EcoNewMexico.com

Good news for the Four Corners region and everyone downwind of the proposed Desert Rock Coal Power Plant. The EPA has been ordered to remand (i.e. revoke) the Air (pollution) Permit that had been granted to Desert Rock Energy Company LLC. The Environmental Appeals Board held that the permit had not properly considered the possibility of CO2 capture. Coal-fired power plants have many other dirty problems beyond CO2 emissions, including mercury and other heavy metals pollution. But perhaps most notable is the problem that Carbon-capture coal plants simply don't exist!

0n December 22, 2008 a 'storage pond' dam broke in Harriman, TN flooding the Tennessee River Valley with over 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash sludge. What wasn't known at the time of this man-made disaster is how many more Coal Ash dump sites exist in the U.S.A. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and the Sierra Club the EPA released a list of 584 coal ash dump sites across the country. 35 states, including New Mexico, have coal ash dumps containing arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxins.

What a difference an administration makes! The EPA is working once again to protect the environment here in New Mexico and elsewhere. Specifically, the EPA is reconsidering the air (pollution) permit granted to the Desert Rock coal-fired power plant near Farmington, NM. This move revisits several exemptions made to existing air quality rules and allows the EPA to incorporate its new Supreme Court mandated role in regulating CO2 emissions. I don't think we can breathe easy yet, but fossil fuel air pollution just had a significant setback.

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Don't judge a book by it's cover, especially when the cover is this bad. Fortunately the book 'Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' by David JC MacKay is a much better book than its wrapping suggests. Professor McKay makes a case for, of all things, a fact and number-based energy policy. The idea that rational decision-making should drive energy policy shouldn't be a radical idea, but strangely enough it is.

'Clean Coal' harnesses the awesome power of the word clean!

Get Clean Coal clean! by the Coen brothers

Southwestern Power and Coal News:

There is no such thing as clean coal.

Looking for a way to offset your carbon footprint? Instead of paying someone else to offset your CO2 emissions you could create your own carbon sequestration system. In other words, you can plant trees and perennials at home. The New Mexico State Forestry Division wants to help you reforest your acre of the planet with the Conservation Seedling Program. Starting December 1st, anyone owning 1 acre or more of land in New Mexico can purchase seedlings from 53 varieties of trees and shrubs for spring planting.

New Mexico is windy in the spring. The wide open plains of Eastern New Mexico are even windier. Power utilities are putting up wind farms across New Mexico and the Great Plains to take advantage of all of the free wind. One question hasn't been answered yet - Who will operate and maintain these turbines? Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, NM is establishing the North American Wind Research and Training Center to educate Wind Turbine Technicians to fill that need.

I love forests. Probably because I grew up between a State Park and a Wildlife Preserve. I spent much of my childhood and teen years exploring the forest around my home. I understand the value of a forest is much greater than the wild game it supports and the board-feet of lumber it can produce. But, it's also reassuring when scientists discover another benefit of old-growth trees ... CO2 capture.