2008 Presentation I gave at Grinnell college arguing for renewables and efficiency to replace coal for electrical generation I give concrete plans for how to transition to renewables for small Iowa communities and do it at a profit

1. Renewables and Efficiency:
Durable Alternatives to Coal
for Powering Iowa

2. Four Season HarvestRenewables and Efficiency:
Durable Alternatives to Coal for Powering Iowa
Grinnell College - March, 2008
By Lawrence A. Gamble, P.E.
Lonniegamble@yahoo.com
This presentation prepared on solar powered computers

3. QuickTime™ and a
H.263 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

6. Kilowatt Ours excerpt

11. US Energy Sources and Uses

12. Where our electricity comes from

14. Coal
• Coal pollutes when it is mined, transported to the power plant, stored,
and burned. Burning coal is the major contributor to global warming,
rising levels of mercury in fresh water fish, acid rain, and accounts for
72,000 asthma attacks and 2200 hospital admissions per year in Iowa
alone. Coal power plants are the major source of mercury pollution.
Over 300,000 babies nationwide have unsafe levels of mercury.
• Union of Concerned Scientists,

15. Some Statistics About the
Proposed Coal Plant
Location: Marshalltown
Developers: Alliant Energy, REC coalition
Capacity: 660 Mw Energy: 3.8 Billion kwh/year
8.5% of Iowa consumption (400,000 homes)
Capacity Factor (what % of full output is utilized): 65%
(only operates the equivalent of 7.8 months/yr)
Cost: 1.5 billion Financing Terms: ????
Energy Price: 4.5 cents per kwh ?????
Excluding cost of environmental externalities
Efficiency: Peak 44%, Overall 35%
(56-65% of the energy on the fuel thrown away at the plant)
Location: Waterloo
Developers: LS Power (Merchant Plant) Capacity: 770 Mw

16. The Case Against Coal
Environmental
Economic
Justice and Equity issues
Opportunity

17. Environmental
Makeup of Coal and Ash
Coal is one of the most impure of fuels. Its impurities
range from trace quantities of many metals, including
uranium and thorium, to much larger quantities of
aluminum and iron to still larger quantities of
impurities such as sulfur. Products of coal
combustion include the oxides of carbon, nitrogen,
and sulfur; carcinogenic and mutagenic substances;
and recoverable minerals of commercial value,
including nuclear fuels naturally occurring in coal.

18. Environmental: Combustion
 Greenhouse gases: Taken together, the proposed coal plants will
emit as much greenhouse gas as all the existing cars in Iowa.
 Coal Ash: 15 % of the original volume of coal is ash
 Mercury: Coal plants are the largest emitter of Mercury
 Nuclear: Coal-fired power plants throughout the world are the major
source of radioactive materials released to the environment. If
radiation emissions from coal plants were regulated, their capital and
operating costs would increase, making coal-fired power less
economically competitive*
 Particulates: 72,000 asthma attacks and 2200 hospital admissions per year in Iowa
alone (UCS report)
Science, December 1978 - "Radiological Impact of Airborne
Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants” J. P. McBride, R. E.
Moore, J. P. Witherspoon, and R. E. Blanco

20. Justice and Equity
Studies show that African Americans and other
minorities are far more likely than white
Americans to live within a distance of coal-fired
power plants at which health impacts are the
worst. Coal combustion is also one of the biggest
drivers of global warming, which also impacts
indigenous, minority, and impoverished
communities disproportionately.
Air of Injustice: African Americans and Power
Plant Pollution - Clean Air Task Force, 2002

22. Economic: Alternatives are cheaper,
even if environmental externalities not
included
Union of Concerned Scientists
http://go.ucsusa.org/just_the_facts/50.html

23. Lovins on Opportunity Cost
Fine Homebuilding, Spring 1991
Will you have a dead-end job because
someone bought the wrong light bulbs?

