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Fw: Alliance Hiring new coordinator
by Jim Sconyers 10 Sep '10

10 Sep '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: Bill Price <bill.price(a)sierraclub.org> To: Jim Sconyers <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com>; Bill DePaulo <william.depaulo(a)gmail.com>; Karen Grubb <karen.grubb(a)fairmontstate.edu>; Kevin Fooce <fmoose39(a)hotmail.com>; Rodger Dotson <bhaddaka(a)yahoo.com>; Heather Heilman <heatherheilman(a)yahoo.com>; Jim Kotcon <jkotcon(a)wvu.edu> Sent: Fri, September 10, 2010 11:31:35 AM Subject: Alliance Hiring new coordinator Job description is attached. Please distribute far and wide. Bill Price, Sierra Club EJ Program 922 Quarrier Street, Suite 304 Charleston, WV 25311 Cell 304-389-8822 Fax 304-342-3182 Voices from the Mountains-September 25-27th For more information go to www.appalachiarising.org

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Marcellus boom makes state man multimillionaire (22 times over!)
by Frank Young 10 Sep '10

10 Sep '10

Blank September 9, 2010 Marcellus boom makes state man multimillionaire NEW MARTINSVILLE, W.Va. -- The rush to tap the Marcellus shale natural gas field has made one West Virginia landowner a millionaire -- 22 times over. By The Associated Press The Associated Press AdvertiserNEW MARTINSVILLE, W.Va. -- The rush to tap the Marcellus shale natural gas field has made one West Virginia landowner a millionaire -- 22 times over. Ed Broome, who owns an oil and gas company of his own in Glenville, says Chesapeake Energy offered him $22 million for 22,000 acres of oil and gas rights in Wetzel County. Broome told The Intelligencer of Wheeling he knew it was a good deal. He didn't pay anything close to that in the mid-1990s. Broome's land is on 250 plots stretching from New Martinsville to the borders of Marion and Monongalia counties. Oklahoma-based Chesapeake says it won't comment on deals it makes. Broome, who lives in Glenville, says it was just the right time to sell. http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201009090256

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Coal Ash - NYT article and DEP study
by William V. DePaulo, Esq. 10 Sep '10

10 Sep '10

[image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/> ------------------------------ January 7, 2009 Hundreds of Coal Ash Dumps Lack Regulation By SHAILA DEWAN<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/shaila_dewan/i…> [image: 07sludge_600.JPG] The coal ash pond that ruptured and sent a billion gallons of toxic sludge across 300 acres of East Tennessee last month was only one of more than 1,300 similar dumps across the United States — most of them unregulated and unmonitored — that contain billions more gallons of fly ash and other byproducts of burning coal. Like the one in Tennessee<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessio…>, most of these dumps, which reach up to 1,500 acres, contain heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and selenium, which are considered by the Environmental Protection Agency<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/environ…>to be a threat to water supplies and human health. Yet they are not subject to any federal regulation, which experts say could have prevented the spill, and there is little monitoring of their effects on the surrounding environment. In fact, coal ash is used throughout the country for construction fill, mine reclamation and other “beneficial uses.” In 2007, according to a coal industry estimate, 50 tons of fly ash even went to agricultural uses, like improving soil’s ability to hold water, despite a 1999 E.P.A. warning about high levels of arsenic. The industry has promoted the reuse of coal combustion products because of the growing amount of them being produced each year — 131 million tons in 2007, up from less than 90 million tons in 1990. The amount of coal ash has ballooned in part because of increased demand for electricity, but more because air pollution controls have improved. Contaminants and waste products that once spewed through the coal plants’ smokestacks are increasingly captured in the form of solid waste, held in huge piles in 46 states, near cities like Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Tampa, Fla., and on the shores of Lake Erie, Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River. Numerous studies have shown that the ash can leach toxic substances that can cause cancer, birth defects and other health problems in humans, and can decimate fish, bird and frog populations in and around ash dumps, causing developmental problems like tadpoles born without teeth, or fish with severe spinal deformities. “Your household garbage is managed much more consistently” than coal combustion waste, said Dr. Thomas A. Burke, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who testified on the health effects of coal ash before a Congressional subcommittee last year. “It’s such a large volume of waste, and it’s so essential to the country’s energy supply; it’s basically been a loophole in the country’s waste management strategy.” As the E.P.A. has studied whether to regulate coal ash waste, the cases of drinking wells and surface water contaminated by leaching from the dumps or the use of the ash has swelled. In 2007, an E.P.A. report identified 63 sites in 26 states where the water was contaminated by heavy metals from such dumps, including three other Tennessee Valley Authority dumps. Environmental advocacy groups have submitted at least 17 additional cases that they say should be added to that list. Just last week, a judge approved a $54 million class-action settlement against Constellation Power Generation after it had dumped coal ash for more than a decade in a sand and gravel pit near Gambrills, Md., about 20 miles south of Baltimore, contaminating wells. And Town of Pines, Ind., a hamlet about 40 miles east of Chicago, was declared a Superfund site after wells there were found to be contaminated by ash dumped in a landfill and used to make roads starting in 1983. Contamination can be swift. In Chesapeake, Va., high levels of lead, arsenic and other contaminants were found last year in the groundwater beneath a golf course sculptured with 1.5 million tons of fly ash, the same type of coal ash involved in the Tennessee spill. The golf course opened in 2007. State requirements for the handling of coal ash vary widely. Some states, like Alabama, do not regulate it at all, except by means of federally required water discharge permits. In Texas, the vast majority of coal ash is not considered a solid waste, according to a review of state regulations by environmental groups. There are no groundwater monitoring or engineering requirements for utilities that dump the ash on site, as most utilities do, the analysis says. The lack of uniform regulation stems from the E.P.A.’s inaction on the issue, which it has been studying for 28 years. In 2000, the agency came close to designating coal ash a hazardous waste, but backpedaled in the face of an industry campaign that argued that tighter controls would cost it $5 billion a year. (In 2007, the Department of Energy estimated that it would cost $11 billion a year.) At the time, the E.P.A. said it would issue national regulations governing the disposal of coal ash as a nonhazardous waste, but it has not done so. “We’re still working on coming up with those standards,” said Matthew Hale, director of the office of solid waste at the E.P.A. “We don’t have a schedule at this point.” Last year, the agency invited public comment on new data on coal combustion wastes, including a finding that the concentrations of arsenic to which people might be exposed through drinking water contaminated by fly ash could increase cancer risks several hundredfold. If such regulations were issued, the agency could require that utilities dispose of dry ash in lined landfills, considered the most environmentally sound method of disposal, but also the most expensive. A 2006 federal report found that at least 45 percent of relatively new disposal sites did not use composite liners, the only kind that the E.P.A. says diminishes the leaching of cancer-causing metals to acceptable risk levels. The vast majority of older disposal sites are unlined. Most coal ash is stored wet in ponds, like the one in Tennessee, almost always located on waterways because they need to take in and release water. But scientists say that the key to the safe disposal of coal ash is to keep it away from water, by putting dry ash into landfills with caps, linings and collection systems for contaminated water. Environmentalists, scientists and other experts say that regulations could have prevented the Tennessee spill. Andrew Wittner, an economist who was working in the E.P.A.’s office of solid waste in 2000 when the issue of whether to designate coal ash as hazardous was being debated, said the agency came close to prohibiting ash ponds like the one at Kingston. “We were going to suggest that these materials not be wet-handled, and that existing surface impoundments should be drained,” Mr. Wittner said. If storing coal ash were more expensive, environmental advocates say, utilities might be pushed to find more ways to recycle it safely. Experts say that some “beneficial uses” of coal ash can be just that, like substituting ash for cement in concrete, which binds the heavy metals and prevents them from leaching, or as a base for roads, where the ash is covered by an impermeable material. But using the ash as backfill or to level abandoned mines requires intensive study and monitoring, which environmentalists say is rarely done right. The industry takes the position that states can regulate the disposal of coal ash on their own, and it has come up with a voluntary plan to close some gaps, like in the monitoring of older disposal sites. “There probably isn’t a need for a comprehensive regulatory approach to coal ash in light of what the states have and our action plan,” said Jim Roewer, the executive director of the Utility Solid Wastes Activity Group. Mr. Roewer said there was a trend toward dry ash disposal in lined landfills, though that trend was not identified in the 2006 federal report on disposal methods. Environmentalists are skeptical of the industry’s voluntary self-policing plan and the states’ ability to tighten controls. “The states have proven that they can’t regulate this waste adequately, and that’s seen in the damage that is occurring all over the United States,” said Lisa Evans, a former E.P.A. lawyer who now works on hazardous-waste issues for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice. “If the states could regulate the industry appropriately, they would have done so by now.” Utility companies are often aware of problems with their disposal system, Ms. Evans said, but they put off improvements because of the cost. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which owns the Kingston Fossil Plant, where the Tennessee spill occurred, tried for decades to fix leaks at its ash pond. In 2003, it considered switching to dry disposal, but balked at the estimated cost of $25 million, according to a report in The Knoxville News Sentinel. That is less than the cost of cleaning up an ash spill in Pennsylvania in 2005 that was a 10th of the size of the one in Tennessee.

