Free Republic

Won’t those tax-subsidized electric cars solve heaps of problems? Not exactly. There are two examples that run against the politically correct grain: . . .

Is $26 million worth the reputation of a venerable, 1.4 million member environmental group ? The Sierra Club may be about to find out. the 120-year-old organization’s hushed financial marriage to the natural gas industry — and its just-as-secretive divorce — have left some long-time supporters feeling angry, betrayed or misled. The news cut especially deep for activists who have spent years fighting the spread of shale gas drilling in states like New York and Pennsylvania. The Sierra Club quietly accepted $26 million in donations from gas industry interests from 2007 to 2010 — years when the group’s national leaders...

Its a tough time for hundreds of coal miners across southwest Virginia. That's because they're getting pink slips from A & G Coal, which is owned by Southern Coal Company. Mark Whooten is a spokesman for Southern Coal. He told News 5 who made the decision. "These layoffs are a decision by our corporate headquarters. They are market driven due to metallurgical coal market fluctuating violently at the present time." The company wouldn't tell us how many jobs they have cut, but we do know its sizeable according to the manager of the local employment office, Gary Hale. "On Monday...

Barack Obama’s avalanche of needless regulations on coal-fueled power plants are going into effect and the net result will be the closing of hundreds of power plants all across the country just when our need for power is increasing. This will absolutely necessitate the cost of our power to skyrocket. Look to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland where six coal-fueled power plants are being shut down by FirstEnergy because the retrofitting the power plants will have to undergo to satisfy Obama’s whims is just too expensive to justify. Company spokesmen say there is no help for it. “This decision is not...

After looking over GOP speeches from this primary cycle, especially those wherein Mitt Romney stated (and restated) his belief in man-made global warming, it occurred to me that many of his positions sound eerily familiar, if not strikingly similar, to those held by President Barack Obama. And after looking more closely, it was interesting to set statements from the two side by side and see how little difference there actually is between them on environmental issues. First of all, as I alluded to above, they both believe in man-made global warming. For example, during the 2008 president debates Obama said,...

Just days after his 2002 election, Mr. Romney hired Douglas Foy, one of the state’s most prominent environmental activists, and put him in charge of supervising four state agencies. Gov. Mitt Romney and Douglas Foy at a March 2006 event. Mr. Foy had initiated a lawsuit that led to the cleanup of Boston Harbor and had worked to protect fishing grounds and seashores. Once in the Romney administration, he served as the governor’s negotiator on a regional climate-change initiative and put emissions caps in place for coal-fired power plants. With Mr. Foy by his side, Mr. Romney joined activists outside...

As the nation's light switch and gas pump, Texas releases far more greenhouse gases into the air than any other state, according to federal data released Wednesday. Texas' coal-fired power plants and oil refineries generated 294 million tons of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in 2010, more than the next two states - Pennsylvania and Florida - combined, the data shows. The Environmental Protection Agency released the data by industrial facility for the first time as part of a broader effort to reduce emissions linked to global warming. The agency collected data from more than 6,700 industrial facilities that...

BISMARCK, N.D.—North Dakota granted a fourth extension of state aid for study of a plan to build a coal-to-liquid fuel factory, while the project's developers wait to see if the political climate in Washington changes after the presidential election. Dallas-based North American Coal Corp. and Headwaters Inc. of South Jordan, Utah, formed American Lignite Energy LLC in 2007 to oversee construction and operation of the $4 billion plant at a yet-to-be chosen site in western North Dakota. David Straley, a North American Coal Corp. spokesman said a decision on whether to start construction depends on a change of political climate...

Last Wednesday, just days before Christmas, Carol Browner, Obama's radical Climate Czar, announced new EPA restrictions for mercury, arsenic, and other toxic substances being outputted into the atmosphere by coal-fired power plants. Compliance is required before 2014. Hailed as a victory by environmentalists, it is expected that it could mean the demise of nearly 60 existing coal-fired power plants with upwards of 22 million customers being affected; mostly in the already beaten up and declining cities and states in what is known as the Rust Belt. Some communities could see their power bills rise by as much as 30%. Most...