24. Fuel to Light at 3%

25. Light Bulb Technologies
Incandescent Compact Flourescent LED
10 2.5 1

26. =
=
=

27. "If every U.S. household participates in the campaign
and makes their next light an ENERGY STAR, the
nation will save up to $800 million in energy bills, and
the reduction in air pollution will be equal to removing
1.2 million cars from the road for one year.”
- EPA Administrator Christie Whitman.
=
=

28. Using Energy Wisely =
New Source of Energy

29. Negawatts vs Megawatts
Negawatt Power:The simplest solution to global warming
Reed McManus, Sierra Magazine, Jan 2007

30. Negawatt Example: Lighting
60 watt incandescent replace with CF
CF bulb cost: $1.00
CF bulb power requirements: 25 watts
Power savings: 75 watts
Bulb lifetime: 10,000 hours
Saved Energy: 750 kw-hours
(Enough to run my home for 3 years)
Cost/kwh for saved energy: 1/10 of a cent per kwh
Time to install: Immediate
Greenhouse gases saved/bulb: 700 lbs of CO2

31. Replacing Coal With Efficiency
Coal plant Kwh: 3.8 Billion/year
Energy Saved Per Bulb: 750 kwh
# of bulbs needed: 5,011,000
Households in Iowa: 1,230,000*
Bulbs per household: 4.1
Cost per bulb: $1.00
Total cost for 3.8 billion kwh: $5,011,00
New Coal Plant Cost: $1,500,000
*
Census Bureau, ACS, 2003

32. The "2,000-Watt Society" program
promoted by the Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology claims it's
feasible to reduce average continuous
per-capita power use in industrialized
countries to 2,000 watts per day--
that's a two-thirds reduction in energy
use for Europeans and a five-sixths
decrease for spendthrift Americans--
without crimping anyone's standard of
living.
Sierra Club, 2007

33. Critiques of Efficiency

34. Wise Use of Energy
Efficiency
Plus
Effectiveness

35. A bright future for Iowa
Efficiency
Renewables
No New Coal Plants

37. Energy and Community Wealth:
Fairfield
Efficiency
Biomass Cogeneration
Wind Power
Solar Hot Water
City Design

38. Jefferson County Statistics
Population: 16,181
Households: 6649
Energy Use Assumptions:
Gasoline/Diesel: $50/household/wk
Home heating: $1000/yr
Hot Water: $30/mo
Electricity: $100/mo
Annual Energy Consumption:
Gasoline/Diesel: $38,000,000
Home Heating: $16,181,000
Hot Water: $ 5,825,160
Electricity $19,417,200
TOTAL $80,257,760 (Residential Only!)
20 Year Total: $1.6 BILLION DOLLARS

39. Statewide Residential Energy Costs:
Iowa Annual total:
$6 billion
Iowa 20 yr total:
$1.2 TRILLION DOLLARS

40. If Jefferson Co replicated
Osage…
Cost: $1,120,000
Savings: $5,400,000 Per Year
# of residents: 16,181
20 yr total savings: $107,000,000
20 yr savings per resident: $6600
"I don't see any difference
between a dollar brought in by a
new business and a dollar that's
saved due to energy conservation,"
Wes Birdsall, Supervisor, Osage
Municipal Utilities

41. If Poweshiek County
Copied Osage…….
Cost: $1,320,000 one time cost
Savings: $ 6,300,000 per Year
20 yr total: 127,000,000
20 yr total per person: $6,666
20 yr total per houshold:$17,100
Population: 19,000
Households: 7,400

43. Biomass Cogeneration

44. Cogeneration:
Combined heat and power (CHP)
100 Units of
Energy in Fuel
Power Plant
66 units
Waste Heat
33 units
Electricity
2/3 of the energy going into conventional power plants is wasted

45. Jefferson County Cogen Co
 Jefferson Co residential use: 75 million KWH
 Plant Size: 10 MW
 Annual KWH production: 74 million KWH
 Fuel: Baled switchgrass
 Acres required: 5,200
 Acres in Jefferson co: 261,000
 Payments to Farmers: $2-3 Million
 Cost electricity: 6 cents/kwh
 Waste heat available: equiv to 5,000,000 gallons of oil -
could heat 12,000 not-efficient homes
 Plant cost: $15-20 Million
 Current Jefferson Co electricity costs: $19 Million

46. Wind

47. Jefferson Co
Community Wind
 Residential electrical use: 75,000,000 kwh/yr
 # of Turbines required: 18
– If we spent $5,000,000 on energy conservation projects: 5
– If every home used energy like ecovillage homes: 1.8
 Turbine size: 1.6 MW NEG/Micon
 Electricity cost: 4-6 cents/kwh
 Project Cost: $35 Million
 County residential electricity costs: $19 Million/yr

48. Solar Hot Water

49. Berwynn, Illinois Laundry
Solar saves $2000/Month

50. Jefferson Co Community Solar
Utility (Hot Water)
 90% of households: 6,000 systems
 Cost/system: $3000
 Project Cost: $18,000,000
 Annual Savings: $4.5 million/yr
 Simple Payback: 4.5 years
 Next 20 years of savings: $90 million dollars
-13,500 per household
 Finance through revolving loan fund
 If installed over 5 years, would require 30-50 people
working full time just in installation
 Build them here?