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Fw: 2011 Good Jobs, Green Jobs Proposals Now Being Accepted
by Jim Sconyers 09 Sep '10

09 Sep '10

Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. ----- Forwarded Message ---- From: David Foster <event-information(a)certain.com> To: Jim Sconyers <jim_scon(a)yahoo.com> Sent: Wed, September 8, 2010 2:37:36 PM Subject: 2011 Good Jobs, Green Jobs Proposals Now Being Accepted Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference and Expo 2010 Dear Jim, We are now accepting proposals for the 2011 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference taking place February 8-10 in Washington, D.C. Read the submission guidelines and fill out the online submission form. The 2011 Conference will focus on putting into practice the ideas and strategies for a new green economy - and creating good, green jobs - around the country. We will highlight successful state and local initiatives, emerging and growing green sectors, efforts to create a Green Infrastructure Model through smart transportation and urban development, successful work development programs, model partnerships between government, the private sector and local interests - all demonstrating the breadth of the coalition working to build a green economy and to create the good jobs that come along with it. We hope you will consider submitting a proposal. The success of the 2010 Conference was due in large part to the exciting workshops and panels that helped turn ideas into action to build a new, green economy. For more information on the2011 Good Jobs, Green Jobs National Conference and the Request for Proposals, visit www.greenjobsconference.org. I look forward to seeing you in February. Sincerely, David Foster, BlueGreen Alliance P.S. Don't forget to forward this email to friends and colleagues to let them know about this unique opportunity. Registration Powered by Certain Meetings Event Management Software :: Online Event Management :: Online Registration Meeting Management Software :: Conference Registration :: Event Planner Software © 2009 Certain Software ®, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy.

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Fw: HIRING: Coordinator for The Alliance for Appalachia
by Frank Young 07 Sep '10

07 Sep '10

I have been asked to help distribute the following notice: The Alliance for Appalachia is hiring a new coordinator. Please help us spread the word by passing onto your networks. The job description is included below and attached. Applications will be accepted until September 24th. For more information, email Hiring(a)TheAllianceForAppalachia.org, call (304) 546-8473, or send application letter, resume, and 3 references to Hiring(a)TheAllianceForAppalachia.org The Alliance For Appalachia Job Announcement Applications accepted until September 24th BACKGROUND: The Alliance For Appalachia is a regional alliance with the goal of ending mountaintop removal coal mining. The Alliance For Appalachia began in 2006 and consists of thirteen organizations across five states. We are pursuing a multi-dimensional campaign to stop mountaintop removal and create a clean, healthy, sustainable, and just Appalachia by phasing out our dependence on coal and phasing in a sustainable economy for the mountains and survivable energy sources for our region and the nation. The Alliance is governed by a Steering Committee made up of one representative and an alternate from each of the thirteen member organizations. We have Coordinating Committee and Work Teams on legislative strategy, enforcement strategy, economic conversion, as well as other ad-hoc teams working on special projects. We are pursing a number of complementary strategies including grassroots organizing, leadership development, strategic communications, alliance building, research, and more. We believe that our campaign to abolish mountaintop removal mining can be an important element of the national effort for progressive, systemic change in our nation’s energy, economic, and environmental policies. By highlighting the dangers and true costs of our dependence on coal, we can help move the nation away from our current extraction economy and toward a new ethic of conservation, efficiency and renewable energy. Title: The Alliance for Appalachia Coordinator Duration: Full-Time Reports to: The Steering Committee of The Alliance, with direct oversight furnished by the Coordinating Committee of The Alliance Scope: Plans, organizes and coordinates the activities of The Alliance for Appalachia in carrying out the assigned campaigns and programs in the region. Participates in the development of strategies and priorities and implements strategy developed by the Steering Committee. Activities: · Coordinates meeting and event logistics, including all Alliance Committee meetings and conference calls. § Coordinates Alliance participation and travel logistics for key events, including the annual End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington and trainings. § Implements fundraising strategy with appropriate Alliance committee oversight. § Works with Alliance leaders to coordinate facilitation of calls, meetings, etc. § Takes notes of all meetings and is responsible for follow through on actions/decisions of The Alliance § Responsible for administrative duties and internal communications among all entities of The Alliance § Prepares a quarterly report for the Steering Committee. § Works closely with The Alliance member groups to nurture positive working relationships among member groups and with national and regional allies § Responsible for electronic communications, basic research and maintaining The Alliance web presence. § Coordinates media outreach with the appropriate Alliance Committees. § Heavier seasonal workloads may occur as a result of project deadlines and during peak activity periods, such as during the annual Week in Washington and training weekends. Weekend and/or evening work required. Must have the ability to travel Skills/Qualifications: § Experienced in working with non-profit organizations; experienced in working in coalitions. § Knowledge of mountaintop removal concerns and other issues impacting residents of Central Appalachia. § Good time management skills, must be a self-starter § Good written and verbal communication skills including some facilitation experience § Experienced in working with a wide variety of volunteers, community leaders and staff. § Willing to travel and be flexible about time. § Good computer skills Compensation: Commensurate with experience. Competitive benefits package, including full family health insurance. We provide annual cost of living adjustments and annual salary bumps to credit experience. Time off includes fifteen vacation days per year, ten holidays, nine sick days and three personal days. We have a compensation time policy and a one month maternity/paternity/family leave policy. Location: Central or Southern Appalachian area, specifically near the coalfield areas of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, or West Virginia Please submit resume, writing sample, two professional and one personal reference to: Hiring(a)TheAllianceForAppalachia.org For a description of The Alliance for Appalachia member groups go to: www.TheAllianceForAppalachia.org The Alliance for Appalachia is an equal opportunity employer. Women and people of color are strongly encouraged to apply. Dana Kuhnline Alliance for Appalachia PO Box 11701 Charleston, WV 25339 Call: (304) 546-8473 Fax: (304) 342-3182 www.ilovemountains.org www.theallianceforappalachia.org It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little. Sydney Smith

