The Oregonian has a major Page 1 piece in the Sunday paper examining the future of PGE’s coal-fired power plant at Boardman in the eastern part of the state. “PGE confronts dirty dilemma at Boardman” proclaims the paper.

Much of interest in this report. Such as:

All of which leaves PGE, its 814,000 ratepayers and the public a stark choice between economics and the environment: Should they spend hundreds of millions of dollars — perhaps more than a billion eventually — to keep the old workhorse going, albeit with a smaller stream of the pollutants that belch from its 656-foot stack today? Or would it be better to shut the plant now, eliminating the largest stationary source of air pollution in the state, but leaving its largest utility more dependent on natural gas and its customers exposed to higher, more volatile rates?

So let’s just switch to natural gas. Perhaps more expensive, but that substitution is a done deal…

“Wyden Asks Feds To Rescind Mt Hood Pipeline Approval“:

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden strongly objected Thursday to the plan for a natural gas pipeline through the Mt Hood National Forest.

In a letter to the head of the U.S. Forest Service, the Portland Democrat labeled the proposed Palomar company pipeline’s route as a “freeway-wide clear-cut.”

Land board reiterates governor’s LNG demands“:

Opponents of liquefied natural gas terminals along the Oregon Coast, and the pipelines that would connect them to regional gas networks, hailed a resolution by the Oregon State Land Board last week supporting Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s demand that federal officials evaluate whether the projects are needed.

The land board consists of Kulongoski, Secretary of State Bill Bradbury and State Treasurer Randall Edwards.

LNG foe earns state role

Liquefied natural gas opponents got a boost Monday when Oregon’s Attorney General-elect John Kroger announced his appointment of Columbia Riverkeeper Executive Director Brent Foster to his executive team at the Oregon Department of Justice.

So let’s just switch to natural gas, which, well, we won’t make or allow, either, but …uh…

There tends to be a quick drop-off in significance in the North Dakota AP’s annual list of the state’s 10 major news stories. But there’s no doubt developments involving the Bakken Formation were not just the No. 1 story in North Dakota, but big news nationally and internationally, as well.

1. Oil: North Dakota moves into 5th place among the states in oil production as prices soar, but the year ends in uncertainty after the prices plummet. In a long awaited study, the government estimates up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, using current technology.

The Bakken Formation is a shale structure accessible through horizontal drilling and hydrofracking, technology made possible through the profits of oil companies.

AP reported on the effects of the price drop on the Bakken Formation earlier this month, “Oil prices temper boom in ND oil patch“:

Drilling in North Dakota’s oil patch is expected to be slashed by at least a third next year, industry officials say, citing slipping crude prices and a slumping U.S. economy.

But no hint of an ’80s-type bust, observers say.

And Harold Hamm of Continental Resources is upbeat about his company’s prospects, in part because of its investment in the Bakken Formation. (From The Enid, OK, News.)

The economy is put again on firm footing…or at least packed snow. From the Manchester Union-Leader, “A perfect storm seen for ski vacation week“:

At the Mount Washington Resort at Bretton Woods, tourists waited on the golf course for their turn behind teams of sled dogs.

More than 50 sled dogs were lined up in hitches of eight, apparently eager to take to the fields of snow.

Across the street at Bretton Woods ski area, snowboarders and skiers were enjoying frozen granular and packed powder on more than 70 of the resort’s 101 trails. Rain on Christmas Eve and subsequent cold temperatures made for a harder surface, but little of the depth was lost in most locations.

The entire 100-kilometer trail network at the Bretton Woods Nordic Center was open yesterday.

Global climate change to thank? Perhaps, but it’s more likely that low gas prices are providing the big push for the economy:

Gas is about $1.70 a gallon in Central New Hampshire, compared with about $4 a gallon during the last major holiday period, the Fourth of July.

From The New York Times, “Burning Coal at Home Is Making a Comeback“:

Problematic in some ways and difficult to handle, coal is nonetheless a cheap, plentiful, mined-in-America source of heat. And with the cost of heating oil and natural gas increasingly prone to spikes, some homeowners in the Northeast, pockets of the Midwest and even Alaska are deciding coal is worth the trouble.