52. Earl Mason, Habitat for
Humanity, Mason City Iowa
1400 sq feet
Occupied by a Family of 4
$175 annual heating and cooling
High insulation levels allow
Building to be heated with
the water heater.
Furnace elimination paid
for extra insulation

53. RMI clip
QuickTime™ and a
H.264 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

55. What would it take to make Fairfield
the Amsterdam of America?

56. What would it take to make Portland (Oregon) (or Grinnell Iowa) the
Amsterdam of America?
That is, with relation to bicycles
 ?
 This is a question recently asked by the Portland Office of Transportation, as a part of their update
to the citywide Bicycle Master Plan.
 1) User fees for cars:
 - Introduction of European-style gas taxes that raise the cost per gallon of gasoline to above $5.
 - Congestion pricing in congested areas, following Ken Livingstone's London example, that allows
bicycles free entrance but charges cars.
 2) Creation of expanded bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. In areas of high congestion, remove
the least-efficient use: automobiles. Use the additional space to provide facilities dedicated to
bicycles, so they can zip by pedestrians and streetcars on their own paths.
 - In Downtown Portland, for instance, this might mean taking a lane of 3-lane one-way streets and
making it into a Class 1 bicycle facility. This bikeway would fit between the existing sidewalk and
the parking lane.
 - In neighborhood commercial districts, when over-crowding causes congestion, automobile traffic
needs to be the first thing to go, and bicycle facilities should be the first thing installed to take its
place.
 - In the neighborhoods, this would mean the creation of bicycle routes where bikes can travel as
far as possible, unhindered by vehicles. All stop signs on bicycle boulevards should be replaced by
traffic circles. Stop lights should act like the one at 39th & SE Clinton, permitting bikes but
stopping cars.
 - Bicycle "freeways" like the Springwater Corridor should be built in as many places as possible:
Sullivan's Gulch, the North Portland Waterfront, along the SE Portland RR ROW that extends
from the river to Crystal Springs Gardens/Golf Course, etc.

57.  3) Bicycle rental facilities should be widely dispersed throughout the city that provide bikes for
little or no charge for those who need to use them for a quick trip.
 4) Bicycle parking should be provided in mass quantities at popular destinations. There are already
complaints about a shortage of bicycle parking opportunities in downtown Portland. This needs to
be resolved ASAP, and bicycle parking lots need to be fitted into the infrastructure where demand
requires them. Outside of the Amsterdam rail station, for instance, is a sea of hundreds of bikes, all
locked up right next to one another. I've also seen stacked bicycle parking. Whatever it takes to fit
the bikes into the real estate available.
 5) Commuter rail systems need to bring people into the central city from neighboring cities, and
provide plenty of room for secure bicycle parking at their stations, as well as plenty of room on
board for bicycle hooks. Part of bicycle mobility is the ability to extend the range of your bicycle
by hopping on a fast, efficient train to get to places slightly further afoot.
 6) Development density within the city needs to increase, so that more people are living closer to
more destinations, making the bicycle just inherently a more sensible option for making more trips.
 7) Automobile parking needs to be regulated to make it just a little less easy to park everywhere
for free. Charging for parking in most commercial districts would be a good start. Taxing every
surface parking space would be another good start -- say, $5 per space per month? This would
make people and businesses seriously consider exactly how many car parking spaces they really
need and are willing to pay for.

58. Paris Velib Project
20,000 bikes
1451 stations (In contrast,
Paris Metro = 297 stations)
Months in operation - 4
Registered users - over
3,000,000
Daily trips - 350,000
6,000,000 miles traveled
400 employess

59. Velib cont’d
Paid for by ad revenue and run by an ad
company (JC Decaux pays 4.3 million
plus turns in all proceeds to the city -
expected to net $30,000,000)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=hDBfwU6zni8
Cost to User: 1 euro the day, 5 euros per week,
29 euros per year for an unlimited
number of journeys of less than one half hour

