Greetings from Pennsylvania – The Carbon State

[Update: 5/22/11 – Sandy Bauers of Philly Inquirer does a good story today on Tuesday’s EPA hearing in Philadelphia on a proposed mercury emissions rule (we mentioned recently in Update 2). But the context and far more important story on coal plants is this: Another Obama EPA Backtrack On Greenhouse Gas Regulation

For Inquirer story, see: Getting coal power to clean up its stacks– end update]

Drove out to Pittsburgh for my son’s graduation from Carnegie Mellon (CMU) this weekend. He graduated with honors and moves on to a Doctoral program in computer science at Johns Hopkins. My daughter just finished her junior year at CMU. We had an awesome weekend – CMU is truly a world class university. [Ironic note: I declined a full scholarship in 1975 – I think CMU was called Carnegie Institute of Technology back then.]

But, on the ride home, I couldn’t get my head around the contradictions between the cutting edge technology and intellectual firepower at CMU (see NAS Report  “Hidden Costs of Energy“), and the troglodite promotion of carbon fuels I saw on all those disgusting billboards along the way.

[Update:

“The largest portion of this is excess mortality increased human deaths as a result of criteria air pollutants emitted by power plants and vehicles,” said Jared L. Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who led the study committee.

Nearly 20,000 people die prematurely each year from such causes, according to the study’s authors, who valued each life at $6 million based on the dollar in 2000. Those pollutants include small soot particles, which cause lung damage; nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog; and sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain

Here’s just some of the carbon data on Pennsylvania:

• the fourth largest coal producing state;
• the fifth largest coal burning state
• high reliance on coal – 78 coal-fired generating units ,  20,475 megawatts (MW) of capacity – 41.5% of the total electric generating capacity
• with greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas as bad as coal, Pa. is the third leading producer of natural gas 

What a fracking nightmare! Adding insult to injury, they invoked styles from the depression era Federal Art Project! Take a look for yourself:

Attacking wind and solar while promoting coal (with truck depot along a highway as a backdrop).

Look closely for the wind turbines in the background. A highly popular visual of wind power is cynically polluted by a coal promotion.

fracking greenscam

I almost gagged on the Depression era labor mural motif.