The EPA and other agencies want to spend $475 million on the Great Lakes
(Photo by Karen Holland, courtesy of the EPA)
The Environmental Protection
Agency’s budget has a lot of
money for green energy projects,
dealing with climate change and
creating green jobs. But Lester
Graham reports the EPA will also
deal with old fashioned environmental
issues such as pollution:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection
Agency’s budget has a lot of
money for green energy projects,
dealing with climate change and
creating green jobs. But Lester
Graham reports the EPA will also
deal with old fashioned environmental
issues such as pollution:
Cleaning up air and water pollution almost seem passe’ after hearing about all of President Obama’s shiny green plans.
But cleaning up past messes is still a priority.
The EPA’s budget is 10.5 billion dollars. In a release, the agency highlighted a plan for the Great Lakes.
The EPA and other agencies want to spend 475-million dollars to clean up polluted bays, stop raw sewage from spilling into the lakes and deal with other ongoing problems.
Andy Buchsbaum heads up the Great Lakes office for the National Wildlife Federation. He says early signs indicate this item in the President’s budget will stick in Congress.
“They haven’t given final approval, but both the House and the Senate approved budget resolutions that include this 475-million dollars for the Great Lakes.”
And there’s also money to work on the Chesapeake Bay, San Francisco Bay, Puget Sound, and other big bodies of water around the nation.
The American Shad became so rare that hatcheries had to help restore depleted populations (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
A million year old cycle of fish migration almost came to an end in the waters off of the nation’s capital. But a monumental conservation effort has brought them back from the brink. Sabri Ben-Achour explains:
Transcript
A million year old cycle of fish migration almost came to an end in the waters off of the nation’s
capital. But a monumental conservation effort has brought them back from the brink. Sabri Ben-
Achour explains:
I bet you can’t recognize this sound.
It is the sound of a female shad – it’s a type of fish – having its eggs squeezed out into a metal
bowl.
“In the bowl, it looks like applesauce.”
That’s biologist Catherine Lim. We are on a boat in the middle of the Potomac, 20 miles south of
Washington DC, harvesting and fertilizing shad eggs. Lim picks up a male shad and gives it a
squeeze.
“Yeah, he sprayed out there.”
She mixes the brew around and adds water.
“We’ll bag them up and send them to the fish hatchery.”
This is all part of an effort to restore the population of the American Shad. For millions of years,
the large silver-iridescent fish have swum in from the Atlantic and up the rivers of the East Coast
every spring to spawn. They return to the same place where their lives began, guided by a
unique geological odor that seeps from the earth and mountains that feed each river.
Once upon a time – only a century ago – these fish were so numerous they turned the water silver
and made rivers move.
At least that’s what Jim Cummins says, he’s a biologist.
“On the Susquehanna, there were so many of them they created a wave as they came up the
river, a standing wave.”
On the Potomac they fueled entire industries. According to newspaper reports, Washington DC
exported 4 million barrels of salted shad every year in the 1840’s.
“The wagons would come into Georgetown were so heavy that they crammed up the city – I think
it’s the first report of gridlock in Washington.”
The fish fed more than just commerce – they nourish everything from crabs to dolphins. Bald
Eagles actually evolved to time their egg laying early, so their chicks would hatch just as the Shad
and their relatives appeared in the river. And then came overfishing, dams, and pollution.
“In the 1960’s, there were times when the migratory fish came up to spawn in the area and met
that pollution, and hundreds of thousands of them died and made a stinking mess.”
The clean water act was passed in 1972, but by 1980, the fish were almost wiped out. A
moratorium on fishing at the time was too little too late. Water quality gradually improved as
waste water treatment plants were upgraded and aquatic grasses returned. But still, no Shad.
So Cummins began the Shad restoration project.
They had to use several nets – each hundreds of feet long – just to catch one fish. They got help
from fisheries and even elementary schools. Dams were fixed to let fish go around them. The
Shad population exploded.
At a boat house just outside of DC, anglers Steve Bocat and Louis Covax are enjoying success
that up until recently, few alive have seen here.
“It was great we had incredible fishing. I mean, between the two of us, we had, what, 50-60 fish
up to the boat?”
Another sign of success, a pair of Bald Eagles recently returned to the area following the fish –
the first in decades.