60. Local economy - examples
 Navarre, Spain - Energy
 Cuba - Organic Agriculture
 Curitiba - Urban Design
 Paris - Velib http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=hDBfwU6zni8
 Denmark/Northern Germany wind
– NEG/Micon research division
 Vedic City, Maharishi University of Management- four
season vegetable production
 Cedar Falls Buy Fresh/Buy Local
 Clipper Wind - 300 people employed in Cedar Rapids

61. Navarre
• Population: 593,000
• Capital City: Pamploma, 300,000 in metro area
• Next largest city: 32,000
• Size: 70 miles square

62. Navarre Energy Sources
• Energy from Renewables: 60% (2004)
– 43.6% from 28 wind farms
– 12% from over 100 small-scale water turbines
– 5.3% from 2 biomass and 2 biogas plants.
• Commitment to renewables: 100% by 2010 (2004)
• Photovoltaic installations: Spain’s largest at 1.2 mw, with
hundreds of smaller ones
• # of jobs in Navarre in wind: 3,600
• # of jobs in Spain in wind: 100,000
• Danish and German examples

64. Navarre Wind
• Home to Accionia Energy, world’s
largest wind developer

65. Iowa connection
• Acciona recently started construction on its first wind turbine
manufacturing plant in the United States, located in West
Branch, Iowa. Upon its completion in late 2007, the 200,190
square-foot plant will supply turbines for Acciona wind farms
throughout North America and will utilize Acciona's proprietary
technology to produce its AWP 1.5-77 and AWP 1.5-82 models.
The West Branch facility will be Acciona's fourth wind turbine
assembly plant; two currently operate in Spain and one in
China.

66. • "It is fair to say that we are talking about hundreds if not
thousands of new jobs in the next couple of years just
related to wind energy," Culver says. Culver has been
making the case to Europeans that Iowa not only sits
near the geographic center of the country, making it a
transportation hub, but Iowa also sits on a major wind
ridge in the U.S.
• "Arguably Iowa has more opportunities related to
renewable energy than any state in the nation and so
we're here rolling up our sleeves and working hard to
tap that potential," Culver says. There are about eight-
hundred different parts that go into a wind turbine and
Culver says his effort is shifting to get the companies
that make those parts to open facilities in Iowa.”
Governor Culver on Wind

67. • "The first challenge was to get the turbine and the blade
manufacturers to our state...but the next phase will clearly be on
the gear boxes, for example, that power the turbine," Culver says.
"There is a concern about not having enough of those
components and (it's) the same with bearings and a couple of
other key components." Culver's visiting Germany, Denmark and
Spain this week. At the end of his tour, Culver will have visited
with 18 different companies that either build wind turbines or make
the components for wind turbines.
• Monday in Denmark, Culver visited Seimens, which is operating a
blade manufacturing plant in Fort Madison. He'll visit Acciona in
Spain tomorrow. That's the company opening a turbine plant in
West Branch. Culver's also met with a number of the companies
that supply Clipper, the company which is opening a blade
manufacturing plant in Cedar Rapids. Culver attended a wind
energy conference in Germany and was invited to speak at the
event which attracted people from 30 different countries.
Governor Culver on Wind

68. Navarre - Solar
• Home to Spain’s largest PV array (1.2
mw)
• Hundreds of smaller installations
• Working to become world leader in PV
production
• Community development model

69. Navarre - Organization
• The community is governed as an autonomous region, with its
own parliament (Parlamento de Navarra) and government
(Gobierno de Navarra). As in other autonomous regions in
Spain, health, employment, education and social services,
together with housing, urban development, environment
protection policies are under the responsibility of its own
institutions. Unlike other regions (and like the Basque Country),
it has almost full responsibility for collecting taxes, which must
follow the overall guidelines established by the Spanish
government but may have some minor differences.

70. Global Warming Strategy for
Iowa
Efficiency
Renewables
No New Coal

71. Missouri Cooperative Abandons New Coal
Plant In Favor of Clean Energy
Kansas City, March 3, 2008
Today, Associated Electric Cooperative, one of the nation’s largest and most
respected rural electric cooperatives announced they are “postponing indefinitely”
their plans to build a massive new coal-fired power plant near Norborne in
Northwest Missouri. Associated Electric will pursue wind, energy efficiency and
clean-burning natural gas instead.
Associated Electric is owned by, and provides wholesale power to, six regional and
51 local electric cooperative systems in Missouri, northeast Oklahoma and
southeast Iowa that serve more than 850,000 customers. In the past two years
Associated Electric has become the wind energy leader in Missouri among all
electric providers, including municipal and investor owned utilities.

