Tag: affordable

Subsidizing Solar Power

  • John Wakeman of SUR Energy says government and utility incentives have lowered the costs of a solar installation for consumers.(Photo courtesy of Mark Brush)

Sources of renewable energy like wind, solar, and hydroelectric are still just tiny players in a world powered by fossil fuels. Most of the power for your light switch comes from burning coal and natural gas. Mark Brush reports the government is trying to change that. There are state and federal programs that will pay you to put solar panels on your house:

Transcript

Sources of renewable energy like wind, solar, and hydroelectric are still just tiny players in a world powered by fossil fuels. Most of the power for your light switch comes from burning coal and natural gas. Mark Brush reports the government is trying to change that. There are state and federal programs that will pay you to put solar panels on your house:

John Wakeman was laid off from his factory job eight years ago. So, for him it was, “well… Now what?” He’d always been interested in solar panels and wind turbines. So he decided to go into business helping homeowners put these things up. It’s been eight years, business was slow at first, but he says these days, business for solar panels is picking up.

“There are a lot of people that have always just dreamed of it. You know, they thought it was really cool, they looked into it in the ‘70s. In the 70’s it cost, you know, ten times as much for the same energy. The costs have really come down.”

But it’s still really expensive for a lot of people. Wakeman says a typical solar job costs around sixteen thousand dollars these days.

But now – you can get help from the government.

There’s a federal tax credit that will pay for 30% of the cost of new solar panels on your house. So you spend sixteen grand – you get $4,800 off your next tax bill. And on top of that, there are a bunch of state and utility operated programs that will help pay for the up-front costs.

In fact, more than half the states in the country are forcing utilities to make more renewable power.

So more utilities are paying people to install things like solar panels, wind turbines, and geothermal heat pumps.

In many places, it costs less to install these things than it ever has.

Wakeman says these incentives have been good for his business.

“I can actually build a business somewhat on that. I can hire some people and get them trained. You know we can go out and sell some systems.”

But some say these subsidies are not a good idea:

“The sunlight may be free, but solar energy is extremely expensive.”

Robert Bryce analyzes the energy business for the Manhattan Institute. It’s a conservative think tank. Bryce says solar power is enjoying big subsidies from the government right now, but it’s not translating into a lot of power going onto the grid:

“Solar energy received 97 times as much in subsidies per megawatt hour produced as natural gas fired electricity; even though the gas-fired electric sector produced 900 times as much electricity as solar. So how much subsidy are we going to have to give them to make them competitive. And I think the answer is going to be… It’s going to have to be a whole, whole lot.”

Bryce agrees – there are some big environmental costs to traditional fossil fuel sources. Costs that are not always paid for. But in the end – he says renewable energy sources like solar just can’t compete with traditional fossil fuels.

But others say the subsidies for renewable power are boosting an industry that is trying to get a start.

Rhone Resch is the president of the Solar Energy Industries Association. He says the subsidies renewables are getting today just make the game fair:

“We’re starting to get the same kinds of support from the federal government that the fossil industry has enjoyed for the last 75 to 100 years. And when you do that, the cost of wind comes down, the cost of solar comes down, the cost of geothermal becomes more cost competitive.”

If you look at the numbers, traditional power sources have always gotten more money from the government. In 2007, the federal government gave out 6.7 billion dollars in subsidies to support electricity production. Most of it went to coal, natural gas, and nuclear.

Today, renewable energy sources, like solar, are getting a little more help. And supporters hope that help doesn’t disappear – like it has in the past – when the political winds change.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Stimulus Funds for Home Weatherization

  • A fan is sized to the front door so they can de-pressurize the house. This helps them see where air is escaping - and where insulation may be needed. (Photo by Julie Grant)

The government stimulus package
included billions of new dollars
for home weatherization programs.
The money is used to help low income
folks make their homes more energy
efficient. But some critics say
it’s not a good use of federal tax
dollars. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

The government stimulus package included billions of new dollars for home weatherization programs. The money is used to help low income folks make their homes more energy efficient. But some critics say it’s not a good use of federal tax dollars. Julie Grant reports:

Chris Graham spends his days checking the energy efficiency of people’s homes.

Today he’s at Sandra Richards’ in Mogodore, Ohio.

