This is "Clean Coal": Massive Coal Sludge Spill Dwarfs Exxon Valdez Disaster

Cross-posted from WattHead - Energy News and Commentary

Let's see how the "clean coal" PR hucksters at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity try to spin this tragic news: a retention pond holding toxic coal ash slurry burst Monday in Roane County, Tennessee, releasing over half a billion gallons of potentially toxic sludge that swept into the nearby town of Harriman and contaminated tributaries of the Tennessee River. The resulting flood damaged 15 homes, injured one man as it knocked his house of its foundations, and has left over 400 acres of land covered by several feet of coal ash, mud and contaminated water (see video below).

Coal ash and slurry is the normal byproduct of coal-fired electricity generating, and is usually stored in giant retaining ponds near coal plants. The resulting coal slurry is frequently contaminated by heavy metals, mercury and arsenic.

Yesterday's tragedy struck at the coal ash impoundment associated with the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston coal-fired steam plant and released about 2.6 million cubic yards of slurry, the Tennessean reports. That's enough to fill nearly 800 Olympic-sized swimming pools, and is over 40 times more contaminated sludge than the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill.

As usual, a picture is worth a thousand words - and a video is worth even more; you can see scenes from the environmental disaster at the photo gallery here and the video below:



Greenpeace has called for a criminal investigation into the disaster, noting that similar spills in the past have resulted in felony charges.

"Every facility like this is supposed to have a spill contingency plan to prevent this kind of disaster," said Rick Hind, Greenpeace Legislative Director. "The authorities need to get to the bottom of what went wrong and hold the responsible parties accountable."

The coal industry has a long and not-so-stellar record of coal slurry disasters.

"This is the kind of scary thing that people living with coal worry about every day," notes Dana, a West Virginia-based activist with the Student Environmental Action Coalition.

At ItsGettingHotInHere.org, Dana writes:

In February 1972, Buffalo Creek Sludge Impoundment, [burst and released] a mere 132 million gallons, killed 125 people, left 5,000 homeless and thousands more with post traumatic stress disorder. In 2000, a 2.2 billion gallon coal waste dam failed in Martin County, Kentucky. The largest dam in the hemisphere is the Brushy Fork Sludge Impoundment, which holds 9 billion gallons of toxic coal waste.

So, this is the history coalfield residents hold in our hearts when we open our emails and see “Slurry Pond Bursts.”

The Sierra Club's Bruce Nilles, writing at DailyKos, notes:

"There are literally hundreds of these sludge impoundments across the United States. As coal has dominated Appalachia, it has left behind a toxic legacy for residents, a legacy that will haunt the region for decades. For example, in Sundial, West Virginia, an elementary school sits just 400 yards downhill from a massive impoundment containing 2.8 billion gallons of toxic coal sludge."

Greenpeace notes that, like Exxon Valdez, the millions of gallons of coal sludge released Monday could take years to clean up, and some of the damage to the ecosystem could be irreparable.

"If the Exxon Valdez was a symbol of pollution 20 years ago, the Tennessee Coal Spill of 2008 is the symbol of it today," said Kate Smolski, Senior Legislative Coordinator for Greenpeace.

Smolski added that these local impacts represent only a small fraction of coal's negative impact.

"The really sad thing about this spill is that it's only a small example of the damage coal causes," Smolski added. "Add in global warming, tens of thousands of annual premature deaths from power plant pollution, and hundreds of mountains leveled across Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia, and that's the real picture of coal."

Monday's tragic slurry spill puts the lie to the coal industry's recent multi-million dollar "clean coal" PR blitz. You simply can't argue with reality - at least not for too long.