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MTR banks
by Frank Young 31 Aug '10

31 Aug '10

Blank"Several lenders, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and others, have developed internal lending policies that limit or eliminate their relationships with mining outfits that engage in mountaintop removal mining, which is precisely as it sounds: mining companies simply blast off mountaintops to quickly (and cheaply) gain access to coal seams, dumping the debris in valleys below. "The banks appear to be wagering that mountaintop removal has become sufficiently objectionable that it threatens their reputations if they’re seen as connected to it — something opponents have become all too happy to expose. "The policies also suggest that the environmental risk divisions within these banks believe that the regulatory noose is tightening around this and other forms of extreme surface mining — making it a risky investment on its face." More at: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/new-fault-lines-in-mountaintop-co…

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Earthquakes may be tied to gas drilling activity
by Jonathan Rosenbaum 25 Aug '10

25 Aug '10

I sort of suspected this may be the case with the Braxton Country quakes: http://www.wvpubcast.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=16275 -Jonathan

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Free Bus to Allalachia Rising
by Jim Sconyers 20 Aug '10

20 Aug '10

Get on the Bus! Free Bus to Appalachia Rising in Washington Sept. 26/27. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last.

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Fwd: WVNS story: Is West Virginia Ready for Wave of Marcellus Drilling?
by Paul Wilson 19 Aug '10

19 Aug '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 5:02 AM Subject: WVNS story: Is West Virginia Ready for Wave of Marcellus Drilling? To: PaulWilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV August 19, 2010 Is West Virginia Ready for Wave of Marcellus Drilling? CHARLESTON, W.Va. - According to national and state observers, West Virginia is not ready to deal with the effects of natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale. Nationally, there has been a 40 percent increase in gas drilling in the last six years, a large part of it in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and Ohio. Documentary director Josh Fox is bringing his film, "Gasland," to Buckhannon this weekend. While making it, he researched the wave of new drilling in many states. "Every place I went was the same story: water contamination and citizens outraged, feeling that they were being overrun because they lost control of their property, feeling that they'd lost control of their lives." Industry supporters point to the economic growth that comes with the new wells, but long-term, the damage could cost more, Fox warns. He praises New York state for putting a one-year moratorium on new drilling. The West Virginia Department of Transportation just announced that drillers will have to put up bonds to pay for possible damage to roads caused by the heavy equipment. But according to Shanda Minney, executive director of the *West Virginia Rivers Coalition*, the state Department of Environmental Protection is unready. "We're absolutely unprepared. We don't have enough inspectors on the ground, and the ones we do have are spread very thinly." In the last two years, Pennsylvania has gone from 36 drilling inspectors to 121. In the same time, West Virginia went from 17 to 21. Fox says he started work on the film so people in various areas could see the national pattern. "That's why I made the film, to connect all these different areas. To show that what was happening in rural West Virginia and rural Pennsylvania was the same thing the same thing happening in Dallas-Fort Worth, the same thing happening in rural Wyoming, same thing happening in Colorado." Fox will introduce his film at 3:30 p.m. on Aug. 22 at the West Virginia Wesleyan College Performing Arts Center (PAC). Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/15541-1<http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/15541-1> --- To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove(a)publicnewsservice.org <remove(a)publicnewsservice.org?subject=remove>and put the word "remove" in the subject line. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fwd: WVNS story: Cap & Trade Not Raising Electricity Prices In The Northeast
by James Kotcon 18 Aug '10

18 Aug '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 4:13 AM Subject: WVNS story: Cap & Trade Not Raising Electricity Prices In The Northeast To: PaulWilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV August 18, 2010 Cap & Trade Not Raising Electricity Prices In The Northeast CHARLESTON, W. Va. - While climate legislation is stalled in the U.S. Senate, a cap-and-trade system is up and running in much of the Northeast. It's called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), "Reggie" for short. Ten states from Maryland to Maine put a cap on how much carbon can be generated by electric utilities, with a market on carbon emissions among those utilities. Peter Shattuck is a carbon markets policy analyst for Environment Northeast. He says RGGI has already begun to cut emissions and raise millions for developing cleaner forms of energy, without increasing power prices for consumers. "It's showing that cap-and-trade can work, that the sky does not fall down. Electricity prices have actually come down since the start of the program — which is not exclusively due to RGGI, but is encouraging." According to Andrew Light, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a national cap-and-trade system will be needed to meet the country's commitment to reducing emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. However, he believes individual states' plans and regional agreements, such as RGGI, can go a long way toward meeting that goal. "Collectively, together, those will amount to a reduction of about seven percent below 2005 levels by 2020. And so, that's going to be absolutely necessary for the United States to demonstrate any progress internationally." Light also thinks a federal system is better because it would make the policy more uniform and predictable. He says the success of RGGI could be duplicated in similar systems being worked out in Western and Midwestern states — or on an even larger scale. "Really, we might even see a national program that's actually modeled after RGGI coming forward, given that it's probably going to be the first viable American system that we'll see actually in action." The U.S. House passed a climate bill with a national cap-and-trade plan more than a year ago. Opponents have said it would be costly to implement, and bad for business and consumers. Shattuck says RGGI shows those fears are exaggerated. Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/15516-1 ( http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/15516-1 ) --- To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove(a)publicnewsservice.org ( mailto:remove@publicnewsservice.org?subject=remove ) and put the word "remove" in the subject line. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp

