Duke ignored water issue at Indiana plant, consultant says

Posted on July 29, 2011 by John Blair

July 29, 2011-by Chris O’Malley in the Indiana Business Journal

Duke Energy's mismanagement of their Edwardsport "new" coal plant has caused costs to rise to levels 2.5 times what they projected when they gathered political support for their project from 2004 to 2007. Among those enlisted for that support were Governor Mitch Daniels as well as David Lott Hardy, then chair of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. Daniels even went so far as to write a letter to the USEPA seeking favor for Duke to get an exemption from federal hazardous waste rules so Duke could by pass treating their hazardous water waste and instead inject it deep underground. EPA denied the Governor's request and Duke had to pony up an extra $100 million to build a waste water treatment plant to handle the waste. That expense was one the the things that caused the cost of the plant to rise. Photo © 2011 John Blair

Regulatory filings alleging Duke Energy Corp. grossly mismanaged construction of its Edwardsport plant contend the utility ignored warnings for seven months over potential problems with federal regulators if it disposed of plant water deep underground.

David Lott Hardy declares his support for Duke's then proposed plant at the "Energy Summit of Southwest Indiana" the day after he presided over a public hearing in Bloomington that discussed the plant's future. Photo © 2007 John Blair

Missteps in how to dispose of “grey water” produced in the coal-gasification process have been cited by consumer groups as among major reasons for $1 billion in cost overruns at the plant. Nearing completion, the facility is now estimated to cost more than $2.8 billion.

Earlier this month, the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor alleged that Duke bungled the water disposal system to the tune of $100 million in cost overruns.

A report filed in recent weeks by OUCC’s consultant, Houston-based Accumyn Consulting, contends that Duke embraced deep-well injection disposal despite problems with the technology at another of its projects.

Duke officials in 2006 assumed that the grey water produced in the production process would be non-hazardous, according to Accumyn. A year later, Duke’s own engineers expressed “serious concerns” and recommended that partner General Electric “firm up” the analysis of the water content.

Two months later, in November 2007, GE’s report indicated the water likely would have elevated concentrations of arsenic and selenium—high enough to be characterized as hazardous under federal law.

Indiana Governor, Mitch Daniels also appeared at the Energy Summit, praising the ill-fated Duke plant as the energy of the future in Indiana. He later fired Hardy in an attempt to distance himself from the cost overrun scandal that has developed during the plant's construction. Photo© 2007 John Blair

About one month after acknowledging the results, Duke received approval from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission to build the plant. But Duke’s management “had evidently failed to reveal important information discovered before the commission decided on approving the project,” Accumyn states in its report. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

DeChristopher is a hero and should not be a political prisoner but still gets two years in prison for a simple act of civil disobedience designed to help save the planet

Posted on July 27, 2011 by John Blair

July 27, 2011-by Daniel Kessler at treehugger.com

Tim DeChristopher, 29, the courageous activist who posed as an oil industry bidder to monkeywrench an oil and gas lease sale in Utah, was sentenced this afternoon to two years in prison. “Mr. DeChristopher had many other lawful ways to express his disapproval with the oil and gas leasing process,” said U.S. District Court Judge Dee Benson at the hearing.

But of course Tim’s disapproval, and that of millions of others, has not been heard by tone deaf policymakers content to wish away the reality of our role in climate change instead of acting.[youtube id=”cae5Pr7CHgk” w=”660″ h=”440″]Tim faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and he was also was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. He was not given the ability to take a few days to prepare himself for prison and was taken into custody immediately.”Civil disobedience can’t be the order of the day,” the judge said, adding that it would lead to “chaos.” Well, I predict that the judge’s prognostication will be wrong. We’ll see when the next civil disobedience over our failed energy policy happens, and that may be in August at the Tar Sands sit in Washington D.C. Over 1,400 people have registered to get arrested to show their contempt for the Keystone XL pipeline, a 1,700 mile long fuse to the world’s biggest carbon bomb–Canada’s tar sands.

Tim read a powerful statement at the sentencing hearing, which you can read here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

EPA caves to industry again delaying a new health standard for ozone

Posted on July 26, 2011 by John Blair

July 26, 2011-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor.

In another disappointment for American health advocates, the Obama Administration has again delayed finalizing a new more protective standard for ozone in ambient air. Ironically, EPA has posted yet another Ozone Alert for the SW indiana region for tomorrow.