See related posts:

• Breaking: A Coal Sludge Spill Bigger than Exxon Valdez (Bruce Nilles at DailyKos)
  
• Coal Ash Slurry Pond Bursts in Tennessee (DanaWV at ItsGettingHotInHere.org)
  
• Massive Coal Ash Spill in Tennessee puts the lie to Clean Coal (Kevin Grandia at DeSmogBlog)
  
• Real-life coal disaster pops coal industry pr bubble (Pete Altman at NRDC's Switchboard)
  
• Dam Breach in Tennessee Releases Tsunami of Toxic Coal Sludge (David Sassoon at SolveClimate)
  
• “Clean” coal ash flood may make new Superfund site(Brian Angliss at ScholarsAndRogues)
  
• Coal Front Group Sets Up Dirty ‘Blogger Brigade’ To Fight Reality (Brad Johnson at the Wonk Room)
  
• Greenpeace Calls for Criminal Investigation into Coal Ash Spill (GreenpeaceUSA release)

Huge Legal Ruling Blocks All US Coal Development

Cross-posted from WattHead - Energy News and Commentary

BREAKING NEWS: The Sierra Club just won a HUGE legal victory in a coal permitting case at the Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Appeals Board.

The ruling in the Bonanza coal plant permitting case (pdf) ruled with the Club's lawyers that since the Mass. v EPA Supreme Court ruling said Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, new coal-fired power plants must implement "Best Available Control Technology" (BACT for short) for CO2.

While the Sierra Club's legal team and other lawyers are still determining the full implications of the decision, it appears that this decision will essentially stop all new coal plant permitting dead in it's tracks for at least a year as EPA decides what BACT means in the context of CO2.

The BACT provision of the Clean Air Act requires that new power plants must employ the most effective, readily available pollution control technologies for regulated pollutants in order to receive air quality permits required for development, ensuring that new power plants are progressively cleaner as new technologies become readily available. Until this ruling, BACT has only applied to NOx, acid rain-forming SO2, particulate matter, mercury and other noxious pollutants, but not carbon dioxide, which spewed freely from permitted power plants.

What BACT means for CO2 is therefore undefined, and the process of defining it will take time - time during which no new coal plants can receive permits. BACT for CO2 is unlikely to mean carbon capture and storage (yet), since it's not readily available, but it will probably mean some combination of co-generation (making use of waste heat from electricity generation), efficiency improvements, and/or fuel switching/co-firing with biomass. Ultimately, President-elect Obama's EPA gets to decide how BACT is defined for CO2, a process which will take at least a year.

In the meantime, 30 permits for new coal-fired power plants in the seven state directly regulated by the EPA's permitting process, plus projects on all Indian Reservations will immediately die because of this ruling. Other states that do their own permitting under devolution of authority from EPA will have to start their permitting processes over from scratch. They can either decide on a case by case basis what BACT means for CO2, or they can wait for EPA to rule on nationwide basis. The Environmental Appeals Board ruling says that decision is best made on a national basis.

In short, with this new regulatory uncertainty, it's highly unlikely anyone will want to invest a dime in a new coal plant for the foreseeable future.

Of course, this will also leave President Obama with an interesting ruling to make with some real political ramifications. But I'd say Obama has plenty of cover since the coal industry has been so avidly touting how clean it is these days. The real bold move would be to require all new coal plants to meet an emissions performance standard that essentially means they'd have to sequester at least half their emissions (as in CA or WA state's emissions performance standards), put an end to mountain top removal coal mining, and really tell the coal industry, "it's time to put up or shut up" and make this "clean coal" thing they keep talking about a reality.

The Club will have a press release out later today, and I'd refer you to the Warming Law blog for more detailed legal analysis no doubt coming soon. This was an unexpected ruling, so they're still sorting out all the ramifications.

These Guys Are No Fossil Fools! Markey and Waxman Call for Ban on New Coal Plants

Ed Markey and Henry Waxman are no Fossil Fools! The two Chairmen and Congressional Climate Champs released a new bill yesterday calling for a moratorium on any new coal plants that do not capture and sequester their greenhouse gas emissions.

The ban would stay in place until Congress adopts and implements comprehensive global warming regulation and is designed to addresses the largest new source of global warming pollution — new coal-fired power plants that are being built without any controls on their global warming emissions.

"Comprehensive economy-wide regulation to address global warming is coming soon. But new uncontrolled coal-fired power plants are being built today," said Rep. Waxman (D-Cal.), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and author of the most-aggressive Congressional proposal to regulate greenhouse gases. “My legislation says: “No new plants without emissions controls.” The alternative is senseless - locking in decades of additional global warming emissions and requiring greater emissions reductions across the U.S. economy to compensate."

