Burying a “take action” link at the very bottom of a blog post is a horrible way to generate Internet activism. So instead of having you read this whole post before you finally find out how to email the Oregon DEQ and tell them to shut down the Boardman coal plant, I’ll give you the email address now: bartcomments@deq.state.or.us Details on the issue are, of course, below.
I’m sitting in a non-air conditioned building in a Portland suburb, on the third day of the Portland area’s worst heat wave since 1994; in other words, global warming is sounding even less attractive than usual. More importantly, though, on the desk beside me is an Oregonian editorial about the Boardman Coal Plant – the only major coal plant in Oregon, and our state’s largest stationary source of greenhouse emissions.
I have to admit, I’m disappointed. The editorial, “Finally, a plan to clean up the coal plant,” applauds an Oregon Department of Environmental Quality proposal to “clean up” certain pollutants from the Boardman plant over the course of ten years. The Oregonian editors seem to feel the DEQ is standing up to big polluters and doing what it should to reduce pollution from coal; what they fail to grasp is that the DEQ plan calls for a reduction in mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxides from Boardman, but seems to do nothing to address the most important greenhouse gas of all: carbon dioxide itself. If you believe, as I do, that “carbon sequestration” at coal plants is an expensive farce, then we’re left with only one alternative: it’s not enough to “clean up” Boardman – the coal plant must be completely shut down.
Is the idea of shutting down – rather than cleaning up – the Boardman plant by 2018 simply unrealistic and naive? A few months ago, most people would probably have said it was. But now Al Gore, a politically respectable figure, is calling for a complete nation-wide phase-out of fossil fuel energy in ten years; and since it’s Al Gore, rather than you or I, who said it, people are beginning to listen. I find it ironic that phasing out fossil fuels in ten years would mean the elimination of coal by 2018 – precisely the year that the DEQ plans to have Boardman “cleaned up” in a minor way, but still spewing greenhouse gases. If we’re really going to make our nation more secure and our environment safe and stable, a ten-year time frame is what we should be looking at; it makes no sense to talk about “cleaning up” coal in ten years, when we need to eliminate it entirely.
There’s more. At first glance, shutting down Boardman sound unrealistic. But by the Oregonian’s own admission, installing technology for the already-proposed cleanup will require the plant to be temporarily taken off the energy grid anyway, until installation is complete. This of course will raise energy rates for a while; but since the DEQ would let Boardman back on the grid once controls for nitrous oxides and other chemicals were in place, the jump in prices would do nothing to actually reduce emissions of the main greenhouse gas – carbon dioxide – in the long term. Why not do this instead: plan to have Boardman permanently off the grid by 2018; put Portland General Electric and other utilities on notice, so they will begin investing heavily in renewable energy now in preparation for Boardman’s closure; rather than putting ratepayers through a temporary hike in energy prices and then depositing them back on the unstable fossil fuel bandwagon, follow initial rate increases with a transition to purely renewable energy, helping to stabilize Oregon energy prices in the long term. And permanently eliminate the planet-warming behemoth that is the Boardman plant.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is currently accepting comments on its proposal for the Boardman plant. Email the DEQ at bartcomments@deq.state.or.us to tell them we need to shut down, not “clean up” the Boardman plant by 2018!
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Good post, Nick. I full-heartedly agree — Boardman is the only operating coal plant in the entire state and it’s older than dirt. We do need to eliminate it’s electricity from our energy mix. However, our work won’t be done then. Oregon imports electricity generated from coal from our eastern neighbors, Montana, and Wyoming.
Step 1: eliminate Boardman
Step 2: substitute the electricity the state of Oregon purchases from coal with efficiency or clean, renewable sources.
Step 3: fight like hell against any new coal plant proposed
Great article, you’re right, we need concrete commitments not abstract support. just e-mailed the DEQ.
Восхитительно..
И правда креатив…супер!
Большое спасибо! Есть ещё повод получить удовольствие… С вашего разрешения, беру.
супер оригинально
Трогательно)
Большое спасибо! Есть ещё повод получить удовольствие… С вашего разрешения, беру.
“здорово!”
“Интересная заметка”
Отличная работа!
AS always we have people who talk up a storm and doesnt know anything. The photo in this report is a gas plant not a coal fire plant and if the person who wrote this new anything about coal or gas plants he would have known better. This is the whole problem with this kind of thinking. KILL the monster is from an uneducated responce by people who just dont understand and dont want to. Coal is what keeps your lights on and wind power ruins the veiw and just cant be relied on. The tax payers subsidize the wind mills at 60%. Pluse the blades are made of wood, Which mean more trees have to fall. So learn more and dont take the word of enviro’s Use your own mind.
Will is right on all accounts.
First, the photo truly is of a combined-cycle gas plant. In fact, the steam generated from the plant is used on industrial sites in the area….much better then additional electric demand.
I’m not aware of any “obvious” solutions to shutting down a coal plant (or a gas-plant for that matter), and I’ve been all-ears for some time. Wind and solar generation are not direct-replacements for hydro, coal, or nuclear plants; neither in availability nor cost effectiveness. (How do you heat your home on a calm winter night?) Wave, biomass, and geothermal sources are great concepts, but are far too costly for immediate implementation and are still many years away from being viable.
All things considered, I’ve starting researching nuclear energy and am beginning to see it as an overlooked solution, with a bad rap — but I digress, that’s a different conversation for another day.
Rather than rip on what you don’t understand — do some research. I would rather read a report with substance, such as what alternatives are currently being discussed: other base-load energy alternatives in which utilities should invest, distributed generation resources available to individual businesses or homeowners, and energy conservation technologies and practices.
A couple of people have pointed out that when this post was originally published, it mistakenly included a photo of a natural gas plant. Sure enough, I made that human error, and it’s now fixed. Now you’ll have to come with some more substantial things to gripe about!