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How do you spell political guts?
Try K-E-R-R-Y. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry has introduced legislation to
place a moratorium on new coal-fired electric power plants that should become
the keystone in the movement for energy independence and fighting global
warming.
Coal-burning utilities are one of the
chief offenders in emitting the greenhouse gases that raise global temperatures,
cause sea levels to rise and increase severe cyclone and hurricane activity. Coal
utilities account for about 20 percent of all global warming emissions. The technology
to capture and sequester these carbon dioxide and other pollutants is still
five to 10 years off, at best, and currently there are no legal mandates requiring
that new coal plants be made compatible with carbon sequestration technologies
when they become ready for deployment. Compatibility with future carbon capture,
however, is available today, by using technology called integrated gasification
combined cycle, or IGCC. IGCC is the
cleanest burning coal tech available today, but it’s more expensive than
conventional dirty coal.
With public opinion gathering
toward legislation that would mitigate the effects of global warming pollution,
the coal industry has seen the handwriting on the wall. According to the
Department of Energy’s National Technology Laboratory, more than 150 new
coal-fired plants are being proposed in the U.S. If this new generation of
dirty coal plants is built—and if China
and India
follow suit—it will put us in a black hole for stopping climate change that
will be awfully hard to get out of.
Only the federal government can
stop this coal rush now.
Introducing his moratorium bill
last week at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and
Transportation, which he chairs, Kerry called it “the number one solution to
global warming. Unless we can build clean power plants, we should not be
building them.”
God knows Kerry can be stiff,
stultifying and inarticulate. But to lead the charge for a moratorium on new
coal plants shows he’s got more courage in his heart than anyone in Washington.
Let’s see now if he can reach outside the Beltway and
the meanstream media to raise a mass political movement to get this moratorium
done.
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