A thousand or so protesters marched by our offices on Monday, shouting, banging drums, carrying signs that identified them as environmental activists. We learned that the group came from a rally at Lafayette Square, the wind-up of something called the Power Shift Conference, organized by the Energy Action Coalition, which claimed to have attracted “5000 young Obama voters” to palaver on green energy.

Critical thinking is over

There are so many factions, groups, alliances and cadres involved in these efforts it’s difficult to determine who is most accountable for the various policy idiocies (Energy Justice!, 100 Percent Clean Energy Now!), but one person clearly on record is Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president.

Trumka shouted his slogans at the rally:

Because of your action, we’re moving past manufactured deficit hysteria. We’re moving past the same-old tired debates and toward jobs and a clean, green future.

You’re shifting America’s focus. You’re building power and political will to force our elected leaders to consider the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the jobs we have, and the future we need for ourselves and our children.

Manufactured deficit hysteria? Tell that to Standard & Poor’s.

Trumka and the other speakers excoriated the usual targets, the Chamber, Big Polluters, BP, Koch Industries, Exxon, etc.

Coal, the source of about half the nation’s electricity, was another subject of hate. Many of the marchers carried the sign featured in the photo above, “Coal is over,” and the agitprop media advisory announced the marchers planned to protest at “the headquarters of the electric utility Gen-On, which continues to burn coal in Virginia.” (Sure hope so. Without coal, Virginia gets much darker, colder and poorer.)

These activists are clear about their goal: They want to kill coal. They want to shut down coal-fired power plants.

In giving these activists his full-throated support, Richard Trumka is telling his union brothers and sisters in the coal-mining industry that their jobs don’t matter, he would as soon as put them out of work. The United Mine Workers of America have about 30,000 members, but to Trumka, these men and women are just tools of an exploitive coal industry.

What’s so astonishing is that Trumka comes from a coal mining family and was a miner himself before working his way up to President of the United Mine Workers of America and then moving to the AFL-CIO. He used to go down in the mine with men he now wants to put out of work.

When the AFL-CIO’s Trumka denounces “the same-0ld tired debates,” he’s really denouncing the jobs that make this nation run, including tens of thousands of union jobs in the mining industry. So much for solidarity.

Haven’t had a post about the Bakken Formation in a while, that vast and already proven layer of sweet crude in the Upper Midwest and Prairie Provinces, accessible via horizontal drilling and hydrofrac technology. And there are interesting things going on with clean coal out there, too.

From Bismarck Tribune, “Oil leases still vigorous in Mountrail, McKenzie“:

While far off the all-time highs, bids for oil and gas acres in North Dakota brought top dollar at the quarterly Bureau of Land Management auction Tuesday.

A Kansas company bid $3.5 million for a 10-year lease on 1,358 acres in Mountrail County, making the highest total bid of the sale, said BLM spokesman Greg Albright.

From the Oil and Gas Journal, “Final EIA figures show US oil reserves grew 2% in 2007“:

WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 28 — Proved US oil reserves rose by 345 million bbl, or 2%, during 2007 to 21.32 billion bbl from 20.97 billion bbl at the beginning of the year, reported the US Energy Information Administration on Jan. 28.

The increase was a contrast to the rapid decrease in domestic crude reserves that began in 1970 but which have moderated in the past decade, EIA said as it released final yearend numbers for 2007. The federal energy research and statistical service will begin gathering 2008 numbers in February when it distributes proved reserves data survey forms to more than 1,400 US well operators…[snip]

EIA said Alaska, Texas, and North Dakota accounted for a majority of the year’s new reserves with a combined 605 million bbl of net additions. Eight other states showed relatively small increases while 13 states and the Gulf of Mexico reported declines, it said.

As for coal, “5 coal-fired power plants studying carbon capture“:

Five coal-fired power plants in the U.S. and Canada, including one in central North Dakota, are studying the feasibility of retrofits to capture and store carbon dioxide, a nonprofit industry research group says.

Electric Power Research Institute said studies are being done at Great River Energy’s Coal Creek Station near Underwood, and at plants in Illinois, Utah, Ohio and Nova Scotia. The group said the research could help guide development of future power plants and how they deal with carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.

Which makes this Economist story all the more timely, “North Dakota is one of many states waiting for an energy policy from Washington.”

P.S. Crambe!

John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, sent a letter to the U.S. House yesterday expressing support for many of the provisions of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, i.e., the stimulus legislation. The tax provisions would indeed aid economic recovery, and there other areas that — energy and research, for example — where more can be done.

