Greenpeace Protests Progress Asheville Power Station And Coal Pollution (VIDEO/PHOTOS)

Protesters from Greenpeace demonstrated against "the destruction and pollution caused by coal" at a North Carolina power plant on Monday, according to a press release.

Activists entered the grounds of the Progress Asheville Power Station in the morning and secured themselves to a coal conveyor belt, according to Greenpeace. They also scaled a 400 foot smoke stack and draped a large protest banner.

WSPA reports that the protesters' banner, which is visible for several miles, reads "Duke Energy: The Climate Needs Real Progress."

According to The Charlotte Observer, 16 protestors were arrested at the Asheville plant.

The plant's owner, Progress Energy, said its goal was to protect the safety of "the trespassers to first responders, as this is large and dangerous equipment," reported Fox Carolina. Interactions between protesters and local police were reportedly "very cordial."

Greenpeace activist Robert Gardner said in a press release, "This plant runs on destroyed mountains, it spews out air pollution, it causes climate change and it poisons the water and the earth. If Duke merges with Progress, the new owners have a responsibility to the people of North Carolina to move to clean energy."

Progress is currently in the process of merging with Duke Energy, although the consolidation has been delayed by federal regulators, according to to The Charlotte Observer.

Reuters reported Monday that the Obama administration is expected to unveil new rules limiting carbon emissions from new coal-fired power plants. An energy policy analyst told Reuters, "The proposed rule is certainly expected to send the message that coal is dead."

Greenpeace recently ranked information technology companies on their efforts to fight climate change, with Google in first place.

Check out images and videos of the protest below, courtesy of Greenpeace USA.

Comments

[Kenz300]

03:53 PM on 02/15/2012

The price of coal, oil and nuclear keep rising while the price of wind and solar are dropping.

Our economy needs to transition to safe, clean alternative energy.

[Moder8tion]

01:41 PM on 02/22/2012

The prices of coal, oil, and nuclear are being forced up to make green energy look good. Meanwhile, my electric, gas, and water bills are increasing faster than inflation....

[Kenz300]

02:06 PM on 02/22/2012

The price of oil and coal are going up because of rising demand from China and India. China is now the worlds largest car market. China is also the worlds second largest economy soon to be the largest. The US no longer has the worlds resources to ourselves. Nuclear is going up in price because of the Fukishima disaster and the realization that the cost of nuclear waste will continue forever.

[Kenz300]

02:07 PM on 02/22/2012

The price of wind and solar have dropped by 50% in the last 5 years and are continuing to fall.

[Robert W Johnson]

03:36 PM on 02/15/2012

It's a fact that almost 70% of the energy released from the coal by a thermal power plant is lost, mostly in the form of heat. Steam turbines can convert only about one-third of coal energy into electricity. Sadly, energy is being "wasted". Or, more accurately, ends up in a form that is not useful to us. All mechanical systems produce heat as a by-product but most of the time this valuable energy is just thrown away, or written off as a loss. Then by now it is needed a more efficient thermoelectric converter to recover most of the heat energy into electricity in order to reduce drastically the worldwide thermal pollution. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqnk19hn7Rc

[sunsetter]

09:53 PM on 02/21/2012

Supercritcal plants are about 46% efficient. these are the plants that have been built in the last 10 years, some before. THey are still cheaper than wind and solar.

[Popopnano]

06:51 PM on 02/14/2012

Those darn mountain hugging hippies! I bet Obama and Marvin the Martian are behind this!

[MrBIgp]

01:25 PM on 02/14/2012

We are going to be burning coal for the foreseeable future, currently it provide half of our electricity. Wind and solar do not provide baseload electricity. If we want to substantially reduce coal, we need to expand nuclear.

[Kenz300]

03:54 PM on 02/15/2012

The disaster at Fukishima is still not over.....

TEPCO and the Japanese taxpayers will be paying for that mess FOREVER.

The price of wind and solar have dropped by 50% in the last 5 years and are now very competitive.

[MrBIgp]

04:20 PM on 02/15/2012

Fukushima has nothing to do with my point - that we are going to be burning coal for the foreseeable future. The only energy sources that can significantly reduce the amount of coal we burn are nuclear and gas. If we try to replace coal with gas, the price of gas will soar.

Solar and Wind cannot provide baseload electricity - we still would need the same capacity we have today in conventional energy. Solar and wind are a BIG waste of money.

[arabianway]

09:37 AM on 02/14/2012

Wow! Good job and a great, visible banner. There is no such thing as clean coal. Ask the people living near the monstrocious mountaintop removal operations in W. VA and in the coal towns of Kentucky. Wind power is feasible and can be implemented now.

[MrBIgp]

01:19 PM on 02/14/2012

Ask the people living near wind farms what they think of wind.

[Walt41682]

07:54 PM on 02/14/2012

Hey, I live around mountaintop removal operations and I love it.

Experts on wind power are saying it will be at least another 25 years before wind and solar power can supply enough power to fill the 40% of our energy needs.

[SallyMaclennane]

08:50 AM on 02/14/2012

Good....they should have got out the rubber bullets.

[southerncal]

07:10 AM on 02/14/2012

I think you have to wait till they come in your house. :)

[alteredstory]

07:14 PM on 02/13/2012

Good for them!

[vakh]

11:14 PM on 02/13/2012

Gee
I wonder if you can shoot trespassers down there

[trumphent]

03:44 AM on 02/14/2012

Go find out and get back to us. I'll save you the trip. The short answer is no, you can't shoot them. The long answer, the investigation into your desired shootings would generate (pun) negative publicity all out of proportion to the cost of the ammunition expended. Still, you could be the one to prove it one way or, the other.