Simran Sethi interviews Rod Bremby, the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, who prevented Sunflower Electric from building multiple coal plants in Kansas on the basis of denying them permits to release CO2 pollution. As it turns out, Rod Bremby has been under a lot of pressure from coal industry lobbyists to overturn his previous decision.

Amazingly enough, this permit refusal is unprecedented in American energy politics. Other permits have been denied, but none of them solely on the basis of CO2 pollution and its negative effects on human health.

It is heartening to see a public official fighting for environmental rights. The public can reciprocate Rod Bremby’s courage by staying abreast of all the developments in the Kansas energy production industry. Sunflower Electric and other coal advocates are working hard to overturn Rod’s decision, lets all combine our voices and let them know they will not get away with it.

Read the complete interview between Simran Sethi and Rod Bremby of Kansas [www.huffingtonpost.com].

Thanks for joining us in THE GREEN BLOG.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, January 13, 2009 (ENS) – After he takes office on January 20, President Barack Obama has said he will seek congressional approval to invest $150 billion over 10 years on clean energy initiatives. This would fund next-generation biofuels and fuel infrastructure, advance the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, develop renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid.

Today, the nonprofit advocacy group Environment Ohio issued a report that estimates the environmental benefits to the state and the nation of such a $150 billion investment.

America can reduce greenhouse gases by nearly 10 percent annually, reduce oil consumption by more than 25 million barrels annually, and create or sustain more than three million jobs by making investment in clean energy and transportation a cornerstone of our economic recovery plan, finds the report, “Clean Energy, Bright Future.”

The investments will reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the leading cause of global warming, by 670 million tons per year when fully implemented, the report estimates.

“Our nation can no longer afford the toll dirty energy is exacting on our environment and economy,” said Amy Gomberg, program director with Environment Ohio. “Clean energy can protect our environment and rev our economic engine to generate a brighter future for Ohio.”

Among the recommendations in the report are weatherizing U.S. homes and businesses, training workers for new, clean energy industries, and increasing public transportation capacity to meet growing demand.

Dozens of Ohio companies are gearing up to be a part of this green economic recovery plan, the report finds.

Mike Foraker is CEO of Jennings Heating and The Energy Factory, an energy consulting company that identifies energy saving improvements for corporations.

“Jennings Heating has been in the energy business for over 70 years, and we have been and continue to be successful because we help people find the best answer to their energy needs, not the familiar one,” Foraker said from his office in Akron. “I hope that Congress will look to green energy solutions as well.”

The Environment Ohio report and its recommendations were well received by Ohio’s congressional representatives.

Wind turbines on a farm in Bowling Green, Ohio (Photo courtesy Ohio Office of Energy Efficiency)

“It is critical to get our nation’s economy moving again and to ensure that those that have lost their jobs or can’t find work can do so as soon as possible. A great way to stimulate the economy is by creating green jobs and promoting environmentally friendly development,” said Congresswoman Mary Jo Kilroy, a Democrat. “I appreciate the efforts of Environment Ohio to highlight what can be done in Ohio to stimulate the economy in a green way.”

“It is clear that our country should move away from foreign sources of energy and increase our domestic production of alternative renewable power. I am proud that innovators throughout our region are developing the next generation of clean, American made energy and paving the way for energy independence,” said Congresswoman Betty Sutton, a Democrat. “This is the kind of innovation and growth that will create good-paying green jobs, help protect our environment and bring renewed economic vitality to our region.”

Congressman John Boccieri, a Democrat, has a laundry list of things that can be done in Ohio to further the green economy.

“We need to create an Apollo program that would revolutionize our energy sources and free us from our dependence on foreign oil, support fuel cell research at Stark State, invest in emerging technologies like plug-in hybrid cars that are being researched at the EBO Group in Medina County, support agriculture as Ohio’s number one industry with research being conducted at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wayne County, and invest in sustainable biofuels that can be grown out of Ashland County,” said Boccieri.

Ohio Republican Congressman John Boehner, who serves as House Minority Leader, did not comment directly on the Environment Ohio report, but he has said that he is committed to “a comprehensive energy reform policy that will boost supplies of all forms of energy right here at home to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy, protect us against blackmail by foreign dictators, create American jobs and grow our economy.”

“This includes increasing the supply of American-made energy in an environmentally sound way, improving energy efficiency and encouraging investment in groundbreaking research in advance alternative and renewable energy technologies,” Boehner said.

