The Coal Rush
By: Elisa Young, Meigs Citizens Action Now (CAN!)
Ohioans are under a great deal of pressure right now to make snap decisions on energy choices that will create long-term consequences locally and globally. As a community member and seventh generation Meigs County resident, where these consequences would be mostly keenly felt, I have to ask, what’s the rush?
Is moving forward in an industry-induced state of fear and scarcity the direction we want to take? I think we owe it to ourselves and those coming after us to slow down and make wiser, more fully-informed choices.
From the coal industry’s perspective, the rush is actually a break-neck race funded at Ohio ratepayer’s and taxpayer’s expense. For the coal companies to remain in a position of power, they must pave the path for a new 50 year infrastructure quickly enough to avoid carbon cap and tax legislation demands driven by an awakened public’s efforts to curb global warming impacts.
If the coal industry wins, ratepayers can expect another 50 years of skyrocketing electricity costs as carbon controls come into play. The danger of committing to these skyrocketing costs is that it will limit our resources and research options, and cripple our ability to pursue a cleaner, healthier, sustainable future.
Buying into the lie that coal can be made “clean” perpetuates our dependency on a finite fossil fuel resource. It has been a lot of hard work, but the dirty little secret of coal’s devastating impacts is exploding out of every corner of Appalachia. At the same time, there is a nation-wide awakening to the reality of global warming with Americans taking personal responsibility and demanding immediate change from those entrusted with positions of leadership.
Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) is one of the more popular “clean coal solutions” on the table. Our Meigs CAN! community group is opposed to all industry proposals that would further compromise our community and increase the demand for coal extraction from beneath our homes and farms. There are many misconceptions regarding IGCC that need to be addressed. They are as follows:
- IGCC will not take old power plants off line. The unilateral response at public meetings from industry and the regulatory agencies affirms that the proposed IGCC plants are for projected increased energy demands.
- IGCC will not improve air quality. The dirtiest air emission releases occur during shut down and start up times when the stack monitors are turned off—no records kept. For pulverized coal power plants, this happens two to three times per year. IGCC reportedly shuts down 60 times a year, or once every six days. With four to five proposed IGCC plants in our area, that could translate into unmonitored emissions every day of the week.
- IGCC will not decrease greenhouse gas emissions. IGCC technology does not include carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). These are separately developing technologies. Allowing IGCC construction and operation to proceed without addressing carbon emissions in advance will increase greenhouse gas emissions.
- CCS is not a viable answer. One of the sites touted as a sequestration success story is Statoil in Norway, but let’s look at the numbers. To sequester one million tons of CO2 annually, the cost is $125,000 per day, which comes out to approximately $45 million per year. Additionally, CCS injection can cause induced seismic activity.
- IGCC does not eliminate impacts to our water supply. While IGCC may use less water, volume is not the only consideration. At other sites where gasification technology has been used, the water has been so badly contaminated with chromium, selenium and arsenic that they were declared hazardous waste and superfund sites.
The coal industry remains silent that this proposed “clean coal” technology is expensive and experimental. While they simultaneously attack the implementation of renewable energies as unachievable and financially infeasible. Both of these technologies require additional financing for research and development. However, renewable energies do not carry the same risks to communities that are inherent to coal extraction and consumption.
My parents, here in Ohio, went on a combination of geothermal and solar power more than 30 years ago. While they live simply on a modest income, they were able to make these changes at a time when rebates and tax credits were available to homeowners under the administration of former President Jimmy Carter.
Last year, only $14 million in partial grant funding was available to Ohioans for installing renewable energy systems. What does that say about our values when compared to a $3 billion and rising coal power plant construction price tag? Or $45 million annually to test burying and hiding a fraction of our carbon emissions?
Do we invest our resources in injecting and sequestering waste into a bottomless financial pit to prolong our dependency upon a resource we know to be finite? Or do we take a truly empowering leap to become leaders in initiating model efficiency programs to meet our needs, while developing renewable energy systems that use resources that are infinite and non-polluting?
We need to redirect coal subsidizes toward funding a future everyone can live with. Interested in hosting a virtual tour in your community, getting involved with our petition drive or receiving notices on comment periods? For more information, contact Elisa Young at Meigs CAN at 740-949-2175.