Sucking Up Again
EDWARDS’ HOT AIR: NOW THAT’S A RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE, PEOPLE!
FITSNews – January 15, 2008 – Two days after his “Main Street Express” bus belched diesel filth all the way up and down Gervais Street in downtown Columbia, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards today came out against a proposed coal-fired power plant in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina.
Nevermind that $300 million of the plant’s $1 billion price tag is designated to pay for advanced environmental technology, or that its hazardous emissions would be about half of current EPA allotments, or that its construction would enable us to scale back energy generation at several older, less efficient and higher-polluting plants. Oh, and nevermind that we need this power to maintain our state’s $16 billion a year tourism industry.
We’re all for alternative energy, people. And for the record, we can’t stand Santee Cooper, the state-owned utility that is looking to build new plant. But we’ve reviewed the arguments on both sides of this issue (well, such as they are) and we’re coming down on the side of the corporate polluters on this one.
Also, if Edwards was serious about finding alternative sources of energy, he’d figure out some way to harness the hot air that comes out of his mouth …
Comments
By Harden Gervais on January 15th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Never mind that coal power is a 19th century energy source, and pollution from the plant would exacerbate an already bad situation rivers and tributaries in this state, especially in that region.
If Santee Cooper looked into something a tad more innovative, instead of doing the old Palmetto State half-assery, we wouldn’t be in this position.
By fitsnews on January 15th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Harden,
Good points. We’re with you on Santee Cooper not doing enough on that front. In fact, the entire notion of a state-owned utility is abhorrent to us.
Having said that, we are in this position – and given the lack of viable alternatives to meet demand, at least they’re not building a new mega-polluting plant every week like China …
-FITSNews
By Natasha on January 15th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
If you visit http://www.scorecard.org you can look up your local area and see how polluted the environment you live in actually is…SC doesn’t have a great scorecard from what I can tell… So much for pointing out the obvious here…
By Harden Gervais on January 15th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Actually, the DHEC research into all this bears out the problems. With the exception of the upper corner of the upstate, SC’s waterways are in a bad, um, state. No pun and all that.
By Rusty on January 15th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Fits,
For someone supposedly suspicious of Santee Cooper, you sure seem to have swallowed their talking points:
Santee Cooper says they need their plant because they’re running out of energy; so how will building this plant allow them to close down other plants? You can’t have it both ways.
If you think that this plant is going to get built for $1MM, or that one third of the price tag is going to fund some sort of R&D, you haven’t been following the coal industry very closely. See Cliffside in North Carolina, where the price tag continues to inflate.
Finally, you must not have read DHEC’s draft air permit for the plant; otherwise, you would know that this plant will emit well over half what EPA allows, e.g. tons and tons of pollutants.
Not sure how a coal plant relates to the tourist industry, other than the fact that building one makes it more likely that it will be washed away by rising sea levels or a hurricane.
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