I received an email from Ranger Rick today, asking me to support the Lieberman/Warner Climate Security Act. Check out NWF’s Website to see the unfortunate truth.
I think that Ranger Rick might be being used. The Raccoon I remember from my childhood wouldn’t support false solutions like clean coal. He’s way too smart! NRDC and League of Conservation Voters, Environmental Defense, and Clean Air Task force are supporting this bill as well, which would give $515 Billion among other negatives which Brian has outlined so well here. Once we start funding Carbon Sequest-crap-tion it will be more difficult for grassroots community groups to stop coal plants in their neighborhood, as well as to stop dirty coal extraction and production. $515 billion dollars could do a lot for green jobs and renewable energy (which actually exist).
Even worse, NRDC and Clean Air Task Force are actively campaigning for “Clean Coal,” (No Such Thing!) undermining grassroots groups and setting back community struggles for renewable energy and green jobs. IGCC (fancy new fangled dirty coal plants) and Carbon Sequestration (if it existed!) still emit toxins such as mercury, uranium, lead, into the local communities, usually low income and/or people of color, that Clean Air Task Force is so excited for them to go in. Coal is not green, unless you consider money.
Even if carbon sequestration existed, and even if it kept mercury and uranium from polluting local waterways, then it would still cause increases in Mountain Top Removal and other coal mining, coal processing, coal transportation, which emits toxins into the river ways and truck routes, and coal waste disposal (coal waste increases risk of cancer by 10,000 times according to the EPA).
Worse, when big greens support Clean Coal, they force me to blog about crap like this, instead of working towards real solutions. Coal hurts communities, and when Big Greens like NRDC, CATF and now NWF and friends support clean coal and carbon sequestration, they undermine and betray grassroots movements.
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Do you support the development of CCS for use in places like China and India? Even if we achieve a coal moratorium in the U.S., we’re unlikely to have much leverage convincing developing nations to do the same. Given that China’s emissions recently surpassed our own, and given that coal is the cheapest and fastest way to bring millions of people out of poverty, it seems like CCS could be a vital technology there.
I can say that in West Virginia, a coal based economy has made us the poorest state in the US with the highest rates of disability, infant mortality, and also suicide. These are the glamorous things that coal brought us. I would not wish them on China.
Coal mining killed 6,000 miners in China in 2004, and I’m certain also introduced massive amounts of toxins into local waterways, including as aforementioned, uranium and mercury.
So no, I don’t think anyone is going to get rich off coal. I can only speak for myself when I say I would rather sit in the dark and subsistence farm than die slowly of black lung, silicosis, or massive poisoning from coal processing waste leaking into the ground table. Toxins that will be in the ground for hundreds, if not thousands of years. I have watched happen because of coal, and none of these problems are solved by sequestration. If don’t believe me, come visit! We always welcome folks out here.
Carbon Sequestration only gets rid of carbon, which is only one of many, many toxic chemicals coal devastates the environment with. I don’t think coal will bring anyone out of poverty. The ability to buy a car is no subsitute for clean drinking water, clean air, or soil you can farm in, or the death of a loved one, or whatever!
Carbon Sequestration only sequesters carbon! And, it’s 10 to 20 years off, depending on who you ask!
Dana -thanks for writing this! Excellent question that many of us are asking each other - but it’s time we be asking this out loud. Louder. And louder.
Lindsey (lmeisel) - do you think coal mining is substantially cleaner, safer, more ecologically sound, or less destructive in China or India? Then why would you support policies that encourage, nay, ENSURE that such destructive practices will not just continue, but increase our reliance on coal (as CCS can require up to 40% more coal to be burned for the same output). As if increasing drought and famine aren’t enough of a growing concern - the water requirements from coal and CCS will be responsible for even greater human rights crisis. Coal mining is the most deadly occupation in China - don’t tell me the families losing loved ones are being lifted out of poverty. Is this really the policy and technology you support?
And I fully disagree. A moratorium on coal in the US would have MAJOR international impacts. By increasing the deployment of renewable energy technologies, the economy of scale created will drive those costs down, and further encourage international adoption. We would set an international precedent that would have major political implications, both formally and culturally.