72. • “Today’s announcement is the latest breaking news in a tidal wave of
progress as our nation transitions from nineteenth century coal
technology to a modern and clean 21st
century clean energy economy,”
said Bruce Nilles, Director of Sierra Club National Coal Campaign.
Four years ago the country was considering plans to build as many as
160 new coal-fired power plants and today AECI brings the total
number of plants abandoned or defeated to 63. And all indications are
that this trend is accelerating as costs of coal skyrocket and the nation
focuses its attention on global warming solutions.
• In the past month three major Wall Street Banks announced they were
turning against new coal plant investments because of global warming
concerns and the federal government abandoned plans to build a
prototype clean coal plant because of skyrocketing costs.
Press release, Sierra Club Coal Campaign

73. • Ontario (the jursdiction in North America with
Feed in Tariffs like Germany and Japan) has
committed to close down it’s coal plants by
2015.
• Its political leaders simply concluded that the health
and environmental costs of coal burning are too high.
Jack Gibbons, Director of the Ontario Clear Air
Alliance, calls coal "a nineteenth century fuel that has
no place in twenty-first century Ontario."

74. Public Policy
Feed in tariffs
– Feed laws have enabled tremendous growth in
renewable energy and stunningly high local ownership
rates for renewable energy: 45% local ownership of
German wind projects and 83% of Danish ones.
These gains have come at a lower cost to produce
electricity than under renewable standards in other
European nations and have supported a greater
diversity of energy sources, such as solar photovoltaic.
Minnesota Feed-In Tariff Could Lower Cost, Boost Renewables and Expand Local
Ownership - John Farrell, Institute for Local Self Reliance, 2007

75. In Germany, the massive expansion of
renewable capacity has cost average
ratepayers less than $2.00 per month.
Feed in tariff cost in Minnesota:
0.3 cents per kwh out of 10 cent /kwh total
price

78.  We need a different on-ramp for people from disadvantaged communities The leaders
of the climate establishment came in through one door and now they want to squeeze
everyone through that same door. It’s not going to work. If we want to have a broad-
based environmental movement, we need more entry points. ...
 You can’t take a building you want to weatherize, put it on a ship to China and then
have them do it and send it back. So we are going to have to put people to work in this
country—weatherizing millions of buildings, putting up solar panels, constructing
wind farms. Those green-collar jobs can provide a pathway out of poverty for someone
who has not gone to college.
 If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they
can be installers today, they’ll become managers in five years and owners in 10. And
then they become inventors. The green economy has the power to deliver new sources
of work, wealth and health to low-income people—while honoring the Earth. If you
can do that, you just wiped out a whole bunch of problems. We can make what is good
for poor black kids good for the polar bears and good for the country."
- Van Jones, 2007 NYT

79. The Great Work of Generations
MINE:
- Mall of America and suburbia
“Greatest misallocation of resources in
Human history” - James Howard Kuntsler
UPCOMING:
- Really good urban/village design: Make
dense human settlements the most attractive
places to live- Solar powered Ecocities
- Co-exist with Otherness

80. The Next Generation

81. Apollo

82. Paris Velib Project
20,000 bikes
1451 stations (In contrast,
Paris Metro = 297 stations)
Months in operation - 4
Registered users - over
3,000,000
Daily trips - 350,000
6,000,000 miles traveled
400 employess

83. Velib cont’d
Paid for by ad revenue and run by an ad
company (JC Decaux pays 4.3 million
plus turns in all proceeds to the city -
expected to net $30,000,000)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=hDBfwU6zni8
Cost to User: 1 euro the day, 5 euros per week,
29 euros per year for an unlimited
number of journeys of less than one half hour

84. Biomass Cogeneration

85. Cogeneration:
Combined heat and power (CHP)
100 Units of
Energy in Fuel
Power Plant
66 units
Waste Heat
33 units
Electricity
2/3 of the energy going into conventional power plants is wasted

87. The Stone Age Didn’t End
Because We Ran Out of Stones….

88. Other issues with oil….
Peak Oil
Global Warming
Oil Wars

90. Peak Oil

91. Oil prices, profits, politics

92. Electricity Flow 2002
(Quadrillion Btu)EIAAnnual Energy Review 2002
Coal
Nat Gas
Oil
Nuke
Renewables
Conversion
Loss
Residential
Commercial
Industrial

