The Coal Truth on Candidates

Let's face it: Every single presidential candidate with a veritable chance at victory, Democrat and Republican, is in the hip pocket of King Coal.

The Republicans, of course, make no bones about their unfettered support for strip-mining and lax mining safety. Despite the undeniable fact that coal-fired plants in our country account for 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, drastic strip-mining techniques have laid waste to 450 mountains and adjacent communities in Appalachia--an area the size of some primaries states--and mining safety laws continue to operate on poorly enforced crisis management policies, Republicans proudly tout the Orwellian vision of Clean Coal, or more recently, Patriot Coal.

The main three Democratic contenders, alas, cushion their support for King Coal in the guise of Cap and Trade charades, "low carbon" coal technologies, and the chimerical dream of coal-to-liquid fuel, an outrageously expensive technology championed by Nazi Germany and South Africa's apartheid regime.

Bottom line: Despite their inspiring speeches on global warming and environmental protection and workplace safety, the Democrats have bought into the same sham of coal's reemergence as a "clean" source of energy for the future.

Worse yet, they've allowed one of the most ominous publicity campaigns to join their own primary bandwagons with its wicked backdrop of misinformation.

As Robert Kennedy, Jr. pointed out on Huffington Post last fall, a fierce alliance of King Coal barons and energy companies have re-invented themselves as "America's Power" and quietly cosponsored presidential debates, aired an unprecedented number of ads in key primary states, and has now let loose the hounds of "volunteers" at presidential primary events across the country in the get-up of a "Power Van."

Taking a page from a bad Vegas show, illuminated walking billboards with a piece of coal now haunt virtually every Sin City political event, from Clinton's Caucus Kick-Off and Balloon Rally to Obama's Town Hall meeting.

While anti-nuclear waste protestors were ushered away from the bally-hooed Oprah-Obama rally in South Carolina last fall, thousands of voters filed through the "America's Power Van" at the entrance of the Williams-Bryce Stadium, where they learned, according to the alliance's slick website, "about our commitment to continued reduction of regulated emissions, the development of technology to capture and storage greenhouse gases, providing reliable, affordable electricity and protecting America's security."

Kennedy, for all of his best and brightest verve, like most Democrats, lost his street cred on this issue when he endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton, a candidate that America's Power showers praise on, since, as one of America's Power 's founders says, "Hillary recognizes that new power plants using coal can't be expected to put carbon capture and storage technologies on that don't yet exist."

A long-time supporter of southern Illinois's powerhouse coal industry, Senator Barack Obama's campaign website triumphantly declares: "Obama will significantly increase the resources devoted to the commercialization and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies."

While former Senator John Edwards has gone farther than any candidate in calling for a halt to new coal-fired plants, rejecting coal-to-liquid boondoggles, and refusing to accept donations from energy corporations, he ultimately falls back on the hands-in-the-air, what-can-we-do scenario. His campaign website declares: "Coal is a major source of power in the United States, where it generates half of electricity. The U.S. and the rest of the world is likely to rely on coal for it energy needs for decades or longer."

Oh well, what's a voter to do when national polls show the majority of Americans are overwhelmingly against strip-mining in Appalachia, rank global warming at the top of their concerns, or when our entire federal alternative energy budget is less than a week of expenditures in Iraq?

Some voters are responding. In truth, 2008 is the year of the coal reckoning. The construction of new coal-fired plants are being fought in nearly 30 states across the county. Take Kansas; ain't nothing the matter there. Thanks to a citizen's movements, that so-called red state became the first in the nation to reject efforts to build more coal-fired plants, due to considerations of carbon dioxide emissions. Across Appalachia and the South, an extraordinary crossover campaign of citizens groups have launched one of the most aggressive anti-strip-mining movements in history. Their campaign has gone national: You can now view your personal connection to the consumption of coal from communities and mountains and ancient forests obliterated by radical strip-mining.

Perhaps the Democratic candidates will reconsider their connection to coal; or, perhaps these citizen movements will force them to follow the lead of a citizens party.

Comments

[research]

Obama wants nukes. 25 years of the worlds power for 1 million years of deadly waste, crappy bargian.

[research]

The 2 trillion dollars dumped in the desert for the Iraq Invasion War Crime, would have replaced all coal, oil and gas electricity generating plant in the USA with Wind at Solar even at current priices.

However, the clean coal systems that sequester the CO2 by using it to extract the last drops of oil are in use now. They do seem to work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage

[realitytrumpsbull]

Well, the computer you're typing all thst stuff on runs on...electricity, and, last time I checked, they still use coal for power generation because all the high-minded eco-friends haven't exactly been killing themselves putting in 3 shifts 24/7/365 to get those solar panels put up, or setting up windmills.

Oil, coal, natural gas, when you've got people trying to tear out dams for the sake of the fish, you basically force the issue in terms of usage of other means of electricity generation.

The eco-racket is also highly profitable, a direct siphon of people's tax monies to rediscover that which is essentially already known, and curiously doesn't result in 200 MW per month in new installations. 2,5, 10MW maybe, if that,but if you're going to 'green' the grid, a massive undertaking, then the production pace is going to have to go full steam ahead until such time as you're ready to switch over.
There are some states in the Union that are fairly sparsely populated, or have areas that are fairly deserted. They have lots of flat land, a fair amount of wind, optimum places for wind and solar farms. Additionally, there's lots of watercourses all across the country where 'free' hydroelectric potential goes untapped, reference the fishies from before.
Micro-hydro gets it done too, 10KW + 10KW + + +
equals 1MW. A billion grains of sand make a sand dune, so to speak.
The science is there, what's absent is armies of ecologically minded college types bravely showing us the 'way forward' on this puzzle, I call this phenomenon, 'milking it'. Either you've got a better answer, or you don't, if you don't, you're just trying to cut in on the old 'carbon' racket.
Moral of the story? DON'T believe everything you read on environmentalism, or accept it as 'the gospel truth' because some crafty clown running some kind of game has an angle on profiting here. Fix it, or don't, but stop the whining.