And why not explore the idea of taxes/fees for imports (and exports) based on their associated carbon footprint? That could have major impacts on the international field, both allowing consumers to know more about where their prodcuts come from, reflect the true costs of production, encourage local/sustainable economices, and somewhat level the playing field for producers of goods
Regardless of the utopian, textbook-fantasies Breakthrough presents on CCS, “clean coal”, or exporting US techonologies overseas (which is essentially colonialism in our current economy) - the facts of coal ON THE GROUND tell a decidedly different story. The myths of CCS are being used by industry to build more dirty coal plants, increase our reliance on dirty energy, delay the deployment of clean/renewable energy, and maintain the stranglehold that big business has over politics, economy, energy production and our lives. Don’t play into their hands - and take a look at the how the communities who are most impacted by your proposed policies feel on these issues.
-Matt
Could it be that this is because of the same thing what’s said in Linda Meisel’s post on The Breakthrough Blog?
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2008/05/is_ccs_a_scam_greenpeace_vs_ex.shtml
“The fact is that the majority of serious studies on the matter have concluded that rapid deployment of CCS must be a central tenet of any sound global energy policy.”
I don’t think she would write this without any backing. Maybe Linda could provide sources for this?
You (or some other people in your organization) must know it because it was in fact posted right on this blog, but removed later on. I’ve seen it myself in my feed reader as well as in Google Cache. I can somehow understand the fact that since IGHIH is against CCS, you don’t want to have this post of her right on this blog, but I think that you could at least address the points she raised.
I find this “political” situation very curious. I hope to see some discussion on this.
I’ve never studied coal mining seriously, but as Matt is presenting it, it isn’t very “clean”. Shouldn’t we just all campaign to raise the standards for coal mining? This will increase the cost of coal mining for sure. Together with CCS, it will make coal even more expensive, but it still may be a good energy option. If coal mining would not hurt the environment, would not take lives, and coal burning would not put pollutants or carbon in the atmosphere, and still be economically competitive to other energy sources, why not use it?
I think the definition of “clean coal” should include CCS as well as socially responsible mining practices. Isn’t that something to work on? I find it hard to imagine that there wouldn’t be a way to get coal totally clean. It’s most likely a matter of costs.
Of course, true “clean coal” might be too expensive to use as energy source. I don’t know. I don’t have the numbers.
“given that coal is the cheapest and fastest way to bring millions of people out of poverty….”
Is there any evidence for this claim? Because I keep hearing people suggesting that expanding energy infrastructure will somehow alleviate poverty.
This doesn’t make any sense. Poverty is not a technological problem, it’s a social one. It’s not an ABSENCE of resources that causes poverty, it’s inequitable DISTRIBUTION of resources, including land. And one of the primary causes of that inequitable distribution is the inordinate energy consumption the First World.
Poverty is not a natural phenomenon. It is created by economic and political systems that manufacture scarcity in order to create wealth. And part of the reason that there is so much poverty in the “Third World” is that for generations, people’s land has been stolen and degraded so that resources could be extracted, processed and shipped to the First World.
Which is not to say that certain resources are not finite — they are. The scale on which resources are consumed by a high-tech economy is simply unsustainable for the planet, and expanding industrial manufacturing capacity around the world (if you read the fine print, this is what the bulk of new energy capacity goes to) will only worsen this problem.
The way to alleviate poverty is to decrease dependence on an unsustainable, globalized, extraction-based economy. Destroying more people’s land, water and air with coal mines and coal plants is not going to do anything to help the poor — especially not while the world’s economic and political systems remain blindly committed to advancing industry over the public good.
The only reason that coal in places like India and China is the major energy supplier is because it is cheap and they have it in abundance. Well, they also have sun and wind in abundance. If we can push harder for R&D into those sectors of energy production and bring those costs down to the point of coal (google is working on this) then these countries will follow. Let’s lead down the right path for once.
First cheerleading the Friedman pie-in-the-face incident that embarrassed environmentalists everywhere, now attacking Ranger Rick? Really, this blog is completely out of control. When are you going to attack Al Gore?
