Ted Nace’s Posts

• Vapor jobs

  Big Coal's far-out proposal for an economic stimulus 4

  Posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago

  Last week the coal lobbying group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity held a press conference to announce a study of the employment and other economic benefits of building new coal plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

  The plan, developed by Denver-based BBC Research and Consulting, looks at the effects of building 38, 122, or 188 new coal plants, each with 90 percent CCS.

  Since "jobs" and "stimulus" are the watchwords these days in Washington, ACCCE decided to emphasize the "6.9 million total job-years of labor" that would be created by building, fueling, and operating these… Read More

• Notable quotable

  When to change that light bulb 1

  Posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago

  "Often when I'm on TV, they'll ask what are the three most important things for people to do [to stop global warming]. I know they want me to say that people should change their light bulbs. I say the number one thing is to organize politically; number two, do some political organizing; number three, get together with your neighbors and organize; and then if you have energy left over from all of that, change the light bulb."

  -- writer and activist Bill McKibben

• Litigate this!

  The ultimate directory of climate change cases 0

  Posted 9 months, 4 weeks ago

  The estimable Arnold & Porter law firm has released a comprehensive online directory of climate change cases. Don't be deceived by the simplicity of the opening page. Just click on "Case Index" at the bottom of the opening page, which opens up a 35-page directory. Fantastic!

• Sir Richard Branson: Hand over the $25 million!

  Why the No New Coal Plants movement should be awarded the Virgin Earth Challenge prize 5

  Posted 10 months, 1 week ago

  Dear Mr. Branson:

  On Feb. 9, 2007, you and Al Gore announced the Virgin Earth Challenge at a London press conference:

  The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25 million for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth's climate.

  It was announced that the panel of judges would consist of Richard Branson, Al Gore, Crispin Tickell, James Hansen, James Lovelock, and Tim Flannery.

  I'm sure that when you dreamed up the prize, you… Read More

• Blowback

  Did the coal industry create its own PR nightmare? 4

  Posted 10 months, 1 week ago

  The press coverage of the Tennessee sludge spill has been nothing short of astonishing. Barely a week has passed since the accident and already a Google search for the phrase Tennessee spill produces 2,280,000 results!

  Compare that to 1,740,000 for Three Mile Island and 708,000 for Exxon Valdez. In little more than a week, this has become one of the biggest environmental stories in recent decades.

  Obviously, the naked fact of being the biggest coal spill in history (100 times larger than the Valdez spill) is reason itself for the intensity of the coverage. But… Read More

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Ted Nace’s Recent Comments

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  It's so great that Grist has a guy writing on climate issues who has the ability to clean the crap off the windshield and show the reader how to do the same. You're putting your philosophy training to worldly use David Roberts.

  On Gideon Rachman: Inability to prevent mass suffering and death a "dilemma for climate activists" posted 3 months, 1 week ago 8 Responses

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  Joe - With all due respect, it's astonishing to see you citing the example of the world's response to ozone depletion to defend cap-and-trade legislation. Climate scientists said that CFCs needed to be directly phased out in a matter of decades, and that is what literally has happened: not a cap-and-trade program for CFCs but a direct command-and-control phase-out. That's right: command and control, not market signalling. Market signalling is prettier and more economically efficient, but as a policy mechanism it's a way of bending the branch, not pruning the tree. It certainly would not have done the job with CFCs, nor will it work fast enough in the case of GHGs. Climate scientists have recommended placing the focus on phasing out coal emissions by 2030. The reasoning is that oil/gas reserves are much smaller than coal reserves, and controlling oil/gas is much more difficult. So coal is the key. Since it's not looking likely that CCS for new plants will be widely available in the mandated two-decade time frame--and it's looking even less likely that it will be available for retrofitting old ones--that means we need a straightforward national policy accompanied by equally straightforward implementing mechanisms to bring about the complete shutdown of existing coal plants by 2030, accompanied by governmental assistance if needed to finance alternatives. That will not happen with cap-and-trade, no matter how much you keep trying to tighten it in multiple iterations. The existing coal plants are simply too cheap to run; they'll pay the carbon fees (or taxes) and keep on operating. What makes cap-and-trade worse than a carbon tax is that the existence of a declining, comprehensive cap will be used as ready evidence that no further steps to directly phase out existing coal plants are needed. Moreover, utilities that have bought permits may well be legally or at least politically immunized from any mandated phase-out. As a result, a large portion of the coal fleet will still be running long past 2030 and the sine qua non for limiting climate change will not have been met. 

  On Memo to Hansen 2: Why is the country’s top anti-science blog reprinting your stuff? posted 6 months ago 3 Responses

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  Not rhetorical question

  David -

  My question of how exactly the government is going to invest the hundreds of money in utility bill carbon fees so as to replace existing coal plants wasn't rhetorical. Among the items on your list -- "tax credits, feed-in tariffs, high-speed rail, public transit, federal procurement" -- only tax credits could possibly by regarded as such an offsetting investment. Feed-in tariffs are not a public investment. As for federal procurement, that has nothing to do with investments in electrical capacity (unless you're talking about having the feds build a bunch of solar/wind for federal agencies like TVA). High-speed rail and public transit investments also do nothing to get rid of existing coal. I'm sure that when Midwestern and Southern utility customers find out that a big part of the reason their utility bills are skyrocketing is that monies from them are being spent on public transit and rail, they'll certainly rebel. They'll justifiably ask transit and rail projects to be financed in some other ways. Thinking that heavy levies on utility customers in coal-heavy states can be a great bonanza for "good stuff" all over the country is just a ticket for a big fat rate-payer revolt.

  Help build CoalSwarm -- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

  On Obama's budget contains carbon auction revenue, but how much will be rebated to consumers? posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago 22 Responses

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  Please be more specific

  David - Yes, to replace the fleet of existing coal plants will require replacement capacity which means a lot of investments in wind, solar, conservation, and transmission. But in case you hadn't noticed, the bulk of the electricity infrastructure is in private hands. So unless you are planning a major restructuring or modification of the electricity industry (for example, the government building large solar thermal plants on federal land and selling the power into the grid), please be more specific about what you exactly mean by "enormous public investments in green energy and infrastructure." What are these public investments that result in a lot of new private generating capacity?

  Help build CoalSwarm -- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

  On Obama's budget contains carbon auction revenue, but how much will be rebated to consumers? posted 8 months, 2 weeks ago 22 Responses

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  Bingo

  David - The BACT or MACT approaches are very problematic for the reasons you have identified.  If you read the proposed EPA carbon dioxide measures for EXISTING plants, they talk about milquetoast measures for running plants slightly more efficiently. That's because there's nothing else, unless you want to consider retrofits like adding thermal solar pre-heaters, etc. A possible approach would be to have a CO2/kWh ceiling applied for the utility level as a whole, and then make this ceiling decline over time. A simpler approach is simply to declare that coal plants must be retired at age 40 or 45. Yet another approach is to define some CO2/kWh ceiling that causes the most inefficient old plants to be retired as of a certain date. One other problem with all this is that adding scrubbers makes CO2 emissions worse, so complying with one set of Clean Air Act requirements could be contradictory with complying with any potential carbon restrictions. Of course, DOE continues to pursue research into retrofit approaches, but I don't think anybody expects these to be economically viable.

  Help build CoalSwarm -- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

  On What is the 'best available control technology' for CO2 from coal plants? posted 8 months, 3 weeks ago 11 Responses