Graham: “Hi Sandra.”

Sandra: “How are ya?”

Graham: “Wonderful. And you?”

Sandra: “Better.”

Graham: “Better?”

Sandra is 55. Her house is clean and neat. She was a nurse for many years, but today she’s sitting on the couch, watching TV. A broken foot spiraled into problems with her knee and hip – and other health problems.

“I mean I’ve just had so many things go on in such a little time. I was working 12 hour days, and one month later, I couldn’t work at all.”

Sandra qualified for the home weatherization program because she doesn’t have much in the way of income anymore.

Chris Graham says he’s been to a lot of homes where people are far worse off. They can’t get around, they don’t have money coming in, and their houses get cold in the winter.

Graham heads to the basement.

“The first thing we have to make sure is that the heating unit is not in terrible, dilapidated shape. And that it does not have more than a specified amount of carbon monoxide in the flu gasses.”

He turns on the furnace and sticks a probe into the flu pipe.

(sound of a tester)

Grant: “Looks like a receipt came out.”

Graham: “It kind of is. It tells you exactly what was going on there.”

Looks like Sandra’s furnace is running pretty well. 81% efficiency.

But Graham sees evidence of carbon monoxide on her old water heater.

“It’s 17 years old and it just plain needs changed. It’s got burnt, scorch all over it. So we’re gonna do that.”

That could cost more than $1,000.

But the home weatherization program can afford it these days. The stimulus packaged included $5-billion for this kind of work – compared with less than a quarter of a billion dollars last year. The new money has to be spent within two years.

And some people think that’s just too much money – too fast. Leslie Paige is with a taxpayer watchdog group called Citizens Against Government Waste.

“There’s always a lot of waste in government spending anyway, but when you spend it quickly and there’s very little oversight, that’s almost a prescription for seeing a lot of that money go for waste and fraud and losing to abuse.”

That kind of criticism is shocking to David Shea. He’s director the Community Action Council of Portage County, Ohio – the organization that hires inspector Chris Graham.
The weatherization program has been around since 1976 and Shea says they have to report their spending in about a hundred different ways.

“It’s not like money is being thrown out at agencies and just say, ‘oh go out and do it.’ There are volumes and volumes of written regulations that have been around for a long time. We do so much sophisticated reporting; they know how every dollar is being spent. Always. Always.”

Shea’s office used to have one crew out weatherizing homes around the county. Since the stimulus money’s come in, he’s hired a second crew. But there are so many people wanting their services, the waiting list is still years long.

(sound of a fan)

Back at Sandra Richards’ house, inspector Chris Graham has sized a big fan into the front door. He’s depressurizing the house – so he can see where air is escaping. Graham says she’s going to need some doors sealed and new insulation in the attic.

He says Sandra will feel more comfortable, so she won’t need to turn up the heat in the winter. That means she’ll save on energy costs, and will use less fossil fuels.

That’s the whole idea of this project – to use less energy in the future, and to help millions of families that couldn’t afford to improve things on their own.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Climate Change and Civil Rights

  • A climate change bill will mean more expensive energy until the nation can transition from fossil fuels like coal and oil to renewable energy such as biofuels, wind, and solar. (Source: Atmoneytota at Wikimedia Commons)

Eventually a climate change bill will work its way through Congress and President Obama has indicated he’ll sign it. But a civil rights group says a climate change bill will hurt the working poor. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Eventually a climate change bill will work its way through Congress and President Obama has indicated he’ll sign it. But a civil rights group says a climate change bill will hurt the working poor. Lester Graham reports:

A climate change bill will mean more expensive energy until the nation can switch from fossil fuels like coal and oil to renewable energy such as biofuels, wind and solar.

Roy Innis is the Chairman of the civil rights group Congress of Racial Equality. He says higher energy costs will hit the working poor hardest.

Democrats say they’ll get tax rebates to offset the higher costs. Innis doesn’t like the idea.

“We don’t want energy welfare. This is our new civil rights battle: how to have abundant and available, reliable energy at a reasonable cost.”

And Innis says we have that now with fossil fuels.

