The Reality Blog

How’s that for Clean?

Today, the E.P.A. made a major announcement. From the NYT:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday formally declared carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that threaten public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that for the first time in the United States will regulate the gases blamed for global warming.

The E.P.A. said the science supporting its ‘endangerment’ finding was “compelling and overwhelming.” The ruling triggers a 60-day comment period before any proposed regulations governing emissions of greenhouse gases are published.

Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said: “This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations. Fortunately, it follows President Obama’s call for a low-carbon economy and strong leadership in Congress on clean energy and climate legislation.”

This finding makes official what we already knew: the coal industry’s claims to already be “clean” or “77% cleaner” are a complete farce, because these claims completely ignore industry carbon dioxide emissions, which are now recognized as a dangerous pollutant.

The coal industry hasn’t reduced their CO₂ emissions at all. And until they can safely capture and store these emissions, any claims that coal is “clean” are now — according to both reality AND the U.S. Government — complete lies. We can only hope that ACCCE — the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity — will soon be “scrubbing” all mention of “clean” from their website and name.

Things we don’t need any more of

Corporate executive bonuses, monthly bills, and income tax deadlines — all things that we have plenty of already. And according to the new Annual Energy Outlook report released by the US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), there’s one more item we can add to the list: dirty coal-fired power plants.

There are dozens and dozens of new coal plants being proposed without technology to capture and store their carbon dioxide pollution. But the EIA’s latest Annual Energy Outlook finds we will need very few of them to meet our electricity demand in the next 10-20 years.

The report — which doesn’t even include the impacts from the recent economic recovery bill or any proposed policies for energy efficiency and new clean energy supplies — assumes only very limited additions of new coal plants over the next 20 years. What does this really mean? With the stimulus’ new investments and policies supporting our transition to clean energy currenty being considered in Washington, we could eliminate the need for those new coal plants entirely, and reduce our existing use of dirty coal.

The EIA outlook on electricity flies in the face of coal industry claims that dozens of new, dirty coal plants are immediately essential to meet our energy demand — claims they’ve made recently to justify efforts in Kansas and Michigan to build more coal plants that will spew global warming pollution into the air for decades to come.

Looks like the coal industry can stop worrying about fighting for new, dirty plants, and start investing in the technologies that will help generate electricity without releasing CO₂ — something we could actually use more of.

Michigan getting Real about coal

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is getting real about burning less coal.

In her State of the State address earlier this month, she called for dramatic reductions in the state’s use of electric power from coal — to be replaced by a serious investment in energy efficiency efforts, and development of Michigan’s renewable energy sources:

[Governor Granholm] said she wants to see 100,000 homes and 1,000 schools in the state weatherized to reduce energy consumption, and get more homes and schools to install solar and wind energy systems.

She suggested the monthly savings would pay for the cost of the improvements.

These large-scale weatherization and efficiency efforts can help put people back to work in a clean energy economy. So, job creation and monthly savings that pay for themselves? Sounds great.

There’s another bonus from advancements in efficiency and clean energy in Michigan:

Michigan’s 19 coal-fired plants emit approximately 70 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, or 40 percent of the state’s total carbon dioxide emissions.

Read the full article.

EPA Decision on Global Warming Pollution Review

Yesterday, the EPA handed the coal industry a pretty serious wake-up call:

The decision could mark the first step toward placing limits on greenhouse gases emitted by coal plants, an issue that has been hotly contested by the coal industry and environmentalists since April 2007, when the Supreme Court ruled that carbon dioxide should be considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.

The industry has vigorously opposed efforts to regulate those emissions, asserting that the policy should be set by Congress. Moreover, technology for capturing carbon dioxide emissions is expensive and virtually untested.

Here’s our public statement in support of the EPA’s position:

For immediate release: February 17, 2009

Reality Coalition Statement on EPA Decision to Review Regulation of Global Warming Pollution from Coal Plants

Today’s news that the Environmental Protection Agency will reconsider the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants is a positive step towards accounting for the massive and devastating impact that the coal industry is having on our planet.

Today’s action is a wakeup call to the coal industry: live up to your marketing claims and clean up your act. The climate crisis demands that we switch to truly clean carbon-free energy sources once and for all.

Read the full story, and stay tuned for more news and ways to get involved as this story develops.