Sierra Club, Audubon settle with SWEPCO on Turk power plantPosted by Max Brantley on Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 10:16 AM The Sierra Club and Audubon Arkansas have announced a settlement with SWEPCO, the utility building the Turk coal-fired power plant in Hempstead County. This ends legal challenges to the plant and will be reflected in a consent decree to be filed in federal court later today in Texarkana. Nicholas Akins, CEO of American Electric Power, SWEPCO's parent, said in a release: “The provisions of the agreement are consistent with our commitment to renewable energy, energy efficiency and overall environmental...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday unveiled rules for coal-fired power plants that mean costly investments passed on to consumers, but also health benefits. Hundreds of older plants — which together make up the largest remaining source of unchecked toxic air pollution in the United States — will have to cut emissions or shut down. "By cutting emissions that are linked to developmental disorders and respiratory illnesses like asthma, these standards represent a major victory for clean air and public health," Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement.

The Environmental Protection Agency will unveil highly-anticipated regulations on Wednesday aimed at curbing mercury and other toxic air pollutants from power plants. The agency said Tuesday that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will make a “significant Clean Air Act announcement” Wednesday at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC. A source closely following the issue confirmed to The Hill that the agency will unveil the final mercury and air toxics standards. Jackson will be joined at the event Wednesday afternoon by public health experts and industry representatives, EPA said. But the agency did not name the officials. The long-delayed...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than 32 mostly coal-fired power plants in a dozen states will be forced to shut down and an additional 36 might have to close because of new federal air pollution regulations, according to an Associated Press survey. Together, those plants - some of the oldest and dirtiest in the country - produce enough electricity for more than 22 million households, the AP survey found. But their demise probably won't cause homes to go dark. The fallout will be most acute for the towns where power plant smokestacks long have cast a shadow. Tax revenues and jobs...

Greenpeace International has ended a long-running campaign calling on Facebook to “unfriend coal” as a source of energy for its data centers, after Facebook agreed to promote clean and renewable energy, the two organizations said. In late October, Facebook announced plans to build a new data center in Lulea, Sweden, using hydroelectric power for the servers and relying on the local climate to cool the data center for free. At the time, though, Facebook made no commitment to use clean and renewable energy in its other data centers. Greenpeace rated Facebook’s existing data centers as among the dirtiest on the...

A young couple hopping railroad cars across the country was found dead under a mound of coal at a Florida power plant. Christopher Artes, 25, and Medeana Hendershot, 22, shared a passion for illegally hopping freight trains and traveling the country without a set plan...

Every day, Care2 members are my inspiration to tackle challenges. You have shown that when we all band together to create change, we can accomplish amazing things. Over the years I've asked you to take on huge issues, and today I am asking you to take on one of the world's biggest problems -- dirty coal energy that poisons the environment, and us. My children are healthy, which I am grateful for every day. But those of us who live near coal plants or down-stream from a waste site may not be so fortunate. Just because of the food we...

Every year, coal-fired power plants produce more than 386,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants -- including mercury, arsenic, lead and acid gases. Mercury, a potent neurotoxin, is a particular threat to pregnant women and young children. The Environmental Protection Agency has announced plans to issue strong, sensible protections from power plant pollution on December 16th of this year. Unfortunately, industry special interests are trying to block this critical safeguard. Tell President Obama to strongly support the EPA's efforts to clean up mercury pollution and protect the health of mothers, children and families. This is an email that I received from...

December 5, 2011, 9:58 PM HKT Ominous Ordos: Dispatch from a Chinese Ghost Town Ordos – a town in the desert of Inner Mongolia – has become a symbol of the excesses of China’s real estate boom. Reports in the local press that property prices in the eeriest of China’s ghost towns had fallen 70% had China Real Time Report on the next plane out there. We found little evidence of a collapse in prices yet. But with sales volume sharply down that could be just around the corner. “You want to know why they were building all those houses...

Green activists, take note – for Australia fully to embrace solar power, Canberra would have to spend $100 billion, with photovoltaic cells to generate the electricity covering an area twice the size of Sydney in order to replace Australia’s indigenous inexpensive coal-fired power plants with renewable energy sources. This is not an insignificant figure, as Australian coal currently generates 80 percent of Australia's electrical energy output. The grim statistic was contained in the recent report, “Keeping the Home Fires Burning,” issued by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. So, who is the Australian Strategic Policy Institute? Tree-hugging, wallaby and kangaroo friendly...

Anybody who wonders why the U.S. economy continues to stagger along with 9 percent unemployment and an anemic 2 percent quarterly growth rate need look no further than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Under President Obama's hand-picked administrator, Lisa Jackson, EPA is hog-tying the economy with dozens of proposed major new rules. One of them, which is aimed at coal-fired power plants that generate electricity, will add at least $18 billion in compliance costs by 2020. As Kathleen White of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told the House Energy and Commerce Committee earlier this year, "never in its 40-year history...