Wow, I completely distrust the quality of this blog now. You can’t keep attacking some of the most effective environmental organizations. Ever think they might know more than you? Jesus, a bunch of kids write this blog and they have a lot to learn.
Ranger Rick certainly wants strong global warming legislation. Though the graphic is funny..I just wonder if certain other realities are not being absorbed in this debate. I agree with many of the points on coal, but it’s interesting that we will pick and choose which technologies are worth exploring and the “right” will attack the ones they don’t like and the “left” will only support their favorites. We must invest ourseleves from all ends the possibilities. None of these things can’t not be addressed as we progress towards solutions. We are in for a long term guiding of the ship and that requires tacking and going with the currents and using what we can to our advantage. It may not always be fair skies in the journey, we just know that we must reach the other side and if not we are in real trouble.
All that aside, we have a bigger problem…We must ask our selves, are we going to throw mud on anything that is not 100% perfect while our need to reduce carbon emissions 2% per year becomes a compounded 4% and then 8% problem? And we think the battle is hard now…
Are we going to wait and wait to get the right margins in Congress that are filibuster proof before we can even start to really make an impact on this very complex issue? Or is it too easy to shoot down imperfect solutions for the sake of unyielding need to not compromise? Is that any better than those we face now who will not yield to the realities that global warming is real and we must do something about now?
Matt –
We both want to get off coal and move to a new clean energy economy as quickly as possible. You seem to think that the best policy to achieve that vision is a moratorium on coal, while I think it is a major government investment in clean energy – a new Apollo or Manhattan project.
I don’t think that focusing on a coal moratorium makes for very good politics. In a perfect world, I’d love to see a moratorium on coal, but the fact is, anything that increases energy prices is going to meet a lot of resistance. And while a moratorium would help to drive prices down by creating economies of scale, it wouldn’t drive them down enough to avoid major price increases. That’s why I think it’s unwise to make this a negative politics about what we’re against, rather than a positive politics about what we’re for. People will be more willing to pay a little more for energy if it’s presented as an investment in an inspiring clean energy future, not as a penalty for using dirty energy.
We need to do everything we can to bring down the price of renewable energy, improve the grid, get it deployed. But for now, clean energy remains more expensive than coal, and as long as that’s the case, we’re probably going to be stuck with it for some time – at least in China and India. That’s why we should also be aggressively pursuing CCS. The emissions challenge is so great that we can’t afford to ignore this technology. The fastest way to ramp it up is deployment, and if that means having to start with building new coal plants that only capture something like 20 percent of their emissions, if it will help us get to 90 percent capture sooner, then I think it’s a fair trade-off.
Julie,
I think your condescension towards the contributors to It’s Getting Hot in Here is both misplaced and quite frankly insulting. The contributors range from those on the front lines of the fight against global warming, like Dana, whose experiences seeing the horrors of mountaintop removal is all too far from many of the sessions in the halls of the capital where these decisions are made.
Likewise, you said, “Ever think they might know more than you? Jesus, a bunch of kids write this blog and they have a lot to learn.”
Tell that to Greenpeace International that just released a report to the exact same effect as this post. Are you going to condescend to them the same way?
“Greenpeace International has released a new report, entitled “False Hope: Why Carbon Capture and Storage Won’t Save the Climate,” which proves once and for all that “clean coal” is nothing more than a slogan aimed at greenwashing the image of an irremediably dirty energy source.”
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/new-greenpeace-report-exposes
Likewise, NWF is an organization that should be able to explain their position to their own activists on their email lists - as their staff members have their own accounts.
Finally, it was a bunch of “kids” who pushed the green groups and the presidential candidates to find a backbone and match the targets called for by science, namely 80% by 2050, and the largest lobby day on climate in US history. So please explain why I should trust the quality of your statement.