Originally, USEPA had agreed to issue the new standard by the end of 2010 and then delayed it until March of this year but when that deadline came around, they delayed it agin until July 29 but today issued a statement saying that it would have to delay the rule past the court agreed deadline.

EPA continues to insist it will issue the new standard that will be more protective of human health but when the rule was given to the Office of Management and Budget for their analysis, industry opposition to a new standard seems to win out with administrations, old and new.

In 2008, under George W. Bush, EPA issued a standard of 75 parts per billion after its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) had recommended that standard be lowered to a level between 60 PPB and 70 PPB. that was the first time EPA had ever issued a standard weaker than what the  CASAC had recommended.

When several states and health groups threatened court action to have the standard improved, EPA, under the leadership of its new administrator, Lisa Jackson said they would revisit the standard. That was in early 2009. To date, the standard remains at the higher level of 75.

Industry, including some of the largest of America’s polluters, claim the proposed standard would be too costly as they seek to dismiss scientific evidence that improving the standard would help prevent more than 12,000 deaths $100 billion in health related costs.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Fox News has distorted the science of climate change

Posted on July 23, 2011 by John Blair

July 23, 2011-A Video by Media Matters

[youtube id=”uvPx9VHOsEY” w=”600″ h=”400″]

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

NRDC report: Indiana among nation’s worst power plant polluters

Posted on July 22, 2011 by John Blair

July 22, 2001 -by Linda Greene in the Bloomington Alternative.

Indiana is the sixth worst state in the production of toxic industrial air pollution, surpassed by only Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Kentucky and Maryland.

The assessment was made by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Physicians for Social Responsibility and is based on data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), which is available to the public. The data are reported in Toxic Power: How Power Plants Contaminate Our Air and States, just published, which covers the top 20 states for toxic air pollution.

The federal government requires industries that emit significant amounts of various toxic chemicals to report their emissions to TRI every year.

According to the report, electric companies powered by coal and oil are the largest source of industrial smokestack emissions of toxic air pollution in the United States. Nearly half of all the toxic air pollution reported from industrial sources in the United States comes from coal- and oil-fired power plants.

Power plants are the single largest industrial source of toxic air pollution in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

In 2009, coal- and oil-fired power plants accounted for nearly 50 percent of all reported toxic air pollution from industrial sources, Toxic Power states. The next largest industrial sector, chemical processing and manufacturing, released less than one third of the electric sector’s total.

Indiana facts

In 2009, the total industrial air pollution reported in Indiana was 39,63 million pounds. The amount of air pollution that Indiana power plants produced was 26.8 million pounds. Power plants in the Hoosier state were responsible for 68 percent of toxic air pollution in the state and 7 percent of toxic air pollution from all U.S. power plants.

The top 10 pollution-emitting plants in Indiana were Rockport, operated by AEP; Petersburg and Harding Street, AES; Clifty Creek, AEP and others; Gibson, Duke and others; State Line Energy, Dominion; RM Schahfer, NiSource; R Gallagher, Duke; and Merom and Frank E Ratts, Hoosier Energy. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Industry Lobbies President to Violate Clean Air Act & Defy Supreme Court Ruling

Posted on July 19, 2011 by John Blair

July 19, 2011-by John Walke in the NRDC Staff Blog 

Lobbyists for the Business Roundtable and American Petroleum Institute deserve some form of twisted credit, I suppose.

They are threatening the president and spitting on the law, but at least they are open about it.

Officials for these groups and a few other industry associations are urging the president personally to overrule EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s  decision to strengthen standards protecting all Americans against dangerous smog pollution.

These lobbyists want the president to intervene, based on nakedly political considerations, and quash Jackson’s decision. Business Roundtable president John Engler (and former Republican governor) has gone so far as to threaten a none too subtle backlash against the president’s re-election.

For over forty years the Clean Air Act has granted Americans the right to clean air. EPA first must determine how much air pollution is unhealthy for Americans to breathe. Then EPA must set clean air standards for pollution like smog to protect all Americans with an adequate safety margin. Special regard must be accorded vulnerable populations like children, asthmatics and the elderly.

Lisa Jackson

Standards must be founded on science and the best medical understanding of smog’s health hazards. Economic considerations may not distort the scientific decision over how much air pollution is unhealthy for Americans. Economics can and do factor in to how best to reduce unhealthy air pollution levels.

