Progress Energy abandons dirty coal front group ACCCE

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"Utility giant Progress Energy is the latest in a stream of companies to abandon the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), the scandal-ridden coal-industry front group that has dirtied the debate on climate legislation. Progress Energy — “a Fortune 500 energy company with more than 21,000 megawatts of generation capacity and $9 billion in annual revenues,” serving 3.1 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida — quietly quit the group last year, following Duke Energy, Alstom, Alcoa, and First Energy in the exodus. Its move away from coal propaganda mirrors its recent decision to shut down coal plants and move to cleaner power:

Progress paid $1 million to ACCCE in 2008, putting the company among the group’s biggest contributors. But the company has been backing away from coal of late, announcing in December that they are shutting down 11 coal-fired power plants. Instead, they would move toward natural gas, a less greenhouse-gas intensive fuel source. A state paper hailed the move as evidence of “the beginning of the end of the era of cheap coal.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/01/progress-energy/

[Statistical]

1. Excellent news.

Even though natural gas emits CO2 it is far superior to coal.

1) Natural gas emits about half the CO2 per BTU (thermal energy).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Relative_CO2_emission_from_various_fuels

2) Since Natural gas is more expensive it makes more economic sense to build high efficiency turbines to reduce fuel cost. New natural gas turbines tend to be 40%-50% efficient vs 30% for coal. Coal is so cheap it really makes no economic sense to build high efficiency coal plants. The utilities simply burn more coal to generate same amount of power.

3) Coal is horrible for lots of non-CO2 reasons (fly ash, toxic compounds, particulate pollution, black lung, mountaintop removal, etc

[wtmusic]

2. It's an ongoing, uphill battle

and (surprise) - it's driven by money.

West Virginia’s coal legacy lives to fend off nuclear another day

"Lawmakers in West Virginia, a coal state if ever there is one, saw to it that a bill to lift the ban on new nuclear reactors in that state never got out of committee in the state senate. Sen. Brooks McCabe, D-Kanawha, saw his initiative buried in “no” votes by the Senate Judiciary Committee Feb 17.

In the end it was the coal industry that cast the decisive vote in the committee meeting even though a representative of the West Virginia Environmental Council, which also opposed the measure, got considerable face time with the committee. Sen. Richard Browning, D-Wyoming, said:

'We’re a coal state. We develop our technologies to burn coal, burn it cleaner, so we can produce power, produce it here.'

Garvin’s clincher was a NIMBY tactic. He asked committee members, 'Who among you wants to go home and tell your constituents you are bringing a nuclear reactor to your district?'"

http://theenergycollective.com/TheEnergyCollective/59872

[Statistical]

3. Any future carbon tax (which will be needed to push us past coal)

to at least cleanER fossil fuels like natural gas needs to have a provision to help transition coal states & coal workers to new careers.

I feel for their personal situations I just feel more for the planet's global situation.

Carbon tax could raise a substantial amount of money. A good portion of that could go torwards renewable resources and helping coal workers/coal industry.

You can even do both at same time. Imagine a grant, matching funds, or loan guarantee that allows major solar manufacturer to open new state of the art facility in West Virginia.