Word: coal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Economic considerations make scrubbers an unattractive option. A typical scrubber costs about a third of the price of a new coal-burning power plant, and uses 5 to 8 percent of the plant's electrical output. In addition, most scrubbers themselves produce an undesirable pollutant: calcium sulfite...
...internecine conflict with NCA pits high-sulfur coal producers in the East versus low-sulfur coal producers in the West. A partial solution to the acid rain problem is to increase use of low-sulfur coal, which creates less sulfur dioxide emission. But high-sulfur coal producers argue that such a move will cost them more than 40,000 mining jobs, and nearly four times that number in related fields...
Officially, then, the high-sulfur group is against any new legislation which would mandate reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions. In private, however, the lobby hints that, if push comes to shove, it would opt for legislation requiring the installation of costly scrubbers in coal-burning power plants--thereby obviating the need for low-sulfur coal...
Very much aware of their compatriots' intentions, the low-sulfur producers have formed another lobbying group: Alliance for Clean Energy, which advocates the use of low-sulfur coal...
...methods of sulfur emissions reduction most often mentioned--using low-sulfur coal or installing scrubbers--both carry unseen but heavy baggage, political and economic. Utility spokesmen in states that produce high-sulfur coal say they cannot afford to ignore regulatory commissions sensitive to miners and their unions. And under the 1970 Clean Air Act, state governors can stop utilities from using out-of-state coal...