The Obama Administration says climate change legislation will eventually lead to cheaper energy for everyone and reduce the cause of global warming —which, in the end, could cost people a lot more.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Tax Incentives Put Solar Within Reach

  • Eric Lindstrom, Vice President of Cannon Design, stands next to the building's 140 new solar panels (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)

Buying a solar system for your home still is not as simple or inexpensive as say picking up a new water heater. But solar energy advocates argue that the systems are affordable and obtainable for just about everyone – right now. Joyce Kryszak checked out that claim:

Transcript

Buying a solar system for your home still is not as simple or inexpensive as say picking up a new water heater. But solar energy advocates argue that the systems are affordable and obtainable for just about everyone – right now. Joyce Kryszak checked out that claim:

You might say that sunlight is a trade mark for Cannon Design. The Western New York based firm designs some of the most solar friendly buildings in the world. But only now is Cannon using the sun for its own building.

Eric Lindstrom is Vice President of the company. He says it’s what their environmentally savvy clients expect.

“You know there’s a huge P.R. factor here that we can bring our clients in and say, you know, this is what we’re recommending to you, but we’ve done it ourselves and it works. That we didn’t just read it in a magazine somewhere and say this is what you should be doing.”

Lindstrom takes us up on the roof of the company’s building to have a look at the new system.

Up here we find solar panels. 140 of them. They’re stretched out from edge to edge, soaking up the rays.

Lindstrom says they generate about 5% of the energy the building needs. But he says even at that small percentage the company will recoup the roughly $17,000 investment in about three years.

The system’s total price tag is actually about $170,000. But Cannon Design got corporate tax credits and incentives that covered roughly 90%. After the pay-back period, Linstrom says the company will actually pocket money.

Back in the building they can watch the savings add up on the inverter meters inside. That got Lindstrom thinking. He got a bid on a system for his home. He’s decided against it for now because the payback would take about eight years. You see, businesses get more tax breaks than homeowners.

But some people say the payback time can be less. And sometimes it just doesn’t’ matter to them.

Joan Bozer was at the American Solar Energy Society Conference held in Buffalo, New York. Bozer was showing off pictures of her home’s $30,000 solar system. It cost her half that after incentives. The payback will take a while—about eight years. But Bozer says that’s okay.

“Because it doesn’t make any difference to me if it’s five years or ten years what the payback period is. I want the solar panels, like people in their house they put on the roof they want, or they put on what they want and this is what we want – solar panels on the roof. That’s how we want to do it.”

But as green-minded as she is, Bozer admits that federal and state incentives gave her the final push.

While everybody can take advantage of recent federal tax credits, state incentives vary. Some are generous, and some offer homeowners nothing. Some local governments are offering low-interest loans on top of the federal and state incentives.

Neal Lurie is with the Solar Society. Lurie says incentives are creating demand and that’s driving down the cost of solar systems.
He says systems cost about 30% less than last year.

Lurie says with lower prices and tax incentives, some homeowners can have solar without much – or no – money out of pocket.

But how soon will solar catch on with the masses? Lurie predicts in less than six years.

“We’ll see solar technology a low-cost provider of electricity, even lower priced than fossil fuels without incentives. I think that when that happens we’re going to see it go from being something that people are looking at and starting to do to something that is truly common-place, much more than people may actually expect today.”

Others think solar will really take off in just three years. Solar installers are already gearing up. Some say they’ll double their workforce by the end of this year.

For The Environment Report – I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Wanted: Affordable Art Space

  • Back in 2000, Laura Weathered and fellow artists were drafting what their artist community would look like. (Photo by Lester Graham)

When artists make a check-list for the ideal place to live – they add things the average family
might not, like plenty of work space and being close to other artists and galleries. Big cities
usually offer all the things on that list – but there’s a problem. Big-city real estate prices have a
habit of rising quickly – and pricing artists out. Shawn Allee found artists who’ve tried to stay
put:

Transcript

When artists make a check-list for the ideal place to live – they add things the average family
might not, like plenty of work space and being close to other artists and galleries. Big cities
usually offer all the things on that list – but there’s a problem. Big-city real estate prices have a
habit of rising quickly – and pricing artists out. Shawn Allee found artists who’ve tried to stay
put:

Laura Weathered began her career in painting in Los Angeles.

