Destroying the Coal Industry and Cheap Energy

"If we project what the world will be like 10 years from now without innovation in health, education, energy, or food, the picture is quite bleak. We will have to increase the price of energy to reduce consumption, and the poor will suffer from both this higher cost and the effects of climate change. In food we will have big shortages because we won’t have enough land to feed the world’s growing population and support its richer diet. However, I am optimistic that innovations will allow us to avoid these bleak outcomes. In the United States, advances in online learning and new ways to help teachers improve will make a great education more accessible than ever. With vaccines, drugs, and other improvements, health in poor countries will continue to get better, and people will choose to have smaller families. With better seeds, training, and access to markets, farmers in poor countries will be able to grow more food. The world will find clean ways to produce electricity at a lower cost, and more people will lift themselves out of poverty. Melinda and I see our foundation’s key role as investing in innovations that would not otherwise be funded. This draws not only on our backgrounds in technology but also on the foundation’s size and ability to take a long-term view and take large risks on new approaches." - 2010 Annual Letter from Bill Gates

‘Massive’ Closures of U.S. Coal Plants Loom, Chu Says

February 9, 2011

Bloomberg - The U.S. has an aging inventory of coal-fired power plants and many units might be closed before the end of the decade, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.

“We’re going to see massive retirements within the next five, eight years,” Chu said today at a renewable-energy conference in Washington. “Much of our fleet of coal plants is 40 to 50 years old.”

President Barack Obama said last month the U.S. should eliminate tax subsidies for fossil-fuel production worth $4 billion a year so it can boost spending on renewable energy and cars that run on alternative fuels, such as electricity.

The U.S. also should require that 80 percent of its electricity comes from “clean” sources, such as wind turbines and nuclear reactors, by 2035, Obama said. Only coal-fired power plants that capture and store their carbon-dioxide emissions would be considered clean under Obama’s proposed standard.

“Clean-coal” equipment isn’t yet available for large power plants, said Chu, whose Energy Department is funding research into the technology.

The U.S. had 314 gigawatts of coal-fired generating capacity last year, which provided almost half the nation’s electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration. One gigawatt of coal-fired capacity can power more than 500,000 average U.S. homes, according to EIA data.

Regulations targeting mercury pollution and chemicals that cause acid rain and smog would trigger the coal-plant closures, not new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to climate change or Obama’s proposed clean-energy standard, Chu said. He declined to say how many gigawatts of coal capacity face closure.

The EIA predicts plants with 7.7 gigawatts of capacity will close by 2018. Cambridge, Massachusetts-based The Brattle Group, a consulting firm, said in December that 50 to 65 gigawatts of capacity may be closed by 2020 because of environmental regulations. Analysts at Zurich-based bank Credit Suisse Group AG said in September that about 60 gigawatts of coal capacity may be retired.

If Congress approves Obama’s clean-energy standard, coal’s share of the U.S. electricity market “will shrink a little bit until we develop those technologies that would use coal in a clean way,” Chu said.

Nuclear reactors, natural gas-fired plants and renewable sources such as wind turbines and solar panels would expand to make up lost output from coal, he said.

It’s likely “smaller, older units” that burn coal “won’t be economic under new clean air standards,” said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the Washington-based National Mining Association, which represents coal mining companies such as Consol Energy Inc. and Peabody Energy Corp.

New coal-fired plants with better pollution controls can be built to replace the closed units while carbon-capture technology is developed, Popovich said in an e-mail.

Fury Builds Over Blackouts Caused By De-Industrialization of America

February 4, 2011

Infowars.com - Fury is building over rolling nationwide blackouts triggered by the Obama administration’s deliberate agenda to block the construction of new coal-fired plants, as local energy companies struggle to meet Americans’ power demands amidst some of the coldest weather seen in decades.

• As we reported yesterday, four hospitals in Texas reacted furiously after they were hit with planned outages despite being promised they would be spared even as power to Super Bowl venues remains uninterrupted.


