tagged w/ Clean Coal is an Oxymoron
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Coal is not now and never will be clean. It kills.
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An estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains dangerous chemicals, parasites, bacteria or viruses, or fails to meet federal health standards. Part of the problem, says journalist Charles Duhigg, is that water-pollution laws are not being enforced.An estimated one in 10 Americans have been exposed to drinking water that contains... more
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The Obama administration announced the winners of the first phase of "clean coal" dollars from the economic stimulus package, with the largest sums going to oil firms.
Only $21.6 million of the $1.4 billion for carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies was made available in phase one. The money was awarded to 12 companies that will test ways to catch and compress CO2 from polluting plants, transport it by pipeline and pump it underground.
The biggest winners were C6 Resources, a Shell Oil affiliate; ConocoPhillips; and Shell Chemicals, another division of Shell Oil. Each nabbed $3 million to demonstrate their technologies for seven months.
In the announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recycled the 'clean coal' boilerplate of past releases: "These new technologies will not only help fight climate change, they will create jobs now," although there was no estimate of how many jobs will be generated.
He also repeated this claim:
"The investments will help position the United States to lead the world in carbon dioxide capture technologies."
America still has a long way to go, though. A few subsidy-funded R&D tests are now being carried out, but none is considered economically feasible on a large scale, or even that clean.
A massive, 1,300-MW West Virginia coal plant just became the nation's first facility to pipe a small portion of its global-warming emissions back in the Earth. For an investment of more than $100 million, about 1.5 percent of the plant's CO2 will be sequestered.
Despite his critics, Chu has stood firm on CCS, becoming one of its staunchest proponents. In a September op-ed in Science Magazine he explained why:
"... the United States, Russia, China, and India account for two-thirds of the [world's coal] reserves. Coal accounts for roughly 25% of the world energy supply and 40% of the carbon emissions. It is highly unlikely that any of these countries will turn their back on coal any time soon, and for this reason, the capture and storage of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel power plants must be aggressively pursued."
Some form of CO2 reduction technology is necessary. And while CCS has become the solution of choice for politicians, its actual implementation worldwide is all close to absent – and it's certain to be devilishly complex if and when it begins.
Research shows that returning a fraction of global emissions back into the Earth would require pumping as much compressed gas underground as all the oil being taken out. The infrastructure needed for that exceeds what is possible to build in a generation – or maybe ever.The Obama administration announced the winners of the first phase of "clean coal"... more
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There's a growing movement to stop coal companies from flattening the Appalachian Mountains around West Virginia. Tensions are high. There has been lots on confrontation and conflict, hell, I'd even call it 'action,' but for some reason cable news isn't covering it... yet commercials for "clean burning coal" pollute their airwaves as much as Viagra. Odd, huh?
Thank God for citizen journalism, because youtube is full of this stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjc7Jg_gMy0There's a growing movement to stop coal companies from flattening the Appalachian... more
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(This will all sound very, very familiar to the peak-oil crowd. Turns out coal is a finite fossil fuel too!)
According to the EWG, global coal production will, best-case scenario, peak and begin declining about 20 years from now. Yikes.
The second fateful illusion: that carbon capture and sequestration can enable the continued expansion of coal use.
Industry insiders admit that CCS technology will not be developed, and costs reduced enough to prompt widespread adoption, until 2035 at best. By then, if CCS becomes a primary climate strategy and EWG-style analysis is correct, humanity will be in the grips of four interrelated costs and risks associated with coal. Quoting Heinberg:
• the need for substantial investment in new CCS technology;
• higher coal prices and shortages due to depletion;
• higher electricity generating costs due to the use of IGCC and CCS; and
• lower electricity generation efficiencies due to the use of CCS, requiring more coal to produce an equivalent amount of electricity.
So at a time when supplies are declining, while commodity and transportation costs are rising, we’ll need much more coal to get the same amount of electricity from a more expensive generation technology. Surely you see the wisdom of the strategy.
