San Francisco -- Oil and coal are not about to let clean energy get to market without a
fight. And Congress is so used to thinking of energy policy in terms of
which regions produce which fuels -- instead of in the context of our
collective
need for energy services -- that they are getting a hearing.
Peabody Coal just launched a huge attack
on wind energy. In an ad in Roll Call aimed at Congress, the coal
producer makes the claim that coal-fired power plants, even when
equipped with as-yet unproven and therefore uncosted capture-and-sequestration technology, will be 15-50 percent cheaper than wind, 28 percent
cheaper than natural gas, and 15 percent cheaper than nuclear.
None of these studies included the costs of properly treating the currently
unregulated coal-ash wastes from these plants, which were to blame for
the disastrous spill in Tennessee last Christmas. In reality, they are
all tilted toward coal.
This cost disadvantage to coal is not just theoretical. Look at the experience of the past several months. An economic crisis drives down electricity demand, particularly for
industry. U.S. electrical demand has, indeed, slumped -- by 4.5 percent. But demand for coal-generated power is
down three times as fast, by 13.4 percent, while cleaner natural gas is up
3.4 percent, and wind is up by 60 percent -- and that reflects the huge new wind
construction in 2008 so it's not really apples to apples.
These kinds of numbers are why Jon Wellinghoff, the head of the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has stepped forward and stated
the simple truth -- the U.S. can meet its electricity needs without
building a single new coal or nuclear power plant.
It's time to turn up the heat on members of Congress who don't get
that this is our future they're talking about, and that energy policy is
now too important to be left to energy lobbyists.