Paper or Plastic? Just Say NO!

In a recent blog post by Peter Gregory, he advocates charging consumers for the luxury of fast food take-out supplies. He like many others, is simply tired of cleaning up other people’s discarded food packaging trash. The concept is in lock-step with most environmentalists that believe in the principle of “polluters pays”: those who pollute should pay for the true cost of generating the pollution and cleaning it up.

Pollution is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Even the lowly plastic grocery bag has value to some people. When you return it to the store from which it came, it will likely be recycled into another product such as parking lot space tire curbs, playground equipment and most anything else that can be made with polyethylene.

The greater likelihood is that it will end up in a landfill or somewhere in nature where is harms wildlife and litters roadsides, streams, and sewers.

Imagine a world without flimsy plastic bags. It isn’t hard since they weren’t introduced until about 1977. Life will go on and we’d be better off without them.

The U.S. throws away about 100 BILLION bags each year. The manufacturing of plastic bags accounts for 4 per cent of the world’s total oil production.(1)

People are starting to get fed up about our love affair with the tragedy of the commons. Europe is levying significant taxes on the bags and San Francisco has banned them. South Africa, Taiwan and Bangladesh have also banned plastic bags. Paris will outlaw them by the end of 2007, and all of France will ban the bags in 2010. Phoenix and Boston are considering similar bans. Other USA communities are requiring use of thicker and stronger bags that cost more and motivate businesses to be less generous with their free distribution of the materials.

What should your local government do about the problem? The alleged pro-business solution is, of course, to ‘educate the public.’ Sorry, that just doesn’t work. Tell me, have we managed to prevent litter through cradle-to-grave anti-litter campaigns? No. If it affects your pocket book directly, you it sit-up and take notice. That is why Europe has pursued taxing plastic bags, and why US cities do so little more than establish ineffectual education programs because they a) don’t want consumers to ‘sacrifice' and b) don’t want to mandate environmental protection measures upon small businesses.

My view? Effective 12 months from passing a city or county law, place a 15 cent tax on plastic bags. The tax will fund year -round litter collection and prevention programs. In so doing, also let the marketplace find a solution that suits business customers. Some stores will help transition customers to cloth and synthetic mesh bags, encourage consumers to re-use their heavy-duty bags and boxes, or offer recycled paper or cellulose/corn-starch derived bags. Others will charge for the bags in addition to the tax. In so doing they will be sending a message that the company shouldn’t subsidize the use of wasteful packaging. It won’t be painless, but it will work. Consumers are price sensitive and when reminded at the point-of-sale of the true cost of wasteful behavior, they respond with intelligence.

All it takes is leadership.

Now, banning plastic bags will not completely solve Peter’s complaint about the other forms of community litter from fast food vendors. That’s another topic for the future.

King Coal is Dead! Long Live the King!

Since the middle of the last century clean coal has been the Holy Grail of the power industry: highly desired but unachievable. That is not stopping greedy business and politicians from looking for money to proceed with the Great Coal Rush.

36 states are racing to build at least 94 (possibly 150) new coal-fired electric power plants with the capacity to power at least 62 million American homes. This race dubbed America's new coal rush, has utilities hell-bent on get their plants built before inevitable new federal and state regulations are passed that restrict greenhouse gas emissions. Some 62 gigawatts of new production potential are being proposed. Illinois is neck and neck with Texas for having the most proposals. Illinois might build 8 or more gigawatts of new capacity with 10+ coal plants. Add to that list one more plant that SIU President Glen Poshard now says he wants built - a new $200 million coal-fired SIU power plant to replace its existing fluidized bed boiler system on the SIU campus.

You can’t be a politician from southern Illinois without exclaiming the virtues of coal as a cure for the unemployment, better schools and roads, tourism, and a litany of other civic goals. Every downstate politician loves to promote clean coal even though it is an impossible dream. (Call me a cynic, but the best use for coal is as a transitional feedstock for creating liquid fuels before be finally switch-over to a renewables-based transportation system.)

Yes, we’ve all been told repeatedly that the total known world reserves of coal might be sufficient for 200-300 years' of humanity’s needs at current consumption levels – never mind the environmental consequences. As evident in this map, the United States is the ‘Saudi Arabia of coal.’ Despite that analogy, I say King Coal’s future is limited!