"If we lose control of coal, we will have lost control of the climate," said Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "This bill will make companies prepare for the future and prevent them from building low-tech coal-fired power plants before a global warming bill is passed that will necessitate the use of the newest, most climate-friendly technology. "

Without emissions controls, a new coal-fired power plant will emit hundreds of millions of tons of global warming pollution over its fifty-year lifetime. Over 100 new plants have been proposed, and if just a portion of these are built, they will make hitting greenhouse gas reduction targets necessary to halt dangerous climate change next to impossible. A single new uncontrolled coal plant could erase all the emissions reductions that will be achieved through the Northeastern states' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, for example.

The bill, titled the "Moratorium on Uncontrolled Power Plants Act" would ban either EPA or states from issuing permits to new coal-fired power plants that are not built with state-of-the-art emissions control technology to capture and permanently sequester the plant's carbon dioxide emissions. The moratorium extends until a comprehensive federal regulatory program for global warming pollution is in place.

Looking ahead to future global warming regulations, the bill also bars any new coal-fired power plant built without state-of-the-art control technology from receiving any free or reduced cost emissions allowances under a future cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases.

"Many communities are still paying for failed nuclear power plant investments in the 1980's," said a press release issued by Chairman Markey. "This bill puts investors and power companies on notice that if they invest in new sources of global warming pollution now, taxpayers won't pay for the costs of cleaning up those sources later."

“It’s important for ratepayers and regulators to understand the financial risks if their power company wants to build a new uncontrolled coal-fired power plant," said Rep. Waxman. "Those plants will be a lot more expensive to operate when global warming pollution is regulated. Ratepayers need to make sure they won't be stuck with the bill."

It's time to simply say "No!" to new coal plants! Like Markey and Waxman, American's are no Fossil Fools. Americans want Green Jobs Not Coal, and it's time Congress heard that message.

Progress Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage

By Paul Calhoun

http://environmentalhelp.typepad.com

Once again we in the USA have been chided by President Bush for being addicted to foreign oil. President Bush was speaking to the March 5, 2008 Washington International Renewable Conference, a meeting of global energy officials. He told the attendees, “we gotta get off oil, America has got to change its habits.” He went on to say, "It should be obvious to all, demand has outstripped supply, which makes prices go up."

He is right; we are addicted to oil. We complain about the gasoline and electrical prices, while eighty five percent of us believe that global warming is real and caused by humans. We have not broken the chains of driving our cars or heating our homes in energy inefficient ways. This is mainly because we are not offered affordable alternative energies to break these addictions. The major bet of President Bush is on ethanol, but we are now seeing escalating food prices as our corn goes to fuel production, and now it is projected to be as contaminating as gasoline. Its saving grace is that it keeps our dollars in the USA.

President Bush can hardly take credit for promoting renewable energies when he has held up incentives like production tax credits and refuses to cap carbon dioxide emissions. President Bush reiterated his call for a global cap on carbon dioxide, the main gas behind global warming, but said the United States should not act until nations like China and India do as well. It is actions like these that make one wonder if we will ever break the chains of addiction.

We are currently a second-tier player in the adoption of alternate energies, and we need government incentives to move us to the top tier. We will have a new administration in January 2009 that will, hopefully, be more supportive of alternative energies. It is a good bet that their first moves will be a “cap and tax” bill but should include incentives to help the solar, wind and geothermal industries. It will take time for the alternate energies to gain traction. This means that we will be dependent on coal as an electrical generation fuel for much longer than we would like.

We will need to stop or reduce carbon dioxide pollution if we are to use coal for a longer period when oil becomes more scarce and out of affordable reach. This brings us to the questions of the readiness of the highly touted Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology. The premise sounds great to enable and maintain a quality of life that we are used to and desire.

An overview of the CCS technology is quite simple. The carbon dioxide is captured from the fossil fuels before burning or in the smokestack. The CO2 is conveyed by pipes or perhaps converted to a solid at the generation site. The captured gas is then compressed and buried in a reservoir to preclude its escape into the atmosphere.

CO2 Capture

Post Combustions Capture: The effluent gases from a fossil fuel generating plant can be scrubbed to remove the CO2 and captured for transport to the intended reservoir.