Dan Jacin stands by his newly landscaped sewage tanks (Photo by Julie Grant)
There's no longer sewage in the water draining off Jacin's property (Photo by Julie Grant)
Water from Jacin's property drains to a nearby stream - and eventually into the drinking water source (Photo by Julie Grant)
There’s an underground threat to water that’s making it harder to clean up for drinking. Julie Grant reports – it all
depends on where you live and whether the people who live nearby are maintaining their septic systems:
Transcript
There’s an underground threat to water that’s making it harder to clean up for drinking. Julie Grant reports – it all
depends on where you live and whether the people who live nearby are maintaining their septic systems:
More than one of every four homes uses its own septic
system.
That means it’s not hooked up to a city sewer line. When a
toilet is flushed, the water doesn’t go to a central treatment
plant. Instead, it drains into a septic system buried in the
yard. It’s supposed to decompose using a natural process to
clean it up before going back to the environment.
The problem is – those septics don’t get enough attention.
When they fail, as about one-in-five does, that untreated
toilet water winds up in rivers, lakes and wells. In a lot of
places, that untreated sewage drains into our sources of
drinking water.
“Well obviously, there’s potential health risks, that’s the
number one.”
Nate McConoughey is the sewage program manager with
the Board of Health in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He spends
a lot of his time inspecting home septics to see if they’re
working.
“We don’t want these pathogens getting out into the
environment and getting into the creeks and streams and
rivers that people come in contact with.”
Or get their drinking water from.
Even though he’s trying to protect water quality,
McConoughey is not a popular guy with homeowners.
“Nobody really wants to see you come out and take a look at
their system. Because most people with 40-plus year old
systems realize that they’re probably not working as good as
they should.”
It’s McConoughey’s job – and the other inspectors he works
with – to tell people when their system is leaking sewage,
and when it’s time to put in a new system.
“We’ve all seen people with different reactions. Whether it
be crying or very irate.”
People get so upset because replacing a septic system
costs big bucks.
Just ask Dan Jacin. Last summer he had to dig up his front
lawn and put in a new set of sewage treatment tanks.
“Oh yeah, it tears up your yard for a year and hits your wallet
pretty hard.”
But Jacin says he didn’t have a choice. His 43-year old
system was backing up atrocious-smelling sewage into his
basement.
“I wanted relief from sewage coming into my house, because
that’s just not a fun deal at all.”
Jacin also had sewage burping up in his yard.
If a septic is working right, sewage drains from the house
into a tank. And it’s slowly sent from the tank into an
underground absorption area – where it filters through the
soil.
But Jacin’s septic wasn’t working anymore. The sewage
was draining off his property into a nearby stream.
(sound of a stream)
This stream runs into the Cuyahoga River, which runs into
Lake Erie – a major source of drinking water. Jacin felt
badly about causing that pollution.
But he felt even worse about paying for his new septic
system. It cost more than $20,000!
“And just fortunately I had enough money to replace it at the
time. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have the
money. Who’s going to give you a loan to replace your
septic tank?”
Now Jacin’s lawn has grown back, he’s landscaped to hide
the treatment tanks. And he’s glad he’s no longer polluting
the waterways.
But he still isn’t happy about spending all that money.
Inspector Nate McConoughey understands. But he says
there are low-interest loans available for new septics – and
they’ve got to be maintained – so the water is clean for
drinking and other uses.
Coal ash is sometimes used as an ingredient in concrete blocks (Photo source: Skepticsteve at Wikimedia Commons)
For decades coal burning power plants have dumped coal ash into landfills or ponds next to the plants. Tamara Keith reports environmental groups say that’s more dangerous that previously known:
Transcript
For decades coal burning power plants have dumped coal ash into landfills or ponds next to the plants. Tamara Keith reports environmental groups say that’s more dangerous that previously known:
A new report from the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice uses data from the US Environmental Protection Agency – including a study that had been kept quiet since 2002.
Among the findings, people who live near coal ash storage ponds that are unlined, and who get their drinking water from a well, have a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer from arsenic contamination.
Lisa Evans is an attorney with Earthjustice.
“It by far presents the largest risk to human health and the environment and there’s no reason to manage the waste in this way.”
The groups are calling for these storage ponds to be phased out and cleaned up in the next 5 years.
The EPA says new regulations are coming soon.
