coal plants. please respond! (Dallas, San Antonio: sale, how much, homes)

[dallas,texas]

How does everyone feel about the proposed coal power plants that may be built. I really dissagree with them, and think they would ruin the air. Those are just my opinions. I hope to see how everyone else feels about them. Bye Everyone!

[Lucidus]

I don't know much about what they plan to build but coal is cheap, abundant, and domestically available so we should put it to use, especially if we can build the zero-emissions coal power plants like the Futuregen project that may be built in Jewett or Odessa. These new plants will sequester all the carbon as liquid CO2, so the air will not be damaged. And in places like West Texas there is a market for CO2 so it could be sold commercially. For those who don't know, liquid CO2 is injected into oil wells to make extraction of the oil more efficient. So these plants would be good for the environment compared to other types of gas and coal powered plants and would reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

[KewGee]

You mean they're building more?

Go to www dot cleartheair dot org. Click on Power Plant Locater. Then click on the small U.S. map to launch the locater. You will see a U.S. map of power plant pollution impacts. Then to the lower left of the map under Dirty Air, Dirty Power, select Texas and see the effects of the emission statistics in Texas or any state for that matter. It will show all the plants and by clicking on them, you will see what county each one is in and the emissions from each.

There are about 40 in Texas alone and most of them are concentrated from North Texas down through Central Texas and below the San Antonio area. East Texas is also full of them.

EPA's Toxic Release Inventory has Texas ranked as the highest emitting state for coal-burning power plant emissions of mercury in the country. It impacts fish and risks the health of children as well as Texas' $6.4 billion fishing industry.

This is a most interesting web site but clearly depressing, at least I think so.

[theburro]

Originally Posted by dallas,texas

How does everyone feel about the proposed coal power plants that may be built. I really dissagree with them, and think they would ruin the air. Those are just my opinions. I hope to see how everyone else feels about them. Bye Everyone!

There was good news last week for Texans who appreciate clean air and healthy landscapes, and for the rest of the world that can hardly take another major source of CO2 emmissions. The proposed buy-out of TXU by Pacific Group includes terms to cancel 8 of 11 of TXU's proposed coal-fired plants. In fact, this was the very last good piece of business news before the stock markets tanked this week. (I've been afraid to even look at my investments to see how much I lost)

This nation is blessed with abundant coal reseves and I agree with Lucidus, that we should and we will take advantage of this resource. Unfortunately, all of the steam plants proposed by TXU were of the conventional type, huge sources of greenhouse gases and fairly high in nitrogen- and sulfur-oxides. Nothing close to the advanced Future-gen technology. The sale of TXU will also result in the cancelation of 2 proposed plants in Virginia, which is good news for the Old Dominion, a state that is struggling with air quality, acid rain and stream acidification.

Not to mention the wholesale landscape destruction that would be wrought to feed these coal-burning monsters. Sure, the companies say that they "reclaim" the land after mining, but try telling that to West Virginians whose homes flood after every rain because all the mountains were decapitated by mountain-top removal mining. Try telling that to the Pennsylvanians whose homes are falling into sinkholes from abandoned underground mines and their streams are polluted by mine drainage.

I'm an optimist. I think clean technologies for liquifying and for burning coal are on the horizon. I think our government will eventually strike the right balance between our energy needs and our birthright to clean air and green landscapes. Eventually ..... but not in the current political climate where our leadership is fixated on international issues and not on investing in our future here at home.

Hats off to Pacific Group and their investment group for canceling these ill-advised coal-burning plants. Let's hope this is the beginning of a new wave of pragmatism where Corporate America invests in a clean future instead of suffocating everyone with the same old business model.

[Lost_n_Tx]

yea there are websites, that show the location of the coal plants, and you can follow the smoke plume, (you can see the smoke trail in the atmosphere from satalites) guess where it ends up dumping at? over the dallas region. There is this one plant, that 99 percent of the time, their smoke trail leads directly to Dallas Metro region.

think thats bad, try living near one (as I cough cough cough and wipe my stinging burning eyes, if the wind blows near my house)

[KewGee]

Originally Posted by Lost_n_Tx

yea there are websites, that show the location of the coal plants, and you can follow the smoke plume, (you can see the smoke trail in the atmosphere from satalites) guess where it ends up dumping at? over the dallas region. There is this one plant, that 99 percent of the time, their smoke trail leads directly to Dallas Metro region.

think thats bad, try living near one (as I cough cough cough and wipe my stinging burning eyes, if the wind blows near my house)

That's awful. For the coughing and the stinging, one may as well live in the smog of the San Fernando Valley where I lived many years ago. It caused much uncomfort as well many days of the year. That was one reason why we moved. If affected my daughter greatly when she was a little girl.

