Posted on 02/02/2013 8:19:36 PM PST by Bratch
Edited on 02/02/2013 9:11:06 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Seven years ago, I was hired by the Environmental Defense Fund to fight against more than 100 new coal-fired power plants proposed across the United States. Today, these plants are dead. New coal construction has ground to a halt, and our focus has shifted from fighting new coal plants to pressuring existing coal plants to close.
Big progress in the fight against air pollution and global warming? You bet. Tireless advocacy by many made it happen. But I must confess that our fight was made easier by the sudden emergence of abundant natural gas. Simply put, the economics of new and existing coal plants are poor at today's natural gas price.
But here's the catch.
While there is no question that natural gas burns cleaner and has roughly half the carbon content of coal, natural gas has its own challenges.
Excerpt, read more at SFGate
Yeah, ska-rew that.
Drill baby drill!
Roflol. You’ll freeze in the winter.
And boil in the summer.
Where the ZOT Kitty?
Your wonderful natural gas came as a result of fracking and if you had your way, we would have neither coal nor natural gas.
You would insist on windmills and solar panels.
Were it not for the silly libs, fracking would be years ahead of where it is now and we would have so much natural gas we would sell it overseas and have cash inflow rather than the cash outflow of today.
Libs may have degrees hanging on their walls, but they have no common sense.
Umm, just for the record, the last statement comes from the final paragraph of the article.
I’m a firm believer of clean coal.
CO2 pollution and AGW is a big communist lie.
If you’re truly a part of it, hang on....fasten your seat belt and return your tray to its upright position.
A sarcasm warning is always a good idea to avoid unfortunate misunderstandings...
Wow, one would have to go to Babara Streisand to have a greater example of scientific illiteracy.
Please give this loon’s home address to all who have lost their jobs and let justice take its course.
This guy is a low information voter.
He’s done bragged in public, now let the coalies come after him.
Someone was gonna pay him $$$ to pettifog down the coal energy biz, and he took it. Sounds like all the information he wanted.
These people are evil. They shut down nuclear, then coal, now want nat gas.
Not to mention petroleum and hydroelectric.
They also have screwed up the automotive industry beyond belief.
Big progress in the fight against air pollution and global warming? You bet.You bet on that, I’ll the other side of that bet. I had no confidence in the “science” cooked up by the noted seminary-school dropout from Tennesee, even before it was revealed in the Climategate files that the “science” was being propped up by politics and had no visible means of support. But even that is beside the point. The thing that proves that you have made no progress against global warming is that, if AGW does exist, we are doomed anyway because China [is] now burning as much coal as the rest of the world combined - and China is stamping out more coal-fired power plants like cookies.
Tireless advocacy by many made it happen. But I must confess that our fight was made easier by the sudden emergence of abundant natural gas. Simply put, the economics of new and existing coal plants are poor at today's natural gas price.If you want to actually make progress on reducing global CO2 emissions due to electricity generation, you better hope that natural gas is produced full throttle - and exported to China.But you must forgive my cynicism about your (referring to the author of the article, not to ROCKLOBSTER, who didn’t even post, much less agree with, the article) intention to do anything other than to damage the US economy by energy limitation, as surely as the Army Air Force wanted to destroy the German economy during WWII by energy limitation through the bombing of petroleum infrastructure. That is the message that comes through loud and clear when you attack fracking. It’s not the side effects of electricity production you object to, your real animus is against energy production which is useful to the American people.
Agree.
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