"Clean Coal" Industry Needs More Financial Stimulus - The Battle Of Brown VS Green States Begins
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 01.27.09
Pigs At The Trough. Image credit:Flickr, Gangie, excerpted.
According to the Charleston Gazette: "Lawmakers in the House set aside $2.4 billion in their current version of the legislation for research into capturing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants." But this is not enough. More must be slopped into the public trough.
In the Senate, Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., was lobbying fellow lawmakers and President Obama behind the scenes to try to get more money for what supporters call "clean coal" programs.Via:Charleston Gazette, Coal trying for slice of stimulus package"He wants it as big as possible," said Jamie Smith, Rockefeller's communications director. "He's going to just keep working for more and more and more money for this."
How many wind farms and solar thermal concentrators do you suppose could be constructed with those billions?
West Virginia has wind resources consistent with utility-scale production. The good-to-excellent wind resource areas are concentrated on ridge crests in the eastern part of the state just south of a Martinsburg-Clarksburg line. There are scattered areas along these ridge crests that are estimated to have outstanding-to-superb resource.Via:WindPoweringAmerica.gov, USDOE
Today's New York Times has excellent coverage of the political battle lines being drawn over the sloppy mixture of job loss, job gains, "green" vs "brown" state economies, and so on.
This brown state-green state clash is likely to encumber any effort to set a mandatory ceiling on the carbon dioxide emissions blamed as the biggest contributor to global warming, something Mr. Obama has declared to be one of his highest priorities.The Times article, Geography Is Dividing Democrats Over Energy, is a must-read for those watching climate progress in the US Congress.
Background on alternatives to "clean coal" from our archives.
How Many Wind Turbines For US$122 Billion?
2000 Megawatt Wyoming Wind Farm to Produce Power for Southern ...
Norwegian Wind Power Could Become Europe's Battery
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