Triplepundit.com
Georgia Judge Halts Construction of Coal-Fired Power
Plant –A Sign of More Battles Over Coal?
http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/georgia-judge-halts-constructi-003302.php
In what is
considered as a first-time application from a
judge of the April 2007 Supreme Court decision
ruling industrial CO2 emissions as a pollutant, Fulton County judge
Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore blocked the construction of
what would be the first coal-fired plant in Georgia in over 20 years.
Judge Moore’s
decision overturned an earlier ruling allowing construction of the $2 billion
120 megawatt Longleaf Energy Plant stating
that the plant’s builders, Dynegy and LS Power,
must first procure a permit from state regulators that limit the amounts of CO2
emissions from the plant.Bruce Niles of the Sierra
Club’s National Coal Campaign said of the
ruling:
“We will be taking
this decision and making the same arguments to push for an end to conventional
coal”
LS Power and Dynegy
vow to appeal the ruling.
While some have
shied away from James Hansen’s recent assertion that CEO’s from
fossil fuel energy companies “know what they are doing” and should be “tried
for high crimes against humanity and nature”, it is clear that new coal-fired
plants are square in the sights of environmental attorneys.
“The issue is now
teed up from
In the case of the
Longleaf, the plant would not only create 9 million tons of CO2
annually, an equivalent of adding 1.3 million cars to Georgia’s roadways, it
would also violate EPA standards for fine particulate matter as well (based on
the location of the plant). A “typical” plant emits 3.7 tons of CO2 annually.
If there is a viable
“clean coal” option, it seems that now is the time for coal developers to begin
pursuing that option in earnest. Instead of allowing construction
of a coal-fired plant emitting nearly 2.5 times the CO2 as a
typical plant, Judge Moore’s decision is a step toward accounting, in some
fashion, for the cost of the “externalities” of conventional coal.
A friend of mine is
an avid Ron Paul supporter, so I’ve taken the time to try to find out more
about him, in particular his environmental policy (which is a little troubling,
but beyond the scope of this blog). Paul talks
of putting a cost on externalities and letting the market do the rest – get
government out of the picture because government always messes things up.
Well, okay,
government often does mess things up – especially certain administrations. But
how do we go about making business account for their external costs, the costs
of pollution and resource depletion? In the case of greenhouse gas emissions,
the Supreme Court provided a mechanism whereby we can begin to do that, and
Judge Moore’s ruling is a further step in that direction.
One way are another,
a cost must be put on carbon.
Patti Durand of
Sierra Club’s
“This is a new day
in the
Let’s hope that
feeling continues.