Pre-Combustion Capture: The fossil fuel is partially oxidized before combustion. The resulting CO2 can be captured in a relatively pure exhaust stream.

Oxy-Field Combustion:The fuel is burned in oxygen instead of air. To limit the resulting flame temperatures to levels common during conventional combustion, cooled flue gas is recalculated and injected into the combustion chamber. The flue gas consists of mainly carbon dioxide and water vapor, the latter of which is condensed through cooling. The result is an almost pure carbon dioxide stream that can be transported to the sequestration site and stored.

These capture technologies are well understood and examples of their use can be pointed out today. The cost of these techniques, however, will be high. There will be additional capital costs to install the technology. Depending on the capture technology, the energy cost to power the capture techniques can add 10 to 40% additional energy costs. The cost of the energy could be two times what we know today.

Conveyance of the CO2 Gas

This technology is, very simply, pipes which will convey the CO2 gas from the generation plant to the reservoir for storage.

The Reservoir

Here we have an abundance of proposals, but none have been proven on a large-scale demonstration. The proposals range from caverns in the earth to the ocean. The proposal is to compress the CO2 gas and then store it as a gas or react it into a carboneous mineral such as limestone for storage. It is estimated that this procedure will add another 30 to 40% onto the cost of energy in addition to the capture of the gas.

Storage Projects in Operation

There are several CO2 storage projects in operation. Sleeper is the oldest project (1996) and is located in the North Sea where Norway's StatoilHydro strips carbon dioxide from natural gas with amine solvents and disposes of this carbon dioxide in a deep saline aquifer. Since 1996, Sleipner has stored about one million tons of CO₂ a year. A second project in the Snohvit gas field stores 700,000 tons per year.

The Weyburn project is currently the world's largest carbon capture and storage project. Started in 2000, Weyburn is located on an oil reservoir discovered in 1954 in Southeastern Canada. The CO₂ for this project is captured at the Great Plains Coal Gasification plant in Beulah, North Dakota, which has produced methane from coal for more than 30 years. The first phase finished in 2004 and demonstrated that CO₂ can be stored underground at the site safely and indefinitely.

Future Projects

A major Canadian initiative called the Integrated CO2 Network (ICO2N) is a proposed system for the capture, transport and storage of carbon dioxide (CO₂). ICO2N is an alliance of 15 largest Canadian industrial companies and the Canadian Government. The Alliance has been in existence for two years.

The ICO2N alliance has the stated objective to be the “world Leader in the implementation of Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage.” Its goal is to remove 60% of Alberta CO2 emissions and also to enhance oil recovery from mature oil fields. The first phase of operation is planned in 2012-2015.

In October 2007, the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin received a 10-year, $38 million subcontract to conduct the first intensively monitored, long-term project in the United States studying the feasibility of injecting a large volume of CO₂ for underground storage. The project is a research program of the Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership (SECARB), funded by the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The SECARB partnership will demonstrate CO₂ injection rate and storage capacity in the Tuscaloosa-Woodbine geologic system that stretches from Texas to Florida. The region has the potential to store more than 200 billion tons^] of CO2. Physical work started in late 2007.

FutureGen was a US government project announced by President Bush in 2003 to build a near zero-emissions coal-fueled power plant to produce hydrogen and electricity while using carbon capture and storage. In December 2007, Mattoon Township, Coles County, Illinois was chosen as the site for the plant from among four finalists in Illinois and Texas. Sadly, on January 29, 2008the Department of Energy announced it was withdrawing funding from FutureGen, effectively terminating the project. The Department of Energy has stated that the demonstration was canceled because costs had escalated to $1.5 Billion and it did not believe a demonstration of the technology was now needed. The DOE has asked for existing power plants to submit proposals to be fitted for CCS to be up and running in the 2015-2016 timeframe.

Carbon Dioxide Capture Research

The capture of carbon dioxide is the most expensive component of the technology and is receiving the focus of the world researchers. UCLA’s researcher, Omar Yaghti, has developed ZIF materials which can absorb 80 times their weight in carbon dioxide. After absorption, the material can be decompressed and the CO2 released.

