The Reality Blog

No new dirty coal in the UK

Yesterday, the United Kingdom pledged not to allow the construction of any new dirty coal plants. Meaning, only plants that capture and store a portion of their carbon dioxide emissions can now be built. From the Guardian:

The energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, said the new policy balanced three challenges: the need to ensure the security of the UK’s energy supply, the need to build a low-carbon economy and the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Miliband imposed a new requirement that any new coal plant would be forced to demonstrate CCS from the start, with emissions equivalent to 300MW being trapped. He abandoned a previous proposal of allowing plants to be ‘CCS-ready’

“The era of new unabated coal has come to an end,” he said.

The American coal industry insists they are committed to CCS, but in Reality this is exactly the type of progress they have been fighting against. For all their talk about new, clean technology, not a single power-plant in America — or the UK — actually captures and stores it’s carbon pollution.

And despite increasing profits, the coal industry has yet to make a significant investment to develop the technology needed to actually make coal clean.

Instead, groups like ACCCE spend $45 million a year to keep talking about the new technology they haven’t yet demonstrated, perpetuate misleading information about the devastating impact of continuing to burn dirty coal, lobby Congress to block clean energy legislation, and fight to continue building new dirty coal plants — about which the the Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission just said “We may not need any, ever.”

If ever there was an opportunity to be part of the solution, and actively play a part in promoting solutions to the climate crisis, this is it. Now that the UK has said a definitive “no” to new, dirty coal plants, it’s time for the coal industry to hear “London calling” — and answer.

Coal industry spokesman “doesn’t know” if coal causes global warming

Joe Lucas, the spokesman for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) was just interviewed for a piece exploring the myth of “clean” coal. (You may remember ACCCE as the folks who spent over $10.5 million on energy lobbying.)

It seems that the spokesman who represents the industry that puts out more than one third of our CO₂ emissions — the leading cause of global warming — is having some trouble grasping reality.

Transcript:
Still the industry refuses to say its plants contribute to global warming.
[Question:] Can you just answer that yes or no? If you believe that burning coal causes global warming?
[Joe Lucas:] I don’t know, I’m not a scientist.

You don’t have to be a scientist to know that burning coal is a leading source of global warming pollution. (”GHG Emissions and Sinks 1990–2006,” US EPA 2008.)

But it certainly is hard to believe that while the industry has spent $10.5 million on lobbying, their spokesman isn’t better informed.

Watch the whole story.

UPDATE: Remember this gem? Cigarette executives testify before congress in 1994 that they “do not believe nicotine is addictive.” But you can’t blame these guys for their denial of obvious facts — after all, they are also not scientists.

Guess who’s #1?

A new report by the Center for Public Integrity finds explosive growth over the last five years in the number of lobbyists seeking to influence climate change legislation.

It turns out, the coal industry has been pretty busy lobbying for legislation friendly to the dirty status quo. In fact, they were #1 in these lobbying efforts.

According to the report, 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists in the past year — with expenditures topping $90 million. Among all these groups, it’s no surprise that the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) came in at #1:

ACCCE spent $10.5 million lobbying Capitol Hill on climate in 2008 — more than any other organization solely dedicated to the issue.

Good ‘ol ACCCE — spending money on lobbying almost as fast as their industry pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Now that the EPA is reconsidering regulating C0₂ emissions how do you think they feel about that chunk of change?

It seems they find it cheaper to market and lobby than actually investing in the development of a commercial-scale system of carbon capture and storage. Such a system still doesn’t exist for a single one of the more than 600 power plants in operation in the US, and until it does, claiming that coal is “clean” is just blowing a whole lot of smoke.