Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

San Francisco -- At some point we should stop letting blatantly absurd claims and lies pass unnoticed just because "everyone knows that big oil and coal don't tell the truth." So I'm periodically going to blow the whistle.

Here are two recent examples of whoppers that should have generated massive anger and outrage by editorial writers and the media -- but somehow didn't.

Lie: Saudi Arabia Is the Big Victim of Climate Change

This may surprise you, but the Saudi government continues to insist that if oil-consuming countries kick their addiction to petroleum, then they will require global climate aid. The chief Saudi negotiator, Mohammad Al-Sabban, says that providing financial aid if the world stops consuming so much oil is a "make-or-break" provision:

"Assisting us as oil-exporting countries in achieving economic diversification is very crucial for us through foreign direct investments, technology transfer, insurance and funding."

Excuse me, funding? So if poor villagers in India opt to install rooftop solar panels to save money on the kerosene they currently use for light, then they should pay the Saudis? Last year, when soaring oil prices nearly bankrupted those same villagers, did anyone see the Saudis or the rest of the oil cartel offering to pay for their kerosene or to compensate the government of India for the bill it paid to keep the fuel costs reasonable?

Lie: Coal Is Already Clean

This whopper shows up in an ad from Peabody coal. The ad says it several ways, but begins with "The technologies that surround your life are fueled by clean coal."

Utter hogwash. First, the industry's definition of  "clean coal" is absurd -- any technology that's even a little better than what the industry used in 1990 counts. In the ad, Peabody boasts that emissions from coal plants have been reduced by one-third. If I spilled three gallons of garbage on your kitchen floor and then cleaned up one gallon, would you be satisfied that you now had a "clean kitchen"?

Then there's the matter of whether when coal-fired utilities clean up their emissions by this "one third" they really clean anything up at all. It turns out that when power companies use scrubbers to take coal pollution out of the air, many of them just dump that pollution into the drinking water.  So far the states have refused, for the most part, to set limits on this water pollution. Even when they do, an analysis by the New York Times showed that these limits are often violated, with only meaningless fines or no enforcement action at all: "Ninety percent of 313 coal-fired power plants that have violated the Clean Water Act since 2004 were not fined or otherwise sanctioned by federal or state regulators."

The Times went on to report that a  power plant near Hatfield Ferry, Pennsylvania, which dumps tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater into the Monongahela River, a drinking water source for 35,000 people, has violated the Clean Water Act 33 times since 2006: "For those violations, the company paid less than $26,000. During that same period, the plant's parent company earned $1.1 billion."

(If you want to see just how legal the coal plants near you are, the New York  Times has prepared a nifty interactive database that shows you how many times your power plant violated the Clean Water Act.) And then of course there are America's coal-fired clunkers, power plants built before the Clean Air and Water Acts were passed, some during the First World War. They have been largely exempted from having to clean up their pollution -- so even if they may show on the Times map as legal, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are safe or clean.

And don't even get me started on the issue of the pollution that results from mining coal, or the problems that stem from its mercury and carbon dioxide pollution. (Somehow, I think I'll have a chance to catch the coal industry in some serious fabrication around those issues in a future posting.)

It might be interesting to see if you can get your local newspaper's editorial board to start calling foul on this massive propaganda campaign by dirty-energy monopolies -- and if they don't do it this week, keep up your requests. There will, sadly, be lots of fresh material.

 

 

Follow Carl Pope on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CarlPope

Comments

[JShep]

Coal is the worst pollutant in our power industry, but currently generates almost half of our electricity. Nuclear has disposal and safety problems, not to mention being very unpopular. Natural gas, though less polluting than coal, is still a major source of carbon emissions and requires drilling. It's very easy just to say replace it all with renewables. But, wind and solar are currently very expensive and its questionable as to the amount of total US energy needs they can meet (Existing ideally located wind farms are only 30% efficient at best). Not all areas are ideally suited for wind or solar and both require some type of backup for times that the "wind don't blow and sun don't shine". So, before any individual source of power is dissed, we need to take a comprehensive look at an overall power production and distribution plan sufficient to meet all the US's needs. The time required to replace undesirable power generation sources also needs to be addressed. With wind & solar accounting for less than 5% of our total power generation, it will take many decades to replace coal, not to mention the impact of the resulting increased cost of energy. Anyone who thinks it will be easy to replace existing coal and nuclear power plants does not have a good grasp of the facts. We need a detailed national plan that covers all the future energy needs and how to provide them.

[quidam56]

Due to doctors appointments and health issues, I was not able to attend the hearing in Big Stone Gap. I did comment to the email address to the USACE. Was a bit skeptical that they would acknowledge but they did and I noticed it had been forwarded to a lot of other army.mil addresses to be added to the public comment register or what ever it is. One of my finishing comments was if the TVA says the coal sludge from the Kingston spill and was safe then why is the junk being hauled and dumped in Alabama, if it was safe wouldn't it be easier to just bulldoze it right into the river and be done with it ? It is after all it is the new and improved clean, green, hybrid coal by product isn't it ? http://www.wisecountyissues.com/?p=138

[abbienormal]

Thank you Carl. Keep up the good work!

[rsaillant1]

Let me add also that this slick trick they've been promoting, called
carbon sequestration, or sequestering, is a false hope. At best it's a band-aid, at worst,
it's an environmental disaster waiting in the wings. Room here does not permit a full
listing of the potential damages inherent in this technique, suffice to say that when CO2
is pumped/stored below ground, obstensibly for eternity, they overlook the potential for
leaking and expulsion by natural events called plate shifting, earthquakes, oh..and
leaking in general. CO2 in these concentrations are deadly to plants, animals and humans,
alike. Want to read what happens in the real world, when an event of this
nature occurs? Get a copy of "Vapor Trails" read it and buckle up tight.....

[rsaillant1]

I suggest a scenario in which all coal was removed from the script, and replaced with
tasty little cellophane wrapped candies. These delicious sweets were removed daily from
their resting place by blasting away huge portions of the earth exposing them for retrieval.
In some cases, entire mountaintops were removed by these explosives....all this ro harvest
these mouth-watering goodies. Did I mention that by some miraculous modification, Mother
Earth or Mother Nature decided to imbue these goodies with beneficial vitamins and minerals?

Final analysis, even if the end product was beneficial, even if the power plants were not a part
of the equation, these little suckers need to be removed from the earth by force, by defacing
the land, they need to be trucked to a destination for packaging, and then they must be
transported to points of sale where they are bought by consumers who must use their
vehicles to visit the stores.....the list is endlesss, the packaging and the disposal thereof, the
cost to the environment is ghastly even when the product might be beneficial......

Clean coal? There is no such thing. Coal itself is dirty, dusty and a mess. Burn it and you
quadruple the filth.