Comments on: A National Coal Campaign?

By: R Margolis

R Margolis — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:46:50 +0000

Well, I would not like to disappoint (though I am just an engineer, not anyone official from the nuclear industry.

The ExternE study put nuclear’s total carbon footprint on the order of wind power:

http://www.externe.info/

Even with going to lesser grades of uranium ore, you will not have much effect as the milling occurs near the mine (i.e., most of the transportation is for the yellowcake, not the ore).

But more to a larger point, if nuclear is off the table, and LNG is off, and carbon sequestration is rejected, then there is a large amount of power to replace (~80% of US electric capacity). Without cheap energy storage, that is a significant challenge for renewables. I am also unsure that it is socially feasible to cut back power use enough to get such a reduction. Even Switzerland maintains 70% of the US per capita electric capacity (based on EIA data) and they do not have as significant a manufacturing base as the US. Nuclear has problems (as do ALL the energy sources), but I do not see a way out of the carbon issue without using SOME nuclear to buy time to determine any alternatives that would take more time.

By: A Spooked Coal Industry Fights Back, Trying to Buy Elections « It’s Getting Hot In Here

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:12:36 +0000

[...] Participation , Politics , Power Shift , United States , Youth Leaders , global warming Our growing and increasingly organized anti-coal campaign must be doing something right, friends: word has it from AP that the coal industry - spooked by the [...]

By: jpkemmick

jpkemmick — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:24:03 +0000

A great nation wide coal campaign website already exists to a degree and is run by the Sierra Club.

http://sierraclub.org/maps/coal.asp

By: Nina Otter

Nina Otter — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:27:55 +0000

A open-source resource website for a united no-coal youth movement sounds like jjust the thing I am looking for. For Fossil Fools day and beyond we are developing stickers, a website, t-shirts and more to stop Cliffside. Would love for a national space to share those and get more ideas from other folks…really build this movement effectively…time is limited.
We are winning our fight against Duke Energy’s coal expansion on it’s Cliffside facility, but are now dealing with the issue that it might take a nuclear to to that. No Nukes, No Coal, no Kidding.

By: lizveazey

lizveazey — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:53:45 +0000

hey jamie, this is great. I’m definitely in. We’re fighting new coal plants proposed in GA, NC, and SC right now, and I know that some youth are connecting around a national Die-nergy (aka Dynegy) campaign and fighting local battles against plants. Having some unified resources, website and messaging would be great. An ideal unified website could have maps with updates from all of the different fights, ways for folks to get involved in national and local campaigns, ways to order stickers, t-shirts and other materials, information on candidates’ stances on energy encouraging folks to push them for no coal, no nukes, and that’s just a beginning of a brainstorm on the website!
Any no coal campaign would have to be coupled with a no nuclear message as well, since nuclear is just as dirty (if not dirtier) than coal, and a lot of victories against coal have utilities scrambling to build new nuclear plants.
More on why nukes are so dirty, since someone from the industry is likely to respond that they aren’t. One of the biggest problems is that they are SUPER expensive estimated at $6-8+ billion per 1000 MW reactor [and that's in our so-called free market without accounting for over $150 billion in subsidies over the past 30 years] they use lots of water, life-cycle carbon output is about that of natural gas [due to mining, processing, storage, decomissioning of plants & more], uranium mining is dirty & water intensive, and nuclear waste stays around for FOREVER and we don’t have any thing to do with it! (see a Climate of Hope for more on why nukes are so bad)

By: JP

JP — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:27:55 +0000

Just to add on to that, even us folks in the Pacific Northwest, with all of our hydro power, are stillhaving to fight the coal plants. We’re organizing a stat wide anti-coal campaign for Fossil Fools Day. A unified movement you say? Alright, let’s talk.