10 million tons of toxic sulfur compounds escape from Ill coal plants.

[NNadir]

http://illinoispirg.org/IL.asp?id2=11108&id3=IL&

Dirty power plants emitted over 10 million tons of sulfur dioxide, the pollution that forms "fine particle" soot and causes asthma attacks, heart disease and even death. Research published in 2001 in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that this pollution may also cause lung cancer. Seventy percent of this pollution would be eliminated with faithful enforcement of the Clean Air Act. Illinois ranked 11th in the nation for sulfur dioxide emissions.

• In 2002, dirty power plants emitted 4.4 million tons of nitrogen oxides, the pollution that forms ozone smog and can trigger asthma attacks. Research has shown that this pollution may actually cause asthma in athletic children. Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of nitrogen oxide pollution from power plants would be eliminated with faithful enforcement of the Clean Air Act. In Illinois, the Powerton and Baldwin plants ranked in the top 50 worst in the nation for nitrogen oxide emissions.

• In 2002, dirty power plants emitted over 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, which is more than one-third of total CO2 emissions from all sources. Carbon dioxide has been identified as the leading cause of global warming. The Baldwin plant was among the leaders on the polluters' list, emitting more than 13 million tons of CO2 in 2002.

This is not to say that it's unusual. Just a day in the life.

[kurth]

1. To give cancer to smokers and nonsmokers alike

[NNadir]

2. Coal waste is perfectly harmless. It does no damage whatsoever.

We should ignore it.

[acmejack]

3. It's the Clear Skies Initiative in action!

Remember the pResident is committed to being a good (choke) steward of the (choke) environment LMFAO...

[jpak]

4. No one claims that coal-fired plants are "clean and green"

like nuclear power plants....

The OP is misleading: "10 million tons" = total US emissions - not from IL plants.

also:

"Seventy percent of this pollution (SOx) would be eliminated with faithful enforcement of the Clean Air Act"

"Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of nitrogen oxide pollution from power plants would be eliminated with faithful enforcement of the Clean Air Act."

Same is true for mercury emissions from coal-fired plants.

(note: US uranium enrichment plants use LOTS of coal-fired electricity and release tons ozone depleting CFC's each year that also contribute to global warming)...

Unless new nuclear plants actually REPLACE existing coal-fired plants or lead to the cancellation of planned coal-fired plants - they will do nothing to stem CO2 emissions from the US power sector.

None of the proposed new US nuclear plants will do this.

Furthermore, life-cycle GHG emissions from nuclear plants exceed those of gas-fired plants - and as the world is forced to exploit lower grade uranium ores due to depletion, these life cycle GHG emissions will only INCREASE.

Unlike new nuclear plants, when a pony-tailed hippie puts an 8 kW (!) PV array on his NJ home, he reduces electrical demand from the grid and reduces GHG emissions - same is true for hippies that install solar hot water systems, use Energy Star appliances or Green Electricity.

Pony-tailed hippie nut jobs are the True Environmentalists.

finally:

PIRG is Ralph Nader's group...glad to see PIRG news releases posted by pronuclear types....

:)

[NNadir]

5. I know that PIRG is Nader's group. And I know they don't actually give a

shit about anything but mouthing negatives.

I damn well know about Nader's frauds and misrepresentations and what's more I have known about them for decades. Nader's PIRGs used to embezzle money from me in my college days through a mandatory fee, so I started to detest Nader, and the pixilated PIRGs, long before it was fashionable. (I'm usually ahead of my time - finally the courts stopped this crap, but not until Ralph was able to acquire a ton of stock holdings in dubious enterprises.)

The PIRG's pretend to give a shit about these coal operations but what will they do about it? Nothing except produce links to what will happen by magic (magic being the renewable scheme du jour) in some future year. They think that writing "by 2020," and filling in some dumb percentage number connected with some still unproved (on an exajoule scale) form of sexy renewable energy, they will have stopped these crimes. They will have not. In fact the subtext of their representations when they say "20% of electricity by renewable means" is that 80% of the crime is to be ignored.

I know also that Naderites have no feasible plan to replace coal or any fossil fuels and rely completely on wishful thinking and spin to create the illusion they the can do so. They can't replace coal, but they want to go even further and ban the only feasible alternative to coal. That would be nuclear energy.

And I know that all people who have this kind of thinking tend to pretend that nuclear energy must be risk free while the normal operations of coal require just lip service.

Not one of this class can manage to comprehend, say, the reports within this link: www.externe.info which I often reference here.

Mostly what they do is to deny the numbers here and everywhere. And when they're not in denial, they just make stuff up.

As for all the incomprehensible blather about hippies, it is as useless as the hippies themselves. I am a former hippie myself, and I know that mostly the hippies were deluded middle class consumer brats. As soon as the draft ended, they came out for war. As soon as the price of oil fell, they bought millions of SUVs. They think if a few of them can throw 50,000 bucks assauging their middle class guilt and getting themselves written up for their cool solar system installation, it is enough. It isn't enough. The planet is dying and they're still acting like they're smoking something.

[jpak]

6. Yes: inconvenient facts = "made up"

and when that doesn't work, there's the old tried-and-true ad hominem attack to fall back on...

and someday - FAR in the future - a US utility *might* order a new nuclear plant and they *might* even complete one.

But between now and then, the pony-tailed hippies of PIRG will be the ones actually DOING something about global warming...

[NNadir]

7. Whatever.

The world has rejected the anti-nuclear argument. It's done it's worst, which was, in the end, pretty terrible, since it has threatened the future of all humanity.

I will merely note, that the solar fantasy has still yet to produce a single exajoule of energy in the United States.

Oh, and I'm not making that up:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table5b.html

I would ask you if you think that 0.00023 exajoules of energy from consumerist hippies is really "enough," but I know how you will answer. I really don't want to hear more blather about percentages and mega"watts." It's useless.

[jpak]

8. You're in the wrong place if you don't want to hear that...

:)

[NNadir]

9. Yeah, you're right.

It's the price I have to pay in order to hear useful stuff.

I'm cranky today, and really don't have much tolerance for the usual load of denial and fantasy that inevitably obfuscates the crisis.

But if you want the wheat, you have to deal with the chaff.

[jpak]

10. That's OK - I'm off for 3 weeks at a field site and won't be posting

for a while (and using ~10 mCi of tritiated leucine and thymidine)...

chiao

:hi:

[NNadir]

11. I'm so impressed.

Don't get vaporized by that huge amount of radioactivity. Walk around in a protected suit and stand behind huge lead shields and duck whenever one of those awful beta rays comes at your head.

Be sure too to scream real loud if one of the teenagers in your charge is about to get smacked with one too. Tell 'em to duck and cover.

We don't want anyone to get hurt.

[hunter]

12. Hungry frightened people will not respect property rights.

Those solar powered mansions are going to make some mighty fine digs for the local warlords. Jabba the Hutt may invite you in to watch a DVD on his solar powered television. Hard to say what the fate of the pony-tailed hippies who built those expensive places will be.

I think there's a very good possibility things will be that grim. We can keep burning coal and maybe Florida and other coastal areas will go under water. When that happens the people who lived there won't be getting a gracious welcome from the people living on higher ground. If they are lucky these refugees may be no worse off than the so-called Oakies of the Great Depression were, and those refugees had it pretty bad.

I wonder what they will call these refugees from the coasts... "Coasties?"

[phantom power]

13. I will welcome our new Hutt overlords.

[Odin2005]

14. Damn, the way Nucleophobes get me cranky...

...must be rubbing off. :evilgrin: