Pete Altman's Blog: Curbing Pollution

In Wake of Oil Spill, Most Americans See Need for Clean Energy and Climate Legislation

2010-05-07T22:58:10Z

This week, NRDC has been making the case that the Gulf Oil spill is a disaster that should shock the Congress into acting on a big scale to reform our energy system and get moving on clean energy and climate legislation. After all if we really want to prevent future oil spills, we have to cut back on our reliance on oil and the best way to do that is to pass strong legislation.

We've called on President Obama and the US Senate to seize the moment.

It looks like the White House gets it, according to news reports over the last couple of days, such as this one from E&E News (subscrip required):

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today that he expects public opinion to grow in favor of an energy bill as gas prices make their traditional summer climb and while the oil spill continues in the Gulf of Mexico.

"With what you see is going on in the Gulf, you understand that drilling and drilling alone isn't going to solve our energy problems," Gibbs told reporters. Asked about prospects for a climate bill in the light of the spill, Gibbs said, "It's more ripe than it ever, in all honesty, has been."

Carol Browner, the president's top energy and climate adviser, made a similar connection between the climate bill and the Gulf Coast spill during an an interview with Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital With Al Hunt," which airs this weekend.

And the American people get it as well, as a new poll by NRDC reveals. In it, we found that in the wake of the Gulf spill,

Voters strongly favor the passage of a clean energy and climate change bill, with more than six in ten (64%) agreeing the Senate should pass the bill and four in ten (39%) saying so strongly.

That's a pretty clear signal that the American public gets that we need to move America off of oil and dirty fuels, but that as NRDC Program Director Wesley Warren puts it, "Congress needs a response which is as big as the spill is."

Oil Spill? What Oil Spill?

2010-04-29T14:24:56Z

As oil gushed out of an underwater oil well ruptured by a deadly explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) published an essay on April 26 by AEI scholar Steven Hayward that called the environmental threats from off shore oil "largely obsolete."

And no, that’s not out of context. Here is the full paragraph:

The two main reasons oil and other fossil fuels became environmentally incorrect in the 1970s--air pollution and risk of oil spills--are largely obsolete. Improvements in drilling technology have greatly reduced the risk of the kind of offshore spill that occurred off Santa Barbara in 1969. There hasn't been a major drilling related spill since then, though shipping oil by tanker continues to be risky, as the Exxon Valdez taught us. To fear oil spills from offshore rigs today is analogous to fearing air travel now because of prop plane crashes in the 1950s.

Subtle spill?

You’ve just got to wonder about these ‘scholars’ sometimes. By the 26th, the Deepwater Horizon had already exploded and sank, 11 workers had died, and a mile-deep oil leak began spewing what is now known to be 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico. Given Hayward is publishing on websites – AEI’s, the Pacific Research Institute’s and the Weekly Standard’s – you’d think he might have been able to update his essay (or thinking) a bit.

But Hayward is connected with institutions that spend a lot of time making the case for polluters and against clean energy. I’ve previously blogged that Hayward and another AEI colleague were exposed two years ago for trying to pay IPCC scientists $10,000 to criticize the IPCC findings. Hayward is also a director of the oil-industry-alumni-staffed Institute for Energy Research (IER), a “think-tank” run by former Koch Industries and oil lobbyist Thomas Pyle. IER has of late specialized in bashing clean energy, ~~calling it~~ fueling claims it is a 'dirty lie.’

Now the dirty mess in the Gulf is re-exposing the very real risks of offshore oil drilling. As the oily slick from the sunken Deepwater Horizon grows daily, Gulf coast residents and the rest of the nation are watching, wondering whether the Coast Guard’s desperate last-ditch effort to control the slick by setting it on fire will save the fishing grounds, shores and economy of the Mississippi Delta.

While the images of the burning rig and spreading slick have already been enough to cause Democratic and Republican officials to question whether offshore oil drilling is really such a good idea, they apparently aren’t enough to persuade the dirty-energy advocates at AEI and IER.

Companies Launch New Initiative to Show Broad Business Support for Climate Legislation

2009-11-06T16:12:59Z

Yesterday's news that clean energy and climate legislation moved out of the EPW committee was a welcome development. Even though a number of opponents of action decided to sit out the vote, there's plenty of support for moving a bill forward.

And there was another sign that more and more businesses support legislative action, with the launch of American Businesses for Clean Energy (ABCE), a broad initiative by businesses that want their voices heard on clean energy and climate legislation and that want to make it easy for other businesses - large and small - to signal their support for clean energy and climate legislation. These include some new business voices, including those who were part of yesterday's announcement.

This initiative comprised of 22 founding companies represents a diverse cross-section of American businesses, including retail, utilities, sports and banking.