[Trainwreck20]

At the risk of sounding like I am taking the 'wrong' view:
Yes, there are cleaner technologies out there to burn coal, and hopefully they will be online sometime in the near future; however, there are a few things the media neglects when the cover the construction of the proposed coal plants:

1. Several (but definitely not all) of the proposed plants were replacing older plants. Without the new plants, the older ones will continure to operate, and the older ones are worlds worse (for pollution and efficiency) than the new proposed ones.
2. Power demand in Texas is on the rise, and without massive conservation (everyone turn off the AC now ), demand will outstrip supply. The brownouts last summer are an anomoly for now, but will not be for long. The current 'conventional wisdom' is that the power companies will be forced to start up the old gas plants from the 50s and 60s that have been shut down for years. These actually pollute more (NOx and particulate matter, anyway) than the modern coal plants - smog effects in DFW will be worse, and due to the price of NG, the cost of electricity will go up when the supply tightens enough.
3. Speaking of supply/demand, the promised reduction in rates is great (whether it is 10% or 20%), but will be short-lived, due to the constriction in production. The rates will go 'legitimately' higher when the demand goes up. I am sure the Pacific Group did not propose to buy TXU to improve air quality - they see potential rewards down the road. By not having to bend to stockholders, they can take short term 'losses' (or, really, lower profits) to realize a much greater gain down the road. The legislature has issues with the sale, I believe, for reasons like this...

Regarding coal mining, yes, it is destructive, but almost all the mining for Texas is done in the Powder River Basin area, and is not in areas that are habitated and it is not underground mining. Also, in generally, it is not tearing down mountains or hills, but rather taken from more open terrain.

Now, I believe that cleaner coal technology should be used. But it WILL cost more, especially in the near future. There are arguments that the capturing and sequestering of CO2 will be a 'self supporting cost' by selling to oil fields. I will believe that when I see it - they assume that 100% will be bought or fail to consider transport pipelines (that will be needed). There are some technologies that are more realistic for right now, but these do not capture the CO2, they reduce NOx and particulate (and maybe SO2, not sure).

[Trainwreck20]

EPA's Toxic Release Inventory has Texas ranked as the highest emitting state for coal-burning power plant emissions of mercury in the country. It impacts fish and risks the health of children as well as Texas' $6.4 billion fishing industry.

Yes, coal (and other fuels) release mercury; however, the new plants that were proposed would have much lower mercury emissions. I don't know the exact reduction, but I think it was 80-90% reduction in mercury.

Btw, a large amount of mercury in the environment in the US comes from non-US sources. The mercury blows in from the sahara desert across the atlantic ocean and from China across the Pacific. I think it is estimated that 40% plus is not from inside the US. I have heard higher estimates, but that is the lowest I have seen.

The mercury that comes from Texas power plants is more of a problem in lignite than coal. Powder River Basin (PRB) coal is extremely popular now because it is naturally low in mercury (and sulfur). I suspect that the lignite plants are the cause of most of the mercury emissions in the state. I don't know if the Pacific group will convert any of the lignite plants to coal or not (as was part of the TXU plan, I believe).

[barkede]

I heat my home with Anthracite Coal is it safe for my family? I've heard it is okay but now I'm not so sure.

[teatime]

They're planning a large clean coal power plant near Sweetwater. Supposedly, it employs advanced technology and prevents 90 percent of the pollutants from escaping. If this is true, I'm all for it.

But I sure wish that we in West Texas would see lower electric rates and get a break. Sheesh, we have the wind turbines, oil wells, and now they're planning a clean coal plant? All to provide power to the metros and feather the nests of out-of-state companies. Sorry, but we should take care of our own first.