Burning coal at home was once commonplace, of course, but the practice had been declining for decades. Coal consumption for residential use hit a low of 258,000 tons in 2006 — then started to rise. It jumped 9 percent in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration, and 10 percent more in the first eight months of 2008.

Online coal forums are buzzing with activity, as residential coal enthusiasts trade tips and advice for buying and tending to coal heaters. And manufacturers and dealers of coal-burning stoves say they have been deluged with orders — many placed when the price of heating oil jumped last summer — that they are struggling to fill.

The story quotes an air quality official from Fairbanks who regards burning coal as harmful to local residents’ health. Also cited is the president of an environmental testing firm from Portland, Oregon, who notes that restrictions on wood-burning stoves do not apply to coal-burning ovens. But that’s it in terms of opposition.

Too bad the NYT reporter didn’t ask a representative from a national environmental group for a comment, perhaps the answer to this question: “Your organization is leading a national ad campaign against coal as a source of electricity. Would you also like to ban the burning of coal in homes so people can stay warm in the winter? If not, why not?”

Environmentalists must surely dislike coal on all fronts; widespread acceptance of coal for home heating makes it more difficult to argue against the fuel generally as an evil, environmental monster. After all, you can’t concede that it’s OK for people to heat their homes with coal but then object to the use of an electric baseboard heater because the electricity is generated from burning coal.

(Hat tip: Glenn Reynolds, who recalls heating with coal in Heidelberg. Your correspondent remembers traveling through eastern Germany soon after the Wall fell, while they still burned high-sulfur brown coal. Now that was awful.)

From Mickey Kaus, Kausfiles:

Fifteen years ago, at the start of the last Democratic president’s administration. incoming Labor Secretary Robert Reich famously said “The jury is still out on whether the traditional union is necessary for the new workplace.” Tactfully put. This fall, if not earlier, the jury came back.

Famously put? Well, it was new to us. As was this comment from the same New York Times article, August 8, 1993, “Union Leaders Fight for a Place in the President’s Workplace of the Future“:

“Unions are O.K. where they are,” said Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown. “And where they are not, it is not clear yet what sort of organization should represent workers.”

The Employee Free Choice Act would make it abundantly clear what sort of organization would represent workers: traditional labor unions, which unwilling employees would be forced into via elimination of secret ballot elections. Secretary Brown died in the Balkan plane crash, of course, so we can’t ask his views of the bill. Robert Reich is still alive, though, and he seems to realize the weakness of the arguments for card check.

Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times wrote the original piece. A good foundation for another report, eh?

More…

Trauma nurse Sherwood Cox, who worked to defeat two California Nurses Assn. drives at Western Medical Center Santa Ana, said that under the proposed law, he would be unable to keep the union out.

“When it’s actually gone to vote, we’ve gone into the ballot booth and we’ve voted no,” Cox said. “Both times, the union was totally shocked that they lost.”

Under the card-check system, an employer could be surprised to learn that the workplace has gone union overnight.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes today on the case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Entergy Corporation v. Riverkeeper, the issue being whether power plants must use the most advanced, most expensive cooling technology no matter what the cost. From “Plankton Watch“:

In Entergy, a green lobby named Riverkeeper is seeking to make power plants go beyond what was judged necessary by the EPA’s cost-benefit analysis. According to Riverkeeper’s lawyer, Richard Lazarus, “The EPA has no authority in any circumstance to decide that fish aren’t worth a certain amount of cost.” In other words, while EPA may consider whether the industry is able to bear the costs, it should not weigh those costs against harm to the environment.

If it sounds fishy, that’s exactly what the environmentalists have in mind. When power plants draw in water from lakes and rivers to circulate into coolant systems for power generation, some fish and marine life forms are harmed. To reduce the mortality rate, the enviros suggest, a better option would be cooling systems that recycle water or air within the plant. Small problem: The conversion cost can run to hundreds of millions of dollars per plant, while decreasing efficiency. According to EPA estimates, 20 new power plants would have to be built nationwide to compensate for the new cooling process.