What's driving some companies, PSEG's Ralph Izzo told the Wall Street Journal, is that

"We're missing out on component manufacturing, solar-panel development capability, large components for nuclear power plants," Izzo said. "As we have conversations about solar and new nuclear, suppliers tend to be people from China, Japan and France, not the U.S."

As E&E News reported

"There are a growing number of business leaders clamoring for comprehensive climate legislation," said PSEG President and CEO Ralph Izzo, who joined other ABCE company executives in a conference call with reporters. "We're unified by the need for a price on carbon and policies that clearly support renewable energy."

Auden Schendler, Aspen Skiing Co.'s executive director for environmental responsibility, said he welcomed the opportunity to participate in ABCE, noting that the $730 billion per year outdoor industry is very concerned about climate change and views it as a threat to the industry's bottom line,

"If your house is on fire and someone offers you an extra bucket of water, you accept it," Schendler explained. "This is an extremely urgent problem, and you need to throw the kitchen sink at it."

Kindley Walsh Lawlor, Gap Inc's senior director of global responsibility, emphasized that while many companies are taking their own steps to reduce emissions, a concerted effort is needed.

"Gap Inc. is taking action on climate change now -- in fact, we have reduced our energy consumption by 20% over the past five years ... That's why we're pleased to be standing among forward-thinking businesses that support climate and energy policy in the U.S."

Now, considering all the hoopla around the US Chamber of Commerce's climate credibility crisis, its fair to wonder how this new group fits into the picture. Well, as Bloomberg reported, this new initiative is not directly related to the US Chamber.

"This initiative is not about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce," said Christopher Van Atten, director of M.J. Bradley & Associates LLC, a Massachusetts-based consulting company. Van Atten, who said he helped to get the group started, spoke on its behalf today.

Tom King, president of National Grid U.S. emphasized that ABCE is all about showing proactive support for serious legislation:

"Many within the business community are urging Congress to adopt meaningful energy and climate legislation, so we can move forward with investments in technologies and infrastructure that will be needed to meet future energy demand, grow our economy, and protect our environment. ABCE provides a public forum for companies to register their support for this critical objective."

That said, ABCE clearly calls for "clean energy and climate legislation that will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions," where as the US Chamber of Commerce - even in their most recent "new attitude" letter to Senators - omit the goal of actually calling for significant emissions reductions. As I mentioned yesterday.

And as National Journal reported,

Contrary to the arguments of some business groups, ABCE members argued that climate legislation was essential for the future of their businesses and would help create jobs.

The simplicity of ABCE is a big part of the appeal, and fills a need that isn't met by existing business coalitions that are focused on specific policy proposals like USCAP, of which NRDC is a member. That's why NRDC was one of the groups that were happy to help MJ Bradley connect with companies and other business coalitions who might support this new effort.

We'll keep an eye on new developments with the American Businesses for Clean Energy and the growing number of businesses that want legislation that will strengthen our economy, spur investment in new technologies, and make us a global leader for the 21st century.

ACES Puts US and World On Safer Temperature Path

2009-06-26T19:16:01Z

Duke University just released an analysis of the impact that ACES will have on global temperature, factoring in the impact that US leadership will have on the rest of the world. As many recognize, the only way to get serious global efforts to cut emissions moving is for the US to make clear its own commitment.

The Duke study concludes that ACES can help drive a global policy that would stabilize carbon dioxide concentrations below 450 parts per million and limit global temperatures increases to less than 2 degrees above 1990 levels.

What will that do as far as global warming impacts go? Here's a synopsis of the escalating impacts of global warming, based on IPCC reports. You can see for yourself what global warming effects the ACES bill will help us avoid:

The bullets ACES will help us dodge: global GDP losses of up to 5%; extinction of 40% or more of the world's species; decline of global food production; and so on.

Amidst all the posts regarding the economic benefits of the ACES bill, its worth remembering that it will put us on track to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

US Chamber Calls on Congress to Force Dirty Energy Projects Down Americans' Throats

2009-04-16T23:29:42Z

The US Chamber of Commerce has been drinking its own Kool-Aid again, and trying this time to get members of Congress to think it's green tea. The Chamber is attempting to convince policymakers that burdensome regulations are blocking clean energy development, and thus blocking green jobs.

This newest silliness from the Chamber comes in the form of something called "Project/No Project" which purports to document how "radical environmentalists" and their "Not in My Backyard Allies" are blocking new clean energy development with "green tape" (like red-tape, except when enviros are involved I guess.)