“With 21st century technologies and the strictest environmental standards in the world, America must produce more of our own energy right here at home and protect our environment at the same time,” said Boehner.

Akron Mayor Donald Plusquellic is behind the green investment plan. “This means that funding for projects that conserve energy, promote alternative fuels and clean our environment must be a priority,” he said. “Green jobs can’t be outsourced, and Ohio can be a leader in this area.”

Cities across Ohio have identified over 100 “shovel-ready” green economic development projects.

The mayor said, “I have pledged to work with Governor Strickland to ensure that Ohio and its cities receive a fair share of funds and that they are invested wisely.”

“If we continue with business as usual, dirty energy and highways to nowhere, we will be laying the groundwork for decades of increased carbon pollution,” said Gomberg. “Green infrastructure means more and better jobs now, as well as less global warming pollution, fewer asthma attacks from air pollution, more clean lakes and rivers for drinking water, swimming and fishing, and more secure energy in the long term.”

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

NEW YORK, New York, September 27, 2008 (ENS) – “I believe we’ve reached the stage where it is time for civil disobedience to prevent the construction [applause] of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration,” Al Gore declared at the opening session of the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting this week at the Sheraton New York.

Coal-fired power plants emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide that is joining other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, blanketing the planet and raising the global temperature. Carbon capture and sequestration are methods of keeping the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere, but the technology is in its infancy, and the only U.S. demonstration project, FutureGen, was halted by the federal government earlier this year.

The former U.S. Vice President and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate who woke the world up to the dangers of global warming with his film “An Inconvenient Truth,” stepped up his warnings about the dire state of the global climate because he believes humans are losing the fight against global warming.

Former Vice President Al Gore at the Clinton
Global Initiative (Photo by David Lam)

He drew a parallel between the economic crisis that the Bush administration and Congress are now trying to resolve, and the climate crisis – but he says the climate crisis will be much more disastrous if it is not prevented – and time is growing short.

“Now, in the midst of this frenetic effort to find a bailout, many are saying we should have prevented this. We should have realized that the short-term greed was overcoming a clear vision of what the risk was,” said Gore.

“Well, now is the time to prevent a much worse catastrophe because the world has several trillion dollars in sub-prime carbon assets, based on the assumption that it is perfectly alright to put 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere every 24 hours. Since we met here last year, the world has lost ground to the climate crisis. This is a rout,” he warned. “We are losing badly.”

“The strength of the storms, the depth of the drought, the movement of tropical diseases into areas that never experienced them before, this is the result of a dysfunctional, insane global system pattern that we have to change,” Gore said.

For the first time in all of human history, we as a species, have to make a decision,” he said, asking rhetorically, “What should we do?”

“We should stop burning coal [applause] without sequestering the CO2,” said Gore, blaming the coal and oil companies for the climate crisis.

“The coal and oil companies have spent, in the United States alone, a half a billion dollars in the first eight months of this year promoting a lie that there is such a thing as clean coal,” he said.

Coal-fired Tanners Creek power plant
in Indiana (Photo by AEP)

“Clean coal is like healthy cigarettes [laughter]. It does not exist. It could theoretically exist. The only demonstration plant was cancelled. How many such plants are there? Zero. How many blueprints? Zero.”

“What we should do is make a one-off investment to switch our energy infrastructure from one that depends on fuel that is dirty, dangerous, destroying the habitability of this planet and rising in price to a new global energy infrastructure that is based on fuel that is free forever: the sun [applause] and the wind and geothermal.”

“There is a myth that the technology is not available. It is available,” Gore said.

Gore said within 10 years the United States should have a good start on what he calls the Electronet, a unified, national “smart” power transmission grid “with long-distance, low-loss transmission capacity to take the energy from the places where the sun falls and the wind blows to the places where the people live.”

“And we need it globally,” he said, “in Europe, in Africa, Northern Africa particularly.”

Gore’s solution for the climate and energy crisis may help resolve the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan as well.

“Let’s start with Darfur,” he proposed. “Darfur has more sunlight falling on it reliably than almost any other place. There’s a belt across that part of Africa into the Middle East. We ought to build solar, electric plants there and connect them with a super grid that goes across the straits of Gibraltar and up through the Balkans and across the Mediterranean and replaces coal and oil.”