Google Inc. has abandoned an ambitious project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, the latest target of Chief Executive Larry Page's moves to focus the Internet giant on fewer efforts. Google said on Tuesday that it was pulling the plug on seven projects, including Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal as well as a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia service known as Knol. The plans, which Google announced on its corporate blog, represent the third so-called "spring cleaning" announcement that Google has made since Google co-founder Page took the reins in April. The changes come as Google is facing stiff competition in...

The Obama administration pressured analysts to change an environmental review to reflect fewer job losses from a proposed regulation, the contractors who worked on the review testified Friday. The dispute revolves around proposed changes to a rule regulating coal mining near streams and other waterways. The experts contracted to analyze the impact of the rule initially found that it would cost 7,000 coal jobs. But the contractors claim they were subsequently pressured to not only keep the findings under wraps but "revisit" the study in order to show less of an impact on jobs. Steve Gardner, president of Kentucky consulting...

The good news is that on 8 November the International Energy Agency released its 2011 “World Energy Outlook.” While it will cheer nuclear advocates, overall the report makes for grim reading. Pulling no punches, the report states at the outset, “There are few signs that the urgently needed change in direction in global energy trends is underway.” Stripped of its cautious language, the IEA report essentially noted that should present trends continue, the world’s governments through a lack of progressive initiative embracing alternative energy sources would continue to rely on ‘tried and true” fossil fuels, resulting in increased pollution, more...

Year-to-date, the coal trade stands at 22.1 million tons on the lakes, a decrease of 14.1 percent compared to a year ago and 25.4 percent below the five-year average for the January-to-October period.

On 30 May, in the aftermath of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that Germany would close all of its 18 nuclear power plants between 2015 and 2022, which produce about 28 percent of the country's electricity. Eight have now been taken offline, and with the winter coming on Berlin is scrambling to make up the energy shortfall lest the country suffer blackouts combined with the need to import massive amounts of electricity. Despite Germany's Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (German Development Bank) being set to underwrite renewable energy and energy efficiency investments in Germany worth $137.3 billion over...

Saying they have concerns about emissions from the coal burning power plant at Mt. Tom and potential health effects on Holyoke and Northampton, organizers led by the Sierra Club are trying to get the state to impose tougher standards on the plant's operation. "Big coal does make us sick. We are asking that the Mt. Tom plant stop making money by making us sick,'' the Sierra Club's Drew Grande said at a press conference Thursday near the Holyoke YMCA building.

Badger ferry owners seek landmark status for coal-burning ship 11/8 - Facing a deadline to stop dumping toxic coal ash into Lake Michigan, owners of the last coal-powered steamship on the Great Lakes are pushing for it to join Mount Vernon, Lincoln's Tomb and Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthplace as a protected national historic landmark. Even if the Badger fails to make the list of the nation's historic and cultural treasures, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may be unable to force the aging coal burner to eliminate the nearly 4 tons of waste it dumps in the lake every time...

Weeks after the infamous BP oil spill in late-April 2010, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the agency that managed leasing and regulation, was split up into three parts. Addressing the reorganization, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, said: “We will be able to strengthen oversight of the companies that develop our nation’s energy resources.” He addressed a perceived conflict of interest between departments due to the leasing and regulatory functions being in one agency—one brings in revenue and one regulates (and perhaps punishes) the businesses generating the income.His mid-May 2010 actions bring his new Secretarial Order to reorganize a different agency into...

As Belgium becomes the latest European nation to agree to switch off nuclear power, operator Electrabel warned Monday of high costs, environmental fallout and increased dependency on foreign suppliers. ... A front-page cartoon in the Flemish daily De Standaard on Monday showed four pairs of eyes in the dark with one of the blacked out faces saying, "I think Electrabel is trying to make a message heard." ... Italy and Switzerland meanwhile have put nuclear power plans on ice, while Germany switched off several reactors in the wake of the Japanese disaster and has since passed legislation to phase out...

It is time for Lisa P. Jackson to resign. Last Friday at Howard University, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) railed against the coal industry, saying, “In [the coal industry’s] entire history - 50, 60, 70 years or even 30 - they never found the time or the reason to clean up their act. They’re literally on life support. And the people keeping them on life support are all of us.” This is patently false, of course, as emissions from U.S. coal-fired power plants are quite heavily regulated. Those emissions controls are the reason U.S. air is clean...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- The proposed merger of two federal agencies managing public land and mining is part of a White House effort to wipe out the U.S. coal industry, a critic said. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called for the merger of the Bureau of Land Management and the Office of Surface Mining. U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, said he had "serious" concerns about the decision to "suddenly and dramatically" change management of coal mines and BLM lands by U.S. President Barack Obama's administration. "The Obama administration has not made...

