Press Releases: Anti-coal zealots' opposition to clean-energy law misplaced
Posted on Wednesday, 19 January 2005 (12:17:04) EST by admin
|
|
Posted on Tue, Dec. 28, 2004
In attacking certain coal investments, they actually attack the environment.
By Kathleen McGinty
Pennsylvania now proudly boasts one of the most far-reaching and ambitious renewable-energy measures in the nation. Yet, during final debate on the issue in the waning days of the 2003-04 legislative session, some were willing to sacrifice real environmental progress in their apparent determination to kill the measure simply because it dared to mention coal along with wind and solar energy. Fortunately, progress won the day.
Gov. Rendell recently signed into law a clean-energy portfolio standard that ensures that in 15 years, 18 percent of all of the energy generated in the state will come from clean, efficient sources. The plan, sponsored by Sen. Ted Erickson (R., Delaware) and Rep. Chris Ross (R., Chester), promises dramatically to cut pollution, improve public health, encourage investments in advanced technologies, promote economic development, and cut energy costs.
Tier I of the two-tiered standard requires that 8 percent of electricity sold at retail in the state come from traditional renewable sources such as wind power, low-impact hydropower, geothermal energy and biomass energy.
Tier II of the standard requires 10 percent of our electricity to be generated from distributed generation systems, large-scale hydropower, municipal solid waste, and generation from pulping and wood manufacturing by-products. It also promotes conservation, and (horrifying to some) waste-coal cleanup and integrated coal gasification technology.
In attacking these specific kinds of coal investments, environmentalists actually are attacking the environment. Here's why:
When acid mine drainage is the state's leading water pollution problem, opposition to cleaning up and beneficially using the waste-coal piles that contribute to this crisis is anti-environment.
When communities suffer socially and economically because of blighted and scarred abandoned mine lands, opposition to returning these sites to clean, productive use is anti-environment.
When conventional coal-fired power plants are a leading source of air pollution in Pennsylvania, opposition to the new technologies that waste-coal facilities use to reduce air emissions and capture harmful pollutants is anti-environment and anti-public health.
When coal gasification facilities are 40 percent more efficient than traditional coal power generation and therefore that much cleaner, opposition to coal gasification is anti-environment, anti-public health and anti-climate stability.
Being anti-coal is not the same as being pro-environment. Anti-coal, anti-mining zealots fail to recognize - or, more precisely, choose to ignore - the fact that not a single windmill ever has been constructed without iron ore that was mined somewhere to make the frames. Solar panels that provide alternative energy sources to power machines and heat our homes are made from silicon, which comes from sand that, again, was mined from a beach somewhere in the world.
There are 8,529 acres of unreclaimed refuse piles with 258 million tons of waste coal in Pennsylvania. More than 2,200 miles of streams are impaired by polluted mine drainage. There are few uses for waste coal except electricity generation. More to the point, there simply aren't enough available resources to address this multibillion-dollar problem.
Coal gasification offers one of the most versatile and clean ways to convert the energy content of coal into electricity, hydrogen, and other energy forms. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the environmental benefits stem from the capability to cleanse as much as 99 percent of the pollutant-forming impurities from coal-derived gases.
Waste-coal boilers, using circulating fluidized bed (CFB) combustion technology, cut mercury and dioxins by about 80 percent and 99 percent, compared with conventional bituminous coal boilers. For more than 30 years, the Department of Environmental Protection has collected information so that it can get estimates for all pollutants. These data show that emissions of nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide are substantially lower in CFBs than in pulverized coal-fired boilers.
Altogether, Pennsylvania's clean energy standard portfolio will avoid 9,044,615 tons of carbon dioxide, 78,462 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 21,398 tons of nitrogen oxides each year. Surface waters and rural communities will enjoy additional benefits from reclaimed lands.
Many in the environmental community expressed concern in the last presidential election that fundamental ideologies were displacing facts and science in national environmental policy-making. They may be correct. But if they truly want to fix the problem, they need to start by looking in the mirror.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kathleen McGinty is secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
|
| "Press Releases: Anti-coal zealots' opposition to clean-energy law misplaced" | Login/Create an Account | comments |
|
| | The comments are owned by the poster. We aren't responsible for their content. |
|
|
|
No Comments Allowed for Anonymous, please register |
|
|
|
or 
feeds
