"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."
13 February 2007Baby, it's cold outsideThere is considerable amusement value in the current dust-up between TXU Corporation, which has announced plans to build a number of coal-fired power plants in northern Texas, and various opponents, including the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and something called the Clean Sky Coalition, among whose mostly-Texan members you'll find Oklahoman Aubrey McClendon, chair of Chesapeake Energy. The DEQ concern is specific:
"We're concerned that their plan to build a significant amount of coal power plants would hurt the counties in southern Oklahoma that are close to nonattainment of federal ozone standards," said Matthew Paque, an environmental attorney supervisor.... "Much of the air quality problems in that area already come from Texas, and we're concerned that these facilities will put those counties closer to not meeting standards. We want to make sure permits are adequate to public health in Oklahoma."
TXU says the air will be cleaner when all is said and done:
"We're talking about actually cleaning the air because we will be offsetting all the new emissions by shutting down older, inefficient plants and retrofitting our existing fleet," TXU spokesman Thomas Kleckner said. "Moving forward in such a fashion will offset new emissions and also reduce our total emissions by 20 percent from 2005 levels."
And McClendon plays the "global warming" card:
"How can you, as a serious person today, not be concerned about global warming," McClendon asked. "And if you are, you can't continue to burn coal. Our industry needs to do a better job of telling that story."
Chesapeake vends natural gas, which produces lower carbon dioxide levels than coal, although natural gas, which is primarily methane, would be a pretty potent component of the greenhouse mix all by itself, were it running around loose. But TXU says they're using too much gas already:
"We need the power now, and we can't afford to wait," Kleckner said. "Coal provides the best short-term alternative. Also, we're currently over-reliant on gas generation, which makes up 72 percent of our generation."
This might be an easier sell for TXU were they to throw another wind farm or two — they already have about 580 MW at their disposal — into the mix. If they'd just build the wind farms around D.C., like I keep saying, we'd be all set. Posted by: Mister Snitch! at 1:26 PM on 13 February 2007I think a composting facility in DC would be a better use of resources. Lord knows there's plenty of that there too. Posted by: Dan B at 2:04 PM on 13 February 2007 |