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October 19, 2007 4:48 PM
Helping Stop the Coal Rush
Al Gore remarked a few weeks back...
"I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers," Mr. Gore said, "and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants."
He's absolutely right, when you think about it. Building a coal plant now is a horrible investment, both from financial and environmental standpoints. Financially, there's simply no way to calculate the future costs of the carbon emissions from these plants -- and everyone but the most hardcore denialists knows that carbon emissions will have to be capped, taxed and/or traded in the near future. Environmentally, building one of these plants would lock in massive emissions for several decades -- and a single new plant could negate very significant efforts elsewhere in our economy.
Working Assets has been quite active (along with partners such as the Sierra Club and Rainforest Action Network) on helping stop construction of new coal plants -- and I'm happy to report some very important victories in recent days.
Early this year, we generated more than 50,000 letters to Texas Governor Rick Perry and energy giant TXU, asking them not to move forward with eleven coal plants planned for Texas. (Eight have been cancelled, but three are unfortunately still on the drawing board.) One of our most popular online actions lately asks the power companies to turn investments away from coal and towards the renewable energy sources we need. Last month we launched a Flash Activist Network alert with Citibank as the target (they're quite active in financing new coal burning power plants) and got several thousand faxes in to their offices. (We're also in conversations with Bank of America...more on that later.)
Over the past few months, we've called on the governors and legislatures in about 15 states to oppose new coal-fired power plants. Now, just in the past two weeks, we've seen significant victories in Florida, Iowa and Kansas -- part of a larger national trend that's seriously slowing down the "coal rush." (Personally, I can't think of a better gift to our kids than helping stop these plants.)
A new energy future is possible -- if and only if we stop investing in last century's technologies such as coal and nuclear, and instead embrace the job-creating and money-saving technologies of wind, solar and efficiency.
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Discussion
Efficiency, yes. Wind and solar, not altogether. Without dispatchable power available, a cold, calm night can get very dark and cold in the customers' houses and stores.
Until a cost-effective system of storing excess power for later usage is developed, fossil fuels or hydro will have to be used for peaking. OK, pumped storage is our bestt stored energy peaking system but the number of sites available are limited and usually not near the centers of consumption. Pumped storage requires either a lot of water or a lot of altitude.
There is one possible option which I haven't heard explored but isn't likely for environmental reasons: existing power dams on the Colorado, Columbia, Snake, and other major rivers could be retrofitted for pumped storage. But that means even more dams for the receiving lakes to hold the water off peak pumping back upstream.
If there was a program to install grid-tied wind and solar from home owners and small farmers, we wouldn't need new coal fired plants, or nuclear plants either.
The key is the dispersal of the wind and solar input over a wide area. which will even out the input.
There needs to be more programs to encourage small wind and solar projects.
Instead of a piddly "tax break", there needs to be subsidized low-interest loans for farmers and homeowners to help them afford to install these systems.
The over-sized utility companies won't like it, they won't have their customers by the nose, since they will have to pay the customers for their surplus electricity, but hey, these are the outfits who refused to electrify rural areas, and then tried to destroy the co-ops who did bring power to the farmers and take over their grids.
People are more important than corporations!
Amen to that, butte!
I hope you all go to C-span and see or saw Vijay Vaitheeswaran the author of Zoom a new book he covered this and there is clean cola technology out there not fully developed but getting there..
He also came damn close to out right calling for the Nationalization of the American Oil Industry
Saying what I often say "the Oil Industry is in the business of business.."
I say "The Oil Industry is not in the Business of putting itself out of business.."
We must Nationalize our Oil Industry and all energy then we could kick ass economically and create a huge real boom that benefits every American..
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