Except that the Chamber's own website actually identifies the obstructionists associated with each project, and the terms "Neighboring businesses", "Local residents", "Government officials" "Local officials" seem to show up an awful lot for a problem the Chamber blames on "radical environmentalists." NRDC's name appears as well, but "radical" isn't usually the term applied.

At any rate, the Chamber's proposed solution to this is to ask Congress to "streamline the environmental permitting process to make the promise of green projects a reality."

Wouldn't that be nice? Except for the fact that the Chamber has documented far more cases of dirty and unsafe energy (coal and nuclear plants) than renewable energy projects (wind, solar, etc.) So what kind of energy do they really want to move forward?

For example, there are 12 pages of coal and nuclear projects, but only 7 pages of renewable energy projects, including wind, solar, geothermal and biomass. What's surprising is that there aren't all that many the Chamber actually says have been "killed." For example, out of those 7 pages of renewables projects, they only describe 16 as having been "killed."

For comparison's sake, there were about 125 wind energy projects brought on-line last year according to the American Wind Energy Association. That's not even counting the number of solar, biomass, geothermal and other renewable energy projects brought on line last year.

I don't have #s for all those sources, but the Solar Energy Industries Association's Year in Review reported that "The U.S. solar energy industry grew to new heights in 2008 and many industry observers expect that growth to continue in 2009."

In fact, SEIA goes on to note that projects are becoming easier to develop: "With the easing of supply bottlenecks and the aggressive alternative-energy investments provided by 2008's EESA and 2009's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, going solar will be increasingly attractive and affordable for families, businesses and utilities across the country."

So its hard not to draw the conclusion that renewable energy projects are actually moving along quite well, and that the stalled dirty energy projects are the Chamber's real concern, and the real goal of their call for "streamlining" is to get these dirty energy projects moving again.

And frankly, I can't think of why any member of Congress would want to pass a law that enables energy developers - clean or dirty - to shove projects down the throats of "Neighboring businesses," "Local residents," "Government officials" and "Local officials."

The Green in the Stimulus is Creating Serious Clean Energy Jobs

2009-03-19T16:02:38Z

The clean energy money in the stimulus package is already putting people to work, or back to work, in the case of a window factory in western Pennsylvania.

Six months ago, Kensington Windows shut its doors when its parent company - Jancor - lost its financing and filed for bankruptcy protection. 150 people were employed at the factory.

But with the clean energy provisions in the stimulus bill and growing interest in energy-efficiency, the market for energy efficiency windows is expected to heat up.

So earlier this year, Serious Materials - a national manufacturer of energy efficient windows - bought the Kensington plant and equipment, and earlier this week, officially re-opened the plant, where they have already started putting people back to work.

You may recall that Serious Materials is the company that bought the shut-down Republic Windows in Chicago, and is now putting those laid-off employees back to work as well.

Obviously we need a lot more cases like this to turn the country around, but while we wait on official government figures to document how well the stimulus is working, its useful to know that real people are being put back to work in the clean energy economy.

18 million tons of contaminated coal waste from new coal plants

2009-03-12T18:37:03Z

Today NRDC is publishing new data on the contaminated coal waste that more than eighty proposed coal-fired power plants would create if built.

We are also publishing data on waste from existing coal plants, including our estimates of the toxic metals that are in that waste.

With the detailed spreadsheets, Google maps and Google Earth files, you can find out more about how much contaminated coal waste is in your community or state, and using Google Earth zoom in and get a close-up look of the power plants. The storage ponds used by many plants are easy to spot this way.

Resources:

Press release

Main web page on coal waste, with all the data and maps

Google Earth file with all the data included

Coal ash spill upriver of Washington DC delivers message in new way

2009-03-10T15:23:41Z

**Update**

The Associated Press is reporting today that most of the slurry spill from the New Page plant hit the riverbank on the West Virginia side of the river, rather than entering the river directly. Bullet dodged? Perhaps, until the next really good rainstorm...

Sometimes there's just no way to hide the need for regulation.

The Maryland Department of the Environment just reported that a ruptured pipeline carrying wet coal ash has spilled 4,000 gallons of the toxic-laden stuff into the North Branch of the Potomac River, in Luke, MD.

I don't know how long it'll take for the spill to reach DC proper, but its a hell of a way to send a message about how much we need to regulate the handling of this stuff. All the more reason to thank the Obama Administration for announcing plans to propose federal regulations for coal waste.

Got a suggestion for tracking the spill as it flows toward Washington DC? Let us know and we'll promote it here.

Here is a picture of the plant site from Google Earth. Note that the MD Department of Environment release indicates that the plant's coal slurry ponds are across the river in West Virginia, and that while the broken pipeline is shut down, ones parallel to it are carrying the slurry. So here's a case where the coal slurry is being piped over a river to its storage pond, surely a high-risk way of managing the waste.

