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  • New Source Review stands for now

    Byoliveridley

    Cinergy, now Duke Energy, was trying to claim that as long as its plants’ hourly emission rate did not increase, they could make unlimited “modifications” to the plants. So, in theory, if capacity got doubled so a plant was operating 24 hours a day from 12, the hourly rate would remain the same, but pollution would double. Well,  isn’t that a “new source” then? Apparently, Cinergy did not think so, and after at least 6 years of wrangling, this thing is going to be decided by the Supreme Court this fall. So, once again, the crack team of Roberts, et al. will decide whether we breathe or not, policy by judicial fiat?

    US court hands EPA a win in utility emission case | Reuters.com

    A federal court has ruled that a big U.S. utility must install costly pollution-reduction equipment at its aging coal-powered electric plants if it expands them, handing a victory to the U.S. government in a case that could shape an upcoming Supreme Court ruling.

    The three-member 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on Thursday ruled that Cinergy must install emission curbs at its coal-powered plants in the Midwest if it expands them to prolong their operating lives.

    The Environmental Protection Agency had sued the utility to force it to apply for an expansion permit, which would trigger emission-reduction measures.

    In a bevy of cases, U.S. utilities are testing how far they can go to expand aging plants without triggering a section of the Clean Air Act known as “New Source Review.”

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    Smoking bans in North Carolina?

    Byoliveridley

    After this morning’s post about Tennessee, I got curious and wanted to see what we were doing in North Carolina on smoking bans. So, I looked up my very own NC General assembly homepage and used their full text bill search function (key word smoking!). Here’s what I found.

    In the State Senate

    Great! Senate Bill S635 will ban smoking in all public places indoors except in tobacco shops, designated smoking rooms in hotels and for “research”. Follow the progress of this bill using the bill’s very own rss feed!

    In the House

    Not so good, House bill H259 has been referred to committee. But it has giant loopholes for all bars and “private clubs”. It has its very own rss feed too.

    Observations

    1. It is good to see that my representatives Kinnaird (we share a yoga class on Monday nights!) and Insko are co-sponsors on the bills. But I live in that bastion of progressivism (in the South, anyways!) Chapel Hill/Carrboro, so this is pretty unsurprising!
    2. My question to the House is this: Why are bartenders, employees of bars and private clubs, and patrons of such establishments considered not worthy of protection from second hand smoke? As someone who goes out drinking often, this is where all my exposure to second hand smoke occurs.
    3. Kudos to North Carolina for designing an accessible and easily searchable bill repository complete with rss feeds, way to go!

    Once I hear back from Sen. Kinnaird on the prospects of legislation this session, I’ll be sure to post about it.

    Update: See this. The House and Senate bills have gotten a lot closer, and most of the loopholes are gone.

  • BC's Carbon Tax Chugs Along

    Byoliveridley

    Premier Gordon Campbell says he won’t bend to northern concerns about his carbon tax, but avoided saying so yesterday in a keynote speech to a meeting of northern B.C. communities, who have challenged him to revise the tax.

    reportonbusiness.com: ‘We are not changing the carbon tax. No,’ B.C. Premier says

    One of the loudest arguments being made against BC’s pioneering carbon tax proposal is that communities in Northern BC, much colder and much more rural than Vancouver and Victoria, will pay an “unfair” share because they need more carbon to heat their homes and drive their cars/trucks longer distances. The weather and lack of density ensure that they will pay higher carbon taxes, so it is unfair.

    Well, sorry! Victoria and Vancouver have been paying a fair weather premium for years in higher home prices, higher property taxes, higher prices on lots of things because that’s what city dwellers do without complaint. You can buy an average single family home in Prince George for $125,000, which may get you a garage in Vancouver!

    Cities are more efficient, and use far less energy per capita because of the density and transit options. Pricing carbon starts bringing some of these efficiencies to the forefront and that is a good thing.

