This is totally true, but a lot of these "small step" things have the effect of building awareness and good habits among consumers. This in turn reduces demand for energy, and hopefully builds further awareness, therby increasing the number of informed people.

Of course, there are always going to be contrarian sticks in the mud, who drive Hummers just to be perverse, but those people tend to become annoying, and their maundering becomes less socially acceptable.

Yes, we should stop coal fired power plants from being built; I support that idea and have signed petitions calling for a moratorium on coal fired power plants. However, saying that the steps people make, like using cfls, makes little difference is contradicted by the information cited.

In other words, they say that there are 151 power plants in various stages of development in the U.S.. And they also say that the if everyone changed one 60 watt bulb to a cfl that effort would be wiped out by two medium sized coal power plants, but don't they have it backwards? If everyone did that it seems to me that that would mean that 2 medium size power plants would not have to be built. And ditto for the other efforts being made. With the efforts they cite I find that peoples' efforts could make a difference in the neighborhood of subtracting 19 power plants from the 151 they mention. That's less C02 that causes global warming and it means less toxins released into the air that are actually killing people. Reuducing green house gases and saving lives in my book is making a difference. While we need to do more, stopping the equivalent of 19 coal fired power plants is a good start if you ask me.

And if everyone changing one light bulb to cfls is equal to shutting down 2 power plants then everyone changing 10 light bulbs to cfls gets us to 20 medium sized coal fired power plants shut down just with the cfls. So now we are up to substracting 39 coal fire power plants from the 151 mentioned.

So I say, change those light bulbs along with whatever else you can do in the realm of energy conservation AND write to your representatives to get a moritorium on building new coal fired power plants put in place. We can make a difference thorough individual action and political action.

PS They didn't mention California's Solar Initiative, how many coal fired power plants is that equal to?

I had some trouble reading this at this small size, so for other people like me, here's a PDF link http://www.architecture2030.org/Protect_Your_Efforts.pdf

I have no documented references available to this published theory.
The vast coal beds in china have been burning for untold hundreds/thousands? of years adding more CO2 and far more importantly, Methane which is 21 times as potent as a greenhouse gas, to the atmosphere, than all of the industrial nations motor vehicles combined.

These thousands of coal mine fires are both Nature Caused and Manmade. Having been aquainted with one near my area, they are impossible to extinguish. What is the answer?
http://interglacial.wordpress.com/

Big steps, like changing every single light bulb in the country to CFL would make a difference. However, The 2030 Challenge people point out that the CO2 emissions from just two medium-sized coal-fired power plants each year would negate this entire effort.

You quoted them wrong. They said if every household changed ONE 60w bulb, not all of them.

If we eliminate Coal as well as Mega-Hydro Electric and Nuclear power generating, how are we going to manufacture the wind turbines and solar collectors?
I love hiking and the great outdoors, Killing animals, eating berries, living in a cave. I could survive. Oh well, the rest of the worlds population needs to drop back to the 'pre-industrial revolution', numbers of 1/7 th of the number of people on Earth, than today.

There is an unmentioned and critical piece to this story: the reason it is getting harder and harder to meet energy needs even if we cut back and become more efficient, is due to population growth, as well as a relatively high rate of energy and resource consumption.

Efforts to avoid coal may be partially successful, but in the long run we need to control population growth. In places where population has grown and wealth and technology are low (Africa), we see that the land can no longer produce enough, and the result is war, displacement of people, and starvation. Even in China, the problems are major because of large population (still growing), much marginal land, and a growing rate of consumption.

As a result, cutting back coal burning, and changing bulbs and other measures are excellent and necessary to buy time, BUT - we will always hit a crisis, sooner or later, unless and until we control population (how is a topic for a major discussion) and control our own consumption rates.

I think that Tavita makes some good points with regard to reducing the need for new power plants by using less energy.

But, there are some other factors. A number of the new proposed coal fired power plants are to replace existing power plants that are near the end of their life. The article linked to below states that there are a whole generation of 50 year old coal plants that need replacing. If we replace them with new coal plants that use existing technology (no carbon sequestration), we will be stuck with these plants in the power infrastructure for another 50 years.
I found this article to be very helpful:
http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/05fal/coal1.asp

That said, cutting our energy use significantly would certainly help in reducing the number of new coal plants. We cut our energy use in half and are saving over $4000 in energy costs per year with this program:
http://www.builditsolar.com/References/Half/Half.htm
Pretty easy.

Gary

Yes, we should absolutely stop building coal power plants ... and build nuclear plants instead. The problem is that it's the same group of people whining about coal and oil that don't want anymore nuclear plants built as well. I'm afraid it's going to be hard to have your cake and eat it too.

Yes, saying no to coal would be marvelous. But lets not stop everything we are already doing... KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK FELLOW GREENERIES!!

Yes, saying no to coal would be marvelous. But lets not stop everything we are already doing... KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK FELLOW GREENERIES!!