all of it's coal, burned all of the oil, gas and coal, and reached 1000 parts per million CO2, enjoy the weather because our planet will be transformed from a magnificent globe inhabited by billions of people and other living things to something that looks like THIS.

Tom Toles Gets It!

A major problem for us and for future generations is that our old fossil fuel economy is not sustainable and can't prosper without polluting and destroying the planet. We need to transition to a clean energy economy that will create new jobs in support of renewable energy sources that don't pollute the planet. Unfortunately, not everyone gets it.

NY Coal-fired Power Plant to be SHUT DOWN

A coal-fired power plant near Rochester NY will be shut down as early as May 2008. The plant is located upwind of both Rochester and the Adirondack Forest Preserve, and it emits harmful pollution at a higher rate than any other power plant in New York. Rochester Gas will be allowed to replace the coal-burning unit with a cleaner burning plant fueled by natural gas. The Rochester Gas & Electric unit will also will pay a $200,000 civil penalty and fund $500,000 of programs to improve energy efficiency and reduce air pollution in the Rochester area, according to NY Attorney General Cuomo.
Studies have linked coal-fired power plants to hotspots of mercury pollution in the Adirondack Forest Preserve. The Adirondack region is located downwind of many coal plants that emit even higher levels of mercury pollution than does the Rochester plant. Ninety-six percent of the lakes in the Adirondack region exceed the recommended EPA action level for methyl mercury in fish.
Mercury is present in two-thirds of Adirondack loons at levels that negatively impact their behavior and reproductive capacity, posing a significant risk to their survival. The survival of
the loon in this polluted environment is viewed as the proverbial "canary in the coal mine", warning us of potential disaster. This dire state of affairs prompted the Adirondack Mountain Club, along with other organizations and states, to file a legal brief with the US Court of Appeals last year. Loons eat fish, and high levels of mercury in fish have elicited advisories that children as well as women of childbearing age should not eat any fish from waters in the Catskill reservoirs. Mercury can damage developing brains of fetuses and young children, and scientists fear this could cause neurological problems in 60,000 newborns per year in the USA. Fortunately for humans and loons, the federal appeals court recently struck down a 2005 EPA mercury-control plan which imposed less stringent requirements on power plants to reduce mercury pollution.

EPA: is "P" for POLLUTION?

EPA stands for the Environmental PROTECTION Agency. So why aren't they protecting the environment? An earlier post described the public health hazards of mercury pollution and that the EPA was slow to respond to the problem back in 1999. It's not that the EPA wasn't aware of mercury pollution, as seen in EPA's own 1998 data on national atmospheric mercury (Hg) deposition. The most polluted region on the USA map is the North East (red > orange > yellow > gray > white). The Centers for Disease Control found that about 10% of women carry enough mercury to put a fetus at risk of neurological damage. The single largest source of mercury pollution is coal-fired power plants.

Recently, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court unanimously struck down a mercury-control plan imposed by the EPA in 2005. The court said that the Bush administration ignored the law when it imposed less stringent requirements on power plants to reduce mercury pollution. For the full story, click here.

Is it the role of government to serve Big Coal and other corporations? What has happened to a government FOR the PEOPLE? Where have all the PUBLIC SERVANTS gone? WANTED: real public servants for the 2008 election, and an EPA that Protects.

EARTH to PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: STOP BURNING COAL !

An earlier blog entry highlighted John Edwards' call for a moratorium on building new-coal-fired power plants in the absence of technology to remove CO2, and the contrary stance of Clinton, Obama as well as the Republican candidates to keep the coal fires burning based on the industry myth of "clean coal". Edwards stands solidly on facts, while Big Coal stands on greed and lobbying, and their political benefactors stand on campaign contributions and elections. Fortunately, students and conservationists with the intelligence to see through the "clean coal" myth are rising up at the South Carolina primary and fighting against the Big Coal lobby. Click here for a report from the front lines.
It is crucial that we elect leaders who have the intelligence and political will to oppose the "clean coal" myth, and who aim to lead the world in stopping global warming pollution. According to NASA climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, "Coal will determine whether we continue to increase climate change or slow the human impact. Increased fossil fuel CO2 in the air today, compared to the pre-industrial atmosphere, is due 50% to coal, 35% to oil, and 15% to gas. As oil resources peak, coal will determine future CO2 levels." Memo to presidential primary candidates: re-think your position on so-called "clean coal", and give clean energy alternatives and the planet a chance.

BIG COAL'S DIRTY SECRET - MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL: Watch This VIDEO!

More than 450 mountains in Appalachia have been destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining. This Video is part of the National Memorial for the Mountains, hosted by www.ilovemountains.org. Click here to watch the video, and see the harm and heartbreak in Appalachia. Stop it...No New Coal !
For a virtual flyover of mountaintop removal sites in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia using Google Earth, and a narration of the process of environmental destruction and water pollution, click here.

The Big Coal lobby has had a huge presence ($1.3 Million) in South Carolina and elsewhere for the presidential debates and primaries. The myth of "clean coal" is being promoted on placards and t-shirts. In striking contrast to the realities of mountaintop removal, vehicles with images of pretty blue skies bear the "clean coal" message. Big Coal has also sponsored "clean coal" TV commercials for the last few presidential debates! Could this help explain why TV reporters ask candidates no questions about global warming and their proposed solutions? Clean energy advocates can't match the money of Big Coal, but they can speak out, write to newspapers and politicians, demonstrate and spread the word, as in this video taken at the Dem debate in S.C. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CLEAN COAL! Vote GREEN in 2008!

EDWARDS TAKES ON 'BIG COAL' in DEMOCRATIC DEBATE in LAS VEGAS

John Edwards said, "But I'd go another step that at least I haven't heard these two candidates [Clinton & Obama] talk about. They can answer for themselves. I believe we need a moratorium on the building of any more coal-fired power plants unless and until we have the ability to capture and sequester the carbon in the ground. Because every time we build a new coal-fired power plant in America when we don't have that technology attached to it, what happens is, we're making a terrible situation worse." Way to go John! Click here for the full transcript.
Obama and Clinton currently support "clean coal", even though there is no such thing. Hopefully, clean energy activists including 1Sky will help turn them around in the South Carolina campaign. Big Coal has big money and a lot of influence, on both politicians and voters. Big Coal is waging a $35 million campaign in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation to cut carbon emissions. VOTERS, please spread the word: coal is not clean, mining and burning it carry large environmental and public health costs (see Mountaintop removal, above), and burning it also causes global warming...No new coal! See Coal Moratorium NOW!

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS 'CLEAN-COAL' POWER

Buffalo News, Jan.1, 2008 -- Letter to Editor
The Another Voice article, “Right time, right place for clean-coal project,” by R.L. Dimming was not convincing. While Tonawanda’s proposed power plant may remove some of coal’s pollutants, it will not remove the carbon dioxide pollution that causes global warming and climate change. Although touted as a way to reduce global warming, so-called clean-coal technology that captures and stores carbon dioxide is not proven or available. Click here.