Clean Coal Myth

Clean energy. What does that mean to the average person? In my eyes, that means that my electric bill will go up. It means that someone else will tell me how to spend my money, live my life, and punish me for not following the extremists’ agenda. Our nation as a whole needs to define what the known consequences of climate change (global warming) will be, not speculate on it and develop a good working energy policy for the benefit of all. As a part of this definition, we need to answer this question “Are humans really affecting anything globally or is Mother Nature just being Mother Nature - always changing”. In my opinion, there is a better way than a coal moratorium. Today, we have the ability to "replace" existing older inefficient power plants operating on coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels with significantly cleaner operating plants burner coal and other fossil fuels, at an equal or reduce cost to the consumers. These plants can offer electricity 24/7 365 days a year, not just when the wind blows or during a sunny day. We need to replace the power generation infrastructure with the newest plants available. This replacement effort can even absorb the increased energy demands and still significantly reduce emissions and costs. The electric growth rates are increasing today and they will increase even faster when the economy turns around and begins producing again. The efficiency improvements, emission reductions and job creation resulting from this infrastructure replacement will go along way in improving our environment, economy and personal lifestyles. We, as a nation, need to keep a viable coal energy policy in our future, not only for economic growth and national and regional energy independence, but for the continued growth of each and every persons dreams and goals.

 

NO, damaging the landscape and polluting streams is wrong. Putting workers in peril is wrong. The companies that do that should be held accountable. There are coal companies that take worker protections and environmental stewardship very seriously, there are gas companies that drill and explore with minimal impact to the land and there are utilities throughout this country that take extra measures to ensure the impact on the environment is as minimal as possible. All of these companies provide the people of this country with reliable and affordable energy. These beacons should be encouraged and our government and the people of this nation should support these companies to continue to improve and reduce their affects on the environment, thus showing the way for others. We as a nation can utilize the vast resources of coal and other fossil fuels in a responsible and environmentally friendly way until the technology and financial costs of more environmentally friendly energy resources are affordable and reliable. We are not there. As a counter point, have you ever seen the thousand of acres cleared for the vast wind farms being installed in the plains states? The effect on the migrating birds flying through these areas is devastating to the flocks. How about the hundreds of acres used for a solar energy farm in the desert, blocking the sun’s rays from the small plants and animals that are so vital to the ecology of the desert. The damage from these solar farms will take century for the desert to recover after they are gone. How’s is this any more or less environmentally friendly. A nuclear plant takes less than a hundred acres and provides 10-20 times more power than the wind farm noted above. Yes, the waste will need to be dealt with, but we as a nation will over time and our efforts should always be towards resolving the environmental problems that we inflict on this planet.

 

Danjoesam your exactly right. Do we really belive the Earth is going to turn black and die because we drive cars and have power plants? How many pollutants did Mt. St. Helen spew into the atmosphere when she errupted? WHen she went up she sent up more sulfure and carbon dioxide in a matter of a few days than humans could produce in a few decades! And these things have been happening since the beginning of time (at least Earth time). And it's amazing how our planet recovers. It's like our body, you can intoxicate it, but sooner or later you are going to reach equilibrium. The Earth works the same way. I'm not saying don't worry about polluting, I believe we should be good stuards of the Earth. What I am saying is we should be producing more coal, more oil, more gas figure out ways to burn it cleaner while at the same time moving our focus to cleaner energy. And as for Margo down there you really should read instead of only watching CNN and MSNBC. We are sitting on enough natural gas (a very clean burning fuel by the way) to run all of our houses and vehicles for approx. 100 years (some say 80 others say 120). Just a thought