But instead of working to bring about solutions like that, Gore denounced the “utter insanity” of the course that the U.S. Congress is taking.

Former President Bill Clinton addresses the 2008
Clinton Global Initiative (Photo by David Lam)

“Today,” he said, “the U.S. Congress is dealing with energy as well. They are, without debate and without a single hearing, preparing to lift the moratorium on the development of oil shale, which would vastly multiply the amount of CO2 from every gallon of gasoline. This is utter insanity and it demonstrates that the wealth and power and influence of the entrenched carbon lobby to twist policy and to put out illusory impressions about this that is overwhelming free debate.”

An extension of the ban on oil shale production on federal lands in the West failed to pass the Senate on Friday. Unless Congress extends the moratorium, it expires at the end of September with the end of the current fiscal year.

The oil shale of the Green River geological formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming contains 800 billion to 1.8 trillion barrels of the equivalent of oil – roughly three times the size of Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves.

But the adverse land and ecological impacts of oil shale production are well known from production in Alberta, Canada.

Production of oil from shale will result in airborne pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions so worrisome that the U.S. Council of Mayors earlier this year passed a resolution against the purchase of petroleum products produced from shale.

Because the entire Green River formation lies in the Colorado River drainage basin, water quality is an important issue, and 2005 study by the RAND corporation warns that “not enough is known about how to prevent water contamination from surface and in-situ operations.”

The power demand associated with shale, whether from coal or natural gas-fired power plants, also represents an enormous demand for water. One estimate from a Los Alamos National Lab scientists warns that each barrel of oil from shale could require one to three barrels of water to produce.

As for clean coal, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry association, points out that coal provides half of America’s electricity generation.

“Over the last 30 years,” the coalition says, “America’s coal-based electricity providers have invested over $50 billion in technologies to reduce emissions – while at the same time providing affordable, reliable electricity to meet growing energy needs.”

“As a result of that commitment, today’s coal-based generating fleet is 70 percent cleaner on the basis of regulated emissions per unit of energy produced,” the coalition says, calling it “a great start.”

But the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is not a regulated emission, and the Bush administration has resisted all attempts by the states, business and environmental groups to regulate CO2.

In Gore’s view, he explained to the high-powered audience at the Clinton Global Initiative, renewable and carbon-free sources of energy, conservation and efficiency are the only way the world can extricate itself from the climate crisis.

“The single most important thing we could do is to put a price on the CO2 in our economy today,” said Gore. “As you know, I’ve long argued to reduce the payroll tax on working people and make it up with a tax on CO2. Tax what we burn, not what we earn.”

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

TOPEKA, Kansas, March 21, 2008 (ENS) – Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius today vetoed legislation that would have overturned a decision of her administration to deny an permit application to build two new coal-fired power plants because of the greenhouse gases they would have produced. The measure passed without a veto-proof majority of state legislators.

Last October Secretary of Kansas Department of Health and Environment Rob Bremby denied a permit to regional wholesale power supplier Sunflower Electric Power Corporation to build two new power plants at its Holcomb Station in western Kansas.

Kansas Governor Kathleen
Sebelius (Photo
courtesy Office of
the Governor)

The bill Sebelius vetoed today would have permitted the power plants and stripped the state agency of the power to deny such permits in the future if they held utilities to standards stricter than those in the federal Clean Air Act.

“We know that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change,” Sebelius said. “As an agricultural state, Kansas is particularly vulnerable. Therefore, reducing pollutants benefits our state not only in the short term – but also for generations of Kansans to come.”

“Of all the duties and responsibilities entrusted to me as governor, none is greater than my obligation to protect the health and well-being of the people of Kansas,” Sebelius said. “And that is why I supported the decision of the Secretary of Kansas Department of Health and Environment regarding Kansas’ energy future. For that reason, I must veto House Substitute for SB 327.”

“Instead of building two new coal plants, which would produce 11 million new tons of carbon dioxide each year, I support pursuing other, more promising energy and economic development alternatives,” the governor said.

“With the increasing pressure for the federal government to develop national standards for carbon emissions, there is a high probability coal will become a lot more expensive in the next several years,” she said. “Countries throughout Europe and South America already have standards in place and states are following suit.”

