Posted on 01/02/2009 12:35:21 PM PST by tcrlaf
The Dynegy Corporation has announced the termination of their coal-plant development partnership with LS Power, effectively canceling plans for six new coal burning power plants.
Momentum against coal is growing all around the country, as residents of Kingston, Tennessee recover from a one billion gallon spill of toxic coal ash produced by a coal plant last week. That spill promises to leave streams, fish, front yards and drinking water in the community under health advisories for months, if not years. Now, just two days into 2009 the tally of canceled coal plants is already ticking up.
The environmental community has labeled Dynegy “the next King Coal” in response to their plans to build these coal plants, the largest new coal fleet proposed in the USA. The Sierra Club launched a campaign to Clean Up Dynegy in February 2007, that spring thousands of Green America members asked Dynegy to cancel the plants and with the help of RAN, Public Citizen and a busload of Southern Energy Network student activists a massive protest engulfed Dynegy’s annual meeting in Houston last May.
There, inside the shareholder meeting, investors warned about the massive cost of carbon regulation to the company and activists raised concerns about the toll of its coal plants on surrounding communities and the climate. This summer courts in Georgia dealt Dynegy another setback, halting plans for a new plant until the state developed a plan to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from the plant.
Today Dynegy is backing down, canceling their partnership with LS power.
Come on people!
The price of crude will be back above $80 a barrel before the new plants can be functional anyway.
If you wait we all lose.
Guess we’ll just have to sell all our coal to China.
Come on people!
The price of crude will be back above $80 a barrel before the new plants can be functional anyway.
If you wait, we all lose.
One would think so. But, look at California. Even though their policies made them dependent on out of state energy generation, and led to the huge energy trading bubble which Enron, Dynegy, and many others profited on, has anything really changed?
This spill was the ‘3-mile island’ of coal. I worked in the industry before and it has people spooked.
I cursed whoever let this happen because it will result in untold economic damage from envirowackos. Most likely several times more than it will cost to clean up.
Yes, coal is filthy in its original form and an environmental challenge but it was always getting cleaner. Legislating it into oblivion combined with NIMBY people after this spill will leave us with NO power.
The wackos can get off the grid and buy their own solar/wind systems if they hate coal and nuclear that much.
All those electric cars and little or no way to recharge them ... central planning wins again!
About a month ago there were other posters on the Metro showing a oil soaked bird and the caption "Off shore drilling is not the answer". I suppose the answer is to freeze in the dark.
Are we pissed off enough yet?
Sooner or later...
What’s changed is this is a nationwide push, not just California. California can play these games so long as producers in other states are picking up the slack, but if Obama has his way, all that out of state generation California depends on is going to dry up.
Think all those California voters are going to continue to “vote green” when they can’t afford they can’t afford to power their plasma TVs? The truth is, I doubt the Democrats in Washington will even let it get that far. Getting re-elected will trump ideology every time, and I don’t think Obama’s handlers are ignorant of the likely consequences of actually fulfilling his promises.
I suspect the greenies are in for a disappointment if they actually believe Obama’s going to put a dent in coal.
I agree. But California felt some serious effects, and didn't learn from them.
Obama’s pressure on coal, wouldn’t bother me nearly as much, if Obama had an energy plan. But no nuclear plants, no drilling, and this vague funding of unproven alternative energy, is a bet-the-farm strategy on unproven technology.
Obama’s slogan was “Yes we can’t” but in energy, he’s the “No you can’t” candidate.
>>The plurality of our electricity will come from coal for the foreseeable future. Even the Messiah can’t change that.<<
he already said quit publicly that he would make coal production so costly that they would not be able to stay in business.
If he does, all i can say is
“welcome to the revolution”
Yes. As far as I can see no effective power plant of any type can be built in America today. The ECONAZIs will delay the project in court so as to make it prohibitively expensive and/or the court will dictate a reason the plant cannot be built.
Just a few weeks ago the plant I work at was giving a tour to a class of youngsters, the class was lead by a science teacher. AFter having just been shown the room that houses batteries that provide emergncy back up power.
The teacher wanted to know what time everyone went home at night. Because obviously these batteries could store megawattts of power for the local community. If it was only that easy. Yes they do think it comes from the switch on the wall.
Just wait until we get “net zero” homes and buildings. It’s one of the stupidest things yet, but it’s coming. Google it just for fun.
I never heard of ‘net zero’ homes till you mentioned it - and in googling it, I found the silliest contradiction:
“Affordable, costing no more to build than traditional, “stick-built”
homes/buildings. “
and then
“The Center is cooled by a 10-ton solar absorption cooling system powered by an array of very efficient solar heat pipe vacuum tube thermal collectors. The collectors heat the water to temperatures of 200+ degree F stored in a 1,200 gallon insulated tank, another type of inexpensive battery. The Solar Trigeneration system at the Audubon not only provides the air-conditioning in the summer but also heats the building in the winter, and provides the hot water for the kitchen and bathrooms.”
As if the price of a 10-ton solar absorption cooling system would be minimal! Ha!
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