Creating a 'Pollution Casino': Why the Energy Bill May End Up a Boon for Our Dirtiest Industries

By Dara Colwell, AlterNet. Posted June 24, 2009.

Currently, says Brehm, CCS technology creates big questions such as, "How do you deal with corrosion? How do you transport the carbon? Some groups suggest a pipeline system to handle the volume, which requires a huge investment in infrastructure. Who's going to fund it?"

Jan Jarett, president of PennFuture, an environmental advocacy organization based in Pennsylvania, the fourth-biggest coal-producing state, and, she says, "ground zero for the clean coal debate," believes there's no real hope of banning coal mining and burning at the moment.

"We're just too reliant on it. Coal creates environmental and public-health problems almost every step of the way -- it would be nice if we could leave it in the ground -- but nothing tells me we're able to stop using it. Nothing," she says. "We have to get our fingers in as many pies as possible and vigorously pursue carbon capture and get the technology perfected. We need to pursue a whole buffet of options simultaneously, because we're well past the place where there are any easy choices."

Still others argue that coal extracts too high a price and instead, we should be focusing our money and time on renewables like solar and wind.

"If we made the coal industry pay the full price of the damage it's imposing on its neighbors and the globe -- such as destroying wildlife and making people sick -- and folded all those costs into the price of electricity, it would be roughly double what it has been," says Ernie Nieme, senior policy analyst at EcoNorthwest, an independent economic consultancy service. "If the price were double, society would soon find cheaper alternatives and begin investing in increased efficiency. Right now, we're paying for their garbage."

This is more or less what critics of the Waxman-Markey bill argue, suggesting that introducing a straight carbon tax -- rather than a complicated cap-and-trade scheme -- will wean us off coal and spur an entrepreneurial "green rush."

"If we put a price on carbon, it will make everything open and transparent and get the entrepreneurial juices going," says Reason's Bailey, who envisions a process mirroring Silicon Valley, where smart people, in pursuit of a market with large returns, would work hard to develop new, renewable technology.

It's already happening. Google, for example, established its "Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal" program in 2007, and is pumping $45 million into clean-energy companies to develop renewable-energy technologies. "Even producing unlimited energy from renewable sources won't make a difference, unless we can find a way to make it cheaper than coal," says Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick, who says Google aims to do this "in years, not decades."

In lieu of federal money going to bail out polluters with free permits, or funding "clean coal" projects like FutureGen, environmentalists would like to see money invested in increasing energy efficiency, such as weatherizing homes, creating fuel-efficient autos, propping up solar and wind technologies and developing infrastructure, such as connecting wind power energy grids together to create a national grid -- all of which could help create green jobs.

According to the National Resources Defense Council Web site, a recent economic analysis shows that investing $100 billion in clean energy would create 2 million new jobs nationwide over two years -- four times as many as the same investment in traditional fuels.

"Our economic capacity and technology is such that we can transition to clean energy, strengthen the economy and create green jobs. There's no reason to be depressed, unless you look at politics and the extent to which polluting industry holds political sway," says Friends of the Earth's Berning. "If we start addressing the problem immediately, our existing technology is perfectly adequate."

But if we don't, the world's population is expected to grow 36 percent by 2030, and its electricity needs are expected to grow 110 percent. Add more coal and CO2 emissions to the mix, and the tipping point is depressingly near.

See more stories tagged with: energy, global warming, climate change, coal, waxman-markey, climate bill, climate legislation, aces

Dara Colwell is a freelance writer based in San Francisco.

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