93. "If every U.S. household participates in the campaign
and makes their next light an ENERGY STAR, the
nation will save up to $800 million in energy bills, and
the reduction in air pollution will be equal to removing
1.2 million cars from the road for one year.”
- EPA Administrator Christie Whitman.
=
=

94. Earl Mason, Habitat for
Humanity, Mason City Iowa
1400 sq feet
Occupied by a Family of 4
$175 annual heating and cooling
High insulation levels allow
Building to be heated with
the water heater.
Furnace elimination paid
for extra insulation

95. Top of Iowa
Wind Farm

96. Ecosystem Services:
The Economy of Nature

97. Guerilla Solar from “power to the people”
QuickTime™ and a
H.263 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

98. Hypercar
But each Hypercar® vehicle then becomes a 30- to 40-
kilowatt power station on wheels. It's parked about 96
percent of the time, usually in habitual places. Someone
will gladly pay an annual lease fee of about $4,000 to 5,000
for the privilege of driving the "power plant" the other 4
percent of the time.
Suppose that someone is you. You drive your Hypercar®
vehicle to work. By a funny coincidence, you happen to
work at a building powered by a fuel cell—leased to the
landlord by the same utility that leased you your car. As
you park your car, you plug it in both to the electricity grid
and to a little snap-on pipe that brings surplus hydrogen out
from the reformer in the building (since that's not kept fully
occupied all the time, it makes a little extra, avoiding the
need to set up a whole new infrastructure of reformers
dedicated purely to cars).
But you're not plugging in to recharge your car: quite the
contrary, while you sit at your desk, your power-plant-on-
wheels is silently sending kilowatts back to the grid. You're
automatically getting credited for that production at the
real-time price (which is pretty high during the daytime).
Thus your second-biggest, but previously idle, household
asset is earning you enough money to pay almost half your
lease fee.
If the entire U.S. light
vehicle fleet consisted of
Hypercar® vehicles, it would
collectively have about five
times the generating capacity
of the national grid.

99. Jones told The New York Times:
“The green economy has the power to deliver new
sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people
— while honoring the Earth. If you can do that, you just
wiped out a whole bunch of problems. We can make what
is good for poor black kids good for the polar bears and
good for the country.”

101. 30
U.S. Total Energy Consumption by
Source
(Quadrillion BTU)
10
20
40
1800
1900
Coal
Wood
Oil
Nuclear
Electric
Hydro
Nat
Gas

102. Energy

104.  Former ORNL researchers J. P. McBride, R. E. Moore, J. P. Witherspoon,
and R. E. Blanco made this point in their article "Radiological Impact of
Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants" in the December 8, 1978,
issue of Science magazine. They concluded that Americans living near coal-
fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living
near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations. This ironic
situation remains true today and is addressed in this article.The fact that
coal-fired power plants throughout the world are the major sources of
radioactive materials released to the environment has several implications. It
suggests that coal combustion is more hazardous to health than nuclear
power and that it adds to the background radiation burden even more than
does nuclear power. It also suggests that if radiation emissions from coal
plants were regulated, their capital and operating costs would increase,
making coal-fired power less economically competitive

105. In Ontario, Canada's most populous province, the three major political parties
agreed early this year on the phase out of that province's five large coal-fired
power plants by 2015. This bold plan accelerated with the early October election
of Premier Dalton McGuinty, who has pledged to close all the coal-fired power
plants by 2007, eight years ahead of the earlier deadline.
The goal is to clean up the air locally and help stabilize climate globally. In terms
of cutting carbon emissions, shutting down just the huge Nanticoke power
station on the shore of Lake Erie would be equal to taking 4 million cars off
Canadian roads.
Ontario is the first Canadian province to turn its back on coal. Its political leaders
simply concluded that the health and environmental costs of coal burning are
too high. Jack Gibbons, Director of the Ontario Clear Air Alliance, calls coal "a
nineteenth century fuel that has no place in twenty-first century Ontario." Other
East Canadian provinces including Nova Scotia and New Brunswick may soon
follow its lead.
Several leading industrial countries are turning away from coal including the
United Kingdom and Germany. The United Kingdom, which used coal to launch
the Industrial Revolution more than two centuries ago, cut coal use by 40
percent between 1990 and 2001 mainly by substituting natural gas. (See data.)