• Thousands in New Mexico have been left without natural gas as Gov. Susana Martinez on Thursday declared a state of emergency. “Due to statewide natural gas shortages, I have ordered all government agencies that do not provide essential services to shut down and all nonessential employees to stay home” on Friday, Martinez said after meeting with public safety personnel in Albuquerque,” reports the Associated Press.


• Borderland residents have been asked to limit their use of natural gas as the Texas Gas Service asks that larger commercial facilities voluntarily close their doors to save supplies.


• People in Tucson have been asked to limit their use of hot water and moderate their thermostat levels to save on energy.


• Shortages of natural gas in San Diego County has forced utility companies to “cut or reduce the gas supplied to some of their largest commercial and industrial customers,” reports North County Times.


• In El Paso, “Hundreds of thousands of electricity customers continue to face periodic blackouts, and nearly 900 gas customers still have no heat,” reports the El Paso Times, with El Paso Electric resorting to using generators in a struggle to meet demand while still having to implement forced outages.

Coal-fired power plants are used to convert coal to synthetic natural gas. The Obama administration’s efforts to block the construction of new clean-burning coal plants has massively exacerbated this week’s outages.

Mexico has now announced that it will suspend supplying power to southern US states, underscoring how America has been left completely dependent and desperate as a result of the Obama administration’s war on the coal industry.

Cold weather is not the primary culprit behind the power outages that have hit many areas of the country this week. The real blame lies with the Obama administration’s deliberate war against the efforts of local power companies to meet America’s energy needs by building new plants, the vast majority of which have been blocked by judges, governors and the EPA over the last four years at the behest of the Obama administration in the name of preventing global warming.

State authorities in Texas have been engaged in a long-running battle with the EPA as the feds attempt to block the construction of new plants by enforcing adherence to new clean air permit regulations that cripple smaller companies’ ability to afford desperately needed new energy centers and plants. Twelve states are mounting a legal challenge against EPA restrictions that threaten to bankrupt the entire industry.

But it’s not just in Texas where the federal government has embarked on an all out siege against energy independence.

• Back in July 2008, a Superior Court judge in Fulton County blocked the construction of a coal plant in Georgia, citing global warming concerns and the need to limit CO2 emissions.


• In January 2009, the Obama EPA blocked approval for a coal-fired power plant in South Dakota, claiming the state, “didn’t meet requirements under the Clean Air Act in part of its proposed permit for the plant.”


• As Governor of Kansas, Obama’s current Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius slapped a de facto ban on the construction of all new coal-fired plants across the state.


• Last month, Senators in Obama’s home state of Illinois blocked the construction of a clean-burning coal gasification and power generating plant.


• As a result of the EPA’s recent remand of air permits, Shell Oil announced yesterday that it has “dropped plans to drill in the Arctic waters of the Beaufort Sea this year,” ensuring more shortages and higher energy prices for Americans already laboring under soaring food costs.

The federal government’s siege against independent power companies’ efforts to build coal-fired plants is part of the unfolding agenda to de-industrialize the United States even as China and Mexico build new power plants at ever accelerating speeds.

Global warming alarmists have consistently gone on record to openly voice their agenda to de-industrialize the United States in the name of saving the planet.

In his new book, author and environmentalist Keith Farnish called for acts of sabotage and environmental terrorism in blowing up dams and demolishing cities in order to return the planet to pre-industrial society. Prominent NASA global warming alarmist and Al Gore ally Dr. James Hansen endorsed Farnish’s book.

The global elite resolved to exploit contrived fears about climate change to de-industrialize the United States back in 1991 when the Club of Rome, a powerful globalist NGO committed to limiting growth and ushering in a post-industrial society, said in their report, The First Global Revolution,

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”

In 1969, Dr. Richard Day, the National Medical Director of the Rockefeller-sponsored “Planned Parenthood,” asserted that a move towards a “unified global system” would necessitate the sabotage of American industry.

“Each part of the world will have a specialty and thus become inter-dependent, he said. The US will remain a center for agriculture, high tech, communications, and education but heavy industry would be “transported out,” Day stated.

In 2008 Obama openly stated his plan to bankrupt the coal industry.