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Re: [EC] Sierra Club chapter website...
by Paul Wilson 18 Aug '10

18 Aug '10

Greetings, y'all: I have jumped the gun a bit due to my imminent departure for a family emergency. I have posted the September - October MSS on the website, plus I have updated the outings and SierraFest pages and added a Left Nav link for the Marcellus Shale Gas campaign plus its related secondary page. Look 'em over! If you have any changes/additions, please get them to me by tonight or early tomorrow. I will be leaving either Friday or Sunday. I will have email access, but no way to spend a lot of time on web stuff. As always, contact me if you have any questions. best, paul -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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WVNS story: Cap & Trade Not Raising Electricity Prices In The Northeast
by Frank Young 18 Aug '10

18 Aug '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Public News Service <wvns(a)newsservice.org> Date: Aug 18, 2010 4:13 AM Subject: WVNS story: Cap & Trade Not Raising Electricity Prices In The Northeast To: HughRogers <hugh.rogers(a)gmail.com> Public News Service-WV August 18, 2010 Cap & Trade Not Raising Electricity Prices In The Northeast CHARLESTON, W. Va. - While climate legislation is stalled in the U.S. Senate, a cap-and-trade system is up and running in much of the Northeast. It's called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), "Reggie" for short. Ten states from Maryland to Maine put a cap on how much carbon can be generated by electric utilities, with a market on carbon emissions among those utilities. Peter Shattuck is a carbon markets policy analyst for Environment Northeast. He says RGGI has already begun to cut emissions and raise millions for developing cleaner forms of energy, without increasing power prices for consumers. "It's showing that cap-and-trade can work, that the sky does not fall down. Electricity prices have actually come down since the start of the program — which is not exclusively due to RGGI, but is encouraging." According to Andrew Light, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a national cap-and-trade system will be needed to meet the country's commitment to reducing emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. However, he believes individual states' plans and regional agreements, such as RGGI, can go a long way toward meeting that goal. "Collectively, together, those will amount to a reduction of about seven percent below 2005 levels by 2020. And so, that's going to be absolutely necessary for the United States to demonstrate any progress internationally." Light also thinks a federal system is better because it would make the policy more uniform and predictable. He says the success of RGGI could be duplicated in similar systems being worked out in Western and Midwestern states — or on an even larger scale. "Really, we might even see a national program that's actually modeled after RGGI coming forward, given that it's probably going to be the first viable American system that we'll see actually in action." The U.S. House passed a climate bill with a national cap-and-trade plan more than a year ago. Opponents have said it would be costly to implement, and bad for business and consumers. Shattuck says RGGI shows those fears are exaggerated. Click here to view this story on the Public News Service RSS site and access an audio version of this and other stories: http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/15516-1 --- To be removed from this list please send an e-mail to remove(a)publicnewsservice.org and put the word "remove" in the subject line. __._,_.___ Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post | Start a New Topic Messages in this topic (1) Recent Activity: Visit Your Group Working since 1967 for the conservation and wise management of West Virginia's natural resources Switch to: Text-Only, Daily Digest • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use. __,_._,___

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Fwd: Yahoo! News Story - AP Enterprise: Old-style coal plants expanding - Yahoo! News
by James Kotcon 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

I recall an early estimate that, of the 151 plants on the drawing boards, about 80 % would drop out of the race. These statistics suggest that all we have done is help "thin the herd" as the top 20 % are now operating or under construction. It seems clear that these new plants are operating under the assumption that they can pass on any carbon capture costs to customers. Perhaps we need to put the financial risks back on the investors, and push the PSC to require stockholders to share the risk of any carbon control costs for plants built after 1992 (That was the year that President George Bush signed the Rio Treaty pledging the US to prevent "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system".) The advantage of such a campaign is that it shifts the debate from the question of "whether to do anything about climate change", to "who pays for it". And I suspect that a lot of consumers do not want stockholders of out-of-state corporations to get rich at their expense. JBK >>> Jim Sconyers 08/17/10 3:24 PM >>> Saw this. Good reporting as we congratulate ourselves on all the canceled coal-fired plants. Here we have inexorable expansion of GHG emissions. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last. From: Paul Wilson To: WV Chapter Energy Committee Sent: Tue, August 17, 2010 3:17:04 PM Subject: [EC] Fwd: Yahoo! News Story - AP Enterprise: Old-style coal plants expanding - Yahoo! News fyi, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ross Geredien <goodmigrations(a)yahoo.com> Date: Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 8:59 AM Subject: Yahoo! News Story - AP Enterprise: Old-style coal plants expanding - Yahoo! News To: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS(a)lists.sierraclub.org Ross Geredien (goodmigrations(a)yahoo.com) has sent you a news article. (Email address has not been verified.) ------------------------------------------------------------ Personal message: AP Enterprise: Old-style coal plants expanding - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100817/ap_on_re_us/us_old_coal ============================================================ Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/ -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Fwd: Arizona energy update
by James Kotcon 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

Attached is an "Energy Update" from the Arizona Chapter. This electronic newsletter goes out monthly to their energy activists. Is this something we should do in WV? If so, is anyone interested in taking this on as a task? This would be a great job for the "activist in training" because you would learn so much about the Chapter's work, without really having to do any of it! :-) JBK

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Fwd: Yahoo! News Story - AP Enterprise: Old-style coal plants expanding - Yahoo! News
by Paul Wilson 17 Aug '10

17 Aug '10

fyi, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ross Geredien <goodmigrations(a)yahoo.com> Date: Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 8:59 AM Subject: Yahoo! News Story - AP Enterprise: Old-style coal plants expanding - Yahoo! News To: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS(a)lists.sierraclub.org Ross Geredien (goodmigrations(a)yahoo.com) has sent you a news article. (Email address has not been verified.) ------------------------------------------------------------ Personal message: AP Enterprise: Old-style coal plants expanding - Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100817/ap_on_re_us/us_old_coal ============================================================ Yahoo! News http://news.yahoo.com/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp Sign up to receive Sierra Club Insider, the flagship e-newsletter. Sent out twice a month, it features the Club's latest news and activities. Subscribe and view recent editions at http://www.sierraclub.org/insider/ -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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Re: [EC] State of WV hopes to buy gas well water?
by DSGJr＠aol.com 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