It was tough enough finding her muse – but it was also tough finding places to live that stayed
affordable.

“This kind of history of settling into a space and then the neighborhood going through
gentrification was chasing me all over L.A.”

Fed up, Weathered left for Chicago.

Before long, she found some Chicago artists had the same problem – rents and home prices just
weren’t stable.

Weathered and fellow artists got tired of toughing it – so about thirty of them put their heads
together and looked into buying property – to live in, to work – and maybe share with artist
groups, too.

“And someone’s comment was, You know, this is going to cost more than a million
dollars – who’s going to rent a bunch of flaky artists a million dollars?”

But then they did some back-of the napkin kinda math.

“We had a everyone go around the room and, What are you paying for rent? And that
was the Aha moment – collectively we could afford much more than a million dollars,
because that’s what we’d been paying all along.”

It took almost ten years to dig up funding and expertise, but eventually – they transformed a
former metal-stamping factory into artist housing, studio and office space.

People have been living in the artists’ community for five years now.

When you walk around, you see paintings in some loft windows and sculptures near the front
step.

Weathered shows off some shared gallery space.

“So, this is really important. You can bring test audiences in and see how it plays and get
feedback and the like without taking huge risks.”

All this is great – but the big idea was to make the space stay affordable for artists and artist
groups. So far, it’s worked.

“We can stay here a long time.”

This is Denise Zaccardi.

Zaccardi runs the Community TV Network. It has offices at the Bloomingdale Arts Building.

The network teaches low-income teens how to produce news, TV and documentaries. Zaccardi
says arts organizations like hers can benefit from this stability.

“Kids can tell their brothers and sisters down the line we’re here – we’re not moving
every three years, which is a common thing for people who rent, especially for artists.”

So, sounds like everything is an artist’ dream, right?

Well, like in other condo-associations, members have fought over repair costs. And artists who
own their units can only sell them to other artists. Plus, if they do sell … their profits are
capped. That’s made the units much lower in value compared to their neighbors’.

Laura Weathered says there’ve been second thoughts.

“I think some people are saying, ‘Did I agree to this too quickly?’ because it’s restrictive,
but the agreement originally was that we wanted an artist community and not just for one
generation for the future.”

Weathered says the idea was to keep units affordable for artists – and that’s been the case for
five years.

She says it’s not perfect, but if it works for a decade or two more, it might be a model for other
artists to follow.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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African Americans and Affordable Energy

  • Wendell Rice points to the new CFLs in Stephanie Bradford’s home (Photo by Jori Lewis)

The cost of heating your home is going
up this winter. It went up last year. It will
go up next year. For some people it’s an
inconvenience. For others it’s a real problem.
Jori Lewis reports Black communities are hit
especially hard:

Transcript

The cost of heating your home is going
up this winter. It went up last year. It will
go up next year. For some people it’s an
inconvenience. For others it’s a real problem.
Jori Lewis reports Black communities are hit
especially hard:

Like a lot of Americans, Darlene Manswell has been struggling. Her Brooklyn, home is
in foreclosure. And she’s been behind on her electricity bills – almost $3,000 behind.

And so the power company, they came a-knockin.’

“They basically came to shut it off and I’m, you know, just bargaining with people.
They wanted the full amount. I didn’t have the full amount. I gave them whatever I
could afford to give them. And they said that’s not, we’re still going to shut it off.”

The price of energy has become a huge burden for many people, but Black communities,
like Darlene Manswell’s, are especially vulnerable.

Andrew Hoerner researches energy use in minority communities for the sustainability
think tank Redefining Progress and the Environmental Justice and Climate Change
Initiative.

Hoerner says Black people pay more of their incomes on home energy and heating
expenses than other people. He says there are a couple of reasons why. First, Black
people, on average, have lower incomes.

“Energy is like food or shelter. It’s a necessity. And people at lower incomes spend a
higher percentage of their income on necessities.”

But, Hoerner also found that Black people at middle and higher income levels still spend
more of their incomes on energy than non-Blacks in all but the highest income brackets.

“I think we’re safe in saying that it has to do with lower quality housing stock for
African American communities.”

It all goes back to a history of residential segregation has left many Black people in older
areas with less well-maintained houses. Those buildings might have loose windows or
poor insulation. And that means they are leaking heat and wasting energy.

