Green Options

With ‘clean coal’ and nuclear power likely to play a larger-than-expected role in climate change legislation, are we heading for an iceberg? Literally, no–they’re all melting. Figuratively, maybe…

An archive of my Big Coal cartoons. The pen is mightier than the sword (but probably not as mighty as the multi-billion dollar coal industry…).

Duke Energy, the North Carolina-based electric utility announced on Wednesday it would be leaving the clean coal lobbying group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), over differences with the organizations opposition to clean energy and climate legislation being considered by Congress.

It’s well known that politics is dirty, but recently, anti-climate bill tactics have sunk to a new low: forging letters written by senior citizens against the Waxman-Markey climate bill. Five more suspected forgeries were released today bringing the grand total to 58 letters under investigation.

The discovery of a tiny bowl-shaped molecule which collects carbon dioxide right out of the air has beckoned some creative solutions to global warming.

By genetically engineering microbes to manufacture the handy molecule, scientists hope to make it useful as an industrial absorbent for CO2 capture. That could help clean up smokestacks from dirty coal-fired power plants, but it’s also possible that the molecules could be used for pulling carbon dioxide right out of the ambient air.

A new study from West Virginia University exposes one more dirty little secret about America’s favorite fossil fuel, coal.  Though coal mining is touted as an economic boon to local communities, the study reviews mortality statistics to conclude that coal mining communities in Appalachia are among the weakest economies in their home states, and in the country.  The study, “Mortality in Appalachian Coal Mining Regions,” appears in the July-August issue of Public Health Reports, the official journal of the U.S. Public Health Services.

Georgia and Alabama are now storing more than 1000 tons of the fly ash that leaked from a Tennessee coal fired power plant in December.

[Creative Commons photo by Jim Combs]

The spill, which dumped over 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic sludge in the area around the Kingston coal plant, was over 120 times larger than the Exxon Valdez. It destroyed homes in the area and contaminated local water supplies. Cleanup is still underway from the disaster six months later.

So why is the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) shipping tons of this toxic substance from Tennessee to Georgia and Alabama?

China, while indicating that it is ready to accept sectoral carbon emission cuts, has unveiled plans to build massive coal reserves in order to avoid counter any shortages in the near future.

This new column highlights the top economic stories of the week.

At the outset of this week, it looked like the Swine flu might be the largest influenza epidemic since the virus that wiped out a significant portion of the world’s population at the end of the first World War. Local economies everywhere have been affected given that people have stopped going out for fear of “The SuperFlu.”

Not [...]

Wednesday, Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice announced his government’s most recent plan for eliminating CO2 emissions. The Canadian government hopes to phase out electrical generation by modern coal technology in favor of carbon capture and storage (CCS) – the much debated and as yet unproven “clean coal” concept – nuclear power, and other, renewable sources of energy.

In response to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s recent comments that the offshore wind energy resource in the U.S. could potentially provide 25% of our electricity and replace the need for coal-fired power plants, Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal balked, telling reporters: “Ain’t going to happen.”