Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Coal's Paradox

As evidenced by this Washington Post op-ed, the coal industry wants you to believe two things simultaneously:
Coal is a cheap, reliable, plentiful fuel source.

Coal needs massive taxpayer subsidies to survive.
Everybody got that? Our only choice is to stay addicted to coal while we dump billions of dollars into a hope that someday, coal can be used to produce energy without polluting our air and warming our planet. The op-ed is so terrified of clean power sources like solar and wind, getting cheaper by the day, that it dare not even speak their names.

Time for some Reality.

1 comment:

  1. That op-ed was misleading on several fronts. Jackson Reasor, one of the authors, argued in favor of wind energy and energy efficiency but his actions reflect a completely different set of priorities. In reality, he's president of an electric cooperative that proposed building a massive $6 billion conventional coal plant near Williamsburg, Va. just last month.

    This coal plant would be up to 3 times bigger than the one Dominion's trying to build in Wise County and would pour millions of tons of climate-warming carbon dioxide into the air each year.

    No wonder he forgot to mention it.

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