“Federal legislation has been introduced that would have the net impact of taxing carbon,” Sebelius said. “If any of the proposals are adopted, utility companies and their customers will pay far more for energy which produces carbon. It will also require spending billions on equipment to clean the atmosphere as thoroughly as possible. Building additional coal plants now is likely to create a significant economic liability for Kansas in the future.”

The utility contends that by not allowing the coal-fired plants to be built, the governor will make Kansans pay more for electricity.

“I am certainly disappointed by the governor’s veto,” said Earl Watkins, Sunflower’s president and chief executive. “This compromise bill was the result of many months of hard work by Democrats and Republicans in both the House and the Senate. The legislation protects our environment, supports renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, and restores confidence in government.”

If not resolved, this veto will unnecessarily raise electric rates for Kansas families and punish our Kansas workers and industries,” Watkins said. “We are experiencing significant growth on the Sunflower system, and we must add new coal generation to support our existing natural gas and wind generation assets.”

Sunflower’s existing coal-fired power
plant at Holcomb, Kansas
(Photo courtesy Ohio
Citizen Action)

Plans for the new Holcomb power plants included burning low-sulfur coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, state-of-the-art air emissions control technology, powdered activated carbon injection for mercury control, and no wastewater discharge.

But Sebelius said the bill she vetoed fails to promote wind power and “sends the wrong signal to potential investors for transmission lines and additional wind power.”

“The renewable standard and timetable in this bill slows down the progress we have already made, and dilutes the voluntary agreement now in place with utility companies in Kansas,” said the governor.

Earnie Lehman, president and chief executive of the utility Midwest Energy, said the veto will have a negative effect throughout the state.

“The governor’s veto fails to meet our customers’ need for reliable, efficient, and cost-effective around-the-clock energy,” said Lehman. “Midwest Energy’s leadership in securing wind energy and expanding energy efficiency and conservation programs is simply not enough to meet our consumers’ energy needs.”

Sunflower’s only coal-fired power plant is at Holcomb Station. Watkins said, “This station serves about 50 percent of our peak load and already has the lowest emissions rate of carbon dioxide and all regulated emissions of any coal-fired plant in Kansas.”

As a compromise, Governor Sebelius offered approval of a permit for one smaller coal-fired power plant, combined with mitigation strategies and additional wind power as long as the power it generates serves Kansas customers first.

“We believe that any proposal to generate significant amounts of new carbon needs to have an accompanying offset plan, recognizing that we are at least a decade away from clean coal technology,” Sebelius said.

The smaller project provides the base load power needed in western Kansas so that economic growth can continue, while allowing time for Kansas to engage in a process underway or completed in 36 other states that would allow our state to develop real and meaningful carbon regulations.

Once those state regulations have been adopted and implemented, applications for additional power plants could be fully considered, the governor said.

Today she issued an Executive Order creating the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group to engage in “a comprehensive discussion on energy policy, including but not limited to electric generation.”

Sebelius named Jack Pelton, chairman, president and chief executive of Cessna Aircraft Company, to lead this group, which will develop recommendations to the governor involving opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a recommended timetable for implementation.

The process will be facilitated by the Center for Climate Strategie, which has developed climate action plans in: Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Vermont. State plans are underway in South Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, Michigan, Maryland, and Alaska.

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

WASHINGTON, DC, March 5, 2008 (ENS) – The federal government is suspending its loan program for new coal plants in rural communities. The Rural Utility Service announced today that due in part to uncertainty over litigation, it will not fund new coal plants in 2008 and 2009.

A branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Rural Utility Service provides low-cost financing to rural electric cooperatives. It has issued more than $1.3 billion in loans for new plant construction since 2001.

The Rural Utility Service announcement reverses a position the agency took last May when it said it would process a loan application to fund 85 percent of a proposed coal-fire power plant near Great Falls, Montana, at an estimated cost of $600 million.

In July 2007, Earthjustice filed a lawsuit challenging Rural Utility Service financing of the Montana power plant, citing the agency’s failure to consider the global warming implications of financing new coal plants.

American coal-fired power plants currently pump two billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually, which exceed the greenhouse gas emissions from any other source.

“This is a big decision. It says new coal plants can’t go to the federal government for money at least for the next couple years, and these are make or break times to get these plants built,” said Earthjustice attorney Abigail Dillen, based in Montana.

The Rural Utility Service funding suspension will also affect at least five other proposed coal plants in Kentucky, Illinois, Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri.