Jackson plans to protect Americans against smog pollution by setting more protective air quality standards. She has proposed to strengthen air quality standards for smog to fall within the range recommended unanimously by EPA’s expert science advisors and the agency’s own internal scientists. Her decision is expected in the coming weeks.

A cabal of industry lobbyists finds this unacceptable. (The industry coalition also includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Petrochemical & Refiners Association; the full list is available here.)

The lobbyists are elevating their threats and appeals to the president directly after they paid a visit to Jackson in EPA headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. Their courtesy call lacked only a rotting fish wrapped in a newspaper. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Is the sun setting on “clean” coal

Posted on July 17, 2011 by John Blair

Carbon Capture and Sequestration might soon be nothing more than a relic in a “might have been” history book.

Is the sun setting on so called "clean coal?" The answer to that became clearer this week as two set backs occurred. Shown is a picture taken July 16 of Duke Energy's now $3 billion Edwardsport IGCC plant that is under greater scrutiny due to scandal and huge cost overruns. Photo © 2011 John Blair

July 17, 2011-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor

Most people who have studied the issue easily understand that coal is not clean and really cannot be made so, but that does not keep those who make big money mining and burning the black mineral from making those dubious claims.

Mining coal destroys entire ecosystems, burning it alters our climate, makes people sick and cuts lives short while disposing of its huge volumes of waste contaminates land and water alike.

But of course governments at all levels, still readily support nearly any proposal that describes itself as “clean coal” with massive taxpayer subsidies and lax permitting and enforcement in hopes that perhaps someday, coal might be consumed in ways that society will finally find acceptable.

Sadly, every time promoters shout “clean,” the facts fail them.

The latest incarnation of the term says that coal can be made clean if they can utilize something that has this far, only existed in the greedy dreams of coal mine and power plant owners, Carbon Capture and Sequestration or CCS for short.

Lately though, those dreams have been more closely a nightmare.

Two events happened this week that sent CCS spiraling down as an option to keep coal as a viable energy option in the future.

Since the beginning of this century, CCS has been touted as the savior of coal since the idea was to use yet fully developed technology to “capture” carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from burning or converting coal and then “sequestering” that carbon deep below the earth’s surface in rock formations where it would be stored for eternity.

First, bad news for CCS came when American Electric Power (AEP) announced they were ditching their multi-year very expensive experiment to capture CO2 from a conventional pulverized coal plant in West Virginia. According to AEP, the project “doesn’t make economic sense…” even though the US Department of Energy had given AEP $334 million subsidy to prove the CCS system viable in 2009.

AEP dropped the project in its second phase since it had gained success in a small demonstration project at their Mountaineer power plant for about two years. AEP’s admission that it cannot be justified economically reflects the fact that when the experiment was first started it was generally accepted that there would be a price placed by Congress on emissions of CO2 through a “cap and trade” program that was then considered imminent.

Of course, today, Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to eliminate existing rules that call for eliminating coal emissions and have sworn to disallow anything that deals with trying to quell climate changing CO2 pollution.

Hopes for new-tech answers fades due to massive cost overruns from $1.2 billion to $3 billion.

CCS promoters suffered an even greater set back at the end of the week when testimony was filed by the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC)declaring that Duke Energy had committed “gross mismanagement” and “concealment” in their quest to build the ill-fated Edwardsport Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle  (IGCC) experimental plant in Indiana. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

At Last, a break for ratepayers-Indy Star Editorial

Posted on July 12, 2011 by John Blair

July 12, 2011-An Editorial by the Indianapolis Star

Citizens have a right to expect that the monopolies from whom they must buy their electricity are being watched over by the government bodies created to keep costs in check.In the case of Duke Energy Corp. and the exploding expenses of its Edwardsport coal-gasification plant, those customers are lucky someone was watching the watchers.

An about-face by the utility consumer counselor could force Duke’s shareholders to pay $530 million in cost overruns that Duke wants to dump on ratepayers.

That sum and other cost increases for the $2.9 billion project will be scrutinized by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission as it pursues an embarrassing do-over.

The Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, the people’s arm of the regulatory process, signed off in September on Duke’s request to pass the $530 million along to ratepayers.

Outsiders — consumer advocacy groups and The Indianapolis Star — persisted in following an odor. In October, The Star began a series of revelations of close relationships between Duke executives and minions of the utility regulatory commission.