[TellingTruth2Kooks]

There is Nothing wrong with Coal!!!

Don't believe me, ask any Presidential Candidate that hails from ILLINOIS!!!

We are also Building a New Coal Plant here and it will SHOWCASE the latest in Clean Coal Technology!!!

And we expect to be able to Sell at least 10 of them to every State in the Union!!! Possible mandated by CONGRESS!!! (If Senator Durbin gets his way!!!)

[Thermodynamics]

Safe storage of nuclear waste?
How about DU - depleted uranium. We have expended 2000 tons of DU as bullets(tanks, Apaches), mostly in the Middle East. This DU has been through the reactor fuel cycle and is contaminated with plutonium.

It is a very dangerous solution to the storage problem - don't store waste, make it into munitions in violation of the Geneva Convention.

DU is only 50% depleted and has a half life of billions of years. It forms fine dust and is inhaled into the lungs where its alpha particles cause cancer. Uranium miners who do not use respirators get lung cancer at almost a 100% rate.

[MsLiz]

I will conserve electricity by turning off my computer.

[Purple Girl]

We must stop referring to these '08 blue models as anything more than Re built Red Models we've been offered for decades now.

They may look more stylish on the outside- but the same engines that don't work for shit starts but constatnly stales, high maintanence, gas guzzling lead sleds. same shit they were offering in the early '70's.

Crown Hill and Barr Queen & King of the Prom so we can all go back to numbing ourselves on our favorite Gov't drug brought to US by the makers of Corporationism.

[factanonverba]

We are in a fix and there is quick nor easy way out of it. Coal is abundant and cheap. While we have likely peaked oil, coal may be the one natural resource that can outlast humanity.

The problem with coal is of course it is the most environmentally unsound stone on the planet. Burning it unleashes not only carbon dioxide but also the more dangerous sulfur dioxide. The former causes global warming, the latter simply poisons. It is the acid in acid rain. Beyond poisoning lakes and rivers, it also causes a wide range of human diseases.

Edwards has the most sensible approach to it. We can not, after all, just go cold turkey. It generates half of all electrical power in the US and perhaps a third world-wide.

China is currently building two coal burning generations plants a week. It takes two weeks for the jet stream to bring those discharges to the West Coast. China's pollution doesn't stay in China, it travels the world hitting the Pacific and North America the worst.

If you are interested in the role of coal in human history, I recommend Barbara Freese's "Coal: A Human History." Ms. Freese was Minnesota's Asst. Attorney General responsible for enforcing Minnesota's environmental standards. The book is a quick read and immensely informative.

[raptor]

CCT was an issue in the last Australian election. The new Labor government has embraced the idea, probably to garner votes. The old government trumpeted loss of exports (it's Australia's largest), loss of jobs, and nuclear power (depite NIMBY). Googling appropriate terms will produce a lot of research. For those coal-exporter countries I have one question. How much oil is consumed carting the damn stuff to your customers?

[jdm58]

The coal issue is not going away without a very loud fight. In Texas, home of King Oil and King Coal, we were able to defeat the attempt to build several new coal plants, but only with the help of LOCAL government (the former Mayor of Dallas, Laura Miller, deserves a Nobel Prize for her efforts). Mayor Miller was joined by the mayors of several other cities around Texas, who were fed up with dealing with Federal Regulations and penalties on their cities, not to mention the undisputable evidence of the rise in asthma and other illnesses, due to extreme air pollution. No matter what they did at home to improve air quality, the pollution was exacerbated by the fumes from coal mines, often miles away, but carried by air currents directly over their cities. The coalition of Mayors had to fight the Governor, who was being pushed by the coal industry to leave them alone, but with a strong activist movement and much community involvement on the local level, sanity prevailed. Utility companies are locally controlled and operated. As difficult as it seems, it may behoove the anti-coal movement to "Think Globally, but act Locally". The "I love Moutains" movement to get everyone to look at their own contribution to coal is a great start. The average person does not think about where their electricity is coming from when they switch on the lights or climate controls of their homes. People will make more educated purchases, and demands on their power companies, given the Power of Information.

[southernmamma]

wow. devastating series of punches.

are you reading Obama, Edwards, Cinton fans? ask your candidate what they think, when:

"national polls show the majority of Americans are overwhelmingly against strip-mining in Appalachia, rank global warming at the top of their concerns, or when our entire federal alternative energy budget is less than a week of expenditures in Iraq?"

[maddogbitesback]

Guess what Google justinvestedin. You got it. Solar thermal. Take fifty acres of Arizona and the You Ess of Ay will have all the electricity it can use. Edwards idea is nuts. Get off coal and oil and get into the twenty first century. Oil and coal are so old and so dirty. Solar and wind will put America back at the head of the pack and not trailing. Spain just got twenty five percent of its energy from wind yesterday. What is wrong with the contestants for the run for the presidency. It is pretty obvious. They are tied to old technology.

[Thermodynamics]

One problem with coal is that there is a tiny amount of mercury in every pound of coal. This mercury is bio-concentrated by organisms in lakes with the consequence that many top predator fish in lakes, such as bass, have mercury levels like tuna. In many areas there are advisories against eating much lake fish.

[isis]

I agree with you. I'm going to have to up my donation to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Maybe the candidates will listen to them.

[jaundicedview]

Sigh...

In the words of Ed Grimley Jr.,"We're as doomed as doomed can be, you know"

Low carbon coal...sheesh!