Clean Coal? Not Here, Thanks

Written by William Tucker, Planet Gore | 20 October 2009

There’s another article in yesterday’s New York Times worth noting. On the Metropolitan page, Peter Applebome recounts a bitter public debate going on now in Linden, N.J.

It seems a farsighted power company named PurGen wants to build a 750-megawatt coal plant with complete carbon capture and storage, commonly cited as one of the major breakthroughs needed to fend off global warming. The plant, on an old DuPont site, would capture 90 percent of its carbon-dioxide exhaust, liquefy it, and pump it through 70 miles of pipeline to an offshore rock formation near Atlantic City, where it would be permanently sequestered. Almost any environmental group you can name lists “carbon capture and storage” as one of its highest priorities in reducing carbon emissions.

So who is opposing the plant? The Sierra Club of New Jersey, the New Jersey Environmental Federation, the Edison Wetlands Association, the Arthur Kill Watershed Alliance, and every other environmental organization within driving distance. They’re not being nice about it, either. The Sierra Club calls the project “A $5 billion Ponzi scheme that not only won’t work but will lead to environmental disaster.” Edison Wetlands says it’s “A recipe for another Exxon Valdez toxic catastrophe.” The Environmental Federation is telling local residents, “The worst polluters continue to put Linden in their crosshairs, but this time the stakes are even higher.”

“Support globally, oppose locally.” That should be the motto of the environmental movement.

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