Mark's comments don't quite get this right. The brine they are talking about is not from Marcellus wells, but from conventional producing wells. It is not known to be "laced with known cancer causing agents." And the AOP treatment plant is in Fairmont, not the Northern Panhandle. The state has been using oil field brine on roads in the winter, off and on, for about 20 years. From what I have been told, it doesn't work as well as regular salt. don garvin In a message dated 8/15/2010 5:12:09 P.M. Mountain Standard Time, fyoung(a)mountain.net writes: To spread on icy highways, no less. And then where does it go? As the slogan says, "Don't Frack With Our Water"! See below. ----- Original Message ----- From: _Mark Blumenstein_ (mailto:markb@mountain.net) To: _WVENVIRO(a)googlegroups.com_ (mailto:WVENVIRO@googlegroups.com) Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 9:26 AM Subject: Insane ! This is insane ! DOH to spread fluid laced with know cancer causing agents on roads to deice in Winter! Spreading the toxins across the landscape to enter our rivers and water supply ..... This stuff is what killed all in Dunkard Creek months back ...... This only aides the gas drillers . in trying to solve the problem of where to Fracking fluid will go . Now we know.. THere is only one official Fracking water treatment plant in the state and thats in the Northern panhandle! Joes a gas man ..... August 13, 2010 State to use gas-well brine on winter roads By The Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Salty wastewater from natural-gas wells may end up on West Virginia roads this winter under a new agreement between the state departments of Environmental Protection and Transportation. The agreement to let highway crews use the brine to treat snow- and ice-coated roads establishes new limits for pH, iron, barium, lead, oil and grease, benzene and ethylbenzene. DOT spokesman Brent Walker said the brine can also be mixed with rock salt to prevent clumping or sprayed on roads before precipitation. The Division of Highways will take bids for brine supply and is hoping to pay about 5 cents a gallon, Walker said. It plans to distribute about 1.2 million gallons to 123 sites around the state to start the season. Highway crews had been relying on brine made with rock salt mined from the Great Lakes region. "That ended up containing a fair amount of soil, and with that you get iron and other metals," said Scott Mandirola, head of the DEP's Division of Water and Waste Management. "It was going relatively unchecked. We sat down and looked at some specs and came up with some limits that were better than the quality of what was currently being used." Mandirola said some of the brine could run off into state waterways -- but that's always happened, and deicing is necessary for public safety. "What we came up with here is equal to or better than what's been happening," he said. The brine will come from producing wells, Mandirola said, not from the hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus Shale wells. That fluid, used in unconventional horizontal drilling, contains additives that make it thicker and slicker. That fracking water also could contain naturally occurring radioactive material, which Mandirola said has been found in some spots in Pennsylvania.

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State of WV hopes to buy gas well water?
by Frank Young 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

To spread on icy highways, no less. And then where does it go? As the slogan says, "Don't Frack With Our Water"! See below. ----- Original Message ----- From: Mark Blumenstein To: WVENVIRO(a)googlegroups.com Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 9:26 AM Subject: Insane ! This is insane ! DOH to spread fluid laced with know cancer causing agents on roads to deice in Winter! Spreading the toxins across the landscape to enter our rivers and water supply ..... This stuff is what killed all in Dunkard Creek months back ...... This only aides the gas drillers . in trying to solve the problem of where to Fracking fluid will go . Now we know.. THere is only one official Fracking water treatment plant in the state and thats in the Northern panhandle! Joes a gas man ..... August 13, 2010 State to use gas-well brine on winter roads By The Associated Press CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Salty wastewater from natural-gas wells may end up on West Virginia roads this winter under a new agreement between the state departments of Environmental Protection and Transportation. The agreement to let highway crews use the brine to treat snow- and ice-coated roads establishes new limits for pH, iron, barium, lead, oil and grease, benzene and ethylbenzene. DOT spokesman Brent Walker said the brine can also be mixed with rock salt to prevent clumping or sprayed on roads before precipitation. The Division of Highways will take bids for brine supply and is hoping to pay about 5 cents a gallon, Walker said. It plans to distribute about 1.2 million gallons to 123 sites around the state to start the season. Highway crews had been relying on brine made with rock salt mined from the Great Lakes region. "That ended up containing a fair amount of soil, and with that you get iron and other metals," said Scott Mandirola, head of the DEP's Division of Water and Waste Management. "It was going relatively unchecked. We sat down and looked at some specs and came up with some limits that were better than the quality of what was currently being used." Mandirola said some of the brine could run off into state waterways -- but that's always happened, and deicing is necessary for public safety. "What we came up with here is equal to or better than what's been happening," he said. The brine will come from producing wells, Mandirola said, not from the hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus Shale wells. That fluid, used in unconventional horizontal drilling, contains additives that make it thicker and slicker. That fracking water also could contain naturally occurring radioactive material, which Mandirola said has been found in some spots in Pennsylvania.

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huge solar PV project in Morgantown
by Jim Sconyers 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

Here's a pic of the new solar PV facility at the Book Exchange in Evansdale - so far the largest solar project in WV. Brought to us by Matt Sherald and PIMBY. Jim Sconyers jim_scon(a)yahoo.com 304.698.9628 Remember: Mother Nature bats last.

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NYTimes.com: A Battle in Mining Country Pits Coal Against Wind
by william.depaulo＠gmail.com 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

This page was sent to you by: william.depaulo(a)gmail.com. BUSINESS | August 15, 2010 A Battle in Mining Country Pits Coal Against Wind By TOM ZELLER Jr. Opponents of mountaintop mining have proposed an alternative in West Virginia: a wind farm they say could save the land and diversify employment. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/business/energy-environment/15coal.html?e… ---------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THIS E-MAIL This e-mail was sent to you by a friend through NYTimes.com's E-mail This Article service. For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help(a)nytimes.com. NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

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Fwd: Fw: GAS DRILLING - Civil Rights, Human Rights
by Paul Wilson 13 Aug '10

13 Aug '10

This is from upstate NY and they have some heavy hitters like Pete Seeger, Mark Ruffalo and Theo Colburn. Interesting website. best, paul ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: vivian newman <newviv(a)roadrunner.com> Date: Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 7:29 PM Subject: Fw: GAS DRILLING - Civil Rights, Human Rights To: Paul Wilson <pjgrunt(a)gmail.com> ----- Original Message ----- *From:* DamascusCitizens.org <DCS(a)mailhosts.net> *To:* vivian Newman' <newviv(a)adelphia.net> *Sent:* Saturday, August 07, 2010 1:14 PM *Subject:* GAS DRILLING - Civil Rights, Human Rights *FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS CASE - HEARING MONDAY* Damascus Citizens and some of its members have filed a federal civil rights lawsuit to stop Damascus township from violating the civil rights, property rights, and due process rights of its citizens. Our motion to dismiss suit by industry against our town will also be heard at this federal court hearing: http://www.damascuscitizens.org/news-legal.html* Federal Court Hearing - Monday, Aug. 9 PURE WATER - BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS* The people have a constitutional right to clean air, pure water, and the preservation of the natural, scenic, historic and esthetic values of the environment. Religious leaders in Pittsburgh - a city where the public water supply is being contaminated - have taken a stand for basic human rights: http://www.damascuscitizens.org/Pittsburgh-Letter.pdf * http://www.DamascusCitizens.org* - Please click REPLY and type the word REMOVE in the SUBJECT line to be removed from this list. -- Paul Wilson Sierra Club 504 Jefferson Ave Charles Town, WV 25414-1130 Phone: 304-725-4360 Cell: 304-279-1361 "There is no forward until you have gone back" ~Buddha "In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous" ~ Aristotle

