Posted on 02/11/2007 7:53:42 AM PST by Froufrou
A TV advertisement opposing TXU Corp.'s plan to build 11 new coal plants in Texas begins airing Wednesday in the Waco market, and will air next week in Dallas.
The ad campaign, titled "Profits and Pollution," are being paid for by Environmental Defense, a nonprofit environmental group that is suing the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality over the permit applications process.
The ads are asking viewers to contact their state legislators and ask them to slow down TXU's fast-tracked coal plan. The fast-tracking plan could cut down the regulatory approval process for a new plant to six months. It previously could take 18 months or more to approve a permit.
"TXU's TV ads are full of fear and fiction," said Environmental Defense regional director Jim Marston, in a statement Wednesday. "Our ad sticks to the facts, and the fact of the matter is that TXU's dirty coal plants will make a ring of fire around McLennan County and spew new pollution up to Dallas and down to Austin."
Colin Rowan, a spokesman for Environmental Defense's Austin office, said the ads would run on several stations in Dallas, and the general buy in Dallas would be a little smaller because of the expense.
Rowan said the ads wouldn't exhaust the $400,000 Environmental Defense has budgeted for its various advertising efforts throughout the year.
"TXU's got a bottomless pit of PR money and they've been spending millions of dollars, even before this things became publicly contested," Rowan said. "Now they're just dumping a lot more money into ads that are specific to these power plants and it was time for us to just do what we can to compete. We can't compete with them dollar-for-dollar. But it's certainly a lot cheaper to sell the truth."
TXU spokesman Tom Kleckner called the ads a "misinformation campaign."
"The fact is, Texas has a pressing problem," Kleckner said. "We need reliable, affordable and cleaner power, and we will need it very soon. TXU has a balanced plan that provides needed power, $1.7 billion in lower wholesale prices and state-of-the-art power plants (that are ) 80 percent cleaner than the average U.S. coal plant."
Kleckner added that every delay in the permitting process keeps the older plants online, harming prices and air quality and bringing Texans closer to a power shortfall.
"Rather than offering solutions to address Texas' looming shortfall of reliable electricity supply, ED offers slick tv ads advocating continued delay and denial," Kleckner added. "By lobbying policymakers to postpone action, ED threatens Texas with higher prices, job loss and dirtier air."
Dallas-based TXU (NYSE: TXU) launched its own statewide advertising campaign in January, Kleckner said. The adds are running in Dallas, Houston, Austin and Waco. In some markets, the ads are running on both TV and in newspapers.
Kleckner did not disclose the cost of the ad campaign, but said it would continue for the next few months.
Won't make any difference. Ms. Rodham is going to "take those profits" and invest them in cockamamie alternate fuels boondoggles.
LOL! That's naughty, WVMM ;-)
But I believe you nailed it.
Mark Twain:
"It’s not the things we don’t know that fool us. It’s the things we do know that ain’t so."
We could always try to color the icecaps black (as was actually suggested during the last global cooling scare).
But they have us cornered now. ;-) They call it global warming and the icecaps are already as white as they can get.
Perhaps we can counter this by spray painting the moon and several planets nearest to us , a dull black.
Alas, it's hopeless, because the heat from the melt down of the moon and those planets, would only intensify our global warming.
"want to shut down civilization and make us go back to wearing bearskins".
Too true, too much of it is the desire of the sanctimonious to convert the rest of us, at swordpoint if necessary. If the greenweenie in question won't even discuss "nuclear", not even if you pronounce it "nookiar", he/she is not serious about alternatives. They only want to control your carbon footprint before they jet off to Switzerland, producing enough greenhouse gas for a third world nation in one trip, to an anti-global warming conference.
goldstategop, or anyone interested, forget the regular news. Toward the front of a paper's want ads, check the "official notices". PUC, RRC, and TEQC among others require due public notice and invitation for comment prior to granting a license. If you are actually a customer, you will have received a notice in the bill enclosures you usually toss out unexamined. All else fails, that is what Al Gore invented the internet for.
Related article:
"Baptist group fights Texas coal plants"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1782799/posts
(We have coal plants here in NH. They use Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) systems to reduce nitrogen-oxide (NOx) emissions.)
On the radio I heard John Bradshaw say that 75% of Dem college grads believe in global warming whereas on 25% of R college grads do. I suppose the dems all study ethnic studies under Ward Churchill and the like. Now get this. When asked about the disparity the guest said Dems are raised to have a social conscience and it bothers them that global warming hurts the poor the most.
With all due respect, individual ignorance on a topic is not indicative of a gov't conspiracy.
A Google News search of "Texas" "TXU" "coal" and "plants" produces 585 articles in just the past month. These plants and the approval process have been in the news for more than a year. A Google search of those 4 terms produces 170,000 results. Narrow it down by adding the terms "Perry" still produces 40,000 results.
I dunno, maybe some simple research might be wise before slandering with charges of "conspiracy, coverup, corruption?"
I'm not a fan of TXU, and believe that they should be investigated for price fixing, but these plants are needed and are a good thing. They will produce 50% more needed energy (Texas is growing by more than 500,000 a year, a new Austin and San Antonio area every 7 years) while producing 20% LESS total harmful emmissions because the new plants will be cleaner, older plants will be shut down or have cleaner technology installed, and a switch to cleaner Wyoming coal (Powder River Basin) instead of Texas lignite. (Plenty of keywords there to do more research with.) And TXU isn't the only company proposing new coal plants in Texas.
The enviro/media-activists are saying that these coal plants should use the cleaner coal gasification technology, but what they don't mention is that what they propose is so new that there isn't yet an operating plant. In fact Texas has done a good job in competing for fed funds for the demonstration gasification project and is one of the favorites to win the project. Another is being proposed for Corpus Christi, but hasn't been built. You see, what these groups are doing is opposing whatever is being considered and throwing out a nice sounding but not yet obtainable alternative to mute criticism that all they do is oppose. Just like the Dems do with foreign policy to fight the label that they are weak on defense, they criticize Iraq and say that the real problem is Iran. But when we propose dealing with Iran, they say, no you can't do that, N. Korea is the real threat. Or when we propose something on N. Korea it is called the wrong approach, everyone knows that Iran is more of a concern.
Coal is cheap, the US has centuries of reserves, and the current proposed plants would result in more power with cleaner air than we currently have. These plants should be approved ASAP.
" charges of "conspiracy, coverup, corruption?" "
And I'll thank you not to put words in my mouth. I never said anything of the kind. Obviously, I found out about it by googling or the thread wouldn't be here. Sheesh.
I guess you're right. Since when did networks and newspapers actually report news? They want 'the big story.' The market share.
OK, then what exactly was that statement supposed to have implied?
That I'm suspicious of government is hardly the same as being a conspiracy theorist. Politicians are much like car salesmen. If they move their lips, they're lying.
"If they move their lips, they're lying."
Clarification: It is a joke. I have no car salesman agenda. No politician agenda either, for that matter.
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