The NAM and other groups filed an amicus brief in this case, which the Supreme Court combined with two others. For more, please see the NAM’s Legal Beagle entry. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on December 2; you can read the transcript here.

Portland’s mayor-elect, Sam Adams, is clearly an inventive politician. With the record snowfall in western Oregon combining with too few snowplows and ideological opposition to road salt to produce ice-blocked side streets, many in the public are starting to complain. Reasonably enough, Adams says such snow events are so infrequent that buying more snowplows might not make economic sense. But if “global change” occurs, well, maybe they’ll do things differently:

From City of Portand, Office of Transportation, news release:

Adams said he understands the public’s frustration with current road conditions due to heavy snowfall and ice formation. “Crews have been doing an excellent job under extremely challenging conditions.” Portland has widely varying terrain and can have widely varying weather conditions throughout the city. It is not uncommon to have a significant amount of snow accumulation in one part of the city while only a few miles away there is no snow at all or just ice. Hills on both the east and the west sides of the city increase motorists’ difficulties and require special attention from Transportation crews.

Portland does not get a “predictable” annual snowfall. Adams said, “We cannot afford to purchase equipment that would simply sit idle in the yard most of the year perhaps for years.” He also acknowledged that if global climate change contributes to a trend of more severe winter weather events in Portland, the City will have to develop a new Snow and Ice Plan and find a way to invest in additional equipment to respond. “We have to keep commerce active and transportation moving; it’s what we do.”

In a radio interview, Adams used the term “global change” to describe what sorts of developments might require more snowplow purchases. If global change occurs….

Well, that’s a safe bet, isn’t it? The possibility of global climate change is now being used as the all-purpose rationale for any public policy decision. Having the taxpayers buy more snowplows sounds like it might be a good decision. But who’s to say that another inventive politician won’t use the same arguments to ration energy consumption or shut down productive sectors of the economy?

(Correction: We misidentified Connell as a man in the original post and have now corrected the gender-specific references. I apologize for the mistake. All the other points stand.)

At the AFL-CIO blog today, labor gal Tula Connell reacts to the arguments by University of Chicago law professor Richard Epstein (published recently in the Wall Street Journal) that the Employee Free Choice Act is unconstitutional. Connell doesn’t really respond or argue against Epstein’s legal case, she insults and then changes the subject. And then there’s this:

Some opponents of workers’ freedom to form unions seem to have forgotten that forming groups outside government—and corporate—purview is critical to a free nation. In Big Brother-speak, these corporate hacks are attacking the proposed Employee Free Choice Act—which would enable more workers to have the freedom to form unions—as unconstitutional.

“Big Brother-speak?” Snort. That term comes from a proponent of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill designed to DEPRIVE workers of the free choice made possible by a secret ballot.

Connell’s basic message is war is peace, and now she’s accusing opponents of using Orwellian rhetoric!  

It’s as if she believes ignorance is strength.

Connell also calls Richard Epstein a “corporate hack.” Richard Epstein? Principled disagreement based on law and philosophy is apparently impossible in Connell’s world. But as we’ve said before, organized labor often goes too far, prefering to bully and shout instead of engage. Well, in the case of the Employee Free Choice Act that approach makes political sense, because labor can’t win on the merits. Better change the subject.

Which explains why Connell all but ignores the constitutional arguments made by Epstein. If we read it right, she suggests that freedom of association always trumps all other constitutional considerations, including freedom of speech. That’s not how we understand the law. But then, in Connell’s Oceanic world, freedom is slavery, so maybe there it does.

UPDATE (11:30 p.m.): Michael Janson, who recently earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, disagrees with Epstein, arguing on the merits in this letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal.