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., was in Bismarck Tuesday to promote legislation that he said will encourage industry to continue recycling coal ash as an ingredient in construction materials. Ash that is a byproduct of burning coal is frequently recycled as an ingredient in concrete. Hoeven and representatives of regional power generators and road material producers said that Hoeven's proposed bill would prevent the federal Environmental Protection Agency from classifying coal ash as a hazardous material. Read more: http://bismarcktribune.com/business/1a3b5e3c-ff5b-11e0-8f61-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1bqjADEzc

Some called it a gaffe when current Vice President Joe Biden was caught on video saying, “No Coal Plants Here in America,” during the 2008 campaign. Now, thanks to a bit of curious timing, the Obama administration may be a step closer to achieving that very thing, destroying up to 1.4 million jobs in the progress. The move will also lead to a significant increase in energy prices; however, it may be too late to do anything about all that by the time the information comes to light. And yet some think Wall Street, not Washington, is the problem. Here’s...

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is one of 11 Republican governors who have signed a letter to President Barack Obama, asking him to withdraw proposed rules that would reduce toxic pollutant emissions from coal-burning power plants. In their letter Oct. 7, the governors claim long-delayed rules limiting emissions of mercury and other toxics -- originally mandated in the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990 -- would cost $11 billion annually, risk millions of jobs, hurt electric power reliability and result in only marginal air quality improvements. "Any new rule must reflect information on how it will impact the economy and include...

So if somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them… – Barack Obama speaking to San Francisco Chronicle, January 2008 The United States has the world’s largest coal resources. In fact we have 50 percent more coal than Russia, the country with the next largest reserves. But coal use in the United States is under assault. Before becoming President, Barak Obama promised to bankrupt coal companies. As President, he has tried various strategies to force Americans to use less coal. After failing to pass a national energy tax (cap-and-trade), the President vowed...

An old energy source has the potential to drive down the cost of gasoline, thanks to new technology. Lower fuel prices effectively provide a non-artificial stimulus for the economy by leaving more money in taxpayers'/consumers' hands. I've long been an advocate of the notion that the best way to lower energy -- and, as a byproduct, food -- costs and to increase energy availability is to increase the supply of conventional, practical, domestic energy assets. I'm fascinated by one alternative to petroleum-based liquid fuel. Gasification and liquefaction of coal, generally thought to be an old-technology source of motor fuel, has...

The federal Environmental Protection Agency last week objected to 19 permits for surface coal mines in Kentucky, objections that some say could have a negative impact on the state’s economy. Read more: Hazard Herald (KY) - EPA objects to 19 surface coal permits at LINK!

The United States faces a clear choice of pushing forward quickly to refine solar, wind and other renewable energy sources or continue to ignore the less obvious costs of reliance on oil, coal, and nuclear energy, Robert Kennedy Jr. told a group of environmentalists Sunday afternoon. In discussing other costs that are often ignored, Kennedy cited the process of transporting coal from West Virginia. The government spends millions of dollars per mile to fill thousands of miles of road in the state with 22 inches of asphalt, Kennedy said. "Coal claims to be cheap but is probably the most catastrophically...

Luminant, the Dallas-based electricity generator that has protested federal regulators' timetable to curtail emissions from its coal-fired plants, said Monday it will idle two of those facilities and stop mining Texas lignite at some locations by the end of the year, costing about 500 jobs. Luminant said it took the actions to prepare to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which requires electricity generators in 27 states to cut emissions by Jan. 1, a deadline CEO David Campbell called "unrealistic." The company said it will spend about $280 million through 2012 on emissions control equipment, but won't...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) issued a record of decision that will allow federal funding to help build a 400 MW plant that combines an integrated gasification combined-cycle system with urea production and carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The Summit Texas Clean Energy Project will be partially funded with $450 million from DOE’s Clean Coal Power Initiative. The plant, owned by Summit Texas Clean Energy LLC, will produce power by converting subbituminous coal into hydrogen-rich synthesis gas andcarbon dioxide (CO2). The syngas and steam will be fed to the combined-cycle combustion and steam turbine generator to produce 200...