It is also worth noting that while the vast majority of attention in the coal waste debate goes to power plants, there are a number of plants - like this paper mill - that include coal-power plants to provide electricity for the operation. Such sources of coal combustion waste should be included in federal regulations, just like regular coal plants.

Tivos For The TVA: The Latest From The Clowns Who Brought Us Kingston

2009-03-06T18:19:09Z

There's some encouraging news this week that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) may swear off wet fly ash storage at coal-fired power plants, but who knows if we can trust them to do so when the heat is off months from now.

Then again, maybe the heat never will come off the TVA, which seems to be lurching in recent months from one disaster to another. Consider the new Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audit report out this week on the financial abuse and fraud at the TVA. As our friends at Facing South put it:

The Tennessee Valley Authority, already caught in a legal quagmire following December's disastrous spill of a billion gallons of coal ash from its Kingston power plant, is in trouble yet again -- this time for out-of-control credit card spending by its employees. A two-year review by TVA's Inspector General found that spending as part of a program created in 1995 for minor business-related expenses had ballooned to more than $75 million annually ...

The OIG report prompted this scathing report from the Associated Press:

Televisions, X-Boxes, alcohol, Internet software and tuition are just some of the questionable purchases made by Tennessee Valley Authority employees on their government charge cards, according to auditors in TVA's inspector general's office. A two-year review of the card program, created by the nation's largest public utility in 1995 for small business-related expenses, found spending has swelled to more than $75 million annually, the audit said. Nearly a third of the purchases in fiscal 2007 were for more than $5,000 and many apparently were rubber-stamped by administrators. One unidentified cardholder had more than $5.9 million in charges on six cards over two years.

This from the same Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight that bungled the Kingston wet-ash storage site and also is in charge of other such sites across the Southeast U.S.

How did the TVA respond to the findings of $75 million of abuse and apparent fraud?

It turns out that Tennessee Valley Authority President and Chief Executive Tom Kilgore leapt into action by sending out an email to his employees encouraging them to use their credit card properly. Ouch! Zing! Talk about your 40 lashes with a wet noodle!

The problems at the TVA aren't going to away on their own. We have to agree with this blogger at the Shelbyville (TN) Times Gazette:

I bumped into this story this morning about fraud, waste, and abuse of TVA issued expense credit cards and I must say that I am disturbed by it. In the military, expense cards of this nature were common, but fraud was not. Why? Accountability. If a purchase was made on the expense card, the user had to document every single purchase with supporting documents. These people at TVA have been on a spending spree and many of the people charged with ensuring that the purchases were necessary have been negligent. These people should be relieved of their duties in my opinion. The report states that televisions, video games, college tuition, and alcohol were charged during 2008. I read parts of the official TVA report and I could not believe the level of negligence that has been going on at this agency.

It is this kind of sloppy organization that leads to careless situations like the Kingston eco-disaster. And that is not a situation that Mr. Kilgore can just sweep under the rug by sending some email or doling out some other light slap on the wrist. As the AP has reported in recent days:

A third of the people living near the toxic coal ash spill from a TVA power plant in East Tennessee are reporting respiratory problems, and about half have experienced increased stress and anxiety, according to a Tennessee Department of Health survey. Public health staff interviewed 368 residents during January visits to homes within one and a half miles of the Kingston Fossil Plant facility in Roane County. A coal ash pond at the plant burst Dec. 22, spilling 1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge onto nearby land and into the Emory River. No one was killed or seriously injured, but environmental groups said the accident was proof of the danger of lax regulation of coal ash storage.

Look up "lax" in the dictionary. If the top management team of the Tennessee Valley Authority isn't listed there by name, it should be.

2009 New Year's Resolutions to help big coal

2009-01-06T20:18:11Z

As the New Year of 2009 dawns, the PR flacks charged with greenwashing coal's image must be praying for a fresh start. It's hard enough to fix up the image of the world's dirtiest energy source, without your clients finding one way after another to undermine their own multi-million-dollar, image cleanup campaign.

So I bet coal's PR people wish they could send out a memo with some New Year's resolutions. Perhaps Joe "Have Some Coal in Your Stocking" Lucas at prominent coal-front group ACCCE (pronounced acky) is penning some advice right now for the titans of and advocates for Big Coal. I imagine it might look something like this:

To: The Tennessee Valley Authority
From: Joe Lucas, ACCCE
Please resolve to:

1. Keep the 5.3 million cubic yards of toxic coal sludge inside the storage pond and out of your neighbor's yards. We've already had a few memos on this one guys, but in case you need a reminder as to how bad this looks, here is the latest set of pictures from the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. Does that look like clean coal to you?

