Here at Grist, we like to say that coal is the enemy of the human race. But what do Obama’s environmental nominees have to say about the dirtiest of all fossil fuels? Here’s what we heard at their confirmation hearings:
Steven Chu, nominee for secretary of energy: “I am optimistic we can figure out how to use those resources in a clean way. I’m very hopeful that this will occur and I think that we will be using that great natural resource.”
Lisa Jackson, nominee for EPA administrator: “Coal is a vital resource in this country. It is right now the source of generation of about 50 percent of our power. And I think that it is also important for us to say in the same sentence that it is—the emissions from coal-fired power plants are—the largest contributor to global warming emissions. So we have to face square-shouldered the future and the issues of coal and then move American ingenuity towards addressing them.”
Ken Salazar, nominee for secretary of the interior: “Coal is a controversial subject. The fact of the matter is it powers today much of America, and there are lots of jobs it creates ... The challenge is how we create clean coal ... I believe that we will move forward with the funding of some of those demonstration projects so we can find ways to burn coal that don’t contribute to climate change. I will certainly be an advocate of making that happen.”
The hidden costs and benefits of things we take for granted
Comments
View as Flat
ids Posted 6:03 am
17 Jan 2009
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Peter B. Meyer Posted 11:43 am
17 Jan 2009
I have yet to see solid evidence that we can get to clean coal. But I also have yet to see solid evidence that all the necessary storage and transmission systems needed for the various forms of renewable electricity to power the current mobile consumers of fossil fuels (automobiles, aircraft, etc.) will enable us to maintain the types of transportation systems to which we -- and much of the rest of the world -- have become addicted. Both paths assume we will acheive technological breakthoughs we have not yet attained.
If I wanted to make sure that I got support for trying to get to the clean energy future we need, I would NOT start off by creating fear about my plans.
FDR said, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." Obama and company cannot start out saying, "we have nothing to fear but coal itself." That could generate immobilizing fear.
That fear is what the carbon club has been working overtime to do for decades. You don't overcome that and undo the propaganda damage in one election - or one transition period.
Look at the three quotes. They say no more about the certainty of coal in our energy future than any scientist's claim about fusion power.
CHU has hope and confidence that we can solve the problem
JACKSON describes the problem coal presents and wants to "move American ingenuity" towards solving the problem -- which could mean abandoning coal for a better alternative.
SALAZAR talks about funding demonstration projects -- and the Bush Administration could not find a cost-effective demonstration project to support before we were in a budget bind, so I doubt he'll find much to support.
Pro-coal? I'm not convinced ... but they are not coming out as anti-coal and immediately losing the votes of all the Congresspeople from the coal states on having ANY green investments at all in the stimulus package.
Careful on language and language designed not to arm the opposition too soon? -- definitely.
Good politics -- and plenty of room to educate.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 1:24 pm
17 Jan 2009
I agree.
Come on people, these are confirmation hearings!
If they go all out anti-coal now then they would have a heluva time bein' confirmed.
And how can they fight coal when they can't even be confirmed?
They're sayin' the "right things" in order to make the process as quick and painless as possible.
If they were really pro-coal they'd be alot more specific on the coal-related alternatives (i.e. "clean coal") and how they wanna fund it.
Vague and open-minded leads to greater chance of being confirmed...and then the real agenda shines through.
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Pompey Road Posted 1:42 pm
17 Jan 2009
Burning coal clean means little or nothing to the people who live in East Kentucky and West Virgina Virginia appalchian mountains. It is hard to concentrate on clean coal when the mountains, valleys and fresh water streams are disapearing me as I type.
Let me know when you find someone who wants to dig it clean
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:33 pm
17 Jan 2009
I also have yet to see solid evidence that all the necessary storage and transmission systems needed for the various forms of renewable electricity to power the current mobile consumers of fossil fuels (automobiles, aircraft, etc.) will enable us to maintain the types of transportation systems to which we -- and much of the rest of the world -- have become addicted.
Do you mean two million people traveling the same fifty mile stretch to work each in their own eight passenger SUV? Cause no, probably today's technology can't support that. Or do you mean those same two million people getting to work in the same amount of time, some in two passenger electric cars, some on trains, some on buses? Cause that we can do even without breakthroughs, just by implementing the technology we already have.
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amazingdrx Posted 4:04 pm
17 Jan 2009
I guess Lovins, Lester Brown, Gore, Romm and others who know what needs to be done were too busy? Or didn't show up on the radar.
We can still hope for volcanic global cooling, it's a rough adjustment, but the only one left that could work, if 4 more years are frittered away on conventional wisdom.