Another issue that doesn’t get the press it deserves is the investment necessary to produce the infrastructure for widespread CCS. It’s mind-boggling. Ultimately humanity would be burying more than twice the amount of CO2 that it digs up in coal, more than eight times the amount of yearly volume handled by the global crude oil industry (according to Vaclav Smil). Building the new-gen plants, running more railroad cars to bring the increased coal supplies necessary to run them, building and burying all the CO2 pipelines, maintaining CO2 burial fields ... it all requires not only an enormous amount of money but an enormous investment of energy, and fossil energy is a finite commodity.
Heinberg’s conclusion: it’s renewables or nothing.
Imagine the remaining reserves of oil and coal as a savings account. There’s a lot in the bank, but pretty soon income is going to decline and savings are going to get drawn down. The question before us is: how fast should we draw down our fossil savings, and what should we spend them on?
Spending on CCS poses a fateful opportunity cost. If scaling up renewables and efficiency (R&E) is difficult today, it will be doubly so when savings have been drained pursuing CCS infrastructure. According to the scenarios developed by Heinberg and the Post Carbon Institute, massive CCS investment would at best delay an energy crash by a decade or two. I’m dubious of these kinds of scenario exercises, but it’s inarguable that after all that fossil energy is spent on CCS, it can’t be retrieved. There’s no do-over. If it doesn’t work out, the energy needed to build out R&E infrastructure will only be more expensive.
One subject on which Heinberg strikes me as unduly pessimistic is the potential for R&E. He and the Post Carbon Institute think the best-case scenario is a massive, controlled, humane reduction in human population alongside a transition to a much lower-energy, localized form of life. For my part, I incline bright green. Worldchanging‘s Alex Steffen put it well in a recent tweet: “To be bright green is to know that a sane respect for planetary limits imposes no meaningful limits on humanity’s potential, at all.” It is possible to flourish sustainably.
But that’s an argument for another time. At minimum, a sustainable future requires the best possible understanding of available coal reserves and their likely cost. If “clean coal” turns out to be a phantom, chasing it will not only waste time, it may foreclose the only decent options we have left.(This will all sound very, very familiar to the peak-oil crowd. Turns out coal is a... more
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And yet, this administration pushes for the oxymoron 'clean coal' which is a non existant technology that will not be anywhere near functionally effective for the next twenty years, if it is even possible. This is just another scam coal companies can use to continue spewing the same amounts of CO2 while getting free credits under cap and trade for doing virtually nothing to effectively decrease carbon emissions as they must be decreased by 2020 to avoid a tipping point. And who will ultimately foot the bill? It won't be them. What a racket.
Excerpt:
Harvard University researchers have issued a new report that confirms what many experts already feared: Stopping greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants is going to cost a lot of money.
Electricity costs could double at a first-generation plant that captures and stores carbon dioxide emissions, according to the report from energy researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center.
Costs would drop as the technology matures, but could still amount to an increase of 22 to 55 percent, according to the report, "Realistic Costs of Carbon Capture," issued this week.
These projections "are higher than many published estimates," but reflect capital project inflation and "greater knowledge of project costs," wrote researchers Mohammed Al-Juaied and Adam Whitmore.
Coal is the nation's largest source of global warming pollution, representing about a third of U.S. greenhouse emissions, equal to the combined output of all cars, trucks, buses, trains and boats.
In the U.S., coal provides half of the nation's electricity. Many experts believe that, because of vast supplies, coal will continue to generate much of the nation's power for many years to come.
Climate scientists, though, recommend that the nation swiftly cut carbon dioxide emissions and ultimately reduce them by at least 80 percent below 2000 levels by mid-century to avoid the worst consequences of climate change.
Industry supporters say the key is for scientists to perfect technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants and pump those gases safely underground. But such technology has never been deployed on a commercial scale. Critics worry about the expense, safety and a host of technical hurdles.And yet, this administration pushes for the oxymoron 'clean coal' which is a non... more
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Just two weeks after the federal government revived plans to build the FutureGen power plant in eastern Illinois, two of the experimental coal plant's financial backers announced Thursday they are withdrawing.
The exit of American Electric Power Co. and Southern Co. leaves the nine power and coal companies that are still part of what's known as the FutureGen Alliance searching for new partners to help cover building and start-up costs they expect to reach roughly $2.4 billion.
The Department of Energy said it would provide just over a billion dollars on June 12 when it agreed to restart the long-stalled project, aimed at proving that the pollutant carbon dioxide can be removed from coal and safely stored.