-Richard
Meryn,
The statement I made on my post at Breakthrough,
“The fact is that the majority of serious studies on the matter have concluded that rapid deployment of CCS must be a central tenet of any sound global energy policy.”
came from the Clean Air Task Force’s literature review of CCS, which I cited on in the post. A summary of their conclusions:
“The Clean Air Task Force (“CATF”) has reviewed and evaluated numerous expert studies of the
potential role of CCS in the world’s future energy systems. In general, most experts agree that
without utilization of fossil fuels and CCS, climate change mitigation is likely to be more costly and less effective than if CCS systems are available in a timely manner. In addition, many studies suggest that a world without significant fossil fuel and CCS is a world with significant new nuclear capacity. Informed by these results, and its own analysis, CATF has concluded that CCS is a likely to be key energy technology for mitigating climate change. Rapid deployment of CCS therefore must be a central tenant of any sound global energy policy.”
As I say in my post at Breakthrough, the Greenpeace study that Richard Graves mentions above comes to the opposite conclusion of the majority of international studies of CCS, including those done by the IPCC. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong, but I think it’s important to put things in context.
And while I agree with Richard that condescending comments like Julie’s are unproductive, I have to wonder about the quality of a blog that would censor attempts to add balance to the discussion.
Not to comment excessively on my own blog (how tacky, I know!), but do we all remember when bio-fuels were going to save us? And then they caused a global food shortage? Unfortunately, a lot of Bio-fuel funding got pushed through on mixed bill that put us on this food shortage road, and it will be really hard to get off the road.
Now, in defense of little kids, it was a little kid who saw that the emperor had no clothes. And maybe it takes someone who has no money to make off of coal to say that coal is killing people. Carbon Sequest-crap-tion doesn’t change that (even it it existed) (which it is still years off) (and billions of dollars) (that could be spent on renewables).
Coal also causes massive water shortages. Because a 500 Megawatt coal plant (med-large plant) uses 2.2 billion gallons of water a year. And we’re in drought here in the Southeast. Not a lot of water to spare! http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02b.html Carbon Sequest-crap-tion doesn’t change the way a coal plant depletes and poisons water.
Now I understand that people will believe that they want to hear. And I choose to believe that Ranger Rick would be against Clean Coal (no such thing!) And you know what? I also think that Santa Claus would be against Clean Coal. That’s why he uses it to punish people.
Who thinks that preventing the destruction of mountains, reducing incidence of disease (cancer, asthma, etc) and avoiding irreversible climate tipping points is negative? I certainly don’t - so how is a coal moratorium ‘negative politics’? It is only negative if we frame it that way.
We learned the hard way in California with Proposition 87 that avoiding talking about the multitudes of benefits from progressive policies will lead to their defeat: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2007/03/20/vanjones/. If we stress how a moratorium on coal will protect communities, improve health, and give us a shot at beating climate change, AND we make sure that progressive policies are in place to correct for any potential increases in electricity price, then we have positive politics. We can correct for energy prices, but we can’t correct for lost mountains, sick children, or a climate that is spiraling out of control. So let’s make sure we continue to call out CCS for what it is, a false solution, and continue to hammer in that the true way to address our societal ills is with a just and clean energy economy.
Dana, I’ve been fighting mountaintop removal for years. I’m with you. But when I look at your post, I look right past your valid arguments about coal to someone recklessly ripping their allies and abusing one of my favorite childhood images.
Richard is right, the people who post on this blog can do whatever they please. But if you keep choosing pie-throwing over strategically pushing the climate solutions movement forward, you’re going to keep making Julie look right, too.
[Ok, not to get the discussion of the issues off track here...but is it just me who didn't feel Ranger Rick is being attacked here? It seems the opposite! It seems like Ranger Rick is speaking out against the clean coal myth...NWF might not like the appropriation, but Ranger Rick is speaking up for what is right so far as I can tell!]
Thank you Dana, and Whit, and Richard, and Matt, and JP… (wow, it seems a lot of really smart, thoughtful and strategic people DO agree on this!)
Compromising on false solutions such as CCS will only mean that we have to fight against them again later, but that fight will be in the coal fields, in Appalachia, in Southeast Ohio, on Reservations and in the poorest parts of our country, and the world. I’d rather use our resources to fight it now, while we have the power of many of the big greens (Greenpeace! Sierra Club! Energy Action!) and a real chance to promote large-scale solutions and investments in efficiency, renewables and clean, smart transportation.
