Insanity – From Coal To Deforestation
We’re finding old and new insane forms of climate chaos as we continue on our journey.
Strip mines that fill mile long coal trains that rumble on seemingly 24/7, pulled by 7 -9 huge BNSF diesel engines.
That’s the Cholla coal fired power plant in the background of our Skoolie: (Wiki)
The Cholla Power Plant is a 1.02-gigawatt (1,021 MW), coal power plant near Joseph City, Arizona. The plant is jointly owned by Arizona Public Service (APS) and PacifiCorp. The plant began operations in 1962.
The Cholla plant is also listed on EPA’s list of Coal Combustion Residue (CCR) Surface Impoundments with High Hazard Potential Ratings.
According to recent local news reports, there are plans to covert the Cholla plant from coal to “biomass”:
Arizona Public Service Co. will try to save some jobs near Holbrook and reduce wildfire risks at the same time by testing whether pine trees can be substituted for the coal that is burned at the Cholla Power Plant.
The coal plant is scheduled to close in 2025, and while converting it to natural gas was considered, that is not being pursued, APS officials said.
About 200 people work at the plant in Joseph City, along Interstate 40 and the Little Colorado River.
“A conversion at Cholla would ultimately assist in forest thinning, thereby reducing wildfire potential, ensuring forest health, and protecting our watersheds,” APS Vice President of Regulation Barbara Lockwood said in a March 20 letter to regulators.
How absurd can you get?
This one is almost as bad a Secretary of State Pompeo’s recent celebration of arctic ice melt.
Coal burning power plants have created climate chaos and extreme weather, which have driven wildfire and devastated forest health. So now, fossil plants are to covert to “biomass” – by burning the trees cut down in a scientifically flawed logging industry scam to “thin forests” to reduce wildfire risk? WTF!
We’ve been warning about the abuses of “biomass” and “forest thinning” – and, of course, the abuse of “jobs versus environment” is a longstanding Big Lie.
The hacks at APS have hit the propaganda trifecta, combining abuses of biomass and forest thinning and wildfires with a jobs justification.
We’ve engaged the forest health scam by DEP and NJ Audubon in the battle over logging on Sparta Mountain – but the “protecting watershed” claim is too absurd to even comment on.
And, to top it all off, the Cholla plant co-owner, Pacificorp – like our friends at NJ Audubon – has the best green cover money can buy.
(For example, here’s a new Orwell for me: “THERMAL” – that’s the term Pacificorp uses to describe their FOSSIL power plants, which make up more than 70% of their power production. The hide while downplaying the Cholla coal plant in their “less than 500 MW” category, because they own only 1 of 4 coal units there).
(On second thought, maybe “THERMAL” isn’t so bad, because it suggests what they are doing: warming the planet.)
We must reject insane corporate schemes and slogans and work toward a Green New Deal.
