Happy Hallo-Weenie – From Dirty Coal

Why are national “environmental groups” supporting new coal power plants and so called  “clean coal technology”?

Senate Environment Committee Chair Barbara Boxer

I refer to Senate testimony yesterday by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in support of the so called “clean coal technology” incentives in the Kerry Senate global warming bill:

Here’s the testimony of NRDC:

“If we decide to do it, the U.S. and the world could build and operate new coal plants so that their CO2 is returned to the ground rather than polluting the atmosphere. S. 1733 contains a comprehensive approach to make this happen in the U.S.... We also recommend that proposed section 122 (a) specifically state that the regulations promulgated by the Administrator will apply at a minimum to hydrocarbon reservoirs and deep saline formations.”

NRDC supports “new coal plants” in the US? WTF!

Here’s the testimony of corporate market tool promoting EDF:

“After taking stock of the macroeconomic evidence, I then hone in on two particular areas that could make major contributions to achieving our goals: energy efficiency and carbon capture and storage. (Carbon capture and storage, or “CCS,” means capturing carbon dioxide at power plants or factories and pumping it into underground geological formations for long-term storage.) Each of these areas can dramatically reduce emissions while creating jobs and establishing American technological leadership.”

EDF’s embrace of market tools has become a fetish – the means now justify the ends in EDF’s corporate worldview.

Reliant Energy - Portland Coal Plant, Pa.

According to Senate Environment Committee Chair Barbara Boxer (D-Ca.), the new so called “clean coal technology” provisions would:

o The Chairman’s Mark includes new provisions to stimulate development of commercial-scale carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technologies
o The bonus allowance program is modified to allow for advanced payments of bonus allowances for early actors with a requirement that funded projects will achieve at least a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
o The Chairman’s Mark includes provisions that require coal fired power plants to meet emissions performance standards once sufficient commercial-scale CCS technology has been deployed, while also ensuring timely reductions in global warming pollution from coal plants.

It’s no surprise that the Democratic Party is in the pocket of Big Coal.

Even Al Gore pulled his punch on the coal industry’s big lie that there’s such a thing as “clean coal” – calling it a lie equivalent to safe cigarettes – by allowing a bogus exemption for coal burning with “carbon capture and storage” (CCS) (which NRDC now admits is “disposal” technology, or CCD – “carbon capture and disposal“)

Despite the recent rejection of a $5 billion new coal plant with CCS proposed in Linden, NJ, according to Peter Montague, the Kerry bill would provide huge taxpayer giveaways:

According to this summary of Senator John Kerry’s bill, S. 1733, as
the bill is written, PurGen would be eligible for a “bonus allowance”
(a cash payment from taxpayers) of $96 per ton of CO2 buried, plus
another $10 per ton if they start operating before 2017. PurGen plans
to start operating in 2015. So if PurGen meets its startup date, it
will be eligible for a federal subsidy of $106 per ton of CO2 buried,
assuming Kerry’s bill passes House and Senate.

Because PurGen plans to bury 10 million tons of CO2 per year, their
annual subsidy would be $1.06 billion each year. Over a 50-year
period, their subsidy would total $53 billion.

CCS would perpetuate the coal energy economy and is a huge technological boondoggle. It has no place in the mix of policy tools to fight global warming.

Both Al Gore and world renowned NASA scientist  Dr. James Hansen have called for civil disobedience to shut down coal plants and end mountain top removal coal mining practices.

There are faster, cheaper, cleaner and more job producing solutions to the global warming crisis – efficiency and renewables.

The last thing we need are so called “environmental groups” cheerleading for a false technological magic bullet.

the answer is blowin' in the wind - Columbia River Plateau, Oregon