Natalie Tennant spoke to the EPA. She is the current Secretary of State in West Virginia, and is polling behind in a race to replace the incumbent Democrat Jay Rockefeller who is retiring after this year....
Whether this Administration chooses to recognize it or not, the fact is: coal powers nearly 40 percent of our electricity in this country. It’s not going anywhere. Trying to squeeze coal out of the energy equation is not only unrealistic, it is dangerous and irresponsible.
Not only in this country, but the world as well.
http://i206.photobucket.com/...
The point is this. Even if the US were to theoretically eliminate coal from its energy derivation, other nations will use it with little care or concern for the carbon it puts up and out, because a) they own coal, or b) because it is cheaper... Some countries rely heavily on coal — South Africa, 93 percent; Australia, 78 percent; China, 79 percent; India, 68 percent; and Germany, 41 percent. Therefore, since 1/3 of all global electricity is and will continue to be derived from coal, it makes great sense to find the way to keep that carbon sequestered....
Because every forecast calls for it. Coal will always be used. Therefore instead of dismissing coal, we must find a way to stop its carbon from going into the atmosphere.. That is her brilliance.
Clean coal is being ignored. Assuming that with enough solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, hydroelectric, and natural gas, coal won't be needed anymore. Already many burners have converted from coal to natural gas over the past 8 years. The air quality here in the USA is becoming much cleaner.
However, as I speak, coal is being pulled out of Wyoming and West Virginia, being railroaded to the coast and being shipped overseas. To nations with too little finances to afford the switch over to natural gas... coal is still being burned, carbon dioxide is still adding to the atmosphere, the earth is still getting warmer....
Let us put it another way... If any contact with tap water could cause cancer, would you drink bottled water? Probably. Would you cook in bottled water? Maybe. Would you use bottled water to brush your teeth? Perhaps but unlikely. Would you use bottled water to fill your bathtub to bathe? Doubtful. Would you use it to flush your toilet? No. In other words you would still use a certain amount of tap water. If one's goal was to eliminate tap water into the home to eliminate cancer, though one could cut it down, they would never eliminate it.
It is the same scenario with coal... Therefore to assume that coal mining will go away is unrealistic. That is why we need investment in finding a way to solve the clean coal issue...
This is evidence of a new way of thinking. Up to now, eliminating coal burning has been the prime green way of cutting carbon emissions... That preferred policy does not accept the blaring fact that coal will never and can never be eliminated... If eliminated one place, it pops up in another. Therefore, work in the direction of cleaning coal's emissions is worth persuing,
Here we are seeing a new way of thinking. Instead of working from the bottom up, we seek to work from the top down. Asking first: what single item would do the most to cut carbon emissions across the globe? The answer is to make coal less polluting. If you want results, and our climate today seems to demand results be forthcoming rather quickly, you need to fix coal so it does not pollute.... Otherwise you will only be dancing around the edges of a bigger problem... You will say we are doing all this work and nothing seems to change.
Studies show the costs of addressing climate change would double without advanced coal technology. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) simply must be part of the equation.
The usual retort against clean coal technology, is to say: “there is no such thing as clean coal.” And to an extent they are right.... Coal is dirty in its extraction, transport, and in dispensing its leftovers. But, here is the too infrequent answer to that imperative statement. It is framed here as a question: “doesn't it make sense to seek out how to have what coal is left be burned in a way that won't emit excessive carbon dioxide?
And that underlies the brilliance in the realism of one
Natalie Tennant, running for Senate in WV this fall.
Our current energy policy neglects one huge third of the problem. That needs work too, if the effects of carbon dioxide are to begun to be countered in our lifetimes...