3-29-10 by dugan
Just as the oxymoronic American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity launched a new campaign telling us that coal is sooo much cheaper than natural gas (coal’s chief, and cleaner, competitor), the admirable Center for Investigative Reporting announced its new documentary, "Dirty Business," showing us exactly why "clean coal" isn’t. The ad campaign is just one of several, and it costs $2 million. The movie’s budget, from idea to release, was $1.1 million, says the CIR, which is actually lavish for a nonprofit project (we at Consumer Watchdog should know).
The coal industry ads are aimed at killing a statewide project in Colorado to replace coal-fired electric plants with natural gas–a clear benefit for clean air and emission cuts, despite the environmental problems of deep gas drilling. The unlikely bedfellows in favor of the coal replacement project include Colorado’s electric utilities, environmental groups, the governor and a bipartisan bunch of legislators.
The industry ads are obviously aimed at making the politicians squirm, with the implication that green means expensive, and politicians want to foist it on strapped consumers. Yet at the same time, the coal industry is saying that all it needs is more billions of dollars from taxpayers, despite the several billion dollars of public money that have already gone down the "clean coal" rathole, and billions more in the pipeliine, with no commercial-scale U.S. clean coal plants up and running.
From the Business Week story on the Colorado fight:
With health care legislation now passed, [coal] coalition spokeswoman Lisa
Camooso Miller said Congress could now turn its attention to passing
some kind of limits on carbon. Rather than give an edge to gas, the
coal industry wants the federal government to help the private sector
develop commercial-scale technology to capture the carbon produced by
burning coal.
Too bad the reporter didn’t think to ask the follow-up, as in "what happened to all the ‘help’ you got from taxpayers over the last decade’?
As for the movie, I’ve only seen the trailer for "Dirty Business." But it’s by real investigative reporters, not afraid to acknowledge that it is scientifically possible to stuff the carbon emissions of coal plants deep in the earth. The question is this: at what cost, and with what unforeseen consequences when they try it in the real world? The reporting also gets at the large exterior cost of that "cheap" coal, from the health of anyone near a mine to the destruction of whole mountains, landscapes and communities.
It’s an unequal battle, measured in dollars. But David was smarter than Goliath.