Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
‘Friendly’ push for Facebook to dump coal
With half a million signatures backing it up, Greenpeace fired off a letter to Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg today calling for the world’s largest social network to cut ties to coal-fired power at its new data center in Oregon.
“Other cloud-based companies face similar choices and challenges as you do in building data centers, yet many are making smarter and cleaner investments,” executive director of Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, writes. He points to Google and its a recent agreement to buy wind power from NextEra Energy for the next 20 years to power its data centers.
The letter adds to what’s turning into a miserable week for Zuckerberg, who is also fighting a civil lawsuit by a man who claims to own a huge chunk of the social network site and is seeking to uncover “unnecessary details” about Zuckerberg’s private life.
Greenpeace’s “Unfriend Coal” drive targeting Facebook falls under the environmental group’s larger Cool IT campaign, which aims to influence infrastructure choices behind the cloud-computing boom.
When Facebook broke ground on its center in Prineville, Oregon, last January, it blogged about energy-efficient technologies at the new facility, including cooling the air by bringing in cooler air from outside in an “airside economizer” and re-use of server heat during the colder months.
But Greenpeace says since then Facebook signed a deal to source its energy from PacificCorp, which it says uses 83 percent coal in its energy mix, the Associated Press reports.
Must the natural gas industry clean up its act?
Natural gas is regarded as a relatively clean source of energy but there is mounting evidence that it has a dirty side.
My colleague Jon Hurdle has reported on Wyoming water woes that have been linked to the booming gas industry. You can see his stories here and here.
In August U.S. government scientists reported that they had for the first time found chemical contaminants in drinking water wells near natural gas drilling operations, fueling concern that a gas-extraction technique is endangering the health of people who live close to drilling rigs.
The Environmental Protection Agency found chemicals that researchers say may cause illnesses including cancer, kidney failure, anemia and fertility problems in water from 11 of 39 wells tested around the Wyoming town of Pavillion in March and May this year.
On Monday, I reported that high concentrations of harmful compounds have been found in the air in a north Texas town that is in the heart of the region’s gas industry, according to a report released by an environmental consultancy.
The study by Wolf Eagle Environmental Engineers and Consultants found high concentrations of carcinogenic and neurotoxin compounds in the atmosphere at seven locations around the rural town of DISH, which is about 50 miles northwest of Dallas.
as a weekend flyfisherman who fishes every time i get a chance in PA. and am hearing almost daily about the pollution dangers from this process of drilling and the amount of water it uses i am getting sick to my stomach
Futurist says dollars mean bright future for solar energy
Solar power may bring us cleaner air and clearer skies. Nice, yes. But it’s money — not saving Mother Earth — that will catapult solar energy past dirty coal-fueled power plants.
That’s the theory of Ray Kurzweil, a futurist and inventor. At a technology conference on Friday, Kurzweil said billions are being invested into solar power and new advances in the technology are driving down the cost of powering by the sun. “As a result, the amount of solar energy is doubling every year two years,” Kurzweil said. “But ultimately it will be very inexpensive. So what’s motivating (its adoption) is economics. “It has the side effect that it’s environmentally much friendlier,” Kurzweil said at the Fortune Brainstorm: TECH conference in Pasadena, California. The inventor is far from the first to predict the success of solar power. Some may give more weight to his words: Kurzweil has predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of wireless technology. He has his critics as well. Kurzweil, who wrote “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,” envisions a future where we can download memory and reverse-engineer the brain. (Reporting and writing by Laura Isensee)
(Picture: Inventor Raymond Kurzweil speaks at the Fortune Brainstorm TECH conference in Pasadena, California July 24, 2009. REUTERS/Fred Prouser)
It doens’t matter that much “it’s money — not saving Mother Earth” as long as solar energy saves our planet from dying.
Coal-promoting ringtones draw Sierra Club’s ire
West Virginians who want to show off their pride in the state’s coal industry can now do so via some catchy, coal-promoting ringtones put together by the West Virginia Coal Association.
Beware, however, that the ringtones have already drawn the ire of environmentalists.
The ringtones are jingles the West Virginia coal group has used for some time to promote the state’s vast coal resources (and presumably to offset the bad rap coal gets for producing about 30 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gases).
Below are some of the lyrics:
Coal is WestVirginia/ Coal is me and you/ Coal is West Virginia / We’ve got a job to do/ Coal is energy (coal is energy)/ We need energy (we need energy)/ Coal is West Virginia
And:
When we go down deep through the dark today/ We come up wth a light for America
Coal mine operators have a history of using private armies and murderous security forces to block union organizing efforts and environmental responsibility. These practices go back over a hundred years. Like so many other industries in this country, mine operators will stop at nothing to preserve their business and wealth. The have the help of legislators who receive campaign contributions from these mining aristocrats.
A bad week for U.S. coal projects
It was a bad week to be planning a coal-fired power plant in the United States.
The industry suffered its second blow of the week on Friday with the cancellation of a plant in Michigan. The move by power plant developer LS Power marks the ninth such plant to be dropped in the United States so far this year, according to a count by environmental group the Sierra Club.
The company blamed regulatory uncertainty and the weak economy for the cancellation, which environmentalists cheered because coal-fired power plants are responsible for more than 30 percent of the United States’ global warming emissions.
The Michigan plant cancellation wasn’t the first blow to coal this week, either. On Tuesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency withdrew a permit for a massive coal-fired plant in New Mexico that would have been built on an Indian reservation.
The announcements came within two weeks after the Obama administration opened the way to regulating greenhouse gas emissions by declaring them a danger to human health.