The hundreds of emails The Star obtained led to job losses by top-level men on both sides. Scott Storms was found in violation of state ethics laws after it was determined he had negotiated for a job with Duke while he worked on its requests as general counsel to the utility commission.

Duke fired Storms after the scandal broke; but that consequence and other fallout from this episode did nothing to allay concerns about the historical revolving door of employment and appointment between state regulatory agencies and the companies they’re supposed to regulate.

Critics of the Edwardsport plant are delighted to see the weight of the consumer counselor’s office brought to bear at long last. But it is distressingly late. If the commission does find Duke guilty of fraud or mismanagement, it will have to decide what to do about a huge project that is 90 percent finished. The public can only wonder how much smaller the problem would have been, had the system worked in the first place.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Office of Consumer Counselor reverses stance on Duke Energy’s Edwardsport plant

Posted on July 8, 2011 by John Blair

July 8. 2011-by John Blair, valleywatch.net editor.

The Edwardport plant as seen from the air on Labor Day Weekend 2010. Photo © 2010 John Blair

In a shocking reversal of position, the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor (OUCC) has reversed its support for the Duke Energy Edwardsport power plant fiasco.

Just last November 3, OUCC head, David Stippler gave the plant and ratepayer support for it his glowing endorsement during a “technical hearing” before the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC). On July 1, his office reversed that endorsement and said that ratepayers should no longer be on the hook for the massive cost overruns the construction of the beleaguered plant which is now said by Duke to cost more than $3 billion, a figure that does not include carbon capture and sequestration.

David Stippler, Indiana Utility Consumer Counselor had a change of heart and a change of direction regarding Duke Energy's Edwardsport power plant.

Since the plant’s inception in 2005, the OUCC has been a leading promoter of the plant, following the lead of Indiana governor, Mitch Daniels who has made the plant the centerpiece of what he calls “home grown energy,” since it will presumably use Indiana coal to fuel its electrical generation. At that time Duke claimed the plant would cost $1.2 billion and would incorporate carbon capture and storage technology within that cost.

In fact, last September, the OUCC entered into a “settlement” regarding the plant along with Duke and a group of Duke’s industrial customers that would have placed a cap on the costs that ratepayers would have been required to fund at nearly $2.9 billion. At that time, it was only the coalition of health, consumer and environmental advocates including Valley Watch, Save The Valley, Citizens Action Coalition and the Sierra Club that continued to stand in opposition to the plant.

David Lott Hardy could face jail time for his cozy indiscretions with Duke Energy executives as revealed in numerous emails reviewed by the Joint Intervenors in the unfolding scandal. In the Energy Summit of Southwest Indiana, where this photo was taken, Hardy enthusiastically endorsed the Edwardsport project without having analyzed the evidence.Photo © 2007 John Blair

But shortly after the settlement was announced it began to fall apart as a major scandal developed surrounding Duke’s hiring of the Chief Administrative Law Judge for the IURC, Scott Storms. Storms had presided over numerous dockets regarding the Edwardsport plant and his employment by Duke set off a storm of protests and inquiries by private and public agencies, including the FBI, which led to the release of hundreds of emails which showed an extremely cozy relationship between Duke and the IURC and especially its chairman, David Lott Hardy, a former lawyer for Duke’s predecessor, Cinergy and Public Service Company Indiana.

Hardy, it seemed enjoyed taking advantage of Duke executive’s largess including not only expensive breakfasts at exclusive Indianapolis eateries with Duke CEO, Jim Rogers but also repeated social engagements with other Duke execs on their private yachts in Lake Michigan as revealed in publicly released emails. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Valley Watch responds to the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule

Posted on July 7, 2011 by John Blair

July 7, 2011- by John Blair, Valley Watch President.

Power plants like this TVA facility they call "Paradise" in western Kentucky will be forced to significantly reduce their emissions of both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides as a result of the Cross-State Clean Air Rule finalized by the USEPA today. File photo © 2009 John Blair

Valley Watch generally applauds the finalization of the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. In fact we know that when fully implemented between now and 2014, the lives of many people in the tri-state of Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois will be improved, if not saved by the significant reduction in pollution the rule requires for coal plants across the nation and across the region.

We do have two caveats in our endorsement  of the rule however that warrant wider community discussion and decision making instead of decisions being made solely in the board rooms of regional utilities as to how those plants  will meet therules as well as the new standards for both ozone and fine particles that are to be announced this summer.