Power companies are willing to stop using storage ponds – but don’t want the coal ash classified as toxic. That would make disposal more expensive.
One lawyer wants a class action suit against the manufacturer of Atrazine, an herbicide used on crops (Photo by Rebecca Williams)
Atrazine is a weed killer. It’s
used by farmers in several crops,
basically because the herbicide is
relatively cheap and effective.
When Atrazine is used in the spring,
it sometimes ends up getting in
water – and in some cases at levels
above the government’s drinking water
standard – the maximum contaminant
level of three parts-per-billion.
Steve Tillery is an attorney in a
lawsuit against the manufacturer of
Atrazine – Syngenta – and Synenta’s
partner, Growmark. Tillery represents
water suppliers and he’s seeking class-
action status to represent all water
suppliers who’ve had to deal with Atrazine
contamination. Lester Graham talked to
him about the lawsuit:
Transcript
Atrazine is a weed killer. It’s
used by farmers in several crops,
basically because the herbicide is
relatively cheap and effective.
When Atrazine is used in the spring,
it sometimes ends up getting in
water – and in some cases at levels
above the government’s drinking water
standard – the maximum contaminant
level of three parts-per-billion.
Steve Tillery is an attorney in a
lawsuit against the manufacturer of
Atrazine – Syngenta – and Synenta’s
partner, Growmark. Tillery represents
water suppliers and he’s seeking class-
action status to represent all water
suppliers who’ve had to deal with Atrazine
contamination. Lester Graham talked to
him about the lawsuit:
Lester Graham: Mr. Tillery, what’s this lawsuit about, if the level is less than the 3-parts-per-billion the government says is safe?
Steve Tillery: Well, actually, at different times of the year, Atrazine does in fact exceed the federal standard. The federal government refers to MCL – maximum contaminant level – and that’s the maximum, they say, a chemical should exist in the water supply to be consumed by people in the community. The maximum contaminant level for Atrazine is 3-parts-per-billion. Many times, throughout the Spring, throughout Illinois and other Mid-Western cities, the levels grossly exceed 3-parts-per-billion. So what happens is that the cities, the water districts, are required to pay large amounts of money to filter the water so it is below that level. In addition, some have gone to the expense of completely cleaning it out of their water supplies. So that it doesn’t exist at all. And they should, in our view, be entitled to reimbursement for the expenses that they have incurred for completely cleaning it out of their water supplies.
Graham: Scientists that worked, then, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association told me that during the application season, during the Spring, that they measured levels of Atrazine exceeding the safe drinking water levels in the rain on the East Coast from all of the application in the Midwest. Rather than just cleaning it up, is this not a problem of too much Atrazine – maybe we limit the amount?
Tillery: Well, the issue is whether or not it should be banned completely. The European Union has done exactly that. For all of the reasons that people look at – scientists look at – this chemical and point to the adverse health affects, changes to the environment, all of those reasons, the Europeans banned it some years ago.
Graham: The defense in most cases like this is: this is a regulated product, the label is the law, if it isn’t applied correctly, it’s the applicator – the farmer’s – fault; and if it is applied according to the label, the government says it’s safe.
Tillery: Yeah, we’re not safe. For two reasons. First of all, it’s not a problem with farmers. Farmers are doing exactly what is on the label. They are applying it precisely the way the manufacturer says it should be applied. So they’re not the issue. The problem is the manufacturer. To the extent that we rely on federal regulators to do the right thing, we are misdirected in this instance. For many years, the relationship between Syngenta – the principle manufacturer of this chemical – and the EPA has been under close scrutiny. And I’m hopeful that it’s reevaluated and examined under this new administration. Big corporations, in this case from Switzerland, who come here and sell this and make enormous profits in this country selling this chemical – 77 million pounds a year, average. When they make that money, and they cause taxpayers to incur $400 million a year in expense throughout the US to clean up their mess, they should be the ones that come back and reimburse them. We aren’t asking for anything else besides that. We are asking for compensation to these cities who’ve incurred this expense. The people who create the mess should pay for its cleanup. People should not be drinking water with Atrazine in it, at any level.
Graham: Steve Tillery is an attorney seeking class-action status trying to make the manufacturers of Atrazine pay to clean up the water their product contaminates. Thanks for your time.
Tillery: Thank you for allowing me to come here and speak.