Mandated limits on greenhouse gases, which the U.S. could adopt as early as this year, are certain to deal a further blow to new coal-fired plants. The U.S. Department of Energy’s statistical arm, however, expects coal to provide the largest share of U.S. electric generation for years to come, making up 47 percent of the nation’s power generation in 2030.
What do you think is the future of coal-fired power in the United States?
Emissions reduction mandates are expected to come into effect very soon—not just for heavy emitters, but medium and small emitters too. While mandatory reporting is a useful tool for managing carbon change, what is lacking in a lot of these programs is the ability to provide contextual detail, or to showcase emissions reduction achievements. Canadian Standards Association (CSA, World Secretariat for the development of ISO 14064, an international carbon accounting standard) just launched the GHG CleanStart™ Registry based on ISO 14064. It’s a voluntary program, but it covers the same bases as the regulated programs, while also allowing organizations to highlight their successes. Check it out at http://www.csa.ca/carbonperformance
Anti-coal TV campaign goes Hollywood
A U.S. anti-coal campaign has gone Hollywood with a new TV spot directed by Academy Award-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen of “No Country for Old Men” and “Fargo” fame.
The Reality Coalition, a project backed by environmental groups Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the League of Conservation Voters, launched the ad this week.
Entitled “Air Freshener,” it features a product pitchman entering a family’s home with a spray can labeled “Clean Coal” that spews black, cough-inducing fumes.
“Is regular clean, clean enough for your family? Not when you can have Clean Coal clean,” he says.
The ad, designed and produced by ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, is designed as a response to a series of coal industry-backed television spots and other ads promoting “clean coal,” or technology to capture and store the global warming emissions from coal-fired power plants. Environmentalists argue that the industry’s ads are misleading because clean coal does not exist yet on a commercial scale. The industry, however, says coal is an abundant and cheap resource that the U.S. cannot do without.
Despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s green leanings, however, he has been a supporter of research into clean coal technology. Earlier this week, his budget proposal included $15 billion for technologies, including clean coal, that keep carbon out of the atmosphere.
Check it out the Coen brothers’ ad below. It is the first of a series directed by the famous duo.
Hi,I live in the mountain,s of Eastern Kentucky,Harlan County,I live where there is coal minning,and I want people to know the mine operator’s here have no compassion for communities when they need to haul coal from coal mines down thur our communitie’s creating the most undesireable living condition;s ever.TVA’s ash spill is nothing compared to what the operator’s here do.We live along ky 38 and the coal companies mine their coal and load it on to coal truck’s come off mine property,with mine silth,rock dust,coal dust,mudd,and anything the trucks get on their wheel’s before they enter the road.All that stuff is coming off the truck’s as they travel to their preparation plant’s where they clean the coal and then load it onto train’s to go to utility plant’s.What about our health.What about our home’s.We can’t go out side without having to breath all the stuff.Some even from what I can find even causes cancer and lung problem’s,we actually have worse condition’s then the people who are working there.Where is the State to protect us from this.The Lord know’s we have called a million time’s nothing ever get’s any better,it is only getting worse.I invite you to see for yourselves.They could clean it up some with a truck wash,before they enter the highway.They can pave the haul road’s to the mine load pit where they load the trucks.They can tarp the trucks.They can run the proper deisel fuel.They want do anything.The state can’t make them.I hope and pray some people have mercy on us in the coal minning area’s,as life here is very bad.I hate having to live here I worry about my health,and my neigbor’s health.Please pray for us that the coal operator’s will have mercy on us and our home’s and clean it up.
Citi mulls moving (coal) mountains after Bank of America acts
Now that Bank of America is cutting back on lending to mountain top removal mining companies, citing the environmental costs, rival Citigroup is weighing its options.
“Bank of America’s announcement has just been released so Citi will study the content,” the bank said on Friday. Citi and Bank of America were prime targets of Rainforest Action Network and others for their support of mountaintop removal mining for coal in Appalachia. Cutting the top off a mountain is a cheap and efficient way to get coal — and environmental groups call it an ecological disaster.
“We are continuing to learn about this issue through engaging and listening to a variety of stakeholders, including our clients. Today we met with a number of industry, scientific, and community experts to listen and learn from their perspectives. Citi has a long history of engaging in dialogue with our stakeholders on this and other critical environmental issues,” the bank said.
Rainforest Action Network says the bank has a history of funding dirty coal and has called Citi’s steps to curb its carbon footprint small. The coal industry, on the other hand, says Bank of America is pandering to the the green movement at the expense of work in a place where jobs are few and far between.
(Photo: Reuters/Andrea Hopkins)
The U.S. generates almost 1/4 of all global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, to present, federal restrictions have not yet been placed on GHG emissions. There have been initiatives introduced for embryonic carbon trading markets. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is an obligatory system for reducing carbon emissions from U.S. power plants in the states of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maine, Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Caps will go in effect in 2009 and emissions trading will be a key component of the structure.
In California, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 mandates the creation of a multi-industry structure to reduce GHG emissions in California to 1990 levels by 2020. It appears that emissions trading will be a component of the system that may be linked with the European Union Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS). In January 2005, the EU ETS commenced operation as the largest multi nation, multi-industry greenhouse gas emission trading system in the world.
You will find an informative discussion of global warming and biodiversity at http://www.onebiosphere.com
In the U.S., which lacks a binding federal carbon trading system, the private Chicago Climate Exchange that is owned by Climate Exchange plc is attempting to create a voluntary carbon exchange for North American and Brazil by utilizing independent verification to allow institutions and individuals to trade carbon reduction credits.
