Word: coaling
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...buying that argument. The goal of the coalition she helped form with major muscle from Houston--Texas Citizens for Climate Protection--is not to stop the plants, she says, but to make TXU adopt cleaner technologies like gasification. Tampa, she points out with irritation, buys its clean-coal-compatible coke in Houston, after all. So far, she has won over 17 cities and hopes to raise nearly $500,000 to hire the best air-modeling experts and lawyers for the battle. She has no other choice than to fight. The city is already a "non-attainment zone" for smog...
...granddaddy of coal plants, Big Brown, built in the early 1970s in the rolling hills of east Texas, the sky is a pristine blue above two big smokestacks. That's illusory, since the plant pumps out a steady stream of can't-see-'em pollutants like nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and mercury. Inside, giant HEPA filters (which look just like a nest of vacuum bags) grab most of the solids from the coal fire. You wouldn't want to eat off the floor, but the place is clean. Even the open-pit-mining operation nearby--which has scoured...
Miller, of course, went on a Big Brown tour too and promptly popped open a canister of coal, she says, to shrieks of "No, it's filthy!" from the TXU staff. "They don't see the irony," she says. "'Why would you want to touch the coal?' they asked. My response? 'Why would I want to breathe it?'" TXU estimates the plant emits 82,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, 6,700 tons of nitrogen oxide and 1,180 lbs. of mercury a year--not to mention 10 million tons of unregulated carbon dioxide. Now it wants to add a third...
...being an effective communicator here," he says in frustration during an interview at the company's Dallas headquarters. Although it's the state's biggest buyer of renewable capacity, TXU is now heavily reliant on natural gas, which is subject to wide price swings. A cheaper coal supply would bring down the price of electricity, McCall says, eventually saving customers $1.7 billion a year...
Electric power companies want clear direction from Washington on carbon emissions. Duke Energy, the third largest emitter of CO2 among the nation's electric plants, faces a Supreme Court hearing this fall over its failure to install up-to-date pollution controls during refurbishment of coal-fired plants. But at the same time, chief executive Jim Rogers has been vocal in calling for "mandatory, market-based and economy-wide legislation at the federal level to address the carbon issue" sooner rather than later. "What we need now is to understand what the rules are going to be. Only then will...