The Rural Utility Service announcement is the latest piece of bad news for would-be coal plant operators. In January, Wall Street downgraded coal stocks, citing cost increases of burning coal to generate electricity that will be coming when Congress regulates greenhouse gas emissions to curb climate change.

A coal-fired power plant spews
greenhouse gases over a Wyoming
rural area. (Photo by Greg Goebel)

On February 14, two federal legislators sent a letter to Rural Utility Service Administrator James Andrew questioning the agency’s financing of new coal plants.

“We are concerned that financing these huge new sources of greenhouse gas emissions puts taxpayer dollars at risk, as well as undermines the United States government’s efforts to address global climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” wrote Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House Government Oversight Committee, and Congressman Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat.

“In addition to these broader issues,” Waxman and Cooper expressed particular concerns regarding the role of the Rural Utility Service in the development of the Sunflower Electric Power Corporation’s proposed new coal-fired power plant units at Holcomb Station, Kansas.

“The Department of Justice recognizes that Sunflower is a financially troubled borrower, which owes the federal government roughly $200 million in loans for an existing plant at Holcomb Station,” wrote Waxman and Cooper.

“Sunflower and its partners are now proposing to take on billions of dollars in additional private sector debt to construct a huge new $3.6 billion coal-fired power plant at Holcomb, comprised of two new units. The expanded plant is projected to release 11 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, which would amount to over 500 million tons of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.”

Sunflower cannot take on additional debt without permission from the Rural Utility Service, which granted that permission in July 2007.

But Waxman and Cooper say they are “concerned” that the Rural Utility Service “may not have accounted for the risk of substantial additional costs associated with the new plant’s massive greenhouse gas emissions.”

If the Rural Utility Service failed to take this into account, “it has put both taxpayer funds and Kansas ratepayers in jeopardy. If this plant is built, Kansas ratepayers may be stuck with billions of dollars in stranded assets and sky-rocketing costs for power,” wrote Waxman and Cooper.

In October 2007, Kansas Health and Environment Secretary Rod Bremby denied Sunflower the air quality permit needed to build the two units at Holcomb on the grounds that the greenhouse gas emissions from the facility would be detrimental to the environment of Kansas.

Kansas legislators now are moving a bill through the Statehouse that would overturn Bremby’s decision. The bill won approval in the Kansas House today and is now headed for the state Senate. Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is expected to veto the measure.

“We will know that the Rural Utilities Service has agricultural interests at heart when it starts promoting clean renewable energy that directly benefits rural agriculture instead of promoting coal,” said Anne Hedges of the Montana Environmental Information Center. “Now it has a chance to help the country and rural communities by funding renewable energy sources that truly benefit local people.”

View This Story On Eco–mmunity Map.

Video games seem to have infected everything in society with their contagious delivery of interactive instant-gratification. In many ways, the interactive nature of video games makes them powerful tools for training people to react to stimuli. All other forms of media before video games were purely consumptive forms of communication. People who read books, watch televisions or look at a paintings can follow their imagination and react to the information they are observing, but they are not allowed to write the final chapter of the book, record their own director’s cut or paint more detail into the foreground of a painting.

Once the power of interactive graphic entertainment to train people is acknowledged, one must wonder if video games are training people to do good, moral or societally sustainable acts in the world? In order to shine a spotlight on one morally conscious game theme, let us think about one video game that is related to environmental issues. Games like this are created firstly to entertain, and therefore, the learning process is often a great way to have some laughs.

One of these games comes from the biggest video game publishing company in the world, EA (Electronic Arts). SimCity Societies allows players to build a digital city part by part. Choices between coal plants, nuclear plants, wind plants and solar plants in a player’s city will create major differences in the digital city. Coal plants will require the player to invest in more healthcare as people become sick. The pollution from the plant will also make any residential area or commercial area placed near the plant be less valuable, thereby lowering the tax revenues collected for the city’s virtual budget management.

People who play strategy games like SimCity Societies learn many true facts about environmentalism and economics through balancing and testing various functions of the game software. Check out the official website [simcitysocieties.ea.com] for the game and see if you can’t have some fun while you learn more about cities and nature.

Please write in comments if you have any knowledge of a video game that is related to environmentalism, we would be very curious to hear from you.