Anything like CCS or “clean coal” (it doesn’t exist!!) will only mean we are leaving the dirty work of fighting against new plants, increased extraction and mountaintop removal and piles of wretched waste to communities who, by the time it gets to them, will undoubtedly be fighting for their lives, literally. They have enough problems already with illness, death and poverty due to our last 100 years of dependence on coal. This is our chance to end the cycle of poverty and illness from our energy use and invest those billions of dollars in solutions that are good for everyone, not just lobbyists and politicians too scared of jeopardizing their own self-serving power structures to demand real solutions in solidarity with the suffering of our land.
Thank you for speaking out on this important issue.
Just how toxic is so-called clean coal? Very.
The Orwellian named clean coal and the pipe dream of large-scale carbon sequestration are yet another massive corporate subsidy for a centralized technology doomed to failure. Alas, politicians would much rather propose “solutions” like a $1BN coal-to-liquid plant for impoverished Mingo County, West Virginia than provide leadership in ways that deal with the core problems, not just symptoms of those problems. We would be much better off investing similar amounts of money in (as one example) a smart electric grid, negawatts, and other investments in energy efficiency.
Those who are going to be hardest hit by the inevitable carbon tax–the poor in Appalachia dependent on a carbon-extraction economy–needs solutions like an Appalachian Green Energy Empowerment Zone. We do them, and all of us, a disservice by funding programs that do not address the causes of global climate change and do not prepare the region for a post-carbon economy.
From my post, Carbon Capture: Solution or Scam?
Which is the greater injustice: entrenched global poverty and inequality, or mountaintop removal and its community impacts? How you answer this question may shape your opinion on CCS.
CCS raises important questions about justice. The environmental justice movement fervently opposes CCS because of the very real injustices of coal mining, mountaintop removal, and the associated impacts upon communities. Groups and communities battling the impacts of coal extraction are understandably skeptical, and often outright opposed, to any new technology that uses coal.
CCS is interpreted differently by those who focus on the injustices of global poverty and inequality. Jeffrey Sachs, for example, is a major supporter of CCS. This technology is seen as a potential way for developing countries to retain access to affordable electricity to lift their populations out of entrenched poverty. China, for example, has brought hundreds of millions of its citizens out of poverty with coal-powered development just in the last few decades.
One of the greatest sources of passion and dedication among today’s youth climate movement is its commitment to justice. “Clean and just energy future” – this has become our vision and rallying cry. But what is a just energy future? Which injustices are we addressing? How do we get there, and which of the many injustices do we tackle first? If you believe that global poverty is as great (or greater) of an injustice as mountaintop removal, are you justified in supporting CCS?
Clean coal…
Gasification converts coal into hydrogen and then the hydrogen is burnt in the power plant. A hydrogen fueled power plant pollutes less then a natgas fired facility of the same size. the conversion needs to take place at the plant (coal to hydrogen) site because the current natgas pipeline system cannot move the volume needed to power a facility. In other words to use them for hydrogen, pipelines would need to be 50% bigger in order to move the same volume of natgas. there are currently only 4 fuel types for base load facilities in the USA, coal, natgas, oil and Nuclear. A base load facility runs 24/7, something no solar facility or even wind can do. Solar plays a role in reducing the need for base load during the day, in California business are becoming more willing to pay the higher prices of Solar power by mounting the systems on thier buildings. By doing this it removes the building off of peak load during the day which is the highest price for electricty. However at night the building moves back onto the grid and the electricty then comes from a base load facility. So far storage technology has not reached a point where Solar could replace base load.
As for pollution, older, smaller plants need to be replaced. The small facilities are not cost effective to upgrade. These plants will continue to run until its owner is allowed to replace them. The reason for this is demand, you cannot take a facility off line until you have replacement power. No doubt Solar and Wind can play a role in replacing smaller base load facilities, but until the technology advances far enough to allow large amounts of energy to be stored, new base load facilities must be built. New facilities have much better pollution controls, so i find it interesting that old plants must continue to run because it takes so long to get its replacement approved.
Bob Grush