That letter is here. The conclusion:

The NAM recognizes that action by the House of Representatives will be a significant step.
We urge you to move expeditiously to address our economic crisis. Throughout the debate in the
House and Senate, we are committed to working with you to strengthen the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act with additional provisions that will also create jobs and have a highly
beneficial impact on our economy, including needed pension changes, additional tax relief to
accelerate clean coal technologies, incentives to bring foreign earnings back to the United States,
expansion of domestic energy resources, such as offshore exploration, and expansion of our
nuclear energy infrastructure.

Engler appeared on Bloomberg-TV today discussing the stimulus legislation. We have sound clips from the interview, Clip 1 and Clip 2.

From BNET Industries, “New DoE Head, Illinois Line Up in Favor of Clean Coal“:

The stars are aligning up once again for clean coal as Barack Obama approaches his presidential coronation. At both the Federal and state level, policymakers are talking about the technology. And sensing an inexorable change on its way, utilities and energy companies are duly lining up to help, albeit for a price.

Within the states, several larger actors are working to pass laws encouraging or even mandating new clean coal plants. At the forefront is Illinois, which just passed a bill allowing $18 million for a full-size clean coal plant some 25 miles southeast of Springfield. The two companies that will construct and operate the plant are Tenaska and MDL Holding, both privately held, while ComEd, a division of Exelon, would be required to buy electricity from the plant, provided rates didn’t rise too high.

More from The Chicago Tribune, “‘Clean coal’: Law could open door to new generation of coal-burning power plants.”

From the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, “Big Stone II pushes clean-energy alternative“:

Can an offer of clean-energy technology seal the deal for Big Stone II?

A group of rural utilities hoping to gain approval for high-voltage power lines from the proposed coal-fired power plant in South Dakota on Tuesday offered to equip the plant with such technology at a hearing before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.

The offer was the latest effort by utilities led by Otter Tail Power of Fergus Falls, Minn., to support the proposed Big Stone II power plant in Milbank, S.D. The matter has been before the PUC for more than three years.

And from September, Der Spiegel, “New German Facility Begins Testing CO2 Sequestration“:

A remote spot in Brandenburg has become a popular destination for politicians in the past few months: the Schwarze Pumpe coal power station near Spremberg. Former SPD leader Kurt Beck visited, as did Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee. Brandenburg’s Governor Matthias Platzeck has been there several times.

The attraction? Over the last two years, Swedish power supplier Vattenfall has built a pilot program to demonstrate how CO2 emissions from coal plants can be captured and pumped underground. The technology, known as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), could play a major role in the future of coal-fired energy sources. CCS may give the coal business, regarded as a harmful player in global warming, a much-needed green touch.

Oh yes, as to the photo inset, that’s another one of the ads in the D.C. Metro by the big-money coalition of green activists attacking clean coal. See below. We think it’s a mermaid, but it’s not too terribly clear. Maybe it’s just a cheesecake photo to draw the eye of male commuters.

Sexists.

From The Calgary Herald, “Pick for U. S. energy secretary eyes opportunity in clean coal“:

Emissions – Steven Chu, president-elect Barack Obama’s choice for energy secretary, said the United States has an “opportunity” to develop technologies that would burn coal with fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

“I feel very strongly that this is not only an opportunity, it’s something the U.S., with its great technological leadership, should rise to the occasion to develop,” Chu, 60, said Tuesday at a hearing of the senate energy and natural resources committee, which is considering his nomination.

How disappointing for all the anti-energy activists to whom coal is the environment’s bete noire. Chu has told them to go to hoille.

Chu and by extension the Obama Administration’s endorsement of clean-coal comes just as big-money environmentalists are spending millions on an advertising campaign attacking the technology. The Sunday news-chat shows are full of the TV spots, which are clever enough — a fellow standing on an empty, windswept plain, saying triumphantly, “This is today’s clean-coal technology.” (Watch it here.)

At the Metro Center subway stations here in D.C., the coalition that promotes itself at This is Reality.org, has bought most of the wall display space and hung banners to sell the message that there’s no such thing as clean coal. Like the TV spots, it’s another effort at hip advertising — see, this Sasquatch (mermaid, space alien) is holding a piece of coal claiming it’s clean, and since Sasquatches don’t exist, clean-coal doesn’t exist.