2. You can bend the truth out of shape, but try not to break it in half (Part 1). If you can't keep your toxic sludge to yourself, at least be honest about what happened. When your coal storage pond ruptures and floods an area with 5.3 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash sludge - debris that is twice the volume of that resulting from the attacks on the World Trade Center - you don't get to label it an "ash slide" resulting from " a failure of a coal ash retention wall." That makes it sound like bystanders got splashed by getting too close to the log flume ride at a Seven Flag Parks.

3. You can bend the truth out of shape, but try not to break it in half (Part 2). Just how big a problem is the "truth gap" over there at the TVA? Big enough to get you busted in the New York Times for lying about the toxicity of the ash spill, which reported: "For days, authority officials have maintained that the sludge released in the spill is not toxic, though coal ash has long been known to contain dangerous concentrations of heavy metals. On Monday, a week after the spill, the authority issued a joint statement with the E.P.A. and other agencies recommending that direct contact with the ash be avoided and that pets and children should be kept away from affected areas."

4. Tone down your Web site's greenboasting about environmental stewardship(!): With the spill still attracting local and national news attention, you might want to creatively edit the greenboasting to acknowledge December's...regrettable incident...Because you know what? If your "environmental stewardship" page creates a 50 percent or greater chance of inducing laughter, it's hurting - not helping. Let me assure you that saying that "As the nation's largest public power producer, TVA recognizes that the environmental consequences of its operations are far-reaching. By continually working to improve its environmental performance and taking a leadership role in clean-energy development, TVA helps safeguard our natural resources for future generations" doesn't really ... ring true right now. Put that kind of laughable greenwashing into cold storage for a while, would you?

To: Don Blankenship, Massey Energy CEO and US Chamber of Commerce board member
From: Joe Lucas, ACCCE
Please resolve to: Get help for your chronic case of foot in mouth disease. Don, we've talked about this. This is the YouTube age. You can't do your tryout for "world's biggest knucklehead" with a camera in the room. Your now-infamous little West Virginia speech late last year was caught on tape and it makes us look like total nut-jobs (especially you.) Remember that we're spending loads of dough to make it sound like the coal industry cares about fixing global warming? Might want to think about that next time they let you speak in front of ... anyone.

It doesn't play well when thousands and thousands of people can be appalled by your YouTube appearance. Need a sample? Here you go: ThinkProgress', "The Wonk Room" summed it up this way: "Don Blankenship, the 'scariest polluter in the United States,' is the CEO of A.T. Massey Coal Company, an egregious polluter, union buster, and extreme practitioner of mountaintop removal mining. Blankenship also happens to sit on the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which promotes his virulent brand of right-wing global warming denial. The Natural Resources Defense Council's Pete Altman has just revealed video of his bizarre rant that "The greeniacs are taking over the world" and censoring the poor folks of the Chamber ..."

The IEEE Spectrum's EnergyWise blog was even harsher in its assessment of Mr. Blankenship's performance: "The Natural Resources Defense Council embarrassed the coal industry last week by acquiring and distributing video of Don Blankenship, CEO of number-four U.S. coal producer Massey Energy, proudly professing his continued denial that climate change is real."

To: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce
From: Joe Lucas, ACCCE
Please resolve to: Stop serving as the U.S. headquarters for global-warming denial.

Look, we know you are trying to help, but it is 2009. Do you really think that most members of the Chamber actually subscribe to its head-in-the-sand denial of global warming science? Are you gonna tell the members who disagree with your extremist opposition to climate policy to quit?

The "State Climate Dialogues" you held across the U.S. in 2008 tried to convince people that dealing with the climate problem would be tantamount to "suicide bombing the American economy" ways to predict economic disaster if the US Congress embraces a serious climate policy. On balance, it was probably a waste of your time. Who heard about them?

And why have a hired gun if he or she just shoots you in the foot? One of the hired guns is David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation. In 2008, he co-authored the study "The economic costs of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Legislation", a curious title since Kreutzer's study didn't actually model the Lieberman-Warner bill. It wasn't the only example of a misfire from this Chamber hired gun. Kruetzer also drew some heat in 2008 for his apparently total failure to comprehend the Green Recovery Report.

And most credible experts disagree with this "Chicken Little" view. For instance, Dr. Martin Kushler, director of the Utilities Program at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, says: "The claim that taking steps to address climate change would be bad for the economy is simply not true. We know from proven experience that we can save electricity through energy efficiency programs at one-third the cost of a new power plant. With a strong energy efficiency policy we can save money and reduce carbon emissions at the same time." Speakers at the Chamber events rely on questionable assumptions and even more questionable results to make their case.