Hoener also notes Black people are more likely to be renters instead of owners. And
renters have less control over repairs or improvements.

All of these factors have forced Black communities to find ways to adjust.

Stephanie Bradford certainly wants to. She owns a home in a traditionally Black
neighborhood of Brooklyn.

“These times are serious. So whatever way you have to do to save money, you have
to save it. This winter was horrible. It was a matter of either heating the house or
eating. And it was really a choice.”

She made it through okay. But she knows she has to do better this winter. And lucky for
her, she found a way.

Bradford qualified for low–income weatherization assistance. She’s been able to install
new windows, add insulation and put in new energy-efficient compact fluorescent light
bulbs.

Wendell Rice is the director of the weatherization program. He says making these
changes can help people like Stephanie Bradford weather the economic the downturn.

“She’s doing the right thing, she’s not dodging the bullet by getting the house
weatherized. And if we do what we’re supposed to do here, her bills got to be
cheaper.”

Rice says he wishes he could help everyone. But these programs have a waiting list a
year or two long.

But Rice notes that if he could help more people lower their energy bills, the money left
over could help them save their homes from the bank and their stuff from the repo man
and just go a long way in healing this systemic bias.

For The Environment Report, this is Jori Lewis.

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One Genius of a Farmer

  • Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing Power, Inc. (Photo courtesy of the MacArthur Fellows Program)

An advocate of urban farming will
be able to do more to get locally grown foods
to communities. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

An advocate of urban farming will
be able to do more to get locally grown foods
to communities. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Will Allen founded the group ‘Growing Power’. Allen says the group tries to provide healthful and affordable food to
people who really need it. He says he’s mainly focused on growing and getting food to cities.

“Our rural areas are becoming suburban areas, and cities are getting larger and
growing out into suburban areas. And we have to figure out a way to feed people
with local food, and we need to come up with a just way of doing that.”

Allen says growing food locally and getting better food to people is key to building communities.

Allen is getting help. The MacArthur Foundation has recognized him with one of its ‘genius’ grants. He’ll get a half-
million dollars over the next five years to use as he sees fit.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Making Solar Power Mainstream

  • Chuck and Pam Wingo in the kitchen of their solar-powered home. (Photo by Tamara Keith)

Solar panel technology has been around for decades…but not many people have panels on their roofs. Solar energy is the ultimate clean power source, but it’s also expensive and that’s kept most people away. But regulators in one state are hoping to change that. The state’s Public Utilities Commission recently approved a 3-billion dollar fund to give homeowners and businesses hefty rebates if they install solar panels. It’s the first program of its kind and size in the nation. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith reports:

Transcript

Solar panel technology has been around for decades…but not many
people have panels on their roofs. Solar energy is the ultimate clean
power source, but it’s also expensive and that’s kept most people away.
But regulators in one state are hoping to change that. The state’s Public
Utilities Commission recently approved a 3-billion dollar fund to give
homeowners and businesses hefty rebates if they install solar panels. It’s
the first program of its kind and size in the nation. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith reports:


A little over a year ago, Chuck Wingo and his wife Pam moved into a
new house in an innovative housing development. Their house, like all
the others in the neighborhood, is equipped with bank solar panels, built
right into the roof like shingles.


“These are the 2 meters that are on the house. It’s simple. One uses for
our usage, what we use, and the other one is from the solar panels, what we
produce.”


Chuck says sometimes he walks to the side of his California house and
just watches the solar meter spin.


“We check it all the time, what’s even better is checking the bills. The
bills are great, we paid 16-dollars for our usage in August, the hottest
month in Sacramento. So, it’s kind of cool.”


The Wingo’s weren’t big environmentalists before moving into this
house, but Pam says when she heard about this development, something
clicked.


“The idea just sounded, if you’re going to move, do it right at least. Do
something pro-active about where you’re going to be living and spending
your money. It’s really good for everybody, for the country. We all
should be living like this so we’re not wasting out energy.”


And many more Californians will be living that way, if the California
Solar Initiative lives up to its promise. State energy regulators approved
the initiative, which will add a small fee to utility bills in order to create a
3-billion dollar fund. That fund is designed to make solar panels more
affordable.