This hopeless battle, just got even more hopeless.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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hapa Posted 4:34 pm
17 Jan 2009
i'm just now packing up a copy of "plan b" to send to my big-southern-repub-donor/hunter-steward relative. i'm wondering if i should deliver it in person. maybe we can talk about it maybe not but there's no one person in one place who can make this monster machinery turn fast. everybody needs to get closer and closer to wanting it.
if the people who are really hardcore and really well-versed right now are the only ones who can make it work, it will fail at lower levels. but it works at lower levels it can be universalized, i think.
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amazingdrx Posted 5:26 pm
17 Jan 2009
This is really true. Like Obama says it has to come from the bottom up. Can it break down the ramparts of conventional wisdom? Manned by these kind of conventionally wise clean coal experts?
A revolution takes off exponentially, just like catastrophic climate change, in fact the ever increasing velocity of the exponential climate change is what makes it catatrophic.
Or that exponential velocity of change is what could sweep over the globe like a big green wave.
It's a mathematical stand off. Disaster or desire. The basic desire to live, that motivates life itself from the first cells to the mega-civilizations somewhere out there in space/time.
If they got over their self-destructive stage, like we seem to be having trouble doing. The Drake Equation explains the function of the desire to live:
The Drake equation states that:
where:
N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;
and
R* is the average rate of star formation in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Peter B. Meyer Posted 7:48 pm
17 Jan 2009
-- if we have the grid, the transmission lines, and the electrical power generating capacity already on line and sufficiently reliable, even in weeks of cloud cover, to handle the load. Do we?
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amazingdrx Posted 2:10 am
18 Jan 2009
Remember this new energy economy conversion only needs to proceed by a few percentage points every year to end oil price shock caused economic problems. It won't happen overnight, nor does it need to.
A gradual oil demand reduction that matches falling production would stall the effect of peak oil until it doesn't matter to the economy as a whole.
I also have yet to see solid evidence that all the necessary storage and transmission systems needed for the various forms of renewable electricity to power the current mobile consumers of fossil fuels (automobiles, aircraft, etc.) will enable us to maintain the types of transportation systems to which we -- and much of the rest of the world -- have become addicted.
The evidence you seek will become apparent as the conversion is acomplished. A 100% conversion in a snapshot picture will only be a guess anyway, a computer simulation maybe.
Over 50% of our energy use can be eliminated with efficiency and conservation, but over the same time scale of a decade ot two, a few percent per year. Wind/wave power can ramp up to 20%, rooftop solar cogeneration can get another 25%, and biogas from waste can provide 5% with backup for variable sources.
Smart grid technology can distribute the power and offset peak demand and integrate storage in the form of plugin hybrid batteries, home backup batteries, and heat/cold stored in building mass and appliances.
Water heaters, freezers, and refrigerators are high demand devices that can store enough energy as heat/cold to cover a 24 hour cycle. These are the current storage options being explored with smart grid projects.
Someday soon superconducting electromagnetic energy storage might be applied as utility scale storage.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:18 am
18 Jan 2009
OK, this is shifting the goalposts. Originally you said: "But I also have yet to see solid evidence that all the necessary storage and transmission systems needed for the various forms of renewable electricity to power the current mobile consumers of fossil fuels (automobiles, aircraft, etc.) will enable us to maintain the types of transportation systems to which we -- and much of the rest of the world -- have become addicted."
Now you are demanding they already be on-line? Neither "Clean Coal" nor a reliable renewable grid are on-line. The difference is we know how to build a reliable renewable grid with mature technology, vs. requiring technical breakthoughs to get clean coal, and as correctly pointed out, it still will be dirty in mining, and waste disposal.
In contrast, a combination of wind, solar, existing hydro, modest geothermal and modest storage could take care of 98% of needs for such a grid. Supply the remaining 2% with natural gas, mainly as backup for situations like you mentioned with weeks of cloudly weather. (Mind you, weeks of cloudy weather will mostly be weeks of windy weather. But take the rarer cases weaks of cloudly weather and low wind.) Note that this does mean natural gas backup capital plant might have to around half of total peak demand, even it will be used seldom. However if we don't use that natural gas plant much, then we also don't need to make it efficienct. Use cheap $350 per KW peaking turbines, and don't run them much.
In either case you have to build something. But in the case of a renewable grid we already know what to build.
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randino Posted 2:57 am
18 Jan 2009
I think it will be a big mistake to concentrate only on the global warming problems with coal. The fact is that from fine particle pollution, to toxic slury ponds, to the poisoning of entire populations through water and air pollution, there are a hundred a one reasons to reject coal - any one of which should be enough to drive a nail into its coffin. We have to attack on all fronts, and force those who are still parroting the line of clean coal to be on the defensive.
Finally, let us dispense with this nonsense that Obama (and I am still glad I worked for him!)is a Sugar Daddy who is going to give us anything. I am frankly shocked at how unsophisticated, provincial and clueless many of my fellow activists are about how the world works. As the famous quip about FDR said, we are going to have make him agree with us and a do what we want him to do. We can do this by first dispensing with the professional doomster viewpoint, that is constantly on the look out for reasons to despair, and that is ever hopeful that we can savor more failure, defeat and disappointment and thus enjoy our martyr status. I am as guilty as anyone else with this crap. If I can lay it down anyone can.