Both AEP and Southern, two of the country's largest utilities, cited concerns about cost.
AEP says it will leave the project by July 1, mentioning both uncertainty about its details and how much money the Columbus, Ohio-based utility would have to spend.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Illinois | Steven Chu | American Electric Power | Consol Energy | Southern Company
"There's like a billion dollar shortfall between what the alliance originally agreed to fund and what we think it's going to cost," AEP spokeswoman Melissa McHenry said. "There's not a definitive message from the Department of Energy of what scope and scale the project" will be, she said.
In reviving the project, the Department of Energy has said FutureGen's carbon removal and storage goals might have to be scaled back.
In a weak economy, AEP is cutting its capital spending and will focus on other carbon capture projects that it is involved in, McHenry said.
Southern Co. spokesman Steve Higginbottom called the decision "definitely financial" and declined to elaborate. The Atlanta-based company will spend only on other carbon capture projects it is working on, he said.
FutureGen had already said it needed to find new partners to help share the costs of the project, spokesman Lawrence Pacheco said, and is negotiating with several companies. He declined to name them.
"The alliance," Pacheco added, "will be working with DOE to figure out the cost share of the project moving forward, and that agreement will reflect the scale of the project, as well as the cost."
The Department of Energy did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press.
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2.4 billion dollars that could be used for SOLAR energy that we already know WORKS. Just what is this administration thinking? There is no such thing as clean coal, and this is a waste of taxpayer dollars. How can anyone claim this climate bill is any good if they are going to allow projects like this? This is just another mechanism to allow coal companies to continue spewing the same amount of CO2 they always spew. It matters not if it is in the air or in the ground, it it still BEING MADE and CO2 under ground has not been definitively proven to not have longterm effects on groundwater resources. And of course, HOW that coal is gotten through mountaintop removal makes it the dirtiest source of energy regardless of what you try to tell us about "cleaning" it. I would think any Energy Secretary who was a Nobel prize winner would know that. But I suppose since this is in Illinois, it is being revived for Obama's buddies. Clean coal is ok to them if it makes their campaign contributors money.Just two weeks after the federal government revived plans to build the FutureGen power... more
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Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on Friday plans to restart the FutureGen clean coal power project, which was scrapped by the previous Bush administration as too expensive.
An agreement was reached between the Energy Department and the FutureGen Alliance, a nonprofit global consortium of coal producers and users, for a clean coal plant in Mattoon, Illinois.
The plant would be the first U.S. commercial scale carbon capture and storage project.
"Not only does this research have the potential to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., but it also could eventually result in lower emissions around the world," Chu said.
FutureGen's $1.8 billion coal-fired power plant with the technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions was scrapped by the Bush administration due to a ballooning price tag.
But a congressional report released in March revealed that the prior administration's cost estimates for the project were flawed, with the intent of killing the project.
President Barack Obama has expressed support for the project, which would be built in his home state.
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Is clean coal the right thing to do?Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on Friday plans to restart the FutureGen clean... more
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The Department of Energy has been busy doling out funds from the Stimulus package lately, and now it's clean coal & carbon capture and storage's turn: $2.4 billion in support has just been announced. In doing so, Secretary of Energy Chu said that "to prevent the worst of climate change, we must accelerate our efforts to capture and store carbon in a safe and cost-effective way." Here's where all that money will be going:
Clean Coal Power Initiative
$800 million will be used to expand DOE’s Clean Coal Power Initiative, which provides government co-financing for new coal technologies that can help utilities cut sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollutants from power plants. The new funding will allow researchers broader CCS commercial-scale experience by expanding the range of technologies, applications, fuels, and geologic formations that are tested.
Industrial Carbon Capture and Storage
$1.52 billion will be used for a two-part competitive solicitation for large-scale CCS from industrial sources. The industrial sources include, but are not limited to, cement plants, chemical plants, refineries, steel and aluminum plants, manufacturing facilities, and petroleum coke-fired and other power plants. The second part of the solicitation will include innovative concepts for beneficial CO2 reuse (CO2 mineralization, algae production, etc.) and CO2 capture from the atmosphere. In addition, two existing industrial and innovative reuse projects, previously selected via competitive solicitations, will be expanded to accelerate scale-up and field testing:
Ramgen Modification ($20 million): funding will allow the industrial-sized scale-up and testing of an existing advanced CO2 compression project with the objective of reducing time to commercialization, technology risk, and cost. Work on this project will be done in Bellevue, WA.
