Old King Coal was a Merry Old Soul

The Climate Change bill (The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) scheduled to come up for a vote next week in Congress contains language that ends key provisions of the Clean Air Act.   The proposed legislation would allow old coal plants to continue emitting based on free carbon allowances, and would allow some 100 new coal plants to be built.  The full information on the proposed house legislation can be found at the Committee on Energy and Commerce website.

For up-dated information on coal plants in every state in the USA, see the Sierra Club site, “Stopping the Coal Rush.”

Coal is abundant and cheap fuel.  It is also a huge contributer to carbon emissions, amounting to 40% of U.S. emissions.  Smoke stack filters and scrubbers remove toxic materials from coal soot, but do not reduce the carbon emissions.

Carbon capture and storage is the best hope for making coal power plants environmentally friendly, but this technology is still under development.  It has not been successfully achieved anyplace and key demonstration projects have been derailed by huge cost overruns.

Coal is plentiful and cheap.  The economy of the US is deeply dependent on coal power, as are the emerging economies of India and China.   (For more information, see the Time Magazine article on the politics of coal in the U.S.).

By the looks of the pending “Climate Change” legislation, the U.S. Congress will indeed support climate change, and King Coal, rather than climate stabilization and renewables.