To: Americans for Prosperity
From: Joe Lucas, ACCCE
Please resolve to: Give those balloon rides a rest.

We're trying to run a serious propaganda campaign here. And all you guys can come up with is an energy-industry financed balloon tour to "expose" global warming and constructive climate solutions. Sure, you managed to get someone to lug the balloon and t-shirts to 32 cities in 20 states. But the reality is that if this had been a stadium-rock tour, it would have been cancelled for lack of interest ... even before it got started. The Dunder Mufflin Scranton office company picnic would draw a bigger crowd than these AFP "events" with pathetically small crowds did in Missouri and Oregon. (So much for AFP's posturing as an organization with real grassroots clout!)

And you know what? Before you boast about a stunt like your much-ballyhooed attempt to fly over former Vice President Al Gore's house outside of Nashville, make sure you can get the permits to do it first! And while we're on the subject...maybe you could avoid scheduling events to dismiss global warming for the times and places when you are least likely to be washed out by weather events that are connected to global warming. It just hurt when you had to cancel your public meeting to denounce climate solutions due to Hurricane/Tropical Storm Fay! You made an easy target for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann with that one.

To: Me
From: Me
Please resolve to: Remember that only those of us in the coal industry will ever see coal as cute and cuddly.

OK, Joe. It's time to turn that powerful scrutiny onto yourself and 'fess up. One of the fundamentals of PR is to admit your mistakes and learn from them. I have to admit it, those stupid singing coal lumps turned out to be just plain embarrassing. NRDC's Rob Perks went wild with that one: "Lumps of coal singing Christmas carols? That was the coal industry's latest cynical ploy (quickly dumped after much well-deserved ridicule)."

Well, I guess that's enough for now. If we can just keep these resolutions in mind, maybe coal won't look so dirty in 2009.

Real-life coal disaster pops coal industry pr bubble

2008-12-23T21:41:48Z

It is always a headache for corporate pr flacks when reality intrudes and negates months of planning and millions in spending trying to persuade the public of something that just isn't so.

So the flacks at coal front-group ACCCE (pronounce "acky") must have a hell of a migraine today, what with the 400-acre toxic spill of coal ash from a coal plant in Harriman, Tennessee in the wee hours of the morning. As the Tennessean reports,

"Millions of yards of ashy sludge broke through a dike at TVA's Kingston coal-fired plant Monday...About 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry - enough to fill 798 Olympic-size swimming pools - rolled out of the pond...Cleanup will take at least several weeks, or, in a worst-case scenario, years...The wave of ash and mud toppled power lines, covered Swan Pond Road and ruptured a gas line. It damaged 12 homes..."

But the long-term impacts could be far greater. Coal ash - the stuff left over after coal is burned - is loaded with toxic metals and other hazardous substances. According to a 2000 report by the Clean Air Task Force, coal waste contains

"Concentrated levels of contaminants like arsenic, mercury, chromium and cadmium that can damage the nervous systems and other organs, especially in children."

This is bad news, because the toxic pollutants in coal ash waste move don't stay put, even in the absence of spills. Studies for the EPA show that pollutants from ash piles make their way into nearby groundwater, where they pose a significant risk to surrounding communities:

"the excess cancer risks for children drinking groundwater contaminated with arsenic from power plant wastes have been found to be as high as one-in-one hundred - ten thousand times higher than the Agency's own regulatory goal of reducing cancer risks to less than one-in-one million."

How much of this toxic trash is out there? According to the Task Force,

"Every year, over 100 million tons of these wastes are produced at nearly 600 coal and oil-fired power plants. Seventy-six million tons are primarily disposed of at the power plant site in unlined and unmonitored wastewater lagoons, landfills and mines."

Mmmmm...delicious. But don't expect the coal industry to change their strategy. How much do they want Americans to think that coal can be clean? Just in time for Christmas, one of ACCCE's chief flacks recently compared coal to a 'gift' and encouraged Americans to "Put coal in the stocking of your favorite people."

I can think of somewhere the victims of the Tennessee disaster would probably like to stick that coal right now. But maybe we should just settle for leaving coal in the ground.

===Update: Just yesterday, nearly 40 groups called for more stringent regulation of coal combustion wastes. And coal plants produce 129 million tons of wastes per year, making it the 2nd largest source of industrial waste in the United States.

Caught on Tape: The Big Lies of Big Coal

2008-12-11T16:30:15Z

By now, you've probably read about Massey Energy CEO and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Director Don Blankenship's now infamous November 20, 2008 speech in West Virginia.

Several people - including NRDC's own Frances Beinecke - have expressed their views about this rather astounding public display of nastiness and chicken little-like denial.

