This week, in the heart of one of the nation's best potential wind energy-producing regions, the Powder River Basin, the Obama administration handed away thousands of acres of federal land -- land owned by you and me -- to the coal industry.
Coal companies have been pushing to expand mining in the West, and they are no doubt uncorking champagne right now in celebration of this enormous gift. But for those of us who aren't coal executives, the giveaway comes at a high cost.
The new coal will spew nearly 4 billion tons of carbon pollution into our air -- the equivalent of building 300 new coal-fired power plants, or twice the amount of new coal plants proposed by the Bush-Cheney Energy Plan back in 2001. It's not just this pollution's contribution to climate disruption that's worrisome. Burning coal produces all kinds of other toxic chemicals linked to serious health problems. In fact, coal pollution contributes to four of the five leading causes of death in the United States, and is responsible for an estimated 300,000 preventable birth defects each year.
Just pause for a second and consider that last statistic. Coal pollution causes an estimated 300,000 birth defects every year. Imagine how you'd feel if you were the parent of one of those children, knowing that their suffering could have been avoided.
We know that there's a solution to coal-fired pollution. But spurring new coal development undercuts the good work President Obama has done to transition to a clean energy economy.
The West, in particular, holds so much promise for a healthy and abundant clean energy -- and the good, safe jobs that come with it. In fact, the West alone holds enough renewable energy potential to fully power our entire nation. But we need to get serious about developing wind and solar in the West. And we can't get serious about clean energy while continuing to let coal companies wreak havoc.
There is no greater enemy to our clean energy economy -- and our children's health -- than dirty coal . President Obama has shown he's committed to a healthy, prosperous clean energy future. Expanding coal development in the West -- or anywhere -- has no place in that vision.
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Key word is "estimated". More abortions occur each year that are not estimated, but actual. I would like to see proof of causation. This is the kind of tripe the environmental movement has been selling for years without evidence.
The land isn't for the people, it's for the corporations.
OBVIOUSLY the renewables would be MUCH, MUCH cheaper if they did!
Fireofenergy thinks that the fine folks who have consistently brought us pricing and supply manipulations, dead ecoystems, record profits, and legislative extortion are somehow going to ride in on white horses, wearing halos, and make our energy cheap and clean, despite the devastation and expense their projects are already creating.
They've spent decades shutting down any alternative to creating pollution. I say we force them to wallow in it.
You can't have it both ways. Big Solar kills off exponentially more wilderness per kWh than Big Coal, emits enormous GHGs during manufacture, construction, and lost sequestration and SF6 in transmission, while re-enriching the same Big Energy pigs who have destroyed our wilderness and ripped us off for other power sources. Bad scene.
If you want to CLEAN up the grid, you do it in the built environment - not just paying lip service to PACE loans and feed in tariffs while rabidly pushing for hundreds of thousands of "pre-permitted" Big Solar dead zones and mile after mile of deadly SF6-spewing transmission. Rooftop solar produces the SAME net power in all the markets where Big Solar is being forced onto people's bills, only WE would see the financial benefits instead of money-grubbing mercenaries at Bright Source (Chevron, BP, Morgan Stanley, Google, etc.).
Your outrage is noted - now it's time to apply it across the board and fight ALL BIG ENERGY destruction of our wilderness for their private profits, and support LOCAL solutions!
How silly... Sure, the premise is true, that is takes it alot to make big solar. What you forget is that the energy pay back is like 30 to 1 with the awesome solar power towers and 10 to 1 with PV. There is no such thing with FF's as their promoters have to dig up ever more land just to emit ever more CO2.
Afterall, it is CO2 that is of utmost concern since humanity has upped the count by some 50%...
Did you know that coal is more dangerous than nuclear... well it is (but I still HATE the Light Water Reactor).
Local solutions won't work unless we go with the Molten Salt Reactor...Because there is not enough roofspace for solar PV on average across the country. There is about 800 sq mile of usable roofspace and we need like 30,000 sq miles or so (at 15% ef). This, then is no big deal...Simply form a corporation as big as one of the oil companies and call it "Global Robotic Solar" and make the cheapest form, whether by mirrors and molten salt (for storage) or PV and batteries. Place on the deserts (and in sunny cities) and cover that 30,000 sq miles. The CO2 spike would be noticeable, but then (our part of it) would go away!
GO BIG SOLAR! (If it ever gets here...)
Oh, and CSP towers produce the same capacity factor (~27% before transmission and heat losses) as tracking PV on the same site. Their ridiculous 40% capacity factor propaganda was disproven by Black and Veatch last year (hired to PROMOTE Big Solar by RETI), so you can stop with pretending it is the holy grail. It's no better than PV and steeply DROPS in production in hot weather (as in, deserts), and wastes billions of gallons of scare desert groundwater every year for mirror rinsing, none of which in-city PV does. After those heat-related losses and transmission losses, the built environment's PV (~17%) is just as efficient but far less destructive.
TRANSMISSION is a super-high GHG emitter too (research the EPAs position on SF6) and deserts are BIG CO2 sequesterers, so if you are even slightly worried about AGW, point of use solar is exponentially better for reducing GHGs.
any structure built to code can carry the load of solar panels, including flat roofs. you have so little faith in american ingenuity to properly design these systems, which already work all over the world, it's really sad. you know cellphones and computers couldn't work, either, until they did. you can be a flat-earther if you want. the rest of us are building the future.
Voting is not rigged, but who we vote for is... ALL parties suck (corporate bribes?)...
The Democratic Party is controlled by corporate America just as much as the Republican Party. Try door number three.
Jeez..he has kids, too. Doesn't he get it?