This, like the Acid Rain Program, creates  a mechanism that gives states “allowances” for pollution and it generously allows the states to determine how those allowances will be distributed to achieve the proposed 73% reduction in SO2 and a 54% reduction in NOx across the board from the level established by data in 2005. If a plant does better in reducing their emissions allowances as decided by either the state or federal government, they can engage in selling some excess improvement to utilities that fail to meet those reductions.

We have been skeptical of pollution trading methods due to the concern that pollution “hot spots” could result if all the power plants in a single region decided to buy credits instead of building controls or switching fuels. However, even though we remain concerned about that, we understand that air quality will significantly improve in regions like the tri-state due to the fairly stringent “caps” that are being placed on emissions of SO2 and NOx in every state impacted by the rule.

Old power plants as exist in the tri-state are already more than fifty years old, and completely amortized. We are concerned that utilities will simply choose to install the pollution controls and keep dirty plants from retiring until they are more than 100 years old due to the investment this rule could make happen. After all, a plant can still be competitive if the only debt for the plant is what is required to build a scrubber or low NOx burner etc. as the rule suggests should occur. Such an investment although seemingly large could amount to a pittance compared to conversion to cleaner energy. Valley Watch does not want this region to be permeated with century old, dirty coal plants in the year 2050.

EPA also has pending several other rules regarding toxics, coal ash and climate change that if administered and regulated separately could result in the expenditure on these old power plants of hundreds of millions when the money might otherwise be spent on new non coal or nuclear technologies as well as increased energy efficiency. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Report Projects Health Impacts and Costs from Worsening Ozone. Ozone Pollution Could Cost Americans More Than $5 Billion in 2020

Posted on July 6, 2011 by John Blair

July 7. 2011-by the Union of Concerned Scientists

Unchecked global warming could threaten public health and increase health costs by exacerbating ground-level ozone, according to a peer-reviewed report released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

The report, “Climate Change and Your Health: Rising Temperatures, Worsening Ozone Pollution,” found climate change-induced ozone increases could result in 2.8 million additional serious respiratory illnesses, 5,100 additional infants and seniors hospitalized with serious breathing problems, and 944,000 additional missed school days in the United States in 2020.

All told, these and other health-related impacts could cost approximately $5.4 billion. And if global warming pollution continues unabated, these impacts and costs could be significantly higher.

“Even a small increase in ozone due to a warmer climate would have a significant impact on public health,” said UCS public health expert Liz Perera, a report co-author. “It would mean more asthma attacks, respiratory illnesses, emergency room trips, and premature deaths.”

Ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog, is generated by chemical reactions between nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) triggered by heat and sunlight. Warmer average temperatures from a changing climate may elevate ozone concentrations in many parts of the country, especially in and around urban areas.

Warmer temperatures also are associated with stagnant air conditions that can cause ozone pollution to settle over an area and remain for extended periods of time. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Feeling sick today. Maybe it was last night’s fireworks!

Posted on July 5, 2011 by John Blair

July 5, 2011-by John Blair valleywatch.net editor.

If you have a scratchy throat today, it is probably due to the exceptionally high levels of fine particles that were in the air in SW Indiana last night as fireworks lit up the night sky and caused breathing problems for anyone sufficiently unlucky to be downwind of any of the massive private and public displays that were set off.

According to data from the monitor located on Buena Vista Rd., levels reached historically high levels at 9 PM last night at 153.92µg/m3. The acute (24 hour) standard set by the USEPA is less than one quarter of that level or 35µg/m3.

Fine particles are known to cause severe respiratory problems as well as cancer, stroke and heart attacks.

Just this month, USEPA is considering re-designating the Evansville and other places in SW Indiana as attainment of the health based 1997 annual standard for fine particles. Valley Watch objected to them doing so in formal comments and we are prepared to take EPA to court if they go forward with their proposal. Our grounds are that the improvements are not federally enforceable, that faulty data was used during several years in the middle of this decade and that the recession which began in 2007 was more responsible for the air quality improvements than reductions in emissions from industrial sources.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Cone Flowers and Bugs-The Perfect July Combo

Posted on July 2, 2011 by John Blair

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Climate of Denial-Can science and the truth withstand the merchants of poison?