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MARCELLUS & EPA
by William V. DePaulo, Esq. 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

[image: Green - Energy, the Environment and the Bottom Line]<http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=cookie&pos=Position1B> August 10, 2010, 5:28 pm 8,000 People? E.P.A. Defers Hearing on Fracking By MIREYA NAVARRO <http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/author/mireya-navarro/> Jeff Swensen for The New York Times The E.P.A.’s last hearing on fracking, held in Canonsburg, Pa., in July, drew over 1,200 people. After successfully holding hearings around the country on the impact of the natural gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, officials with the federal Environmental Protection Agency ran into a hurdle this week in New York State: and went looking for an acceptable location for a hearing and for the passionate crowds expected to show up for it. The agency announced on Tuesday that it was canceling an all-day hearing that had been scheduled for Thursday at the OnCenter Complex<http://www.oncenter.org/>Convention Center in Syracuse after Onondaga County officials expressed concern that they had not been given enough time to prepare security in anticipation of rallies and protests at the event. The hearing had just been moved to Syracuse after the original venue, Binghamton University, set conditions that E.P.A. officials found unacceptable and sent the agency looking for an alternate site in a hurry. Judith Enck, the E.P.A.’s regional administrator in New York, said that Binghamton University had been squared away as a site last month but suddenly decided to change the meeting’s location to a room with no air conditioning. When the E.P.A. “pushed back” on this change, she said, the university relented but raised its fee for the event — to $32,000 from $6,000. “It is regretful that Binghamton University has put E.P.A., and more importantly, thousands of people on both sides of the issue who had planned to attend this meeting, in this inconvenient and difficult position,” Ms. Enck said in a statement. “Universities are places where civic participation should flourish, especially on a major environmental topic like hydraulic fracturing’s potential impact on drinking water.” But university officials countered that they had raised the price to cover security and logistical costs after consulting local law enforcement officials, special interest groups and others that indicated that as many as 8,000 people could show up for the hearing, far more than the 1,200 participants that the E.P.A. had pre-registered for the event. “Because we are a public university and responsible to the taxpayer, and as we do for all contracted events, a price was developed to ensure that the campus would remain cost-neutral,” the university’s interim president, C. Peter Magrath, and its vice president for administration, James Van Voorst, said in a joint statement. The E.P.A. is now hunting for a new site and hopes to hold the hearing in September. Hydraulic is a type of natural gas exploration that involves injecting millions of gallons of chemically treated water deep into the ground. The cancellation disappointed many of the people whose planned attendance had stirred some concern for the host venues. Roger Downs, the Sierra Club’s senior staff member in New York, said that environmental and grass-roots groups had planned to bus people from around the state to the hearing to hold a rally. He said the rally was intended to signal concern over drilling but also support for the E.P.A., which is soliciting testimony for a study on the potential impact of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water. “I really doubt it would have been that big a deal in either site,” he said. [image: DCSIMG]

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Fwd: Good news -- lots of stream buffer comments submitted
by James Kotcon 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

>>> Oliver Bernstein <oliver.bernstein(a)SIERRACLUB.ORG> 8/9/2010 4:59 PM >>> The Sierra Club has generated 12,264 online comments so far about protecting streams from mining waste. According to this press release from the Office of Surface Mining, about 21,000 email comments, meaning Sierra Club generated 58% of all online comments! http://www.osmre.gov/resources/newsroom/News/Archive/2010/080610.pdf Thanks to Ed Hopkins, Aaron Isherwood, Peter Morgan and Michael Grenetz for setting this up. -Oliver -- Oliver Bernstein Senior Communications Strategist Sierra Club Phone: 512.477.2152 Cell: 512.289.8618 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS list, send any message to: COAL-CAMPAIGN-ALERTS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp

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PORTUGAL'S CONVERSION TO GREEN ENERGY
by William V. DePaulo, Esq. 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

