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Lawmakers Push for Big Subsidies for Coal Process
Edmund L. Andrews, NY Times
Even as Congressional leaders draft legislation to reduce greenhouse gases linked to global warming, a powerful roster of Democrats and Republicans is pushing to subsidize coal as the king of alternative fuels.
Prodded by intense lobbying from the coal industry, lawmakers from coal states are proposing that taxpayers guarantee billions of dollars in construction loans for coal-to-liquid production plants, guarantee minimum prices for the new fuel, and guarantee big government purchases for the next 25 years.
With both House and Senate Democrats hoping to pass “energy independence” bills by mid-July, coal supporters argue that coal-based fuels are more American than gasoline and potentially greener than ethanol.
“For so many, filthy coal is a dirty four-letter word,” said Representative Nick V. Rahall, Democrat of West Virginia and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. “These individuals, I tell you, have their heads buried in the sand.”
Environmental groups are adamantly opposed, warning that coal-based diesel fuels would at best do little to slow global warming and at worst would produce almost twice as much of the greenhouse gases tied to global warming as petroleum.
Coal companies are hardly alone in asking taxpayers to underwrite alternative fuels in the name of energy independence and reduced global warming. But the scale of proposed subsidies for coal could exceed those for any alternative fuel, including corn-based ethanol.
(28, 29 May 2007)
Also at Common Dreams
Energy efficiency vs. liquefied coal: Which do you think Congress is subsidizing?
David Roberts, Gristmill
Those of you with strong stomachs will want to marvel at the contrast between two New York Times stories out today. Marvel … and tear your fracking hair out.
First, there’s this story on energy efficiency. It makes the simple and familiar point that the cheapest, fastest source of energy is negawatts — not using the energy in the first place. In particular, efficiency is cheaper than coal:
“When we started talking about this in 1990s in terms of energy efficiency versus coal energy, we were talking 4 cents a kilowatt-hour for coal, and 4 cents for energy efficiency,” said R. Neal Elliott, the industrial program director at the [American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy]. “Today we’re talking optimistically, without carbon taxes, 10 cents for coal. With carbon taxes, we may be talking 20 cents for coal.”
“And energy efficiency,” he said, “is still 4 cents or less.”
Despite this widely acknowledged fact, efforts to get at those efficiency savings are scarce and fitful. Vermont has a good program; Gov. Spitzer in New York promised one. But by and large, little attention is being paid to this low-hanging fruit, particularly not by the feds.
In sharp contrast, check out this story on the push for liquefied coal.
As I’ve said many times, the best case scenario for coal-to-liquids (CTL) is that every CTL plant is adjoined by an expensive (and as yet technologically unproven) carbon sequestration facility. Given that best case scenario, CTL will be neutral toward carbon emissions. This fantastic infographic from the NYT tells the story:…
(29 May 2007)
