Congressional supporters of dirty coal are running out of options. The coal-power industry is under pressure to finally clean up its act and efforts to argue that coal power is clean are not convincing. As a result, the coal industry has stooped to threats, claiming, among other things, that compliance with human health and environmental [...]
President Obama recently announced the cancellation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) plans to update weak and scientifically unsupported Bush-era ozone standards. The President based this unfortunate decision on the newly popular idea that protecting human health and the environment is bad for the economy. The President bought into this rhetoric from Tea Party elites despite [...]
On August 18, SACE staff and more than 20 allies from around the state took the stand to stop Plant Washington, a new, dirty, coal-fired power plant proposed in Sandersville, GA – vastly outnumbering the plant’s supporters and delivering a strong message of concern about pollution to state regulators. The state Environmental Protection Division (EPD) [...]
A decade ago this Sunday, our country was irrevocably changed. We have seen the impacts of this tragic day on a number of fronts, but perhaps the most overlooked impression is to our national energy security infrastructure. The catastrophic repercussions of events, which stemmed from the tragedies of September 11th, resonate through our collective conscious and have dramatically shifted the way we operate as a nation.
This is the first in a three part series of blogs examining how natural disasters like hurricanes impact our energy generation. Traditional energy resources (nuclear, coal, oil and natural gas) appeared to earn passing grades for how they weathered Hurricane Irene this past week. In fact, coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear proponents tried to [...]
I wanted to share with you an article I read by Don Shelby of minnpost.com. The piece, “Rising from meter-reader to CEO, Xcel’s Dick Kelly has sound perspective on the environment,” is refreshing because we get to see a utility executive who clearly understands the long-term impact his employer has on the environment. Kelly is [...]
There are two facts that the hawkers of “clean coal” don’t want you know. First, there is no such thing as clean coal. Second, the salesmen of clean coal would not want such a thing if it did exist. Its seems paradoxical but it makes perfect sense. The “clean coal” campaign is simply an effort [...]
This post was authored by Eriqah Foreman Williams, Georgia Coal Diversity Organizer, with input from Amelia Shenstone. On July 21 Snapping Shoals EMC members, with support from SACE and our partners, stood up to the EMC’s board of directors to stop Plant Washington and Plant Ben Hill. Snapping Shoals EMC is one of the Georgia [...]
It was one year ago when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a significant new rule to reduce air pollution from coal-fired power plants. That rule was known as the air pollution Transport Rule. On July 6, 2011 EPA announced the final version of that rule with only one major change: A new name. What [...]
Me neither. Unfortunately for ratepayers, a report published by consumer advocate Georgia Watch on June 22 suggests that customers of Power4Georgians member EMCs (Cobb, Central Georgia, Snapping Shoals, Upson and Washington EMC) could see their electric rates jump 10-20% when the proposed coal-fired Plant Washington comes online. The report, which only includes the impact of [...]