The message strikes us as too complicated and ironic for an effective ad campaign on public policy. Worse: It’s stupid and anti-science. The argument is that because some technology does not currently exist, it will never exist, and therefore we should not use that source of energy now or embark on any R&D.

If you applied that attitude consistently, then we’d never have wind, solar, biofuels, nuclear power — or certaintly not competitively price power generation from those sources. We’d never make any progress, period. This Is Reality is selling Luddism as an answer to today’s energy and environmental challenges.

The editorial page editor of The D.C. Examiner, Mark Tapscott, wrote a column on the campaign by the groups — Alliance for Climate Protection, Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters. Tapscott reminds us that coal represents the No. 1 source of power generation in the United States, identifies the amazing progress made in reducing coal emissions, and the prosperity and life-saving technology made possible by affordable production of electricity. From “Coal Lies From A Progressive Fable Factory“:

New technologies are on the horizon such as gasification and carbon-capture that promise to make coal burning even more environmentally friendly.

So strictly speaking, the “clean coal” technologies aren’t here yet. But then neither are the alternative energy supplies the environmentalists regularly cite as ready replacements for coal and other carbon-based fuels. And there are serious trade-offs with the alternatives that environmentalists don’t like to talk about.

In the end, whom are we to believe, a Nobel prize-winning scientist or an ironic Sasquatch?

Which is reassuring…

From Washington Times, “Obama energy pick backs coal”

President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to head the Energy Department told senators Tuesday that developing “clean coal” technology must be a national priority and said the ban on offshort drilling should not be reinstated.

Steven Chu, Mr. Obama’s designated energy secretary, also said Congress should maintain and expand its nuclear loan program and not put back into place a longtime ban on offshore oil-and-gas drilling.

“I think it is imperative to use coal as cleanly as possible,” Mr. Chu said Tuesday at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. …[snip]

Mr. Chu clarified previous remarks he had made that coal was his “worst nightmare,” saying that the nation will have to rely on coal power while it develops alternative energy sources and improves energy efficiency.

A big political story to emerge this weekend was President-elect Obama’s intention of repealing many of President Bush’s executive orders. John Podesta appeared the FoxNews Sunday show, test-marketing the theme to gauge the response from constitutencies. AP summary, “Obama plans review of Bush executive orders“:

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama plans an “across-the board” review of President George W. Bush’s executive orders, with an eye toward making his own quick imprint on important matters, and will swiftly put in place a “diverse,” bipartisan team of Cabinet members and aides, key advisers said Sunday.

“There’s a lot that the president can do using his executive authority, without waiting for congressional action,” said John Podesta, who is coordinating Obama’s transition planning. “And I think we’ll see the president do that to try to restore … a sense that the country is working on behalf of the common good.”

Obama’s review of his predecessor’s executive orders will range from a ban that Bush placed on federal funding for research using new lines of embryonic stem cells to an expected easing of oil and gas drilling limits in sensitive Western lands that the Bush administration could seek in its final month.

Utah. It’s always Utah. We remember the hullabaloo over President Clinton’s unilateral declaration in 1996 of Grande Staircase of the Escalante National Monument in Utah, locking up 1.7 million acres of land without congressional action, land that holds a trillion dollars worth of clean coal.

 As Investor’s Business Daily recalled in an editorial earlier this year:

The Utah reserve contains a kind of low-sulfur, low-ash and therefore low-polluting coal that can be found in only a couple of places in the world. It burns so cleanly that it meets the requirements of the Clean Air Act without additional technology.

“The mother of all land grabs,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said at the time. He has called what was designated as the Grande Staircase of the Escalante National Monument the “Saudi Arabia of coal.”

President Clinton’s move was a clear statement of policy that the Clinton Administration was not serious about reducing U.S. reliance on foreign energy and that “energy security” was anything but a priority. It’s useful historical reminder for the upcoming energy debates.

There are few things less appealing than a bullying, self-righteous newspaper editor, scolding politicians  and the public. Case in point: Phil Bronstein, editor at large at the San Francisco Chronicle, responding to Gov. Sarah Palin and various commentators criticizing the paper for what should have been a big story, Senator Barack Obama’s anti-coal pronouncements.

Bronstein, “My role in the Obama interview cover-up“:

It’s hard to pack in righteous indignation, outrage and a big 15 minutes of fame all at one time.

That’s pretty much where we are here at the Chronicle after Governor Palin’s claims over the weekend that we suppressed comments about the coal industry by Barack Obama at a January ed board meeting right here in SF. If you know our editorial page editor John Diaz, you know that making him say “hell” in a story means he’s pretty livid over the charge.