But there's no substitute for actually watching Don Blankenship giving the speech in question. We managed to snag the only video available of Blankenship's hour-long diatribe. Aside from the extremism of the views expressed, I was struck by the calm and measured pace of his delivery. It reminded me a bit of the famous Michael Douglas monologue in Wall Street, in which his Gordon Gecko character calmly, firmly makes the case that greed is good. Well I guess if you have something nutty to say - like coal is good for the environment - you have a better chance of being taken seriously if you say it calmly.

The first thing we have to offer for your viewing pleasure is a 7 minute 30 second version of the "highlights" of the Massey speech:

If you're like us, the highlights reel of Blankenship speech is too much condensed craziness to absorb in just one sitting. So, we will now break it all down for you so that you can savor and review the best parts at your leisure.

Here's the part where Blankenship says that climate change is not real:

That takes us to the part where Blankenship says labels Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Al Gore as "crazies" and "greeniacs":

More about the dreaded "greeniacs" and how they are plotting to take over the world:

Bet you couldn't see this one coming: Those people who say climate change exists. Liars. Total liars.

Our personal favorite is this part of the speech where Blankenship sounds as though he has been sniffing coal dust. It goes without saying that if you disagree with Don Blankenship, you're a communist an atheist or both of the above:

Blankenship goes on with his bizarre theories about how mass transit will destroy American capitalism. Or, how dealing with global warming will cause the Chinese to take over and tell you where you have to go to church.

But you get the idea.

Next time you hear someone from the coal industry asking to be taken seriously about "clean coal" or the nonexistent "debate" about climate change, just remember the wit and wisdom of Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship.

Coal is dirty and dangerous

2008-11-20T16:39:11Z

All the coal money in the world can't cover up the fact that coal fired power plants are one of our dirtiest and most dangerous energy sources.

Coal-fired power plants are the United States' single biggest pollution problem, the source of

global warming pollution (2,134.1 million tons in 2006)
acid-rain causing sulfur dioxide pollution (9.8 million tons in 2004)
airborne emissions of birth-defect and brain-damage causing mercury pollution (approximately 48 tons each year.)

In addition, U.S. coal-burning plants annually emit 56 tons of arsenic, 62 tons of lead compounds, 62 tons of chromium compounds, 23,000 tons of hydrogen fluoride, and 134,000 tons of hydrochloric acid.

The annual costs to human and environmental health are staggering. Quick example: the pollution from coal-fired power plants is responsible for roughly 24,000 deaths per year in the United States. And this doesn't even get into the devastation from traditional coal mining, mountaintop mining or the leftovers after coal is burned.

There is a better way to meet America's power needs.

Energy efficiency is the fastest, cheapest, and cleanest energy resource we have. Efficiency saves consumers and businesses money on their energy bills, reduces global warming pollution, and keeps American energy dollars here. Making just 5% of American homes more energy efficient would eliminate the need for almost 300 power plants by 2030 and save American consumers billions in energy costs.

By shifting our investments to truly clean energy sources like efficiency and renewables, we can move America toward 100% clean electricity. And dollar for dollar, investing in clean energy (efficiency and renewables like wind and solar) creates more jobs than investing in traditional energy sources like oil and gas.

The U.S. Chamber of Chicken Littles

2008-11-17T22:07:10Z

Over the last several months, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been holding "State Climate Dialogues" out in the states, ostensibly to "stimulate a national discussion on key climate change issues." These are much more monologue than dialogue though, and the punch line is pretty consistently a prediction of economic disaster if the US Congress creates a serious climate policy.

If the Chamber's Chicken Littles stay on message, anyone attending this week's event in Detroit, Michigan is likely to hear the same old message. But many experts disagree with this view of gloom and doom.

For instance, Dr. Martin Kushler, director of the Utilities Program at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, says:

"The claim that taking steps to address climate change would be bad for the economy is simply not true. We know from proven experience that we can save electricity through energy efficiency programs at one-third the cost of a new power plant. With a strong energy efficiency policy we can save money and reduce carbon emissions at the same time."

Dr. Andrew Hoffman, associate professor of management & organizations, associate professor of natural resources and associate director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan, said:

"Think of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as a market shift, one driven by regulations at the city, state, national and international levels. But one also driven by consumer, investor, insurance and energy markets. Any company executive who ignores these shifts does so at their peril."

You can listen to a presentation by Drs. Kushler and Hoffman, as well as Nancy Jacobs of United Solar Ovonics and me, here.

This week's event in Detroit is just the latest stop in the Chamber of Commerce's Chicken Little Roadshow to gin up worries about efforts to solve our energy and climate problems. Speakers at these events rely on questionable assumptions and even more questionable results to make their case.

