Energy Matters - Updates 110404

The rising cost of natural gas and the quest for domestic energy sources have helped fuel a resurgent interest in coal. Every month, it seems, another new coal-fired generating plant is proposed for the Northwest, particularly in Montana but also in Idaho. Proponents represent coal as the least-cost, lowest-risk alternative for meeting new energy needs, and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council has made space for coal in the draft of its Fifth Northwest Power Plan.

Coal plays a relatively small role in the draft Plan – 400 megawatts out of an expected need for more than 5,200 megawatts of new electricity. But that one, medium-small coal plant is the wedge that props open the door to coal developers and sanctifies the rush to build new coal plants.

        Proponents justify their "rush to coal" using a mishmash of
        half-truths and oxymorons. For example:

• "Clean coal." No such technology is commercially viable. It's far too expensive to implement in the forseeable future.
• "Coal is cheap." Coal is nominally cheap only because Americans give the industry billions of dollars a year in subsidies (according to Taxpayers for Common Sense). The costs of illness, early death and environmental degradation caused or worsened by mining, transporting, and burning coal are virtually incalculable.
• "Coal protects consumers." Even the minimum level of carbon controls contained in the McCain-Lieberman global warming bill will make coal-generated electricity more expensive than wind power. Many states and regions of the country are already moving toward even stronger controls.
• "Coal creates jobs." Thousands more jobs – local, permanent, family-wage jobs – will be gained by developing the Northwest's energy efficiency and renewable energy resources than by building more fossil-fuel facilities.

The Fifth Northwest Power Plan needs to be a model for a forward-looking energy policy. Clean-energy supporters should use the remaining public hearings (listed at left) and submit written comments to tell the Council that coal is not an answer.