One Republican, Unhappy With His Party's Position on Carbon, Prepares a New Agenda (RINO ALERT)

Sen. Lindsey Graham is concerned that the Republican Party faces political dangers by resisting efforts to reduce carbon dioxide and other air pollution. That assertion seems to challenge GOP campaigns this year, in which candidates often rejected the science behind climate change.

Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, is designing an agenda for next year featuring a clean energy standard for utilities, which rewards increased nuclear and renewable power alike. Similar ideas have failed because they tended to dilute incentives for wind and solar. But under an increasingly conservative Congress, many advocates see that outcome as a potential victory, under reduced expectations.

For Graham, it might mark another opportunity to insert himself in the center of the energy debate. He says it's urgent to begin a speedy national transition to clean technology. He points to jobs, jobs, jobs. He predicts new energy mandates can be tailored to help businesses compete with China and not harm them economically.

Politics is not far from the calculation, either. Graham shrugged off the notion that he might feel a conservative backlash in 2014, when he's up for re-election, by pushing forward with an agenda that counts clean air as a central objective.

"The government is trying to regulate coal fired power plants out of business. If natural gas is cheaper then let the market decide. It is a matter of supply and demand. At current usage rates this country has several hundred years of coal that can be extracted economically from the ground."

Yes, but the market was originally distorted in the other direction when then-President Jimmy Carter forbad the use of natural gas to supply electricity. Back then, there was thought to be an approaching shortage of natural gas.

Natural gas plants are WAY cheaper, more reliable, cleaner, and more efficient than coal plants (nat. gas plants can be "combined cycle" gas-turbine/steam turbine units....coal is limited to steam-turbines).

With horizontal drilling, we probably have as much or more future available supply in natural gas as with coal. And a great deal of that supply is located in the Northeast.

On a "pure market" basis, coal simply can't compete.

Note....I've got no problem with coal as an energy source, either for electricity generation or, via. liquefaction, for vehicle fuels. Just pointing out the facts of the matter.

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