There is some confusion about what to do with unused medications (Photo source: Shorelander at Wikimedia Commons)
The drugs we take are showing up in our drinking water, and they’re showing up in fish. The federal government’s now saying that in most cases, you should never flush unused drugs down the drain. There are safer ways to dispose of them. But even if you want to do the right thing, it’s not always easy. Rebecca Williams takes a look at what you should and should not do with your medications:
Transcript
The drugs we take are showing up in our drinking water, and they’re showing up in fish. The federal government’s now saying that in most cases, you should never flush unused drugs down the drain. There are safer ways to dispose of them. But even if you want to do the right thing, it’s not always easy. Rebecca Williams takes a look at what you should and should not do with your medications:
In the U.S., there are about 12,000 brand name and generic drugs on the market. And who knows how many over the counter drugs.
Scientists are finding many of these drugs in our water. Everything from caffeine, to allergy and anti-cancer drugs, to antidepressants.
Now, they’re finding these drugs at very low levels. But they’re pretty much everywhere.
An Associated Press investigation found trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in the drinking water of more than 40 million Americans.
“You know, we don’t think it’s enough to cause public harm but honestly nobody’s sure.”
That’s Sahar Swidan. She’s a pharmacist.
Right now, Swidan’s going through a five foot tall box of prescription drugs that people have brought to her store in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They might be expired, or just not needed anymore.
(sound of pill bottle shaking)
“Asthma medications, growth hormones for patients – so really the gamut could be anything and everything.”
A disposal company picks up the drugs about once a month and incinerates them.
Swidan’s drug take-back program is pretty rare. Many pharmacies are not set up to collect unused drugs.
One reason is, it takes a lot of work. Swidan has to sort through the drugs and make sure there aren’t any controlled substances – things like narcotics. It’s illegal for pharmacies to take these back in most cases.
The Drug Enforcement Agency is talking about revising their disposal rules for controlled substances. But for now you usually have to get rid of them yourself. So, how do you do that?
You can dissolve pills or caplets in water, and mix in kitty litter or coffee grounds. That’s to make the stuff look gross and undesirable. Then dump it all into ziptop bags, wrap it up in duct tape, and throw it away.
But to make things more complicated, there’s still a short list of drugs that you’re supposed to flush down the drain. The Food and Drug Administration says the drugs on this list are too dangerous to toss in the trash.
Connie Jung is with the FDA’s pharmacy affairs department. She says the drug label will tell you if you’re supposed to flush them.
“For the small number of prescription drugs that have flushing recommendations they have these because the drugs are strong narcotic pain relievers or other controlled substances. These drugs can be dangerous to those who aren’t supposed to be taking them, particularly children or pets.”
Jung says the FDA is currently reviewing disposal methods for these kinds of drugs… because flushing them down the toilet is starting to raise some questions.
An even bigger problem is that most of the drug residues getting into our water are coming from drugs we take and excrete.
Bryan Brooks is a researcher at Baylor University. He recently found low levels of seven drugs in fish caught near wastewater treatment plants. He says these sewer plants just can’t filter out drugs.
“These wastewater treatment facilities were largely not designed to treat to really ultra low levels. Compounds like birth control medications can be active at low part per trillion levels.”
Right now Brooks is trying to sort out what effects drugs are having on fish.
Hormones like estrogen appear to be feminizing male fish. Antidepressants might change how fish behave. And no one’s sure how drugs might be affecting our drinking water.
Brooks says one thing that can be done at the treatment plant is adding reverse osmosis filters. But they’re expensive.
Brooks says there’s not much we can do about excreting drugs, but at the very least we shouldn’t be flushing drugs down the drain.
Cement kilns produce mercury, which gets into the fish we eat making it unsafe (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)
After years of urging, the US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing regulations to cut down on pollution from cement kilns. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
After years of urging the US Environmental Protection Agency is proposing regulations to cut down on pollution from cement kilns. Lester Graham reports:
Cement – the stuff used to make concrete – is made by baking limestone and other ingredients at really high temperatures in huge coal-burning ovens.
Burning the coal and baking the stone both release mercury. The mercury gets into the food chain and contaminates fish.
Mercury is a neuro-toxin, so eating contaminated fish can cause health problems, including IQ loss.
For 20 years Congress and the courts have been telling the EPA to do something about mercury pollution from cement kilns.