It starts by offering rebates to consumers who buy them. Bernadette Del
Chiaro – a clean energy advocate with Environment California – says
once those panels get cheaper, the marketplace goes to work…


“The problem with solar power today is its cost. Most of us can’t afford
an extra 20-thousand dollars to equip our home with solar panels, and
what we’re doing in California is saying, we’re going to get the cost of
solar power down. By growing the market 30 fold in the next 10 years,
we’re going to be able to cut the cost of solar panels in half.”


Last year, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to get the California
legislature to approve something similar. That plan got bogged down in
state politics … so he took it to the Public Utilities Commission. While
the commission can raise the money, there are some parts of this
revamped solar program that have to be legislated.


Democratic State Senator Kevin Murray has worked with the Republican
Governor on solar power issues. He says he plans to introduce a new bill
that would require solar panels be included as an option on all new
homes built in the state.


“Rather than some specialized left-wing alternative kind of thing, we want it to
be in the mainstream, so that when you go in to buy a new home, you
pick your tile and you pick your carpet and you pick your solar system.
So, that would have to be done legislatively and the other thing that would
have to be done legislatively is raise the net metering cap so that if you’re
selling energy back to the grid, you can get compensated for it.”


The new program would also target businesses, even farms. Public
Utilities Commissioner Dian Grueneich says she hopes this doesn’t stop
with California.


“I’m very, very excited. This is the largest program in the country
and I’m hoping that other states will look at this program as well, so that
it’s not just something in California but helping other states.”


And if the solar power initiative is a success in California, backers say
it’s good news for consumers all over the country. Much like the hybrid
car, made cool by Hollywood celebrities… California leaders hope they
can make solar trendy and more affordable for everyone.


For the GLRC, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Reactor Back Online at High Cost

One of the biggest nuclear power facilities in the region recently brought another idled reactor back online. The Pickering Nuclear station is just east of Toronto on Lake Ontario and has a total of eight reactors. Some say the cost of operating these reactors isn’t worth the power they generate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:

Transcript

One of the biggest nuclear power facilities in the region recently brought another idled reactor back online. The Pickering Nuclear station is just east of Toronto on Lake Ontario and has a total of eight reactors. Some say the cost of operating these reactors isn’t worth the power they generate. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Dan Karpenchuk reports:


The Pickering facility is Canada’s oldest nuclear plant: two stations with for reactors each. The newer B station has been operational since it was built in the 1980’s. One reactor at the older A station was restarted last year and a second one, this fall, at a cost of a billion dollars.


Shawn Patrick Stensil of Greenpeace says they’re not worth it.


“We know that the other four reactors at the Pickering B station… they’ll be reaching the end of their operational life around 2009. What we should do is prepare for that, and start building other energy sources to replace the energy that we need as those reactors come offline.”


The Ontario government is looking to develop other sources of energy, but the nuclear industry says the province won’t find it easy to give up nuclear energy. They say it’s clean, emission-free, and despite the problems at the plants, it has still proven to be affordable and reliable.


For the GLRC, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

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Report: Region Tops List of Dirtiest Power Plants

  • A new report publishes how dirty the dirtiest power plants are and where they're located. (Photo courtesy of USGS)

According to a new report by an environmental advocacy group, some of the nation’s “dirtiest” power plants can be found right here in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve Carmody has more:

Transcript

According to a new report by an environmental advocacy group, some of the
nation’s “dirtiest” power plants can be found right here in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Steve
Carmody has more:


Using EPA data from 2004, the Environmental Integrity Project has compiled
its list of the “50 Dirtiest Power Plants” in the U.S. Plants in the region rank high on the list, which compares the plants’ toxic emissions to their electricity output.


The Environmental Integrity Project’s Elain Levine says the result is
unhealthy amounts of mercury in fish and poor air quality in the region.


“All these harms coming out of these power plants are avoidable. Modern pollution controls are available and affordable and are being used today at many plants to significantly reduce these emissions.”


But Dan Reedinger of the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group, says
the EIP report is misleading… insisting plant operators are already
installing scrubbers to reduce toxic emissions at the power plants cited in
the report.


For the GLRC, I’m Steve Carmody.

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