Coal Power Plant Opponents Gain More Steam

Opponents of the 17 new coal power plants TXU wants to build in Texas (with Rick Perry’s help) got a major boost with some excellent coverage from NPR this week.

In the article, there were some great quotes from Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, a Democrat, about what these power plants will do to Texas:

“There’s a national movement by the utility companies to build coal-burning plants,” says Dallas Mayor Laura Miller. “And the reason is coal is plentiful, coal is cheap and, unfortunately, coal pollutes the air aggressively.”

Miller and Houston’s Mayor Bill White are leading the fight against the proposed coal-burning plants.

“I don’t think people have any idea what it will be like if we have 18 power plants now, and they wake up in five years and we have twice as many then. I think you’re going to see a significant change in the way our sky looks,” Miller says.

Miller, White and the other Texas mayors (representing roughly one-third of the population of Texas) want TXU to use technology called “coal gasification,” which is a cleaner alternative to traditional coal power plants, even though TXU would like for us to think that the new design of traditional coal plants are significantly cleaner. The gasification technology, however is 70 to 90 percent cleaner.
Consider, too, that the amount of carbon dioxide the plants emit will be awful:

One emission the federal government does not regulate is carbon dioxide, the primary global-warming gas. The new power plants in Texas will emit the equivalent of 19 million automobiles’ worth of carbon dioxide every year. When all the new plants are up and running, Texas will send nearly as much carbon dioxide up its stacks as California, New York and Florida combined.

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