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Clean coal is an oxymoron |
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Written by GREG GORDON, Writers on the Range
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Wednesday, 01 October 2008 |
After Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer made a fiery speech at the Democratic
Convention, some people suggested that he’d make a fine secretary of Energy no
matter who wins the election. Schweitzer may give a good speech, but his
enthusiasm for coal should give one pause.
The West has long suffered
the consequences of being the nation’s energy colony, and Schweitzer’s policies
after four years in office indicate he’d promote more of the same. Despite his
rhetoric about “clean coal” -- an oxymoron if there ever was one -- he supports
building a 19th century-style coal-burning plant near Great Falls, Mont. Called
the Highwood project, it would be the largest coal-fired plant built in Montana
in 20 years, the kind of mercury-emitting, carbon-spewing coal plant that many
states have already banned. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, for example, recently
vetoed two new coal-fired power plants, choosing to invest in wind energy
instead.
With no plans for carbon sequestration, Highwood would produce
vast amounts of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change.
Global-warming experts such as NASA scientist James Hansen have called for a ban
on all new coal-fired power plants as the first step in reducing the trend.
Schweitzer may have appointed a Climate Change Advisory Committee, but that is
all but meaningless if he continues to promote coal as an energy
source.
Schweitzer insists that Highwood will “be one of the cleanest
coal plants in the country,” yet he also directed his Board of Environmental
Review to adopt weak mercury emissions controls for coal-fired plants. And
Schweitzer says that Montana needs to produce more energy even though the state
already exports 50 percent of its electricity. The Democratic governor sounds
like a populist, but he continues to be beholden to King Coal.
Over the
past few years, Schweitzer has toured the nation as the leading spokesperson for
so-called clean coal, appearing on HBO, ABC and 60 Minutes. His pet project is
a proposed $1.5 billion synfuels (coal to liquid fuel) project in southeast
Montana. Squeezing diesel out of coal is not easy: The project would require
strip-mining to produce the fuel for the coal-fired power plants that would
generate electricity for the coal-to-liquids refinery that, in turn, would
provide the diesel for the massive stripmining project. It’s an endless cycle
that one environmental group terms “Gov. Schweitzer’s Perpetual Pollution
Machine.”
For every ton of coal, this process yields a mere two barrels
of fuel plus two tons of carbon dioxide. Even if all the carbon produced by the
process was captured and sequestered underground -- a highly dubious scenario –
the new synfuel would still release 4-8 percent more carbon dioxide than
gasoline.
The highly respected journal Scientific American points out
that the energy required to produce gasoline or diesel from coal results in
“more than twice the global warming emissions as regular gasoline and almost
double those of ordinary diesel. As pundits have pointed out, driving a Prius on
liquid coal makes it as dirty as a Hummer on regular
gasoline.”
In stark contrast to government and scientific
reports that indicate the heavy environmental and economic costs of these
projects, Schweitzer uses the official state Web site to promote synfuels as a
cost-effective and environmentally friendly “ultra-clean coal technology.”
Nowhere does the governor mention that this coal will be stripmined in eastern
Montana, turning productive ranches and a stunning landscape into an industrial
wasteland. While Gov. Palin’s manta is “drill, drill, drill,” Schweitzer’s
seems to be, “dig, dig, dig.” Neither ends our dependence on fossil
fuels.
When politicians propose mega-industrial projects of questionable
public benefit, we need to stop and ask who will profit from them. Any
historical analysis of the West indicates that mineral development, whether of
oil, coal, silver or copper, provides limited returns to the place from which
it’s extracted.
The profits quickly flow out of state while the
pollution remains, sometimes for centuries. Agriculture, on the other hand,
provides long-term economic stability. Sacrificing food production for
short-term energy profits benefits international energy companies. It doesn’t
help most of us who live in the West.
With the resurgence of the
Democratic Party in the West, many Democrats are reluctant to openly criticize
their leaders. Although they squirm with every mention of clean coal, Montana
Democrats remain positively giddy over the prospect of another sweeping
Schweitzer victory this November against a weak Republican candidate.
Unity, however, should not mean blind acceptance of misguided policies
that will lead to economic and environmental disaster. Did anyone else notice
that as soon as Barack Obama said “clean coal” in his acceptance speech in
Denver, half the audience sat down?
Greg Gordon is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He writes in
Missoula, Montana, and is a Ph.D. student in environmental history.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 01 October 2008 )
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