Arizona Public Services Modification ($70.6 million): funding will permit the existing algae-based carbon mitigation project to expand testing with a coal-based gasification system. The goal is to produce fuels from domestic resources while reducing atmospheric CO2 emissions. The overall process will minimize production of carbon dioxide in the gasification process to produce a substitute natural gas (SNG) from coal. The host facility for this project is the Cholla Power Plant located in Holbrook, AZ.
Geologic Sequestration Site Characterization
$50 million will fund a competitive solicitation to characterize a minimum of 10 geologic formations throughout the United States. Projects will be required to complement and build upon the existing characterization base created by DOE’s Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships, looking at broadening the range and extent of geologic basins that have been studied to date. The goal of this effort is to accelerate the determination of potential geologic storage sites.
Geologic Sequestration Training and Research
$20 million will be used to educate and train a future generation of geologists, scientists, and engineers with skills and competencies in geology, geophysics, geomechanics, geochemistry and reservoir engineering disciplines needed to staff a broad national CCS program. This program will emphasize advancing educational opportunities across a broad range of minority colleges and universities and will use DOE’s University Coal Research Program as the model for implementing the program.The Department of Energy has been busy doling out funds from the Stimulus package... more
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Climate scientists have written directly to the chiefs of the country's main coal companies and users, warning them that coal-fired power stations are doomed and that the Federal Government's carbon capture and storage plans are likely to be a waste of time and money.
"The unfortunate reality is that genuine action on climate change will mean that coal-fired power stations cease to operate in the near future," says the letter, posted yesterday to the heads of Rio Tinto, Alcoa and Delta Electricity, and more than 20 other companies and organisations.
The group of seven signatories, who include three lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a former director of the World Climate Research Program, said they took the step because of misinformation being spread by the coal industry.
One signatory, Professor David Karoly of Melbourne University, said he had decided to appeal directly to company chiefs because he felt they needed to be advised that their companies were contributing to climate change, and could be exposed to any future legal action brought against heavy polluters.
"Evidence is mounting that climate change is occurring faster than previously predicted and we are perilously close to a number of tipping points which, if passed, would amplify the effects of climate change and make it much more difficult to bring further warming under control," the letter says.
"We cannot emphasise enough just how serious the situation has become."
Carbon capture and storage, in which emissions from coal-fired power stations are compressed and buried, is probably not going to help Australia make the necessary greenhouse gas cuts, the letter says.
end of excerptClimate scientists have written directly to the chiefs of the country's main coal... more
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After 500 mountains in Appalachia have been blown to bits by mountaintop removal, one peak was most likely saved today: Blair Mountain in West Virginia, the site of the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War, was officially approved by the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places to be placed on the National Register.
This is a huge victory, as the tide continues to turn in the movement to stop mountaintop removal in Appalachia.
Some consider it the Bunker Hill of the labor movement. But the great battle in 1921, when thousands of union coal miners and World War I veterans donned their uniforms and took up arms to liberate and unionize the last coal camps in southwestern West Virginia held hostage to ruthless outside coal companies, has emerged as one of the great symbols of Appalachia's fate today. Over the past several years, the Friends of Blair Mountain--an organization of community and labor activists, historians and environmentalists--have led an even more epic battle to save the sacred mountain site from a plan by coal companies to strip mine and destroy Blair Mountain through mountaintop removal operations.
The mountaintop removal war might soon be over. The Rednecks won. According to the National Registry Federal Program regulations:
"If a property contains surface coal resources and is listed in the National Register, certain provisions of the Surface Mining and Control Act of 1977 require consideration of a property's historic values in the determination on issuance of a surface coal mining permit."
"Redneck" was the name given to the progressive miners, as William Blizzard recalled in his wonderful memoir, When Miners March, as they wore red bandannas around their necks to distinguish themselves from others. As the battle raged, and even bombs dropped, President Warren Harding was forced to intervene with military troops.