Recent studies show that most Americans believe solar power [www.sundancechannel.com] has the greatest likelihood of allowing America to be independent of foreign energy sources. This is interesting since solar power [www.sundancechannel.com] currently provides less than one percent of all the alternative power in the country. There must be something enticing about the idea of getting power from the sun, or Americans have gotten too many sun tans, because solar power [www.sundancechannel.com] suffers from the major problem of being too expensive to replace fossil fuels. If the cost of producing solar panels were not so high, then this energy source would be the most efficient way of producing electricity.

This miracle of innovation in solar energy may have happened. Everything has changed with the completion of a new solar factory in San Jose, CA. A company called Nanosolar, whose seed money was provided from the google.com founders, has created a new technology that has made solar power [www.sundancechannel.com] many times less expensive than it was before. Incidentally, the Google founders also started the non-profit company, google.org. This non-profit has supported many projects and is currently pushing a RechargeIt.org campaign [google.org]. This campaign tries to accelerate the adoption of plug in hybrid cars.

The invention that gave life to Nanosolar is exactly what the title implies, microscopic solar cells that can be painted on metallic sheets as thin as paper. The resulting product, or PowerSheets, as Nanosolar calls them, are like large flexible sheets of durable metal. They are incredibly cheap to produce; in fact, they cost 30 cents per watt to produce. Coal plants were the most efficient and cheap way of creating electricity before this, which cost $1 per watt to produce. This price reduction in solar power [www.sundancechannel.com] is revolutionary. The new factory has the capacity to create 430 megawatts worth of PowerSheets in the first year. The technology is based on printing technology, which makes this the best way of creating electricity ever invented. Find out more info on this exciting new company by visiting their website [www.nanosolar.com].

Sometimes it is necessary to focus on promising and hope-inspiring news stories, especially since the majority of environmental news stories are about doom and gloom. Recently, there has been a major victory for all Americans as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) managed to get the giant energy company American Electric Power to settle an eight year-long court case. The settlement is planned to cost the utility company $4.6 billion once all the chips are on the table. This settlement deals with 16 coal plants that were releasing unsafe levels of pollution. The fine will go towards cleaning up some of the pollution from these coal processing facilities as well as in updating the machinery with new regulatory devices.

At this time in the world’s history, these types of cases are really important in terms of setting landmark precedents. Without a healthy fear of being punished for criminally polluting the world, there is nothing keeping companies from poisoning the air, water and earth. There is far too much commerce and need for energy in the world for investigators to be keeping tabs on all operations, and it has become clear that “the honor code” is not sufficient to insure a healthy environment. Therefore, we must make examples of companies like American Electric Power if we are to insure compliance with environmental laws and regulations.

Wherever you are living in the world, chances are you might be near a power plant or a large industrial complex. If you notice any environmental problems that may be related to these types of operations, then we encourage you to comment on this blog post and/or make a “Green Action Needed” map marker on the Eco-mmunity Map. Then make sure to send your friends an E-card with a link to your map marker. You can get this link by clicking the “grab link” button on the display of any map marker.

Liquid coal has been debated hotly for years. American energy companies tend to love coal because the United States has the most coal reserves of any region in the world. Some scientists and many environmentalists dislike coal because it has historically been the dirtiest means of generating energy. Liquid coal processing companies explain that this new process is entirely different from traditional coal plants that burn coal to evaporate water. Essentially the liquid coal process subjects large quantities of coal to heat and a catalytic acid solution which breaks down the ingredients of the coal, thereby creating a carbonaceous fluid which can be used in combustion engines, quite similarly to oil.

We are not scientists at the Sundance Channel but liquid coal does seem like an awful lot of effort to spend on creating oil. However, it does seem reasonable to suggest that the coal liquefaction process could conceivably contain pollution emissions if it were produced in a self-contained space. This does beg the question of whether America as a society wants to use carbon-based oil in its vehicles, whether it comes from good ‘ol American coal or Middle-east crude. Hydrogen fuel is nice because when it is actively used in a vehicle or a fuel cell, there are no emissions. Perhaps coal could be used to produce hydrogen fuel?

There is an incredibly detailed but useful explanation of coal liquefaction found here. [www.patentdigi.com]

Now that you know some of the nuts and bolts of liquid coal manufacturing, you can understand why it is such a hotly contested issue among scientists, environmentalists, energy company lobbyists and political parties in America. The energy companies are going ahead with new coal liquefaction plants whether or not the government subsidizes the energy. So, short of a complete ban, America will have a lot of liquid coal in the future.