Climate and energy

League of Women Voters calls for moratorium on new coal plants. Quotable:

“Burning more coal is too big a risk for too many people,” Wilson said. “Coal is the single largest source of global warming pollution in the U.S., with power plants responsible for 33 percent of CO2 emissions. Because of this pollution, we already face increasingly severe heat waves and droughts, intensifying hurricanes and floods, disappearing glaciers and more wildfires. If left unchecked, the effects will be catastrophic to us and our planet,” she said.

“We will be active in opposing the building of these plants,” said Wilson. “Coal-fired electric power plants have a very long lifespan and contribute huge amounts of pollution to the atmosphere. Building these new plants would foreclose the possibility of preventing dangerous global warming.”

“Today, there is no environmentally sound use of coal,” Wilson said. “Many hope that CO2 can be captured and stored underground,” she observed, “but this technology has never been demonstrated on a commercial scale.”

“Instead of coal, we must look to clean energy alternatives,” according to Wilson. “California, which has been a leader in energy conservation and efficiency, has been able to keep per capita energy consumption essentially constant for three decades while enjoying a growing economy,” she noted. “Wind and solar are also ready to make large contributions to economic growth,” she said.

TX environmental groups compromise on coal plant proposal (NAWindpower). Coal plant operators compromised on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury, reductions in water usage, among other environmental concerns. Quotable:

In an effort to reduce emissions, NRG Texas will offset or sequester 50% of the carbon generated by the new unit in a manner that is verifiable, which makes the carbon profile of this coal-fueled plant roughly equivalent to that of a gas-fueled plant. Offsetting efforts could include agricultural and forestry sequestration; retiring older, less efficient generation assets; bringing new wind or solar generation online; and post-combustion carbon capture and sequestration technology at the WA Parish Plant.

The company also will not build another coal-fueled plant in Texas unless the plant uses integrated gasification combined cycle, or ultra-supercritical coal technology, and sequesters or offsets at least 50% of the CO2 emissions of that future plant.

Another coal compromise in Wisconsin (NAWindpower). This one included “environmental initiatives that include reductions in greenhouse gases, investments in additional renewable energy resources and the retirement of older, less-efficient generation” as well as compromises on several political initiatives related to renewable energy.

Westar executive says climate regulation is inevitable and businesses should prepare (KCBizJournal). Lawyer speaking to Kansas Chamber pretty much says exact opposite (Wichita Eagle). You decide. Quotable from the Eagle article:

It was a message many at the session wanted to hear. Melvin Neufeld, the Speaker of the Kansas House of Representatives, who spent much of last session fighting for a coal plant in western Kansas, was at the talk and said it agreed with what he had heard last spring. The owners of the coal plant promised to use new technology to mitigate its greenhouse emissions.

“The whole argument that coal would be a terrible thing for an environment was wrong,” Neufeld said.

— Maril Hazlett, www.climateandenergy.org