Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 07/30/2009 5:08:46 AM PDT by Perseverando
The price of coal and efforts to control its emissions keep energy costs spiraling higher.
American Electric Power, parent of Appalachian Power Co., reports that it is "the largest purchaser of coal in the Western Hemisphere."
For Appalachian, coal-fired power plants generate about 98 percent of the electricity it delivers to customers in a territory that includes portions of Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. For AEP companywide, coal fuels about 70 percent of power generation.
And all that coal, an increasingly controversial fuel, helps explain the upward spiral of Appalachian's costs for complying with environmental regulations.
Appalachian and AEP report the companies have spent billions of dollars to improve air quality under the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Air Interstate and Clean Air Mercury Rules adopted in 2005. It has installed scrubbers and selective catalytic reduction systems.
The company says it has cut and continues to reduce emissions of gases tied to acid rain.
But its coal-fired power plants spew into the atmosphere huge amounts of carbon dioxide, a gas closely linked to global warming.
According to CFO.com, which provides information for chief financial officers, the five corporations in the Standard & Poor's 500 with the largest carbon dioxide emissions are ExxonMobil, Chevron, AEP, The Southern Company (another electric utility) and ConocoPhillips.
AEP responded, "This appears correct."
The company said it "is committed to cutting carbon dioxide emissions through carbon capture and storage" and has a project under way at its Mountaineer plant to test the technology.
AEP said it supports the Waxman-Markey energy and climate change bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives. Among a host of other provisions, the bill provides for a cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gases. The program would allow companies that can easily reduce emissions
(Excerpt) Read more at roanoke.com ...
Slanted article. It is the pollution controls driving the price up, not the coal. You can get over 99% of the pollutants out, but the last fractions cost big bucks for little bang. CO2 should be left alone. There is no cost effective method to control this non-threatening gas.
Idiots.
Re: AEP said it supports the Waxman-Markey energy and climate change bill
Yes, and we pay dearly for their idiocy.
This is getting to be a real problem, American corporations ~ at least on their face ~ seem to be tolling over for the Feds.
I heard a Walmart spot on the radio a couple weeks back ~ can’t remember whether the subject was healthcare or climate change ~ and it sounded like it had been paid for by the DNC.
We already are paying a heavy price.
No new power plants, OF ANY KIND, are being built as of this year. Any that were being built were halted, any plans to build were put on hold. Those who know best how to build these plants are out of work.
Maybe Fascists, or becoming Fascists without realizing it.
Fascism, for those who have not looked up the long definition is a merging of government and large corporations to rule together.
AEP knows that we must pay for electricity regardless of cost.
They see the opportunity to trade credits, which will simply become another form of money.
Too many large corporations have the idea that they can become part of government and by doing so help to manage the direction taken by the government, thus protecting their interests.
But Obummer, the Fascist, will eventually throw them under the bus just as he did Reverend Wright and all of the others.
At that point, it will cease to be a Fascist government and become a Marxist government.
Oil has less CO2 emissions than coal, because in a hydrocarbon (hydrogen plus carbon) like oil or methane, much of the energy comes from combustion of the hydrogen component. So draconian rules against CO2 will benefit oil at the expense of coal.
And naturally, nuke power is right out, even though it has zero CO2 emissions.
So the costs of electricity produced through coal is not rising due to the costs of production but rather the costs of massive, intrusive regulation. Got it.
Yet, the same process (increased regulation) will LOWER health care costs, right?
On the other hand, the Chinese and Indians couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass for the absurd anxieties that keep American liberals awake at night. We can sell the coal to those countries that want to have a functioning economy. The America governing class seems hell-bent on ensuring that we’re all living off nuts and berries by 2050.
***American Electric Power,***
They talking about you! Glad I’m retired!
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