From Mickey Kaus, more piercing of the arguments of organized labor for the Employee Free Choice Act. At Kausfiles:

A common tactic of card check proponents is to say that opponents aren’t really against the elimination of the secret ballot, they are really  against unions. Hey, why can’t I be against both?  There are two legit  issues here: democratic principle  and whether more American-style unionization is the answer to our economy’s problems. Yes, if there were a procedurally fair reform that promised to dramatically increase the unionization rate, I’d have a more difficult choice. But this isn’t that case.  I’m willing to bet that a) workers who vote anonymously, free of the collective social pressure that can come with public voting, will rationally decide, often enough, that the drawbacks of unionization (in terms of the adversarialization of the workplace, lost productivity, and winding up like Detroit) outweigh the benefits, and b) workers who do decide to unionize their companies will find those companies losing out in the marketplace and shrinking (as has been the case, most conspicuously, with Detroit). … Bet (a), at least, is a bet Stern obviously doesn’t want to take–even though in the bhTV interview Reich is clearly, if timidly, trying to push him in the direction of a package of reforms aimed at curbing employer “coercion” rather than ending the secret ballot. …  7:54 P.M.

BHTV is Blogging Heads TV, and the specific interview of Stern by Robert Reich is here. Stern really is remarkably unpersuasive. Get him out there more!

Scanning the papers and websites in Oregon, we see that energy development — or fierce opposition to energy development, as is too often the case — remains a major issue in the Northwest.

Daily Astorian, December 9, “LNG foe earns state role“:

Liquefied natural gas opponents got a boost Monday when Oregon’s Attorney General-elect John Kroger announced his appointment of Columbia Riverkeeper Executive Director Brent Foster to his executive team at the Oregon Department of Justice.

Foster will oversee environmental crime for Kroger and will serve as his primary adviser on environment, energy, and natural resource policy. Foster was one of three special counsels Kroger appointed Monday.

Foster is worshipped and reviled in Clatsop County for his anti-LNG activism.

We didn’t follow the Oregon AG race, so don’t know if the winning campaign slogan was, “Keep Cold with Kroger.”

The Olympian, December 24, editorial, “Upgrade to power grid wise investment“:

The wind farms are in rural, remote areas of Oregon and Washington, east of the Cascade Mountains, in the Columbia River Gorge and far from the high-growth populations centers of Puget Sound and the Willamette Valley. BPA doesn’t have the transmission capacity to deliver the green wind power to homes and businesses in the Interstate 5 corridor where 85 percent of the region’s electricity demand resides.

But Bonneville has mapped out a plan to build about 600 miles of high voltage transmission lines at a cost of about $1.5 billion. Several of the projects are engineered and ready for construction. Others require more environmental review.

Now is the time for the region’s members of Congress to make sure BPA transmission expansion projects are included in the president’s economic recovery-green energy stimulus package.

President-elect Obama has included upgrading the power grid in developing an infrastructure/stimulus plan, so The Olympian’s pitch has merit. Of course, a power grid to serve wind farms can also serve additional coal-fired power production, or even LNG-fired plants, so everybody wins.

Portland Business-Journal, December 26, “Organizations Overcome Tough Times“:

In the past two years, seven solar energy manufacturers have committed $1.5 billion in capital investments and 2,000 high-wage jobs in Oregon.

The biggest of those, Germany-based SolarWorld AG, opened its 480,000 square foot Hillsboro plant in October, the largest solar cell manufacturing plant in North America.

The wind energy industry, while not a major source of manufacturing jobs, has continued a surge of wind farms in the state. As of November, nearly 30 wind farms were either in operation or under development, with a capacity of 3,000 megawatts of electricity.

Good!

And more from the Business Journal:

Emerging technologies have also showed strong growth.

The state Department of Geology and Mineral Industries as of November issued 15 drilling permits for geothermal electricity projects, the first issued by the agency in 15 years.

New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies in 2008 received a $2 million federal grant to build the first of 10 electric-generating buoys it hopes to deploy along the coast at Reedsport in 2009. The buoys are expected to generate about 1.5 million megawatts of wave energy — enough to power 1,500 homes annually. [Assuming it's 1.5 megawatts, not 1.5 million.]

Great! Except, really, do we want 1,500 more homes along the Southern Oregon coast? And do the buoys emit whale-disturbing vibrations?

Seriously, the development of these alternative energy forms is great news. A comprehensive energy strategy should embrace all sorts of sources of production, especially as they become more efficient and competitive and, in some cases, produce baseload electricity.