My rip for the morning.
Randy Cunningham
Cleveland, OH
Randy Cunningham
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Pompey Road Posted 5:00 am
18 Jan 2009
I feel you are correct in your assumption that all the voices will need to be heard and the total problems of coal both environmental and economic will help mold his thinking about clean coal. As it stands with 50% of power generation provided by coal it would be a monumental task dismantling the coal infrastructure with the economy in such dire straights and no viable alternative to coal on the near horizon. If it only comes down to co2 and its future environmental ramifications the coal problem will be taken as most of the unfunded liabilities and the can kicked further down the road because of the immediacy of an economic melt down problem that has to dealt with now. Case in point his apparent distain for the large deficit spending that will be necessary in the short run but needed now to prime the economic pump.
As you I feel however that if the total coal scenario is weighed against the total economic cost of repairing the total economic devastation coal has caused he will see that some issues can't be kicked down the road for another generation or regime to fix.
Coal ash sludge is but a blimp on the 24 hour news cycle and will soon deteriorate in importance compared to the monumental task of repairing this economy that is priority one for Obama. Coal compounds or wet coal slurry dams that also contain the same heavy metals plus the coal cleaning chemicals are a toxic mix that has not even garnered national attention yet. The contamination of the water system will not be contained to just an area the country see's as expendable. The tributaries of Eastern Coal fields drain into the Ohio and Mississippi River and we share our toxic cocktail with the lower United States major population centers. Mountain Top Removal will never in and of itself evoke the repulsive emotional response that it does for the people that see it first hand and have a different connection with the land because we live here. The ongoing attempt to establish long term contracts with China for our coal exports depicts how the economic trumps the environmental every time when it comes to shaping domestic and foreign economic policy.
No one has contemplated the total economic cost of cleaning up this economic disaster or given any real thought to how far you can kick the problem down the road. The health care cost of treating the various cancers caused by the short life chemicals used in coal cleaning or the heavy metals that have a half life almost as long as radium once released into the environment.
Yes all the problems with coal will have to be addressed in unison by every concerned environmentalist group no matter what their area of expertise is with so called clean coal. Plus the economist must look at every aspect of the environmental clean up cost, both the immediate and long term. The analogy of tag team wrestling would be a poor one to use. Everybody needs to pile on this one at the same time.
If a man ever wanted a public works project to relieve some of the unemployment and the reason to push for an alternative energy sector to lessen the grip of foreign oil plus create good home grown jobs a total view of coal would point to the immediacy and the necessity. FDR's CCC or WPA Program would not even be able to put a dent in the environmental damage already caused. Alternative energy research and development will not be seen as a futuristic liberal pipe dream if the total coal scenario can be taken in and viewed in its totality and weighed against the temporary economic threats of the now.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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human power Posted 5:36 am
18 Jan 2009
If the 53% who voted for Obama would commit to reducing their grid use to less than 10 KWhr/day, we would so mortally wound King Coal that he would cease to dominate our politics. We would also provide the political cover for Obama to do something meaningful about climate change. As long as we all wait for someone else to do something, we will continue to drive ourselves towards the brink.
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amazingdrx Posted 8:19 am
18 Jan 2009
I think they would if they knew how to do it.
Conservation is half of the solution, renewables the other half.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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ids Posted 9:33 am
18 Jan 2009
Clinton loosened the control of financial institutions and now it brings collapse. Obama's envirergy politics, the Shitcago way, will bring the same, more likely than not.
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Pompey Road Posted 11:35 am
18 Jan 2009
The reason so many of the right and so many Reagan Democrats deserted the party is because they become a joke at being fiscal conservative, one of the main platforms of the party. You can't blame the liberal left for the 1.2 trillion dollar deficit that George Bush run up on an illegal war and not being able to get the Wall Street lobbyist hand out of his puppet ass. Paulson is the best GD salesman in history and Dodd and Barney are owned heart and soul by the Wall Street lobby.
No one knows what Obama will do as far as energy or the environment. He is playing it close to the vest right now. The economy he inherited from the great economic strategizer will be job one. The economic/environmental policy will be crafted around that by people other than C- coke heads who can't make a complete sentence.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:52 am
19 Jan 2009
"Coal is my worst nightmare"
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/12/11/stev ...
-David Ahlport
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davedenali Posted 10:30 pm
19 Jan 2009
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Bob Wallace Posted 10:49 pm
19 Jan 2009
Here's the number one rule in politics - you can't make changes if you don't get elected.
Make a lot of statements about coal being dirty and there's no way that it will ever be clean and acceptable and you can write off a lot of potential votes.
