As the TVA spill has taught us, matter is not created or destroyed, only CHANGED. The filters and baghouses and other pollution-capturing equipment simply diverts what would have gone into the atmosphere into another waste stream — like the huge coal ash pit.

Every pound of coal burned creates 3 pounds of CO2.

There are about 3 plants that CREATE ELECTRICITY in the world that are currently capturing and storing CO2. Each plant captures about 1 million tons/year. 1 million tons/year x 3 plants = 3 million tons/year — but the problem is that the U.S. alone emits about 2-3 BILLION tons of CO2 per year.

One million tons of CO2 is about one-tenth to one-third the average emissions from a SINGLE coal plant.

Big deal. WOW!

This is NOT a solution, it’s a time-waster.

And the cost? $17/ton just to COMPRESS the CO2. And what about the infrastructure required to capture the CO2? It takes 20% of the plant’s output just to run the capture equipment.

It goes on and on.

But you know all that.

Joe Romm has shown me what one well-informed, fomer insider who now answers to NO ONE, and can write and has an a sense of humor can do.

As a colleague said, we need people with integrity now MORE than we need more money thrown at our problems.

I am stunned that NRDC — or anyone — would think that a “solution” that allows new coal plants to continue to be built is viable fi we want a liveable planet.

Runaway climate change has kicked in during our past in as little as 10 years. There’s evidence that the thermhaline cycle is changing, that our oceans are becoming acidified, and that an acid ocean could bring about the death of 90 percent of all species, as has happened in the past.

Surely our friends at NRDC know this. Surely they know that people want change, that more and more citizens are waking up.

I can understand that coal companies being so backwards — but the largest enviro’s in the world?

Profoundly disappointing.

It will never happen. You know that good and well also.

It’s a ruse. It’s a way for the coal industry to keep burning toxic coal and dumping the CO2, the mercury, the toxic coal waste etc. on all of us.

You know that too.

Where is NRDC when it comes to monetizing externalities, fighting for better rules on coal waste, fighting for more renewables, working at the state level to force utilities to build more RE?

There’s so much a group like NRDC could do, but they don’t. There are so many ways a large powerful group could work at the state level to promote small-scale RE and show citizens that it works, it’s cheaper, it’s cleaner.

But instead, they work like a coporation, doing as little as possible but making a big deal about the little they do.

What do you call greenwashing by an environmental group?

NRDC is the poster child for corporate environmentalism.

We have a number of failures here, with the largest, of course, being politcal will. But the most distressing is the lack of political will from our largest and most powerful environmental institutions.

Citizens want change, are willing to pay more for clean energy; the independent power producers are ready, willing and able to build new renewable power plants, but the rules — and groups like NRDC — are stacked against them.

The NRDC is a “big player.” But they are on the wrong side of the game.

Bummer dude. Sorry grandkids.

I don’t think we have snookered the coal guys. The proposal is clear and the USCAP members understand it. As for your question why NRDC does not just say no to new coal plants that don’t capture most of their carbon, NRDC can say anything we want. Our responsibility is to do more than say what we’d like though; it is to actually achieve policy change. We think forging a recommendation that will require new coal plants to use CCS after a few years, structured in a way that a broad group of businesses are supporting, is the way to make that policy change happen. If you think you have a way to achieve a better outcome sooner, go for it. But just saying what you want is not a strategy.

You go on to say–
“NRDC should just start by calling for a 5-year ban, rather than getting involved with messy language that ultimately will not be written by you.”

I know you are smart enough to recognize the inconsistency in this advice; you must have been typing too fast. Congress will ultimately write the language for any proposal. Making a proposal in more absolutist terms doesn’t increase our ability to control its fate.
Our judgment is that “yes we can” achieve an outcome that changes the kind of coal plants that get built if the proposal has broad support. Attack it as not good enough if you like but please be equally rigorous in demanding a real strategy to enact what you would advocate instead.

[JR: I think you missed my point. I think you should pull the plug on USCAP. All I think you have done with this effort (with the help of EDF and Pew Center) is move the center to the right and vitiate the results of the election and Obama's terrific cabinet picks. You aren't negotiating with Congress, just a bunch of companies, most of which don't matter.

You have basically announced to the world with this proposal that NRDC thinks this is the best we can do. I hope to God you are wrong. Your efforts have convinced me that Obama shouldn't push a climate bill for passage in 2009. He needs to move the needle significantly.]

But such a plan would have been DOA with Duke and NRG and others in USCAP. It also is a non-starter with politicians from West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvannia, Illinois, Maryland, and a bunch of states who depend on 75% or more of their power from coal.

USCAP has been at it for 2 years. The fact that you got 30 or so companies and environmental groups to agree on this much is major achievment. You are unlikely to get a better deal, they are agreeing to capture and sequestration even before they know the rules of the game.

IGCCs and coal to natural gas plants must capture a portion of the CO2. In the case of IGCCs the SO2 has to be removed before sending it to the gas turbine, usually by amine treating or an absorbtion process. A portion of the CO2 comes out with the SO2. Until there is a price signal for CO2 and regulations are in place allowing permanent storage, the CO2 will be vented to the atmosphere.

Gasification plants must remove essentially all the CO2 in order to produce a natural gas that meets the minimum heating specification for pipeline quality gas.

What USCAP is essentially saying is that there will be no more pulverized coal combustion plants built. IGCC or gasification with carbon storage produces electric power at the same CO2 per MWh or less than natural gas combined cycle. It can be done.

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