Jim Pew is a staff attorney with Earth Justice, an environmental group. It’s sued the EPA over the issue.
“The government response until now has not been to try to get mercury under control, since everybody agrees it’s a problem. The response has been to tell people ‘mercury is out there, so don’t eat the fish.’”
Under the EPA proposal, cement kilns would have to clean up the mercury and other pollution emitted from their smokestacks.
It is predicted that the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is the size of the state of Massachusetts (Photo courtesy of NASA)
About 40% of the continental U-S drains into the Mississippi River. It sends water – and pollution – from across the country into the Gulf of Mexico. A new study shows just who the worst offenders are. Gabriel Spitzer has the story:
Transcript
About 40% of the continental U-S drains into the Mississippi River. It sends water – and pollution – from across the country into the Gulf of Mexico. A new study shows just who the worst offenders are. Gabriel Spitzer has the story:
All the pollution creates a dead zone in the Gulf nearly the size of New Jersey.
Nitrogen and Phosphorus pour in and fertilize big algae blooms.
When that stuff decays, it sucks oxygen out of the water, and makes it impossible for most fish to live there.
US Geological Survey researchers say most of the problem comes from farm runoff, but the single biggest source is sewage from Chicago.
Albert Ettinger with the Environmental and Law Policy Center says Chicago water managers have to catch up with their neighbors.
“They’re gonna have to look at treatment systems which take nitrogen out of the water, and bring phosphorus down to one milligram per liter. It’s done in Milwaukee, it’s done in Cleveland, it’s done in Detroit.”
Chicago’s Metropolitan Water Reclamation District say they haven’t had a chance to look closely at the study yet, so they don’t want to comment on it.
(Photo courtesy of American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity)
You are being targeted by lobbyists. The coal industry and environmentalists are both trying to influence what you think. In the first part of our series on the future of coal, Lester Graham looks at the campaigns for-and-against coal:
Transcript
You are being targeted by lobbyists. The coal industry and environmentalists are both trying to influence what you think. In the first part of our series on the future of coal, Lester Graham looks at the campaigns for-and-against coal:
You probably don’t buy coal directly. But you do0 pay for it when you pay your power bill. 50% of the nation’s electricity comes from coal-burning power plants.
The problem with that is, coal pollutes.
Not as much as it used to. Some traditional pollutants have been reduced by 77% since the 1970 Clean Air Act.
Although the government forced it to reduce some some of the pollution, the coal industry brags about the progress and encouarges you to believe in the future of “clean coal.”
American Coalition for Clean Coal advertisement:
“I believe. I believe. We can be energy independent. We can continue to use our most abundant fuel cleanly and responsibly. We can and we will. Clean coal: America’s power”
Joe Lucas is the man behind that ad. He’s with the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Lucas says the meaning of the phrase “clean coal” is always evolving.
“Ah, the use of the term ‘clean coal,’ it is a term of art. Up until now it has been technology that has reduced traditional pollution emissions and increased the efficiency of power plants and going forward we’re rapidly approaching the point to where it will be technologies for capture and storage of carbon.”
But right now, no power plant captures carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.
That’s why environmentalists scoff at the coal industry’s use of ‘clean coal.’
Cohen brothers advertisement:
“Clean coal harnesses the awesome power of the word ‘clean’ to make it sound like the cleanest clean there is!” (coughing)
The guy behind that ad is Brian Hardwick. He’s the spokesman for the “This is Reality” campaign.
“In reality today there is no such thing as ‘clean coal.’ There is no commercial coal plant that captures its carbon pollution not to mention the other environmental impacts that the coal industry has – from burning coal and the runoff and the extraction of coal. So, we launched an effort to try to bring out the truth about coal in response to the marketing campaign that the coal industry had so that people could come to their own conclusions about whether or not they thought coal was indeed clean.”
Clean or not, we have a lot of coal here in the U.S. It’s relatively cheap. And when pushed, a lot of environmentalists concede we’ll need to rely on coal for electricity generation for some time to come.
During last year’s Presidential campaign, candidate Barack Obama aknowledged that to people at a rally in Virginia, but indicated we need to find a way to really get to ‘clean coal.’
“Why aren’t we figuring how to sequester the carbons from coal? Clean coal technology is something that can make America energy independent.” (applause)
And President Obama has followed up on that. In the stimulus plan, 3.4 billion dollars was set aside to find ways to make coal clean.