What I "hear" Obama saying is that we will use coal if it can be clean. And we will build new nuclear if.... And I understand those conditions most likely eliminate both.
Notice how he is saying that we will greatly expand renewables? Right now.
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:22 pm
19 Jan 2009
If they translate into:
"No new coal plants unless they can sequester all their emissions"
Lets call their bluff, since I think we all know that either
A. That hurdle is way too high to clear
B. If they do clear it, then would that really be so bad?
-David Ahlport
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amazingdrx Posted 11:48 pm
19 Jan 2009
Just the fact that the industries involved are not willing to work together to use cogeneration from so-called 4th generation waste neutralizing fast neutron reactors and coal power plants to refine biofuel, sequester carbon, and produce and compress hydrogen, indicates that they are not really interested in GHG reduction.
To the lobbyists for coal, nuclear power, agribizz biofuel, and hydrogen, diversion is the real aim. They think they can fool us into staying with the status quo on the promise of unworkable pork harvesting boondoggles, like "nevergen" (Futuregen?).
Prove you can keep the CO2 underground to stay put and that you don't need to mine 40% more coal to power the compressors and pipelines to pump the CO2 underground, and increase the price of coal power to double or triple that of wind and solar to keep the whole "clean" coal house of cards from tumbling down on top of utility investors (traditionally ultrasafe "widow and orphan" stocks), taxpayers, and ratepayers; then and only then, after the proof is offered up for public scrutiny, ask US to go for your plan.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 11:51 pm
19 Jan 2009
The demand for coal in a co2 neutral coal industry or viable gasification or CTL products from coal will finish off the Mountains in Southern Appalachia. The demand for coal will increase and our cause will be buried especially in a region the country has already deemed expendable. We can't shout loud enough to get above the din as it is. We will be lost in the media and we will never be able to get on the front burner of national attention.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:46 am
20 Jan 2009
Mr. Peabody's coal train, facilitated by coaly (wholey) owned government, has already hauled it away. And destroyed the forests with acid rain and climate change.
Then there is the possibility that local pro-coal thugs will threaten one's family. It's a job for those like you Pomp, who simply will not give in because it's your land, home, and tradition. To ask the young people of your region to stay and keep on fighting maybe too much.
I hope the scenario is not that dark? When the people flee the onslaught of the ultimate evil, only the machines and slaves will be left behind. The slavemasters have already moved out into nearby gated "communities".
Will the whole southland go this way? It's a distinct possibility. The majority seem to love their corporate slave masters and the consumptive lifestyle they enable more than life itself. The rest will flee with their lives and sanity.
Is there any sadder legacey? I can't think of any, except maybe the actual genetic code tampered with by mutation due to contamination.
The ADD and ritalin treatment, already related to contamination by some researchers, leading to meth-amphetamine abuse is frightening enough. Helen Caldicott claims that contamination is already producing an exponential increase in genetic defect and disease.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Pompey Road Posted 4:48 am
20 Jan 2009
Such is life in a corpocracy. As you suggest I will probably be the last one standing with a sign that reads here once was a mountain, a valley and a fresh water stream. You will know it is I because I will probably be glowing in the dark or holding the sign up high with a third arm.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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ken1 Posted 5:03 am
22 Jan 2009
than 100 times more radioactive material than all the nuclear power plants in the world.
Mercury released in coal burning contaminates the world ocean as well as our rivers, lakes
and soil. Air pollution from coal burning kills hundreds of thousands of people per year. If
such consequences were occurring from nuclear power, nuclear plants would all be closed.
Mining of coal, especially mountaintop removal, causes additional environmental damage
and human suffering. It is time for all the coal plants to be closed, indeed, averting climate
disasters demands that all coal emissions be phased out. Coal is best left in the ground.
Nevertheless, R&D for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) deserves strong support.
It is needed to provide the full range of options in energy choices, for countries that insist on
exploiting their coal resources. Moreover, CCS has another potentially more important role
to play: it could be used at power plants that burn biofuels, such as agricultural wastes. This
sort of `geoengineering', which draws excess CO2 out of the air and puts it back in the
ground where it came from, may be needed to get atmospheric CO2 back to a safe level.
Transition to the post-fossil-fuel era with clean atmosphere and ocean, requires a carbon
tax. That tax will cause unconventional fossil fuels to be left in the ground, as well as much
coal and some oil and gas that resides in remote regions. The public will accept such a tax if
the funds are returned entirely to the public, no funds going to Washington and other capitals
for politicians and lobbyists to determine its fate. Tax and 100 percent dividend is not
sufficient by itself - many other actions are needed - but it is necessary. No time remains for
a transition via ineffectual half measures."
From material submitted to then-President-elect Obama.
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20081121_Obama.pdf ...
-- Sustainability Best Practices & Peer Network --
SustainLane Government
http://www.sustainlane.us
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