How dare I speak such heresy? I say what I say about coal because:

» The burning of coal already produces more airborne mercury and greenhouse gases than any other single source. The Illinois Department of Health has already issued fish consumption advisories for every waterway in the state due to dangerous levels of mercury. Don’t eat the fish! Texas already ranks first in the U.S. in carbon emissions.
» The soot from coal plants is a leading cause of asthma attacks, lung cancer, heart attacks, and even premature death in the region. Asthma is the leading cause of school absenteeism due to chronic illness (about 10 million lost school days each year). In St. Louis, estimates are that approximately 15% of children under age 18 suffer from asthma. This is more than double the national average of 6.3%.
» Coal mines will continue to kill miners. Illinois has lost 21 miners since 1996. The nation lost 819 in that same period. Think that is bad? Eighty percent of all mining deaths now occur in China even though it has only 35% of the world’s coal. While their death rate is starting to decline, in 2006 China lost 4,746 coal miners! In 1942, China lost 1,549 miners in one day due to a coal-dust explosion.
» Midwest wind energy alone could meet 25% of America’s electricity needs and create thousands of additional jobs in manufacturing, installation and maintenance of clean energy systems.
» Solar power in all its many forms has too much potential to be ignored any longer.

The amount of solar energy intercepted by the Earth every minute is greater than the amount of energy the world uses in fossil fuels each year.

Even the conservative Business Week Magazine hints that the era of coal may be ending. It will surely be a slow death for coal as we transition through technologies being touted again such as coal gasification, methanation and liquification for creating liquid motor fuels.

The extensive research into clean coal technology has resulted in the general conclusion that these conversions will create vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions – “far more than is released in the extraction and refinement of liquid fuel production from petroleum.” That isn’t exactly a popular conclusion for a region like southern Illinois that is suffering from perpetually high unemployment.

Eventually the research (Follow the money!) led to proposals to artificially sequester the vast amounts of carbon dioxide into artificial trees, the deep ocean or into underground geologic repositories. (Out of sight – Out of mind). The federal government has plans to aggressively research sequestration options. Those plans bring us to Illinois’ quest to be the lottery prize recipient of FutureGen – a $1 billion, 275 MW coal power plant that would sequester carbon dioxide emissions at a rate of about one million metric tons per year. After initial proposal rejections from several states, the two Illinois cities of Mattoon and Tuscola are in very intense competition with Odessa and Jewett, TX for the FutureGen prize.

FutureGen for Illinois touts the alleged benefits to the state:

» FutureGen will create an estimated 1,300 direct jobs during construction.
» FutureGen will create an estimated 3,250 indirect jobs during construction.
» FutureGen will create 150 permanent jobs.
» FutureGen will create 375 spin-off jobs in related investments.

So, why pick Illinois? As seen in the map above, Mattoon and Tuscola both sit above vast coal reserves. Those reserves contain more energy than the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined.

A long list of Illinois notables supports the project. Curiously, the group’s website makes zero mention of any negative consequences. Therefore, there must be no risk right?

“When something is too good to be true, then it isn't”

Green Party gubernatorial candidate Rich Whitney described the FutureGen situation another way:

“If Johnny jumped off a cliff, does that mean you should jump off a cliff?” If Texas is foolish enough to offer a taxpayer bailout for an unknown quantum of liability arising from a potential disaster of unknown proportions, does that mean Illinois should follow suit? I don’t think so. I’m not going to stick Illinois taxpayers with a commitment of unknown proportions.”

What risk is that? He’s was talking about the monumental FutureGen risks that private insurance companies won’t insure. He’s talking about the financial risk that must be so eliminated that both Illinois and Texas are falling all over themselves to legislate away any financial risk to the plant operators if their construction plans go awry and emission sequestration doesn’t work. You know simple risks like:

» An earthquake releasing to the local atmosphere the estimated fifty million metric tons of carbon dioxide that would be stored underground compressed at over a thousand pounds/inch of pressure.
» The risk of rupturing the Carbon Dioxide (CO2) pipeline that Governor Blagojevich wants to construct stretching from the coal gasification plants planned to Illinois Basin oil fields in southeastern Illinois.
» The risk that that all hydrocarbon reservoirs are likely to leak over (geologic) time?
» The risk that carbon dioxide might start filling the basements of nearby homes.
» The risk that displacement of brine (salt water) into drinking water well aquifers.
» The risk of induced earthquakes or surface land deformation. (source)

Isn’t it time to just stop the madness?

Isn’t it time to end our addiction to coal?

The pursuit of clean coal distracts us from proven solutions for energy security. We should be telling all levels of government to stop coal subsidies and support programs for efficiency and clean energy. The sooner we abandon clean coal as the Holy Grail, the faster our nation can develop a sane energy policy that makes for a sustainable environment.

