Kudos to California ...

Yet another pioneering green move from the state 7

... for recognizing that coal is the enemy of the human race.

This means all those proposed new Western coal-fired power plants will have to reduce their emissions via carbon sequestration if they want to sell to Cali, one of their biggest prospective clients. And if you ask me, the likelihood of sequestration on that scale working out economically any time soon is essentially nil, so this puts a serious damper on the financial case for building those plants at all.

David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.

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  1. Charles Barton Posted 7:07 am
    29 May 2007

    carbon sequestrationWhy is it environmentalists do not worry about leaks from pressurized underground carbon sequestration, while they are exceedingly frightened about leaks from solid radioactive residue, stored underground?    

    Charles Barton
  2. GreyFlcn Posted 7:12 am
    29 May 2007

    News, but not newThis is only another step along the way.
    California already banned importing of high carbon electricity last January on a statewide level.
    However the municipal utilities played by a different set of rules.
    This is just bringing the municipal rules in line with state rules.
  3. David Roberts's avatar

    David Roberts Posted 7:13 am
    29 May 2007

    Believe me, CharlesI worry about it. As a solution to global warming, large-scale sequestration is a pipe dream.

    grist.org
  4. Ron Steenblik Posted 7:13 am
    29 May 2007

    Huh?Who says environmentalists don't worry about leaks of sequestered carbon?
    Doesn't Treehugger count as "environmentalist"?
  5. SoggyInSeattle Posted 7:50 am
    29 May 2007

    Why worry about leaks from nuclear storage?One reason is that a leak of 1% from a carbon sequestration facility means the storage is 99% effective. A leak of 1% from a nuclear waste storage  facility means the storage is 0% effective.
  6. theBike45 Posted 9:36 am
    29 May 2007

    California has the problem, not the coal plants  Seems to be a little confusion here. California is the party that needs the power. Carbon sequestration is not technically difficult,

    and the Alstom chilled ammonia technology has sliced the power requirements in half. It is being deployed at two plants in the next 2 to 3 years on a test basis, but that's simply verifying the obvious and looking to fine tune the procedures. In the Southwest there are only

    three viable options to acheive any significant emision redutions - Environmission type solar towers (currently bidding an RFP from El Paso Power for a 200 MW tower), carbon sequestration and nuclear. Nuclear is the best of the three by far, both economically and in terms of the environment. Wind is hopelessly inadequate, unreliable, and way, way to expensive, especially for such a dirty, environmentally obnoxious waste of land; it also costs from 20 to 30 times more to build than nuclear per megawatt per year. Wind is a bad joke that nobody seems to get. The politicians keep pouring the public's money into this economically moribund primitive technology

    that's on life support.

    We can always count on California to make a bad

    situation much worse - as in their disastrous zero

    emissions laws which stymied the development of the plug-in hybrid , the only viable automotive technology out there.

  7. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 1:56 am
    30 May 2007

    The Customer Is Always WrongSeems to be a little confusion here. California is the party that needs the power
    Why is it that you understand this simple fact of logic but the editors of Grist do not?
    Yes, the only result of these actions will be to raise the price of electricity to California consumers.
    "Great", the editors of Grist will say, now "wind power" will be more affordable.   Translation: greedy contractors can built more giant propellers that will never meet the need.

    John Bailo, The "Denier Guy"


    You Read It Here First

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