EPA Disappoints On Ethanol, Clean Coal

The press release could have come straight out of the utterly disgraced Bush EPA--and if it had, I can well imagine the howls of outrage it would have provoked, because I would have joined the chorus. Its headline read as follows: "Obama Announces Steps to Boost Biofuels, Clean Coal."

Read the whole story

Comments

[charles77]

02:09 PM on 03/11/2010

Why do you think Obama is for “clean coal” and Nuclear? Because 50% (20% Nuclear today) of our electricity comes from coal, switching to Nuclear would raise our electric bills a little, switching it to wind and solar, not possible without storage anyway, would mean electric bills 5 TIMES HIGHER THAN TODAY! He dosen’t have any politically viable choice. People cannot pay electric bills higher than their rent or mortgage.

Dr. Chu, Obama’s Energy Dept Head, was asked since solar is now a proven technolgy why are utilities not putting up millions of them. His response, “the price of solar would have to fall by a factor of 5 to 10 for that to happen”. Read his interviews.
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/22651/page1/
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/c/steven_chu/index.html

Even people in the solar industry, the true believers of the true believers, don’t see the systems getting much cheaper in the near future because building solar cells has already become a commodity industry. They take a fixed amount of raw materials and the price of those raw materials is not falling and in some cases, like rare earth elements, is rising.

[Rojellio]

08:23 PM on 02/07/2010

Of course he likes Coal. Obama, Pelosi & Reid have their own personal Coal fired plant. It pollutes more than the average plant. It is also a case study in the failure of "carbon credits".

[hornagain]

05:59 PM on 02/07/2010

I think this is one area where the far left and the far right agree....the continued government support of ethanol is bad economically and bad for the environment.

[larry278]

02:52 PM on 02/05/2010

Ah, more flatulent emissions from Washington, DC as Pres Obama continues to morph into W.

[NWBrunette]

10:48 AM on 02/05/2010

Obama has been bought by the corporatists. Sad. When this administration happily mouths the idi0cy of "clean coal" you know we're toast.

[GetAbike]

07:26 PM on 02/05/2010

Yep, you got it- Toast- a perfect analogy to the effects of climate change.
But wait! there's more!
We can continue with a huge and growing dead zone in the Gulf due to ag run-off !
Plus we can finish off the Ogallala Aquifer irrigating corn so that we can all have our cars and suburbs at the expense of those people who subsist on corn.
God bless Amerika- F the rest of ya.

[Rojellio]

07:11 PM on 02/06/2010

The administration & Congress has shown complete incompetence and failure to Pass Ron PAuls Industrial Hemp Act in time for spring planting. Hows that for being serious about 'clean' energy??

[berrycooda]

11:37 PM on 02/04/2010

Why would there be so much coal here if we aren't supposed to use it.

People used to heat homes with it a long time ago and they are still healthy.
Used to have more steel mills around too and same thing for that.

More people seem to be dying today from other things....
smoking for one...garden chemicals etc ...how about food preservatives.

Maybe they are barking up the wrong ice berg...
Who knows, maybe there is something under those ice bergs that
we are supposed to discover and use.
Move the polar bears to Siberia or somewhere else cold.
I will never see one unless I go to the Zoo and see a couple there.
And alas, I never saw a dinosaur but I don't really care.

[kwaut lizard]

03:26 AM on 02/05/2010

People like you are the problem. A lot to say but absolutely nothing that is constructive, helpful, proactive or useful in any way. Maybe you should consider running for office, it is the only alternative I can see where you would actually be a productive (or should I say destructive) member of society.

[Pquilson]

07:05 PM on 02/06/2010

In other words, because the poster does not agree with you, the poster has no value to society?

[sleeperd]

08:14 PM on 02/07/2010

Get a life, you dweeb..

[Antifascist-08]

06:54 PM on 02/04/2010

Mr. President is uninformed, or should I say ill informed, about "clean coal" and ethanol.

There is no such thing as clean coal and likely never will be. Ethanol is an inefficient use of resources.

[sparky73]

04:50 PM on 02/04/2010

If Obama says its ok, I guess it is. Al Gore was never president was he?

[Political Conservative]

03:37 PM on 02/04/2010

Wow!! "utterly disgraced Bush EPA". I love quotes like that... it puts a little pick-me-up in my slow afternoon. There is something about EnviroWhackos that is so entertaining and wonderfully quaint. The best part is that I thought you'd all be under rocks after Climate_gate broke! Lucky for us all that you are still out there charging at those windmills! Keep up the fight and writing outlandish articles like this!!

[ibsteve2u]

05:25 PM on 02/04/2010

Taken a peek at satellite shots of the ice cover at both poles lately?

Of course, there's probably an "EnviroWhacko" riding the satellite holding a faked picture out over the camera lens, eh?

[Joshua Harrison]

07:42 PM on 02/04/2010

You do realize the sea ice in Antarctica has been increasing? I'm not trying to disprove global warming only that making inaccurate insinuation only undermines the argument.

[hidenout]

08:33 AM on 02/05/2010

Arctic: http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/print.sh?fm=02&fd=04&fy=1980&sm=02&sd=04&sy=2010

Antarctic: http://www.ecoworld.com/global-warming/the-real-facts-on-increasing-antarctic-ice.html

Thinning ice up north, thicker ice down south....are we that damn presumptuous to say it's anthropic? Globe may be warming, but my bet is we are contributing very little to the "increase" in temperature.

Do you think we are contributing to the decrease in temperature along the Antarctic as well? Like to understand the reasoning if we are not.

[urchinsadrift]

09:26 PM on 02/04/2010

Well said.