Big Coal's Xenophobic Slime Campaign

The fossil fuel lobby is panicking. Kansas was recently the site of a bold repudiation of coal -- Roderick L. Bremby, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, established a new precedent by denying a coal plant permit on the basis of CO2, with the full backing of Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius.

Look at the slime Big Coal put out in several Kansas newspapers today:

Lovely. Nothing like a little overt xenophobia to liven up the energy debate.

The ad was placed by a group called "Kansans for Affordable Energy," which according to the AP is partially funded by Sunflower Electric Power Corp. -- the very company whose permits were rejected by Bremby.

Sebelius called the ads "over-the-top nonsense." That's a rather kind way of putting it. Click on the image above to see the full ad.

 

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Comments

[drblack]

06:25 AM on 11/11/2007

Merg The water used in a Solar Thermal installation is recycled through the system like the radiator system used in so many homes. It doesn't evaporate. The solar heated water turns to steam and drives turbines and then cools and becomes liquid water and the cycle is repeated.
What we really need are better batteries. Energy is everywhere but storing it is the problem.
Cheap, efficient, long lasting and non-hazardous batteries will make solar, wind etc. excellent energy sources.

[Merg]

03:02 AM on 11/11/2007

Well, since the US has the worlds largest coal reserves it's a good bet that there will be many more and stronger attempt to bring 'clean coal technologies' to market. We now ship tons of the stuff the China and they kindly ship the air polution right back to our West Coast. The Coal Industry claims that this new technology eliminates something like 98% of harmful Carbon emmisions. I took a poll on this and now I see they are using one of the graphics I saw in the poll in some of their advertising. It's the one with the electrical cord plugged into a lump of coal. It wasn't one of my favorites. That lump of coal still looks very dirty to me.

[doublebind]

10:24 PM on 11/07/2007

I'm not to far from Holcomb where the coal powered plants are to be constructed.
I was extraordinarily proud of the head of the Kansas Department of Health and Saftey.
Actually I couldn't fucking believe it, given this backward-assed states track record.
This thing is JUST beginning. The Republicans are arguing that "we" don't know if CO2 is REALLY a proplem, that and "it's not fair to change the rules! The Kansas senate is going to try and change the law, thus undoing Bremby's ruling.
They are myopic greedy fuckers, and they drive me NUTS.
The entire western edge of Kansas (200 miles from north to south)has one of the best wind regimes in America (and in the world), but are Republics giving a shit about that fact? No. They prefer to focus on coal.
I'm just glad this bastard ignorant Bush thing is on its way out - impeached I hope - and hopefully the Republics will start loosing and we can concentrate on "alternative" energy. However, I'm NOT holding my breath, and that is SAD.

LPause

[TuffPosh]

10:08 PM on 11/05/2007

Doesn't pretty much every presidential candidate say we should build up domestic production so we don't import from Iran, VZ, and RU? Isn't this post calling Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Dennis Kucinich, and the other dwarves xenophobes?

[jdm58]

10:06 PM on 11/05/2007

This reminds me of when Enron caused brownouts to drive up the price of electricity, and create panic. Public Utilities should belong to the public, not mega corporations that are only interested in their immediate bottomlines.

[mediamarv]

09:20 PM on 11/05/2007

Actually, I believe that natural gas does and will continue to come from Canada unless they too get pissed off at that pretend preznit.
Big coal... like the dodo... going away..

[Merg]

08:50 PM on 11/05/2007

Excuse me but doesn't California have almost continual drought conditions. Just where does all this water come from? I do think Solar is a good idea along with wind power. I also think it is way past time for California to get in the desalinization of water business.

[dryfactoidobotanoid]

07:50 PM on 11/05/2007

Pacific Gas & Electric just made a deal with venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers for a 553 megawatt solar thermal installation.

tubes of water in the desert turned into steam by magnified sunlight. way cheaper than solar panels. in the long run, way cheaper than fossil fuels. scalable to the size of the desert.

deserts = renewable $

now, what do you think the future will look like?