    BC’s carbon tax is not perfect by any means. But, it is a start and it gets people thinking about consumption. Believe me, carbon’s on a lot of people’s minds here in BC. There’s tons of talk about carbon sinks and sources in the media. The carbon tax has definitely contributed to an increase in conversation about choices and their consequences. The funny thing is that the proposed carbon tax on gasoline has been dwarfed by actual market driven increases in gasoline prices. The important difference is that a carbon tax is a revenue stream that goes to funding carbon free energy sources. So, a tax, however small, is still preferable to the profits going to companies that deal in carbon.

    Hurray for BC and its carbon tax attempts. It is a decent start and one that I hope will be adopted by the rest of Canada and that wee country south of the border!

  • Coal is Evil, part 1201010

    Byoliveridley

    Note: When people say “clean coal”, they are referring in part to all the actions taken to limit particle and ash emissions out of the smokestacks. This is done in a variety of ways including washing the coal to remove inorganic ash components, trapping the particles using electrostatic precipitators, etc. What this leaves you with is very toxic coal ash, and very toxic acidified water loaded with the coal wastes it was used to remove.

    Now you can pretend that this is somehow cleaner, and it is, to an extent, because you have concentrated the pollution by isolating it and not letting it disperse into the atmosphere. However, if you then dump the waste into unlined landfills, you completely defeat the whole point of the exercise. This very extensive report written by the Clean Air Task Force and Earth Justice looked at streams in Pennsylvania and found a ton of heavy metal pollution.

    Coal is neither cheap, nor clean if you have to deal with all the pollution and pay for it, and we did not even have to get to that whole other pollutant, CO2!

    <Pennsylvania Groundwater Contaminated By Coal Ash

    Disposing of coal ash in mines is contaminating water supplies throughout Pennsylvania, according to a report released today by the advocacy group Clean Air Task Force and the nonprofit, public interest law firm Earthjustice.

    In 10 of 15 mines examined across the state, groundwater and streams near areas where coal ash, or coal combustion waste, was placed had levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium and selenium and other pollutants above safe standards.

    ‘Disposing of coal combustion waste in these mines is threatening water supplies all over the state,’ said Jeff Stant, director of the Pennsylvania Minefill Research Project at the Clean Air Task Force. ‘If the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection won’t act now to stop these dangers, the U.S. EPA should step in to protect the residents of Pennsylvania who live near coal ash mine fills.’

    The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has refered to the ‘beneficial use’ of coal ash in these active and abandoned mines, claiming that the practice limits the outflow of acidic water from mines.

    This study found the opposite was true – in six of the nine permits that used coal ash to treat acid mine drainage, acidity levels increased, leaving the mines more acidic at the end of monitoring.

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    NC smoking bill extinguished?

    Byoliveridley

    Laura Leslie has the scoop…

    Monday: Snuffed Out? — North Carolina Public Radio WUNC

    Looks like House Maj. Leader Hugh Holliman’s smoking ban may be in trouble. The first sign of trouble was that it didn’t come up for a floor vote in the few days following its 9-4 approval in J1 committee. Today, Holliman told NCNN’s Matt Willoughby he’s planning to pull the bill off the calendar when it comes up tomorrow.

    It’s only a matter of time, they can fight it all they want, the smoking bans will pass throughout the country in a a decade or less, that’s a bold prediction!

    Most critics say the legislation goes against private property rights in banning all workplace smoking, regardless of the context. But supporters point out the government has been regulating workplace safety on issues like asbestos for a long time, even on private property. Since secondhand smoke is an environmental toxin, they say, it should be regulated, too.

    As I mentioned in comments on an earlier post, property rights is a catchall rhetorical tool that can defend just about anything, good bad or neutral. So, I am not surprised it is being used here. The obvious counter argument that property rights do not give you the right to pollute is apparently lost on this debate. But this is not really about property rights, is it? It is about protecting the tobacco industry, good old plut-prot-principle!