President Barack Obama needs to intervene against mountaintop removal today. As three million pounds of ammonium nitrate fuel oil are detonated daily in an assault on Appalachia today, raining toxic dust on the inhabitants and devastating watersheds as part of the brutal mountaintop removal operations, it's time for the federal government to stop this egregious violation of human rights in the mountains.After 500 mountains in Appalachia have been blown to bits by mountaintop removal, one... more
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The Energy Department may proceed with a "modified" plan to build a prototype coal-burning power plant that would capture and store carbon dioxide as part of new efforts to expand international collaboration on carbon-management technologies, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said today.
His comments are the strongest indication yet that DOE might reverse a Bush administration decision to pull the plug on FutureGen, a federal-industry project that was to be built in Illinois and has faced significant cost overruns.
"We are taking, certainly, a fresh look at FutureGen, how it would fit into this expanded portfolio," Chu told reporters after his appearance at a Senate hearing on DOE research and development programs.
Chu said he has been working with foreign ministers and energy ministers to ensure greater international collaboration on what projects proceed to ensure that a range of carbon-management technologies are pursued.
A greater collaboration on deciding what projects to fund and how to "parcel out turf" would allow a FutureGen project to pursue a smaller range of missions, he said.
While the FutureGen plant was to have been a test bed for several technologies, if another nation plans to pursue one particular project, it would not have to be part of FutureGen, Chu said. This could help reduce project costs that otherwise could have been more than $2 billion, he said.
"There are many, many good things about it," Chu said. "We want to go forward in some modified way on that."
Several nations are planning carbon capture and storage demonstration projects, including 10 to 12 planned in the European Union, but greater multinational planning is needed, Chu said.
"It is being done essentially independently of one another," he said. "This does not make any sense to me. When I have been seeing a number of energy ministers, foreign ministers that have been coming through. In each instance, I said ... we know we need to explore a half-dozen technologies."
"Why not decide which ones we will explore? We could have people in various countries there on the ground participating in this," he continued, citing the prospect of "true engineering collaboration."The Energy Department may proceed with a "modified" plan to build a prototype... more
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STEVENSON, Alabama, January 12, 2009 (ENS) - The Tennessee Valley Authority's second waste spill in three weeks at one of its coal-fired power plants has drawn demands that the federally owned and operated utility act immediately to secure the waste at its facilities.
A 10,000 gallon leak of process water from the gypsum pond at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant in Stevenson was discovered just before dawn on Friday. TVA officials say the leak has stopped.
The utility said Sunday that the spill occurred when a cap dislodged from an unused 30-inch standpipe in the gypsum pond. This allowed water and gypsum to bypass the existing system and drain into the adjacent settling pond, filling it to capacity and causing it to overflow. TVA will fill the unused pipe with concrete.
......................STEVENSON, Alabama, January 12, 2009 (ENS) - The Tennessee Valley Authority's second... more
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This is outrageous and heartbreaking. The death of a river and the fish in it. And the TVA claimed they will start testing well water yesterday. Start? This happened almost a week ago and they are just going to start? Of course, they state the water is safe to drink as well. How can they state that if they haven't tested the wells? It is hard to comprehend this amount of environmental damage and try to corrolate it with what seems to be such an apathetic response. This for sure is a crime against nature.This is outrageous and heartbreaking. The death of a river and the fish in it. And the... more
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Do coal companies really think they will get away with pulling the wool over all of our eyes? There is no real money going into this non existant technology because they are lying to us about it and using it for ads that lie to us. For anyone who has never seen a lump of coal let me assure you, it is NOT CLEAN. Even if you pump every CO2 emission out of it, IT IS STILL DIRTY. Coal ash will still exist. Blown up mountains will still exist, (and just as a point of order, cutting down all of those trees will also be detrimental as it leaves no barriers to storms and mudslides and exacerbates the very climate change they claim their "clean coal" will help stop because it is those trees that act as carbon sinks.) Toxic waste that gives you cancer will still exist. And the CO2 you pump out of it will still also exist and as reports have already brought forth, burying it in the ground (wherever that would be) may not be sustainable either.