Me? My feeling is that hinky things happen in a bar at closing time. Let’s always set the record straight whenever possible. But are we really shocked that politicians on all sides twist things a to suit their purposes? You must be as stunned as I am.

The reality is this: the interview wasn’t squirreled down some digital hole, as the Governor claims (“the notion of a “tape” itself is pretty Watergate-era dated). If someone “found it”, digging for anything to help in the coal states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, I guess we didn’t hide it. It was available in audio and video form shortly after it happened and remains on SFGate to this day. Links to both forms of the interview appeared in the print Chronicle on a number of occasions. If the McCain campaign wanted to use this, what took them so long?

Is that really the journalistic standard you want to set, Bronstein? Hey, we posted the recording, YOU look for the news.

Seems antithetical to the idea that journalists have value in exercising news judgment, skills of interpretation, the ability to provide context, and perhaps a small gift of good writing. “Hell, we posted it, our obligation is complete.” Is that it?

As said below, it should come as no surprise that the San Francisco Chronicle’s team of editors and reporters missed the news in their January interview with Senator Barack Obama, that is, his clear, unambiguous support for policies to prevent utilities from building new coal-fired power plants because the costs would “bankrupt” them. In a cocooned newsroom full of the like-minded in the one-party city of San Francisco, statements about bankrupting coal seem like unobjectionable observations of fact. We should bankrupt coal? Absolutely, it’s dirty. And we can replace it with wind and solar energy and conservation and wishes and hopes and dreams of a brighter tomorrow.

Bronstein seems to think his journalistic value was proved when Senator Obama criticized him for being cynical, and he throws in a gratuitous “wink wink” reference to his ex, Sharon Stone. But who cares what a candidate thinks of you (or your ex)? The important thing is the story, and you missed it, as you yourself admit.

Still, I didn’t jump out of my seat when Senator Obama made his comments about the coal industry. It didn’t lead our story and wasn’t in the leadline. Maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention. Or maybe, as John Diaz notes, the statements were a little more nuanced than Governor Palin found useful in her rally speech.

Nuanced? (continue reading…)

Spreading around the conservative blogosphere today is the tape and transcript of a conversation Senator Barack Obama had with the San Francisco Chronicle on January 17, 2008. From Newsbusters.org (which does the bolding):

What I’ve said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else’s out there.

I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.

That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches.

The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.

It’s just that it will bankrupt them.

Newsbusters notes that the Chronicle reporter and editors did not deem the Senator’s remarks worth a story in January. Now, everyone makes mistakes, and sometimes media outlets simply miss a story.  We can see how you might overlook a policy statement to the effect that coal, which provides about half of U.S. electricity, will have no role in the economic country’s future.

But after Sen. Biden’s comments condemning clean coal, wouldn’t Senator Obama’s remarks have regained news value?

Huh. Just really hard to understand the failure to report this.

UPDATE: A San Francisco Chronicle headline, October 21: “Candidates’ energy plans like peas in a pod”

Well, that’s just not true, is it? As the Chronicle’s own interviews aptly demonstrate.

This post with video by the Politico’s Ben Smith on Senator Biden’s abjuration of coal is getting widespread play among the bloggers, chatterers and the commentariat.

Some great rope line video from Joe Biden’s recent Ohio swing, where he was asked by an anti-pollution campaigner about clean coal — a controversial approach in Democratic circles for which Obama has voiced support, particularly during the Kentucky primary.

Biden’s apparent answer: He supports clean coal for China, but not for the United States.

“No coal plants here in America,” he said. “Build them, if they’re going to build them, over there. Make them clean.”

“We’re not supporting clean coal,” he said of himself and Obama. They do, on paper, support clean coal.

Even disagreeing (strenuously) with Senator Biden on coal as a matter of policy, we must concede that his position is not unheard of. It’s shared by quite a few leading environmentalist opponents of energy development:

• “There’s no such thing as clean coal” — Bruce Nilles, who directs the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign. (Columbus Dispatch, Jan. 11, 2008.)
• “There’s no such thing as clean coal” — Robert Kennedy Jr. “‘Coal is dirty and destructive in every aspect of its production and burning.” (Real News Network, Aug. 28, 2008.)
• “There’s no such thing as clean coal” — Ilan Levin, legal counsel for the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) in Austin, Texas (The New Scientist, Aug. 3, 2007.)