[image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/> ------------------------------ August 9, 2010 Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/elisabeth_rose…> LISBON — Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/po…>’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects — primarily harnessing the country’s wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves. Today, Lisbon’s trendy bars, Porto’s factories and the Algarve’s glamorous resorts are powered substantially by clean energy. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago<http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-QA-07-019/EN/KS-QA-07-…>. Land-based wind power — this year deemed “potentially competitive” with fossil fuels <http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/ElecCost2010SUM.pdf> by the International Energy Agency in Paris — has expanded sevenfold in that time. And Portugal expects in 2011 to become the first country to inaugurate a national network of charging stations for electric cars<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/e/electric_veh…>. “I’ve seen all the smiles — you know: It’s a good dream. It can’t compete. It’s too expensive,” said Prime Minister José Sócrates, recalling the way Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, mockingly offered to build him an electric Ferrari. Mr. Sócrates added, “The experience of Portugal shows that it is possible to make these changes in a very short time.” The oil spill<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/o/oil_spills/g…>in the Gulf of Mexico has renewed questions about the risks and unpredictable costs of America’s unremitting dependence on fossil fuels. President Obama has seized on the opportunity to promote his goal<http://www.barackobama.com/issues/newenergy/index.php>of having 20 to 25 percent of America’s electricity produced from renewable sources by 2025. While Portugal’s experience shows that rapid progress is achievable, it also highlights the price of such a transition. Portuguese households have long paid about twice what Americans pay for electricity, and prices have risen 15 percent<http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-QA-10-022/EN/KS-QA-10-…>in the last five years, probably partly because of the renewable energy program, the International Energy Agency says. Although a 2009 report by the agency called Portugal’s renewable energy transition a “remarkable success,” it added, “It is not fully clear that their costs, both financial and economic, as well as their impact on final consumer energy prices, are well understood and appreciated.” Indeed, complaints about rising electricity rates are a mainstay of pensioners’ gossip here. Mr. Sócrates, who after a landslide victory in 2005 pushed through the major elements of the energy makeover over the objections of the country’s fossil fuel industry, survived last year’s election only as the leader of a weak coalition. “You cannot imagine the pressure we suffered that first year,” said Manuel Pinho, Portugal’s minister of economy and innovation from 2005 until last year, who largely masterminded the transition, adding, “Politicians must take tough decisions.” Still, aggressive national policies to accelerate renewable energy use are succeeding in Portugal and some other countries, according to a recent report by IHS Emerging Energy Research <http://www.emerging-energy.com/> of Cambridge, Mass., a leading energy consulting firm. By 2025, the report projected, Ireland, Denmark and Britain will also get 40 percent or more of their electricity from renewable sources; if power from large-scale hydroelectric<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hydroelectri…>dams, an older type of renewable energy, is included, countries like Canada and Brazil join the list. The United States, which last year generated less than 5 percent of its power from newer forms of renewable energy, will lag behind at 16 percent (or just over 20 percent, including hydroelectric power), according to IHS. To force Portugal’s energy transition, Mr. Sócrates’s government restructured and privatized former state energy utilities to create a grid better suited to renewable power sources. To lure private companies into Portugal’s new market, the government gave them contracts locking in a stable price for 15 years — a subsidy that varied by technology and was initially high but decreased with each new contract round. Compared with the United States, European countries have powerful incentives to pursue renewable energy. Many, like Portugal, have little fossil fuel of their own, and the European Union’s emissions trading system<http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/pdf/emission_trading2_en.pdf>discourages fossil fuel use by requiring industry to essentially pay for excessive carbon dioxide emissions. Portugal was well poised to be a guinea pig because it has large untapped resources of wind and river power, the two most cost-effective renewable sources. Government officials say the energy transformation required no increase in taxes or public debt, precisely because the new sources of electricity, which require no fuel and produce no emissions, replaced electricity previously produced by buying and burning imported natural gas, coal and oil. By 2014 the renewable energy program will allow Portugal to fully close at least two conventional power plants and reduce the operation of others. “So far the program has placed no stress on the national budget” and has not created government debt, said Shinji Fujino, head of the International Energy Agency’s country study division. If the United States is to catch up to countries like Portugal, energy experts say, it must overcome obstacles like a fragmented, outdated energy grid poorly suited to renewable energy; a historic reliance on plentiful and cheap supplies of fossil fuels, especially coal; powerful oil and coal industries that often oppose incentives for renewable development; and energy policy that is heavily influenced by individual states. The relative costs of an energy transition would inevitably be higher in the United States than in Portugal. But as the expense of renewable power drops, an increasing number of countries see such a shift as worthwhile, said Alex Klein, research director, clean and renewable power generation, at IHS. “The cost gap will close in the next decade, but what you get right away is an energy supply that is domestically controlled and safer,” Mr. Klein said. *Necessity Drives Change* Portugal’s venture was driven by necessity. With a rising standard of living and no fossil fuel of its own, the cost of energy imports — principally oil and gas — doubled in the last decade, accounting for 50 percent of the country’s trade deficit, and was highly volatile. The oil went to fuel cars, the gas mainly to electricity. Unlike the United States, Portugal never depended heavily on coal for electricity generation because close and reliable sources of natural gas were available in North Africa, and Europe’s carbon trading system could make coal costly. Portugal is now on track to reach its goal of using domestically produced renewable energy, including large-scale hydropower, for 60 percent of its electricity and 31 percent of its total energy needs by 2020. (Total energy needs include purposes other than generating electricity, like heating homes and powering cars.) In making the shift, Portugal has overcome longstanding concerns about reliability and high cost. The lights go on in Lisbon even when the wind dies down at the vast two-year-old Alto Minho wind farm. The country’s electricity production costs and consumer electricity rates — including the premium prices paid for power from renewable sources — are about average for Europe, but still higher than those in China or the United States, countries that rely on cheap coal. Portugal says it has kept costs down by focusing heavily on the cheapest forms of renewable energy — wind and hydropower — and ratcheting down the premium prices it pays to lure companies to build new plants. While the government estimates that the total investment in revamping Portugal’s energy structure will be about 16.3 billion euros, or $22 billion, that cost is borne by the private companies that operate the grid and the renewable plants and is reflected in consumers’ electricity rates. The companies’ payback comes from the 15 years of guaranteed wholesale electricity rates promised by the government. Once the new infrastructure is completed, Mr. Pinho said, the system will cost about 1.7 billion euros ($2.3 billion) a year less to run than it formerly did, primarily by avoiding natural gas imports. A smaller savings will come from carbon credits Portugal can sell under the European Union’s carbon trading system: countries and industries that produce fewer emissions than allotted can sell permits to those that exceed their limits. Mr. Fujino of the International Energy Agency said Portugal’s calculations might be optimistic. But he noted that the country’s transition had also created a valuable new industry: Last year, for the first time, it became a net power exporter, sending a small amount of electricity to Spain. Tens of thousands of Portuguese work in the field. Energias de Portugal<http://www.edp.pt/en/Pages/homepage.aspx>, the country’s largest energy company, owns wind farms<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/w/wind_power/i…>in Iowa and Texas, through its American subsidiary, Horizon Wind Energy <http://www.horizonwind.com/home/>. *Redesigning the System* A nationwide supply of renewable power requires a grid that can move electricity from windy, sunny places to the cities. But a decade ago in Portugal, as in many places in the United States today, power companies owned not only power generating plants, but also transmission lines. Those companies have little incentive to welcome new sources of renewable energy, which compete with their investment in fossil fuels. So in 2000, Portugal’s first step was to separate making electricity from transporting it, through a mandatory purchase by the government of all transmission lines for electricity and gas at what were deemed fair market prices. Those lines were then used to create the skeleton of what since 2007 has been a regulated and publicly traded company that operates the national electricity and natural gas networks. Next, the government auctioned off contracts to private companies to build and operate wind and hydropower plants. Bidders were granted rights based on the government-guaranteed price they would accept for the energy they produced, as well as on their willingness to invest in Portugal’s renewable economy, including jobs and other venture capital funds. Some of the winners were foreign companies. In the latest round of bidding, the price guaranteed for wind energy was in the range of the price paid for electricity generated by natural gas. Such a drastic reorganization might be extremely difficult in the United States, where power companies have strong political sway and states decide whether to promote renewable energy. Colorado recently legislated that 30 percent of its energy must come from renewable sources by 2020, but neighboring Utah has only weak voluntary goals<http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11092011>. Coal states, like Kentucky and West Virginia, have relatively few policies<http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/maps/renewable_portfolio_states.cfm>to encourage alternative energies. In Portugal, said Mr. Pinho, the former economy minister, who will join Columbia University’s faculty, “the prime minister had an absolute majority.” “He was very strong, and everyone knew we would not step back,” Mr. Pinho said. *A Flexible Network* Running a country using electricity derived from nature’s highly unpredictable forces requires new technology and the juggling skills of a plate spinner. A wind farm that produces 200 megawatts one hour may produce only 5 megawatts a few hours later; the sun shines intermittently in many places; hydropower is plentiful in the rainy winter, but may be limited in summer. Portugal’s national energy transmission company, Redes Energéticas Nacionais or R.E.N., uses sophisticated modeling to predict weather, especially wind patterns, and computer programs to calculate energy from the various renewable-energy plants. Since the country’s energy transition, the network has doubled the number of dispatchers who route energy to where it is needed. “You need a lot of new skills. It’s a real-time operation, and there are far more decisions to be made — every hour, every second,” said Victor Baptista, director general of R.E.N. “The objective is to keep the system alive and avoid blackouts.” Like some American states, Portugal has for decades generated electricity from hydropower plants on its raging rivers. But new programs combine wind and water: Wind-driven turbines pump water uphill at night, the most blustery period; then the water flows downhill by day, generating electricity, when consumer demand is highest. Denmark, another country that relies heavily on wind power, frequently imports electricity from its energy-rich neighbor Norway when the wind dies down; by comparison, Portugal’s grid is relatively isolated, although R.E.N. has greatly increased its connection with Spain<http://www.omip.pt/OMIP/MIBEL/tabid/72/language/en-GB/Default.aspx>to allow for energy sharing. Portugal’s distribution system is also now a two-way street. Instead of just delivering electricity, it draws electricity from even the smallest generators, like rooftop solar panels. The government aggressively encourages such contributions by setting a premium price for those who buy rooftop-generated solar electricity. “To make this kind of system work, you have to make a lot of different kinds of deals at the same time,” said Carlos Zorrinho, the secretary of state for energy and innovation. To ensure a stable power base when the forces of nature shut down, the system needs to maintain a base of fossil fuel that can be fired up at will. Although Portugal’s traditional power plants now operate many fewer hours than before, the country is also building some highly efficient natural gas plants. To accommodate all this, Portugal needed new transmission lines from remote windy regions to urban centers. Portugal began modernizing its grid a decade ago. Accommodating a greater share of renewable power cost an additional 480 million euros, or about $637 million, an expense folded into electricity rates, according to R.E.N. Last year, President Obama offered billions of dollars in grants to modernize the grid in the United States, but it is not clear that such a piecemeal effort will be adequate for renewable power. Widely diverse permitting procedures in different states and the fact that many private companies control local fragments of the grid make it hard to move power over long distances, for example, from windy Iowa to users in Atlanta. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the United States’ grid a “D+,” commenting that it is “in urgent need of modernization.” “A real smart national grid would radically change our technology profile,” said John Juech, vice president for policy analysis at Garten Rothkopf, a Washington consulting firm that focuses on energy. “But it will be very costly, and the political will may not be there.” A 2009 report<http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/wind-solar-electricity-report.pdf>commissioned by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change estimated that the United States would have to spend $3 billion to $4 billion a year for the next two decades to create a grid that could accommodate deriving 20 percent of electricity from wind power by 2030 — a 40 percent to 50 percent increase over current spending. *The Drawbacks* Energy experts consider Portugal’s experiment a success. But there have been losers. Many environmentalists object to the government plans to double the amount of wind energy, saying lights and noise from turbines will interfere with birds’ behavior. Conservation groups worry that new dams will destroy Portugal’s cork-oak habitats. Local companies complain that the government allowed large multinationals to displace them. Until it became the site of the largest wind farm south of Lisbon, Barão de São João was a sleepy village on the blustery Alentejo Coast, home to farmers who tilled its roller coaster hills and holiday homeowners drawn to cheap land and idyllic views. Renewable energy has brought conflict. “I know it’s good for the country because it’s clean energy and it’s good for the landowners who got money, but it hasn’t brought me any good,” said José Cristino, 48, a burly farmer harvesting grain with a wind turbine’s thrap-thrap-thrap in the background. “I look at these things day and night.” He said 90 percent of the town’s population had been opposed. In Portugal, as in the United States, politicians have sold green energy programs to communities with promises of job creation. Locally, the effect has often proved limited. For example, more than five years ago, the isolated city of Moura became the site of Portugal’s largest solar plant because it “gets the most sun of anywhere in Europe and has lots of useless space,” said José Maria Prazeres Pós-de-Mina, the mayor. But while 400 people built the Moura plant, only 20 to 25 work there now, since gathering sunlight requires little human labor. Unemployment remains at 15 percent, the mayor said — though researchers, engineers and foreign delegations frequently visit the town’s new solar research center. Indeed, Portugal’s engineers and companies are now global players. Portugal’s EDP Renováveis, first listed on stock exchanges in 2008, is the third largest company in the world in wind-generated electricity output. This year, its Portuguese chief executive, Ana Maria Fernandes, signed contracts to sell electricity<http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/02/edp-renewables…>from its wind farm in Iowa to the Tennessee Valley Authority. “Broadly, Europe has had great success in this area,” said Mr. Juech, the analyst at Garten Rothkopf. “But that is the result of huge government support and intervention, and that raises questions about what happens when you have an economic crisis or political change; will these technologies still be sustainable?” [image: DCSIMG]