There’s more to clean up. Sulfur dioxide, or SOx, contributes to acid rain. Nitrogen Oxides, or NOx, helps cause smog. Those have been reduced, but not eliminated. And then there’s toxic mercury and particulate matter – or soot. All of it harms the environment and public health.
President Obama’s Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, is a big proponent of cleaner energy sources such as wind and solar. But he says we do need to find a way to use coal.
“Right now as we’re using coal it’s not clean. But, I firmly believe that we should invest very heavily on strategies that can take a large fraction of the carbon dioxide out of coal as well as the SOx the NOx, the mercury, particulate matter.”
But until that technology is in place, ‘clean coal’ is no more than what the coal industry calls an “evolving term of art.”
The coal industry hopes the federal government will help them find a way to catch and store the carbon coming from smokestacks.
The coal industry got hit with expensive
pollution restrictions almost two decades ago. Now, the government’s considering putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. Coal companies think they have a technological solution in a test project called FutureGen. In the
second part of our series on the future of coal, Shawn Allee looks at why they
have such high hopes for it:
Transcript
The coal industry got hit with expensive
pollution restrictions almost two decades ago. Now, the government’s considering putting a price on carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming. Coal companies think they have a technological solution in a test project called FutureGen. In the
second part of our series on the future of coal, Shawn Allee looks at why they
have such high hopes for it:
The last time the federal government put a price on coal pollution was in 1990.
Power plants had to start paying for sulphur dioxide that came out of smoke stacks and caused acid rain.
To clean up, many burned cleaner coal.
That was bad news for Illinois miner Chris Nielsen.
He happened to mine some of the dirtiest coal.
“A good portion of the economy around here was built on coal industry. And coal mining jobs not only paid a good wage, they had terrific benefits. And as the industry went soft, people lost the best jobs they ever had.”
Cleanup technology improved, but it took nearly two decades to make burning the highest-sulpher coal economical again.
Nielsen says today, coal executives worry they’ll lose profits if the government prices carbon dioxide.
And coal miners worry they’ll lose jobs again.
The industry wants new plants that do two things: first, they capture carbon dioxide while burning coal, and then bury, or sequester this carbon dioxide – so it stays out of the atmosphere.
Nielsen says there’s a plant like that in the works, it’s called FutureGen.
“We can burn the coal in a clean, environmentally friendly manner. The FutureGen project where they were going to sequester the carbon dioxide was a terrific opportunity to show that.”
Well, Nielsen’s jumping the gun.
FutureGen hasn’t proved anything; it’s not even built.
The coal industry and the government were supposed to design and fund FutureGen, then build it in Central Illinois.
The government and coal companies fought over how much the plant would cost but now, it’s likely to move forward.
Even with a sketchy history though, the industry’s got almost no choice but to be hopeful for FutureGen.
The industry wants carbon dioxide capture and sequestration to work – otherwise, it’s gonna pay big for carbon pollution.
Not everyone’s so confident in the technology.
“We can not depend on carbon capture and sequestration to achieve greenhouse gas emissions reductions because we don’t know whether it’s going to work.”
That’s Ron Burke, with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
He says FutureGen is worth testing but it shouldn’t distract us from technology we know is low-carbon.
“There are ways to meet the greenhouse gas reductions targets that we need to meet without carbon capture and sequestration. We can do it, it’s primarily through in investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency in the near term.”
There’re energy researchers who aren’t so sure enough renewable energy like wind and solar will be available soon enough.
One is of them is Ernest Moniz at MIT.
“We have a ways to go for let’s say, solar, to scale up. Right now, it’s less than point 1% of our electricity.”
Coal generates nearly half our electricity.
Moniz says it won’t be easy to replace, but it might be possible to improve it.
He says its likely carbon dioxide capture and sequestration can work technically.
But he says we need to build FutureGen to answer whether it works efficiently and economically.
“Well, if we are going to establish a new technology, like sequestration, and be able to have it not only demonstrated but then deployed and implemented, that means we would need to start, preferably yesterday, but at worst, today.”
For Moniz, FutureGen could be clean coal’s first major test – not just of whether it works – but whether it’s too expensive.
The EPA and other agencies want to spend $475 million on the Great Lakes (Photo by Karen Holland, courtesy of the EPA)