Poll: We Can Do More To Help Environment

The Gallup News Service released the results of an interesting poll last month about environmental priorities for government and citizens. People definitely think the government should do more to help the environment. They also think their neighbors should do more, but offer only a few suggestions as to what. Only about 50% identified actions that they or their neighbors could take. Suggested actions include: "developing alternative fuel sources (19%), addressing global warming (16%), imposing stricter standards on fuel emissions (10%), and setting tougher fuel standards for autos (6%)."

About a third of Americans think the government should strengthen environmental protection laws and their enforcement (not specific to global warming), including by setting higher standards on clean water, holding industrial organizations accountable for pollution, and passing stronger laws for protection of natural resources.

Democrats and Republicans are about equally likely to suggest that the government should initiate more research to find alternative energy sources (20% and 21%, respectively). However, Democrats are about twice as likely as Republicans (23% vs. 11%) to say the government should acknowledge and address global warming, specifically.”

When it comes to telling their neighbors what to do, people suggest that their fellow citizens can be better stewards of the environment by conserving more, recycling more, and polluting less (in that order). But of these, cutting down on energy consumption is by far the largest category of responses. This includes using more energy-efficient products (18%), buying smaller or more fuel-efficient cars (13%), and driving less (10%).

When it comes to recycling they place low emphasis on reducing their consumption patterns, preferring instead to recycle more of what they increasingly consume.

Greenhouse Gas-O-Therapy

I couldn't turn-on the "Smell-O-Vision" for this announcement about reducing greenhouse gases, so please just take my word for it that it is definitely worth your while to attend any of the film showings scheduled next week that are part of the Sierra Club's First Annual Environmental Film Fest.

The first film on Thursday, March 22nd is “Kilowatt Ours” -a one hour film that covers topics ranging from mountain top removal to large scale solar panel projects to one family’s efforts to reduce their household energy use.

The Thursday showing is co-sponsored by the Kaleidoscope Group.

For a detailed show schedule and links to descriptions of the film, visit the Sierra Club's Shawnee Group blog.

How Much Was Your Electric Increase?

I'd like to conduct an unscientific poll regarding the AmerenCIPs rate increase that is affecting many Illinoisans. Before taking the poll shown adjacent in the blog menu, please compare your electric service utility bill from the latest bill from the same month a year ago. Do not include your natural gas service bill costs or taxes - just sum of the three bill categories: DS-Residential (DS-1), Electric Supply (BGS-1), and Taxes. It should be totalled for you on (probably page 3 of the bill. We know that this winter has been colder than the previous year. When I report back the results after the poll closes in two weeks, I will adjust the data for weather impacts. Please ask your friends and neighbors to also take the poll.

In case you don't have access to your historical paper bill records, any AmerenCIPS customer can access their historical bill and payment history (up to 23 months of data) at http://www.ameren.com. While there you can read Ameren's official rationale for the increase. Thanks.

Cementing a Pollution-free Future

This week Illinois and eight other states filed suit against the Bush administration for its alleged failure to regulate mercury and other pollutants from cement plants. Mercury is a powerful neurotoxin that is particularly harmful to young children and pregnant mothers. Mercury pollution has poisoned every lake, river, and stream in Illinois to the point that there is a statewide advisory against eating fish.

State officials from Illinois, New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania contend the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rule regarding Portland cement plants violates the federal Clean Air Act. The lawsuits are good news for southern Illinoisans since they can expect to live downwind from the Holcim cement plant being constructed just across the river in St. Genevieve, Missouri.

Unless the law changes, St. Louis and Illinois will experience increased mercury contamination, as well as, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and high particulate matter. These are all contributors to asthma. The American Lung Association has given St. Louis-area counties failing grades for high ground ozone levels, and the EPA has declared eight St. Louis area counties to be in non-attainment under more stringent 8-hour ozone standards. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America ranks St. Louis third worst in the nation for asthma.

The EPA estimates the nation's 118 cement plants already discharge a combined 12,000 pounds of mercury a year, although some state regulators say the actual amount is actually higher. The sources of cement plant mercury are the raw materials used to make cement -- limestone, clay, sand and iron ore -- and coal which burns in the kilns at very high temperatures. Cement manufacturing contributes about 5% of global man-made CO2 emissions.

The plant will be the second largest cement manufacturing plant in the US producing approximately 4,000,000 metric tons per year. It is nearly double the size of the largest cement plant in the United States. The plant’s construction began in March of 2006 and is due to be completed in 2009. Carbondale is only 60 miles east of this pollution source. St. Louis is only 45 miles north.