Case in point: David Kreutzer of the Heritage Foundation will be discussing the potential costs of future legislative action. Earlier this year, Dr. Kreutzer co-authored the study "The economic costs of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Legislation" which is a curious title because, contrary to its apparent meaning, the study didn't actually model the Lieberman-Warner bill.

Sure, I know this might cause some skepticism. After all, claiming to have analyzed a particular bill when one actually hasn't, would be pretty poor scholarship. But that's what Kreutzer and his team trotted out. Their product includes some obvious clues, if you know where to look. Turns out that Kreutzer's team apparently:

Only modeled limits on carbon dioxide, and ignored other gases the L-W bill would have regulated.
Ignored the provisions for offsets in the bill, an important cost-containment mechanism.
Ignored the energy-efficiency provisions in the bill, another important cost-containment mechanism.
Ignored credit banking and borrowing, (yep, another important cost-containment mechanism.)
Ignored more than a trillion dollars in transition assistance for workers, industry and consumers (I don't need to say it, do I?)

So, maybe Kreutzer's team modeled something, but it wasn't the Lieberman-Warner bill. Remember those kids in school who wrote book reports based on Cliff's Notes? I wonder where they are now...

For that matter, I wonder whether Dr. Kruetzer will be basing his presentation on a proposal someone has actually made, or whether he will continue to rely on proposals he and his colleagues made up for the purpose of shooting down.

(By the way, Kreutzer also drew some heat for his apparently total failure to comprehend the Green Recovery Report about which I've previously written.)

At any rate, the U.S. and Detroit Chambers of Commerce are trotting Kreutzer out to their audience this week. We don't know who his audience will be, but I think their hosts are betting that they like chicken.

After the election: What clean energy can do for America

2008-11-03T17:48:21Z

You can't miss the fact that both Time and Newsweek chose the week of the Presidential election to run pieces on how the economic downturn will affect efforts to solve global warming.

Yes, most eyes are on the election through Tuesday night (cross your fingers it's only through Tuesday night) but both magazines recognize that - come Wednesday morning - the questions will start focusing on how the new Administration and Congress will deal with the limping economy and energy prices, and what this means for investing in clean energy and solving global warming.

Both magazines offer compelling reasons why clean energy investments should be a priority even during rough economic times, and both balance this by pointing out that tighter credit markets make it harder to invest in clean energy.

Unfortunately, this framework misses the question we should be asking: What can investments in clean energy and global warming solutions do for the ailing U.S. and world economies?

In Will Green Progress Be Stalled by the Bad Economy?, Time Magazine looks largely at how the economic crisis could cloud the outlook for clean energy. But the article also notes that the commitment to push for policies to limit global warming pollution remains a priority for many European leaders and the US presidential candidates. Given this, Time reports

"'The stage is set for a wholesale change in the way the U.S. approaches climate change,' says Terry Tamminem, the former environmental advisor to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger..."

Newsweek's "Why It's Time for a 'Green New Deal" looks more closely at the "green" investments question in making the case that clean energy is the right antidote for an anemic global economy, saying that there are

"...powerful voices being raised amid the din of despair, saying that now is precisely the time to seize the initiative and launch the "global revolution"... And not just because it will stave off disasters two or three decades away, but also because it can provide the impetus to pull the global economy out of the slump it's in now and put it on a more solid foundation than it's had in at least a generation."

If you happen to be a reporter (or anyone else who cares about getting the whole story), here are a few facts that should be part of any conversation about what to do next about our economic woes:

Clean energy jobs are already here. 750,000 Americans already have jobs tied to clean energy development, according to a recent report by the US Conference of Mayors.
Clean energy jobs are good jobs. Dollar for dollar, investing in clean energy (efficiency and renewables like windand solar) creates more jobs than investing in traditional energy sources like oil and gas, according to testimony by economist Dr. Robert Pollin, of the Political Economy Research Institute.
A common-sense national policy on global warming and energy will drive further market investments in clean energy. The U.S. could reduce a huge amount of its global warming pollution at little or no net cost, but Congress has to send the right policy signals so that markets channel more of their capital into clean energy technology and deployment than traditional energy supplies, according to an in-depth analysis by the highly respected consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
A "pay-as-you-pollute" arrangement could mean huge capital for green investments. By charging big polluters for their global warming pollution, Congress could raisearound $150 billionper year to develop and deploy clean energy systems throughout the U.S., writes our own Andy Stevenson.

So rather than asking how today's economy will affect prospects for global warming solutions, we should be asking - and acting on - how solving global warming will affect prospects for tomorrow's economy. Just remember that Wednesday morning!