Source: American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote on the TRAIN Act, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, released a comprehensive analysis conducted by National Economic Research Associates (NERA) showing that several of EPA’s new and proposed regulations would lead to 183,000 lost jobs per year and significant increases in the price of electricity and natural gas. “America’s coal-fueled electric industry has invested nearly $100 billion, so far, to achieve impressive reductions in air pollution. Now is the wrong time for EPA to blindly push ahead without even pausing long enough...

This article is a few days old, but it is worth a mention nonetheless. Susan Kraemer at CleanTechnica can barely contain her excitement at the prospect of environmental regulations. In an article titled "Obama's EPA Cues 130 Billion Race to Cut Pollution By 2015", she reports that the EPA will shut down 20 percent of coal plants through the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. (Snip) The EPA will shut down an estimated 20% of the nation’s coal plants through the ground-level ozone rule (the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) ) through cap and trade that is about to be implemented in

California Sen. Barbara Boxer declared war Wednesday on an effort by House Republicans to roll back environmental regulations, warning that blocking the plan in the Democratic-controlled Senate is no sure thing. The House is set to vote Friday on legislation that would delay an Environmental Protection Agency rule to require 27 states that rely heavily on coal-fired electricity generation to reduce power-plant emissions that drift into other states, and another rule that would limit mercury and other pollution from coal-fired plants. Both rules would step up enforcement of the 1970 Clean Air Act. House GOP leaders plan weekly votes throughout...

NWI communities get keys to electric cars By Carrie Napoleon Post-Tribune correspondent Last Modified: Sep 22, 2011 02:01AM Kathy Kazmierczak is looking forward to retiring the city-issued older model Ford Crown Victoria she drives when performing her duties as Hammond’s recycling director. “It gets 11 miles per gallon,” she said. The THINK City all-electric vehicle Hammond and eight other Northwest Indiana municipalities took possession of Wednesday, facilitated through South Shore Clean Cities, will mean an end to the recycling director’s gas-guzzling ways and a chance to enlighten residents about alternative fuel vehicles as she tools around the city in the...

Texas energy company Luminant announced on Monday new burdensome Environmental Protection Agency regulations are forcing it to close several facilities, which will result in about 500 job losses. The company will be idling — stopping the usage of — two energy generating units. It will also cease extracting lignite from three different Texas mines. The EPA regulation Luminant cites as too burdensome is the new Cross-State Air Pollution rule, which requires Texas power generators to make “dramatic reductions” in emissions beginning on January 1, 2012. “We have hundreds of employees who have spent their entire professional careers at Luminant and...

Posted on September 12, 2011 at 11:45 am by Tom Fowler in Coal, Electricity, Energy demand, Environment, Environmental Protection Agency

The state of Michigan has lost 53,587 jobs — 8th highest in the country — due to the Sierra Club’s campaign to shut down coal factories, according to a report released by the National Mining Association. The analysis claims the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, in which the environmental group files a lawsuit against every coal plant in America seeking a permit, has cost the country 116,872 permanent jobs and 1.12 million construction jobs. Michigan’s job-loss figure includes both permanent and construction jobs. “From this analysis, only two conclusions are possible: Either the Sierra Club is exaggerating its effectiveness, or...

Barack Obama’s supporters praised him for having it in his joint-session speech last night on job creation. A national economy needs plenty of it in order to expand. Consumers consider it one of the most pressing economic issues they face. Yet Obama’s speech was curiously absent of any mention of one word … energy. That’s right; you could look it up. There wasn’t one single mention in a speech about jobs and economic stimulation that addressed the need for the energy necessary to support it. Never mind that part of the problem in the economy comes from a blunted demand...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama says his administration is considering seven new government regulations that would cost the economy more than $1 billion a year, a tally Republicans will pounce on to argue that Congress needs the power to approve costly government rules. In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, Obama lists four proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules and three Department of Transportation rules estimated to cost in excess of $1 billion. .. ... The four environmental regulations, which target air pollution and coal residue primarily from coal-fired power plants, have already been attacked by House Republicans, who...

Energy: It won't matter which light bulbs we use as the administration's implementation of cross-state pollution rules shuts down coal plants across the country. Where will the jobs be when the lights go out? It's called the Cross-State Pollution Rule, announced last month, and its implementation over the next 18 months will likely result in the loss of a fifth of the nation's electricity-generating capacity. The result will be likely power shortages, skyrocketing rates and inevitable brownouts and rolling blackouts. Based on Bush-era EPA proposals that the federal courts threw out in 2008, this latest example of legislation is designed...