Are we making Climate Progress?

For all the efforts, it would seem that we are beginning to get somewhere. It feels like we are when Tom Friedman refers to Joe Romm's Climate Progress as the "indispensable blog".

Still, I am beginning to wonder if blogging, and twittering is not the new opiate of the people, making them feel good about doing something while the real power is applied behind the scenes to achieve other goals. Yes, I know that I am blogging about this, but the irony is that this is the one outlet that is open to me.



While Friedman is referring his readers to Climate Progress, Times reporter Andrew Revkin has an article on the Heartland Institute sponsored International Conference on Climate Change (Denial). It was a pretty one-sided gathering, reported honestly. What Revkin showed is that there is a large group of people who listen to a minority of scientists and are willing to swallow anything.

Many participants said that any division or dissent was minor and that the global recession and a series of years with cooler temperatures would help them in combating changes in energy policy in Washington.

It appears that the real goal is to not change policies, rather than to understand what is really happening.

At the same time, those of Friedman's readers who follow his link to Climate Progress will find that Romm is a Sr. Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Thus, the name of the blog... Climate Progress. If they were willing to dig around a bit, they might find their way to Romm's opinions on the future of coal or on advisability of pursuing Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as a way to continue the use of coal despite its proven contributions to greenhouse gas emission.

But I am against anybody thinking that CCS is going to be practical or affordable anytime soon, against people relying on the “false sense of security,” as the Economist put it, that CCS is likely to be a major contributor to national or global CO2 emissions reductions before, say, 2030

While Romm, the scientist, is writing this, the Center for American Progress where he is a Senior Fellow, is making the case for CCS as good policy. Carbon Capture and Sequestration 101 is more than the tutorial that it's title makes it appear. It is a statement of policy imperatives.

Widespread CCS deployment—in combination with other policies to reduce CO2 emissions and diversify energy sources—could be invaluable in meeting our emission reduction goals for greenhouse gases and would encourage the export of CCS technology around the world, particularly to developing nations such as China and India, many of which are depending on low-cost coal to fuel economic growth. The Bush administration’s discontinuation of FutureGen, a power plant employing IGCC, set the process back, as it would have been the world’s first functioning power plant to demonstrate the feasibility of CCS technology. To take the reins on this emerging technology, we must start now with an aggressive program of proper legislation, demonstration projects, and funding backed by political will.

There is a big difference between Romm (a physicist with experience in climate research) and Kenneth Berlin or Robert Sussman. The latter are high powered Washington Lawyers. Berlin's practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has been to represent corporations who were trying to minimize the effects of environmental regulation.

I will believe that we are truly making progress when the Center for American Progress (CAP) puts Romm front and center, rather than their top notch legal protection team. Given the close connection between CAP and the Obama administration, I fully expect to see Romm ignored and the lawyers prevail, carrying us one step closer to Climaticide.

Toxic Sludge: Tennessee, West Virginia and DC.

I should not have read the latest post by Dave Roberts at Gristmill this late in the evening. This one suggests that there are more coal sludge disasters waiting to happen. We know about the recent containment pond spill at the Kingston Power Plant run by the TVA. Roberts and the rest of the crowd at Grist want us to keep on worrying. This time over a leaking pond in Raleigh County West Virginia. The problem with this is that there is a school and, for part of the day, 200 students directly in the path if it finally breaks loose.

What these Yes We Can blinded environmentalists don't say is that there is little hope anything is going to change. Much of what coal is allowed to do and the rules under which they have to operate is controlled by the House Committee on Natural Resources. That Committee is headed by Congressman Nick Rahall (WV-03) . There is little chance that any real oversight or real legislative leadership will come out of this Committee while Rahall is sitting in the Chair. I don't think that Massey Energy is going to miss much sleep.

Even as we are told that the new administration is taking science seriously... and it looks like that is the case with a Nobel Prize winner, Steven Chu named to head the Dept. of Energy and John Holdren to be Obama's Science and Technology Adviser... the funding for much work still has to come through the House Appropriations Commitee, where the SubCommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, Alan Mohollan (WV-01) is sitting there to take care of making sure King Coal get its fair share of funding.

Then, if anything gets out of the House, we have the nominal Dean of the Senate, Robery Byrd ready to filibuster whatever coal does not like.

Now, you see why I am a Green, not a Democrat... and why I continue to push back at Roberts and all of the others when they forget how this really works. In order to get the right legislation regarding the Auto Industry, Waxman had to replace Dingell. If we want to get the right legislation and oversight regarding the Coal Mining Industry, we need someone to replace Nick Rahall. He is just too dependent on coal industry votes to be effective in doing what this entire country needs to have done.

Clean Coal: Oxymoron or a Dirty Lie

Oklahoma's Grand Riverkeeper, Earl Hatley, signs his emails with the statement that Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie. In this weeks edition of High Country News, Greg Gordon says that it is an oxymoron. Take your pick.


Here is what I just do not understand. Politicians toss off the term "clean coal" is if it were just another grade, like anthracite or bituminous. However, the idea is much more than that. Mostly, they are talking about finding a way to sequester the carbon dioxide that comes from the combustion of coal.

So far, there are no power plants in existence that sequester the CO2. It would be an expensive process and the costs would have to be passed on to the customers, mostly utility rate payers. The Federal Government had a project called FutureGen run out of the Dept of Energy. Federal funding of that project was killed because it was costing too much money (needed for the Bush Wars).