Research at the University of Texas in Austin, led by Professor Gary Rochelle, has developed a chemical process that will absorb carbon dioxide and release it when boiling the mixture. There are many other examples of these new technologies in research to capture carbon dioxide and for sure many others to be demonstrated.

Summary

Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage is a well demonstrated technology that is ready for large scale implementation. The cost of scrubbing exhaust gases or the pre burned fuel and the CO2 Gs compression will raise the energy costs between 40 to 60% over the unscrubbed and storged CO2 technology. There are scores of researchers working to develop materials that can absorb the CO2 gas in the smokestack and avoid the energy cost of scrubbing. These developments are at a minimum of seven to ten years away. We had best encourage this development, because it will be 10 to 15 years before their implementation after they are begun.

"Toxic West Virginia" Series Takes Close Look at Mountain Top Removal

A hat tip to BruceMcF for calling my attention to this..

VBS.tv has an excellent video series that takes a close look at Mountain Top Removal in West Virgina. Check out "Toxic West Virginia"...

[Warning, some segments contain explicit language]

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Obama and Clinton Both Talking Up "Clean" Coal in Primary States

Both Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton have solid energy plans that, if implemented, would take America into a cleaner energy future. On energy and climate, like on so many other issues, both remaining Democratic contenders for the White House followed John Edwards' early example and developed bold clean energy and climate change plans late last year.

As David Roberts of Grist says, "Both would substantially cut greenhouse gas emissions and boost clean energy; both pitch sustainability as an issue of shared sacrifice and economic opportunity; both have an impressive grasp of the policy details."

In fact, when it comes to the two candidates' energy and climate plans, there's about as much distance between them as their current neck-and-neck delegate counts.

Obama and Clinton have something else in common we should all be taking note of: they've both been talking up so-called "clean" coal on the campaign trail, especially in coal-friendly primary states like Ohio and Wyoming.

Obama earned some well-deserved heat last summer for his seemingly friendly stance towards coal-to-liquids (CTL) synthetic fuel production. While CTL might help displace oil, the synthetic fuel results in up to twice as much greenhouse gas emissions as conventional gasoline. Obama has since "clarified" his position on CTL, saying he'll only support new plants if they decrease both oil use and GHG emissions (a tall order for this dirty fuel!).

Clinton has been pretty silent on CTL, but both candidates energy plans and stump speeches tout the potential of "clean" (aka slightly-less-deadly) coal technologies.

In coal-lovin' Ohio last week, Obama had this to say:

"Clean-coal technology should be part of [the] mix... We are the Saudi Arabia of coal."

And Clinton is just as bad. Her husband was out today touting "clean" coal to crowds in Wyoming (set to caucus on Saturday). From the Denver Post:

"At the University of Wyoming in Laramie, thousands of people braved icy winds and waited in long lines outside a campus arena to hear the former president speak. He answered with a speech that held them rapt even as he ranged from his wife's plans for universal health care to her plans for creating a technology that could burn Wyoming coal without generating greenhouse gases."

So what's wrong with a coal technology that lets us burn our most abundant domestic fossil fuel resource "without generating greenhouse gases." To answer that, I'll let you ask the fine citizens of West Virginia, or refer you to this video:



The short answer though, is that as long as you need dig coal out of the ground, it'll never be clean - particularly while coal companies employ the extremely destructive process of mountain-top removal strip mining to supply those "clean" coal plants with fuel.

Slightly-less-deadly, sure, but "clean?" Don't try to shovel me that!

As Jeff Biggers, the author of The United States of Appalachia: How Southern Mountaineers Brought Independence, Culture and Enlightenment to America, writes: "Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health."

Barak Obama has at least spoken publicly against mountaintop removal and strip-mining in both DC and Kentucky.

"We're tearing up the Appalachian Mountains because of our dependence on fossil fuels," Obama said at a campaign stop in Lexington Kentucky, sparking loud applause.

As of yet, the Clinton campaign has been silent on the practice of mountain top removal or strip mining.

Any energy plan that pledges to clean up coal must address both the combustion and extraction of the dirty fuel.