But of course, people will not be told that nor will the majority of Americans who do not care or have time to research what they are told will be schooled as to what this process is all about, how it is done, or the effects of it. They are being led to believe that this is some new type of coal being dug up out of BLOWN UP MOUNTAINS. It is inane beyond belief!
These companies are like the tobacco companies in making you think that if they call cigarettes "light" they do not swirl poisonous gases around your lungs when you suck them in. And Americans must not now get sucked into the lies of the coal lobby that is only looking out for their own profits over the health of the American people.Do coal companies really think they will get away with pulling the wool over all of... more
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This "ruling" is being shoved through before Bush leaves, and now it is unsure with the Obama administration cheerleading for "clean coal" if this will even be reversed.
So, this question then goes out to the Current community:
Just what are you prepared to do this coming year to finally stand up for this planet and your future?
This ruling is a TRAVESTY and it should incense anyone with a conscience. It shows a direct disdain for the health of the people and the well being of this planet. So what says the Current community about this?
I tell you what:
How about we just continue with the celebrity news distractions and other fluff bs and allow them to build their toxic Earth killing monstrosities any damn place they want. And then we can continue to also cover this world in garbage and toxic waste until we are knee high in it. We can then continue to pollute our water until it is all black and thick with the beautiful bitumen and coal that gives us our electricity to run our distractionary gadgets that keep us happy, because it is CLEAN afterall and we really don't need food and water to live. We can then continue to run our SUVS and live excessively, eating tons of plastic fast food grown with genetically modified food crap as we get fatter and fatter and sicker and sicker, and watching hours of brain numbing tv while teaching our children that to actually get up off their asses to FIGHT for what is right is just not worth the time because that celebrity and fluff bs news is so much more important. Sound good to you? I would hope not.
Drowning in toxic waste, climate change pollution that wrecks the climate balance of this planet, and knee deep in garbage while killing ourselves and other species in the process for a false choice while going merrily to our demise because we actually think all of the "stuff" we have makes it all better? I have never seen such a species as we humans, and I hope to never see one again. We as a species truly then have become a caricature of ourselves if the above is actually to continue to be our fate.
So will you continue as usual, or will you fight?This "ruling" is being shoved through before Bush leaves, and now it is unsure with... more
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Next year is the year. Next year we must make our voices loud, strong, and resolute. We must say to the governments of this world especially our own that we will no longer tolerate the snails pace at which action to mitigate and adapt to climate change is happening. We can no longer afford to pump 70 million plus tons of climate change pollution into our atmosphere daily. We can no longer afford to deforest thousands of acres a year of rainforest to feed a rapacious consumptive lifestyle that threatens our childrens' future. We can no longer afford to continue to waste and pollute our most precious resource, water, and expect that there will be enough to sustain ours and other species. We can no longer afford to blow up and destroy the pristine mountains of this country that give us a spiritual and historical significance that could now provide us with natural wind power instead of being reduced to ash and rubble.
We are reaching critical mass with the climate and water crisis (which is being exacerbated by the climate crisis) and coal is one of the chief causes of the excerbation of the climate change, toxic pollution, and water waste that is now affecting all corners of our world from the immoral mountaintop removal to its burning which will NEVER BE CLEAN. Two trillion tons of ice do not melt in the Arctic in the small space of time it has without the intervention of human behavior!
If you then have a chance to attend this rally in DC next March, please do. I am seriously considering doing this and being a part of the peaceful coal plant protest. This is now the only way to let our government know how important it is that we preserve our species and our planet. Nothing else of substance for society has been accomplished without a vocal grassroots movement. This is the essence of Democracy. The success of the Civil Rights and Women's Suffrage movements hinged on the action taken by people like you and me who were willing to cast aside doubt and fear and stand up for what was moral and right. This is our time again, and this time the prize is the most important one of all. Our Earth!Next year is the year. Next year we must make our voices loud, strong, and resolute.... more
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More destruction to mountains to fill the pockets of those who really do not care about the consequences of their actions. It is time to stand up to them for a cleaner better future. There is no such thing as clean coal and everytime a representative of one of these companies uses that term as if it is available now, they are lying through their teeth. It must be stopped.
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From the article:
Environmentalists are vowing to block a proposed $6 billion coal-fired power plant in Surry County, saying it would increase air pollution, would contribute to global warming and is not needed.