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Appalachian Power Co. president calls for cap and trade bill
by Frank Young 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

Blank August 4, 2010 APCO president calls for cap and trade bill By Ken Ward Jr. The Charleston Gazette CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The new president of Appalachian Power said Wednesday that congressional action to cap greenhouse gas emissions is needed to help guide utilities in perfecting and deploying technology to limit those emissions. ] http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201008040959

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Fwd: [GW-ACT-LEADERS] Germany Ups Renewable Target--Again
by James Kotcon 06 Aug '10

06 Aug '10

Ditto my previous message. JBK >>> Edward Mainland <emainland(a)COMCAST.NET> 8/4/2010 1:29 PM >>> Germany Ups Renewable Target--Again August 4, 2010 By Paul Gipe In what is becoming a regular occurrence, Germany has again increased its target for renewable energy. In a meeting today the German cabinet voted to up the target to 20% of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption. The release from Federal Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen said that at the current pace Germany will surpass its current target of 18% by 2020. As in the past, the German government has had to increase their renewable targets to keep ahead of actual development on the ground. The renewable target for renewables in electricity generation has been increased from the current range of 25%-30% to 38.6%. Germany is ruled by a conservative coalition of the Christian Democrats and the Neoliberal Party. Röttgen is a member of the Christian Democrats, Germany's main conservative party. Minister Röttgen: Renewables' share of almost 20 percent can be achieved by 2020 -End- Paul Gipe 606 Hillcrest Dr. Bakersfield, CA 93305-1413 661 325 9590, 661 472 1657 mobile pgipe(a)igc.org, www.wind-works.org Wind Energy Basics (Revised) 2009 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To unsubscribe from the CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS list, send any message to: CONS-SPST-GLOBALWARM-CHAIRS-signoff-request(a)LISTS.SIERRACLUB.ORG Check out our Listserv Lists support site for more information: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/faq.asp To view the Sierra Club List Terms & Conditions, see: http://www.sierraclub.org/lists/terms.asp

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