Legalectric

I was hoping to start reading Barbara Freese’s Coal: A Human History… it arrived today… but there goes the email/blog again, what does it take to get folks to read their own propaganda, I mean really, this is coal gasification, not rocket science… sigh…

Hot off the press from Mike Bull, lifted from the Comment sections below:

Comment #1: Carol, the coal gasification work group is a great resource for information (pro- and con-) regarding coal gasification as a technology. As usual, you find conspiracies and skullduggery around every corner. That’s just silly. Of course everyone brings their own agenda to a diverse group like this, but the workgroup as a whole isn’t “pro-IGCC” or “pro-coal.”

For my part, as I’ve said on this board and elsewhere, if we’re going to continue to use coal as a resource, and I think we are, then IGCC seems to be the technology that will allow us to do that with the least environmental impacts. I say “seems to be” — I’m there to learn more about the technology and its potential.

Conspiracies and skulduggery? Ask Neil St. Anthony, who wrote Cleaning up coal: Promising new, cleaner technologies about who’s in bed with who! Wasn’t my idea! And wonder at the “representation” where the usual folks working on coal issues are NOT included. DIVERSE? I don’t think so! Look at who is paying, and wonder what they’re paying for. The problem is that there are not many participants to bring their agendas, there’s only one voice from Minnesota, and that’s the Waltons (Waltons & WOW are the same). Nope, that ain’t diverse.

“IGCC seems to be the technology … with the least environmental impacts.” Makes no sense to me, Mike, when the “sequestration potential” presentations show no sequestration potential for Minnesota and Wisconsin. So connecting the dots, is the agenda to build coal gasification plants way out west where sequestration is possible, build big transmission lines to bring it here or elsewhere, and build big pipelines to take CO2 somewhere to stick in the ground? Plus one tiny fact — from their materials — there is 218 Billion tons of space identified for sequestration, and we produce 619 Billion tons annually, it can’t be done. I’m not talking about sequestering ALLLLLL the CO2, it’s FOUR MONTHS WORTH AT BEST, that’s nothing in the cosmic realm of things. Pinning hopes on coal gasification — Is this rational? Is this efficient? As I said off blog, this is asinine.

Comment #2: And, for what it’s worth, I applaud the willingness of the Ikes, ME3 and WOW to participate in forums like this one — but their opposition to the Mesaba Energy Project, in communications within and external to the workgroup, is clear (in fact, they may be your clients’ best ally on that issue). I don’t mean to speak for Bill or Michael, but it’s my sense that their willingness to consider IGCC stems from the potential for cost-effective capture and geologic sequestration of carbon emissions from IGCC facilities — a net zero carbon emissions potential.

The Waltons/WOW are the only Minnesota participants thus far, and the Waltons and ME3 are funders, they are making this happen and have a stake in determining the band, the music and the dancecards. What is the agenda? Why are they doing this? Why aren’t they open about it? Where are the standby groups with interest in coal, such as the Sierra Club, Clean Water Action Alliance, the Southeast Como Pollution Prevention Project, who am I forgetting?

You say “potential for cost-effective capture and geologic sequestration of carbon emissions” but I don’t see that. Here’s what I see:

BUILD COAL GASIFICATION PLANTS IN THE DAKOTAS, BUILD LOTS OF TRANSMISSION FROM THERE TO WHERE EVER, BUILD LOTS OF PIPELINES FROM THE PLANT TO A SEQUESTERING SITE IN EAST OUTER OVERSHOE. LET PEOPLE AND ANIMALS “IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE” LIVE WITH THE WATER CONTAMINATION AND PILES OF SLAG. It does have a certain “jobs, jobs, jobs” ring to it… aaaaaaaaaaargh!

Great, that’s efficiency. Can y’all understand why I’m a fan of distributed and dispersed generation? Why I’ve had it up to here with disbursed generation — energy policy based on disbursement of special interests?

Why, it’s almost “lump of coal” season!