Advocacy groups including the Sierra Club, Southern Environmental Law Center and Chesapeake Climate Action Network are gearing up for what one activist called all-out war in response to plans announced this week by the project sponsor, Old Dominion Electric Cooperative.
ODEC, a nonprofit utility based in Richmond, said it wants to build the plant on about 1,600 acres in the town of Dendron, about 40 miles west of Norfolk, in order to meet anticipated demand for electricity in the near future in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.
The utility has given the plant a name - Cypress Creek Power Station - and said it would burn mostly Appalachian coal to produce 750 megawatts to 1,500 megawatts of electricity, enough to power about 400,000 homes. Woody timber wastes, known as biomass, would fuel about 3 percent of the plant.
In comparison, the coal-fired plant under construction in Wise County in Southwest Virginia is expected to produce 585 megawatts and cost about $1.8 billion. That project, led by Dominion Virginia Power, is being challenged in court by environmentalists.
In the face of an economic recession and mounting threats from climate change, the prospect of introducing an unnecessary $6 billion coal plant is outrageous said Tom Cormons, a lawyer and campaign coordinator for Appalachian Voices, a group fighting the Wise County plant as well.
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How much renewable energy could 6 billion dollars buy? Well, you sure would get more for your money with it besides devastated mountains, black water, black lung and cancer. This is simply insane.
^^More destruction to mountains to fill the pockets of those who really do not care... more
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About the Reality Campaign
In reality, there is no such thing as clean coal in America today. Coal cannot be called 'clean' until its CO2 emissions are captured and stored safely.
Let's be clear: there are no US homes, factories, shopping centers or churches powered by coal plants that capture and store their global warming pollution.
Today, coal power plants emit carbon dioxide (CO2), the pollutant causing the climate crisis. A third of the America's carbon pollution now comes from about 600 coal-fired power plants. And of the more than 70 proposed new coal power plants, barely a handful have plans to capture and store their CO2 emissions. If these dirty plants are allowed to be built, this will mean an additional 200 million tons of global warming pollution will be emitted in America each year. Until coal power plants no longer release CO2 to the atmosphere, coal will remain a major contributor to the climate crisis.
Scientists indicate that we can avoid the worst climate impacts if we turn CO2 emissions around in the next few years. The Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, in 2007, said, "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." For coal to maintain a role in America's energy mix, the industry must act quickly to stop emitting CO2.
The Reality Coalition is a project of the Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters, and tells the truth about coal today — it isn't clean. We are challenging the coal industry to come clean — in its advertising and in its operations. You can learn more about the reality of clean coal here or take action and help stop misleading coal campaigns.
Read about the campaign here:
http://action.thisisreality.org/aboutAbout the Reality Campaign
In reality, there is no such thing as clean coal in... more
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It is inevitable. Clean energy is coming more into demand not only because of the effects of climate change, but because of the economy and because clean energy will keep us from the Middle East sand. A change is coming because people are tired of the old ways that produce the same results with pollution, disease, war, and economic upheaval.
Reports state that because of the financial downturn climate change is not important? Well, I think they are wrong. I think the financial downturn will make more people see that to move towards clean alternate energy sources will improve our economy by providing more jobs as we move towards a sustainable future. It really is a no-brainer.
To have 100% renewable energy in a decade is a definite goal that can be accomplished. I believe it will be through a mass grassroots movement pushing political will that has already begun. I believe it will do much to bring America back into the world and bring the world back from the brink of catastrophic climate change because it is simply a moral imperative and failure is not an option.
Our planet is already nearing a 2.5 degree increase. Three degrees or above will see this world drastically changed and our relationship to it much harsher and more dangerous than we ever imagined. Now is not the time to delay and use a financial downturn as an excuse to push climate change onto the backburner. It is time to bail out our Earth!
It is the right time to embrace a clean energy future to infuse our economy and to come full circle to our moral purpose on this planet and to bring health to our people. You want a healthcare plan that works? This is part of it too. It will be the greatest gift we could give our children. It is something I look forward to with great anticipation because it has been a long time coming.It is inevitable. Clean energy is coming more into demand not only because of the... more
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