FutureGen is a public-private partnership to build a first-of-its-kind coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant. The FutureGen plant will cost approximately US $1.5 billion to develop. It will use cutting-edge technologies to generate electricity while capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide deep beneath the earth. The plant will also produce hydrogen and byproducts for possible use by other industries.

When politicians, like McCain, stand up and talk about the future of renewable energy needing large government subsidies, for which there is no money, they have already made decisions about Coal. The fact that the tentative site for this first of its kind plant is Matoon, IL probably has something to do with the favor that seems to have with Obama.

Even if they can meet the Alliance's schedule, this is still very for out when compared with the overriding need to halt the increase in emissions now.

Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie

Sarah Palin was put forward as the Republican expert on Energy. She did show a lot of energy in her speech, quick to the attack, pausing only for effect on the zingers she shot. However, when it came to the subject of energy policy, she showed a remarkable lack of knowledge when putting forward the suggestion that America should work for Clean Coal.


Let me give a good example of what clean coal really means. It begins with the removal of a mountain top and the filling of valleys to expose the coal. This is not the old time strip mining, unless that practice were on steroids. There are more photos here.

Let me remind you that the Green Party affiliate, the Mountain Party of West Virginia, is a leader in the fight against such ravages to the environment. Still, that is only the beginning.

There was a major Federal program under the administration of George "W" Bush that was intended to develop a new technology for coal fired power plants. It was called the NextGen program. There is an industry council formed by leading coal producers that is leading the way in convincing everyone that this is a real possibility sometime out in the distant future. Now, they are talking about 2015.

Of course, they have not stopped to consider that the continued expansion of conventional coal fired plants... even the continued operation of existing plants... will quite possibly push the current global warming past a tipping point. That, my friends, is a risk that the Republicans... and the Democrats... want you to take.

What none of them tell you is that the US Dept. of Energy scrapped the FutureGen clean coal project in 2008.

The DOE last year signed an agreement with the FutureGen Alliance, a coalition of coal and oil companies, to spend about $950 million on a demonstration coal-fired power plant that injects carbon dioxide emissions underground. Last December, a site for the FutureGen project in Matoon, Ill., was announced by the Alliance.

It was deemed to be too expensive for the payback.

DOE is turning to Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as a solution to the problem of the buildup of Greenhouse Gasses, the prime cause of global warming. While some things work, others are still very, very expensive and, we don't have the time if we are going to stop the warming of this planet.

When Sarah Palin puts on her Peabody Energy hat and talks about clean coal, you know that it may lead to votes but it is ultimately only a lot more hot air that we can't afford to have around.

Clean Coal is a Dirty Lie

So is a Green Democrat.

One of the things that really gets me PO'd is the manner in which the Democrats have taken on the mantle of being the "green party". Nothing could be further from the truth.

Assuming that Obama wins the Democratic Nomination, this is one issue that we should high light. Obama has all of the characteristics of a populist demagogue who will say anything to get elected.

Obama is on the record favoring clean coal.

With coalfields nearby, Obama noted that he comes from a coal state and repeated his pitch for clean-coal technology and made clear he believes coal will continue to be a vital part of the nation's energy supply.

"Clean-coal technology should be part of that mix," he said. "We are the Saudi Arabia of coal."

Source: Baltimore Sun.

The US Dept. of Energy has recently shut down the Future Gen project for cleaning up coal because it is much more expensive and does not work very well.

Source: C/NET

Bring this back to California... Over a year ago, the Public Utilities Commission all be banned contracting for power from coal fired plants.

Source: San Diego Union Tribune.

I think it is time to take back our brand.

100% Renewable Energy

I have had my disagreements with Gristmill's Dave Roberts from time to time, primarily over his unabashed promotion of everything labeled Democratic Party. However, his blog at Gristmill is a very good source of the latest information / discussion topics on the issues surrounding energy and Global Warming. It is one of three that I read daily. (The others are Chris Mooney's Intersection and Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth.)

Today, Roberts points us all to the University of Kassel in Germany and their discussion of the combined power plant. This is viewed as the first step in being able to deliver 100% if Germany's power from renewables by 2050.

Where the hell is the US?

The State of Massachusetts has just approved a major upgrade to the Coal Fired Somerset plant that will dump even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than it currently does. This prompted N.A.S.A.'s Dr. James Hansen to express his opposition in the Boston Globe.

California's Kalmran Alavi has talked about widely distributed power generation. However, the University of Kassel has essentially solved the problem at a much higher level, that of a fully operational power plant system. They even provided a short (7.24 min) film that gives a very clear explanation of how this can work.

Still, if you listened to ABC's Debate Night, every one of the Republicans talked about "clean coal" and "nuclear" solutions. Where is the vaunted American technology that we hear so much about? If the University of Kassel can do it, why can't MIT and Cal Tech? Have we fallen so far behind? Or have we become so inured to the blatherings of free-market ideologues who are afraid to challege the utility industry and the powerful coal state Senators like Byrd of W. VA, that we have just given up trying?

Here is yet another challenge to Green Presidential candidates. Build a new scenario for America's future. Clean, not dirty; growing corn for food, not for transportation; challenging us to be our best, not servile. We can do this. It is only a matter of want to.