I sincerely hope that a President Obama will fight to end the practice of mountain top removal, which devastates both the environment and the lives of Appalachia. I also hope that Clinton's silence on the matter is merely oversight.

Neither candidate has yet convinced me that they their "clean" energy plans will not push an expansion of coal-fired power plants under the guise of "clean" coal that will accelerate mountain top coal mining and other strip mining and lead to expanded environmental and human devastation.

My question is this: what exactly do Obama and Clinton mean when they say "clean" coal? If this is what they have in mind (or what they are ignoring), then they can take their "clean" coal and shovel it!

Beating Back the Coal Rush: Feds Suspend Subsidized Loan Program for Rural Coal Plants

In another big victory in the fight against the coal rush, the feds apparently suspended a major loan program that provided rural electric cooperatives with subsidized loans to construct new coal-fired power plants. An official with the US Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS), which manages the loan program, cited the uncertainties of climate change and rising construction costs as the reasons for the programs suspension.

"This is a big decision. It says new coal plants can't go to the federal government for money at least for the next couple years, and these are critical times for companies to get these plants built," said Abigail Dillen with the environmental law group Earthjustice.

Earthjustice, the Sierra Club, the Montana Environmental Information Center and other environmental groups filed suits to block RUS financing for new coal-fired power plants last summer, arguing that RUS did not consider the impact of greenhouse gas emissions spewing from the pulverized coal plants the program is financing and the impact those emissions will have on global warming.

The program's suspension marks the end of a reliable source of financing for new coal plants. The RUS program, established in 1935 as a New Deal-era program to finance rural electrification, has been a major funding source for the coal rush. The Seattle Times reported last May that "The beneficiaries of the government's largesse — the nation's rural electric cooperatives — plan to spend $35 billion to build conventional coal plants over the next 10 years, enough to offset all state and federal efforts to reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions over that time." The RUS program provided $1.3 billion in loans to build new coal plants since 2001, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

The suspension of the subsidized loan program means that no loans will be issued to rural electric cooperatives this year and likely none in 2009, James Newby, assistant administrator for the Rural Utilities Service, a branch of the Department of Agriculture, said Tuesday.

According to the Star-Tribune, at least four utilities are currently lined up for RUS loans totaling $1.3 billion — for coal-fired power plants in Kentucky, Illinois, Arkansas and Missouri. Another project in Montana was denied funding last month and two more recently withdrew their requests for RUS loans: last October in Wyoming and earlier this week in Missouri. All seven plants will now have to look for private financing to move forward, and at least two of the plants are suspending development after this announcement.

"This decision means one more nail in the coffin of new coal plants," said Alice McKeown, coal analyst for the Sierra Club. "There have already been a handful of plants affected by this news, including the indefinite delay of a plant in Missouri."

The Star-Tribune reports:

Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. announced this week it was "delaying indefinitely" its proposed plant in Norborne, Mo., after receiving word of the loan program suspension.

At least one developer, the East Kentucky Power Cooperative, is hoping to wait out the suspension of the loan program rather than seek more expensive loans on the open market, spokesman Nick Comer said.

Other projects, like the embattled Highwood Generating Station proposed by Southern Montana Electric, Basin Electric Power Cooperative's Dry Fork plant in Wyoming, and East Texas Power Cooperative's proposed plant in Plum Point, Arkansas, must now try to secure private funding - a difficult task given the typically poor credit ratings of rural cooperatives and increased scrutiny of coal investments from Wall Street.

"The move by RUS to take a time out on coal is part of a larger story," says McKeown. "We're seeing different sectors coming together to make sure that we are looking before we leap into 50+ years of serious global warming pollution. From carbon principles out of Wall Street to ending taxpayer subsidies, financial uncertainties are turning up the heat on energy investors to look to solutions rather than following a business as usual mentality."

The suspension of the loan program is only temporary, but should hold at least through the end of 2009. It comes at a critical time in the coal rush and again signals growing (and appropriate) nervousness about new coal investments in the financial sector.

"Coal is not the best investment for our future. Dozens of states, major Wall Street banks, and now even the federal government, have all now said no to new coal," says MacKeown. "It’s becoming increasingly clear that energy efficiency and renewables are the way of the future.”

Hear hear to that!