Posted on June 22, 2011 by John Blair

June 22, 2011 – By Al Gore in RollingStone

The first time I remember hearing the question “is it real?” was when I went as a young boy to see a traveling show put on by “professional wrestlers” one summer evening in the gym of the Forks River Elementary School in Elmwood, Tennessee.

Tiny Grandview, Indiana was one of many US communities that have experienced flooding of major proportions in 2011. The Ohio River in Evansville was above flood stage for weeks this Spring and flooding along the Mississippi, Missouri and other major Rivers has caused disruption in lives and property for millions of Americans. Severe weather events are becoming common and no region is immune. Photo © 2011 John Blair

The evidence that it was real was palpable: “They’re really hurting each other! That’s real blood! Look a’there! They can’t fake that!” On the other hand, there was clearly a script (or in today’s language, a “narrative”), with good guys to cheer and bad guys to boo.

But the most unusual and in some ways most interesting character in these dramas was the referee: Whenever the bad guy committed a gross and obvious violation of the “rules” — such as they were — like using a metal folding chair to smack the good guy in the head, the referee always seemed to be preoccupied with one of the cornermen, or looking the other way. Yet whenever the good guy — after absorbing more abuse and unfairness than any reasonable person could tolerate — committed the slightest infraction, the referee was all over him. The answer to the question “Is it real?” seemed connected to the question of whether the referee was somehow confused about his role: Was he too an entertainer?

Photo Gallery: 11 extreme-weather signs the climate crisis is real

Al Gore conducts a training of Climate Project participants in Nashville, TN in January 2007. Photo© 2007 John Blair

That is pretty much the role now being played by most of the news media in refereeing the current wrestling match over whether global warming is “real,” and whether it has any connection to the constant dumping of 90 million tons of heat-trapping emissions into the Earth’s thin shell of atmosphere every 24 hours.

This article appears in the July 7, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. The issue is available on newsstands and in the digital archive on June 24.

Admittedly, the contest over global warming is a challenge for the referee because it’s a tag-team match, a real free-for-all. In one corner of the ring are Science and Reason. In the other corner: Poisonous Polluters and Right-wing Ideologues.

How Obama gave up on climate change legislation

The referee — in this analogy, the news media — seems confused about whether he is in the news business or the entertainment business. Is he responsible for ensuring a fair match? Or is he part of the show, selling tickets and building the audience? The referee certainly seems distracted: by Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen, the latest reality show — the list of serial obsessions is too long to enumerate here.

Photo Gallery: 12 politicians and executives blocking progress on climate change

More-go to the original

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Whitfield, McConnell and Paul are gaga over nukes

Posted on June 14, 2011 by John Blair

By Hallmah Abdullah for McClatchy Newspapers in the Lexington Herald Leader

Kentucky lawmakers and Department of Energy officials squared off Monday during a hearing on how to best rid a federally owned plant in Paducah of thousands of tons of depleted uranium, a toxic byproduct of the material used to help fuel nuclear weapons and reactors.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Hopkinsville, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on energy and power, have bills that would empower the agency to re-enrich some 40,000 cylinders of depleted uranium at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, sell it and then use the money to help with environmental cleanup.

Doing so, the lawmakers say, would save the jobs of some 1,200 of the state’s nuclear plant workers. The Paducah plant is scheduled to close in 2012. The state’s congressional delegation has long pushed for cleanup at the site, which is leased and operated by USEC Inc., a former government agency that was privatized in 1998. USEC, based in Bethesda, Md., is a supplier of low-enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power plants.

Paducah is home to the only domestic facility enriching uranium.

The sprawling Gaseous Diffusion plant in Paducah, KY enriched uranium since the middle 1950s. TVA even had to build it's Shawnee Power Plant a couple of miles to the north to supply its massive electrical needs. Today, still operational, it is in need of a huge clean up at a huge price after causing hundreds of plant workers serious illnesses. Paducah officials are even trying to secure additional money to expand the plant for more jobs and ill health, ignoring the problems that already permeate their community. Photo 4/30/11 © John Blair

“Everyone knows that Kentucky is a coal state, which we are, but we are also a nuclear state,” McConnell told the subcommittee. “Paducah is a community that enthusiastically supports nuclear energy. Allowing the Paducah plant to close in 2012 and waiting years for the Department of Energy to address what to do with the existing depleted uranium, I believe, is shortsighted and irresponsible.” Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment