Bank of America and Citi Bank Behind the Push for Coal:

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The two largest banks in the world are the leading financiers of a new U.S.
“Coal Rush” that will result in the construction of more than 150 coal-fired
power plants across the country—a recipe for climate destruction.

Transitioning to a clean energy future that prioritizes energy efficiency and
clean, renewable sources like solar and wind power will allow us to meet
our future energy needs, build a stronger economy, keep our communities
healthy, and curb climate change.

But as long as Citi and Bank of America continue to fund dirty energy, they
are holding back the resources needed for clean energy to flourish.

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Citi (formerly Citigroup) is a leading financier of fossil fuel energy and the world’s top financier of coal.13 According to Forbes, Citi’s assets of $2.2 trillion make it not just the world's largest bank, but its biggest company.

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.......providing financing to mining companies that practice mountaintop removal (MTR), including
Massey Energy, Arch Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and others.19 These companies
are responsible for the loss of more than a million acres of Appalachian forests and mountains, the devastation of communities, poisoned water supplies, and rampant poverty throughout the
region. Citi is continuing to bankroll this destruction of communities and ecosystems
despite massive public opposition to MTR.

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coal is the single biggest greenhouse gas polluter in the U.S., dumping 163 million
tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year. It is also America’s biggest emitter of
toxic mercury and directly responsible for every body of water in Ohio being under
a health advisory due to high levels of mercury found in the fish.

http://ran.org/fileadmin/materials/comms/mediacontent/reports/gf_briefing.pdf

The Dirty Truth About "Clean" Coal


QUICK & DIRTY FACTS:

So-called “clean coal” doesn’t address the massive social and environmental costs of mining,transporting and refining coal.



Zero emissions clean coal is highly speculative and decades away from wide scale deployment.



Factoring in the true costs of coal, our environment, health, climate and econ-omy will fare far better if we switch to clean,renewable energy sources immedately.



U.S. power plants produce 1.9 billion tons of C02 every year. Even if capturing and storing this waste is theoretically possible – why create it in the first place?




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America’s biggest source of electricity comes with a price. In addition to pumping out half of our electricity, coal-fired power plants emit more climate-changing greenhouse gases than any other source. Proponents of our continued reliance on fossil fuels often argue that a new generation of “clean coal” technology is emerging and that it will allow us to not just continue using coal – but to use even greater amounts of it!


Currently, the term “clean coal” covers everything from scrubbers on conventional coal plants to marginally more efficient burning processes to futuristic “near-zero emission” technologies that may never be technologically, economically or socially viable. But even if so-called “clean coal” technologies were available, would they be the best solution?


What the coal industry conveniently omits from its sales pitch is the fact that the entire life cycle of coal is dirty. Before it is burned, coal must be mined, transported and refined. Coal extraction leads to entire mountain ranges destroyed by strip mining; rising rates of asthma and lung disease; water pollution; and the creation of massive amounts of toxic wastes. Coal enthusiasts never mention what it takes to get coal out of the ground in the first place.


IS IGCC OR “COAL GASIFICATION” VIABLE?

IGCC (Integrative Gasification Combined Cycle) is the most commonly cited technology masquerading as clean coal. The basic idea is to convert coal from a solid into a synthetic gas. The gas powers a turbine, and the resulting heat propels a steam turbine to generate electricity. While IGCC plants can be slightly more efficient and less polluting than traditional coal plants, the technology is unproven and unreliable. Only three IGCC plants have been built in the U.S., all largely funded by the government as commercial test projects. One failed and was abandoned, and the other two have suffered from operating problems and reliability rates that would never be acceptable for a commercial plant. The heavily marketed story of IGCC is that the technology will make it easier to capture C02 emissions at some undetermined point in the future. However, of the 151 new coal power plants currently under development across the country, only 34 are planning to use IGCC technology, and none of these are being designed to capture their emissions! Proponents say that IGCC plants are “capture-ready,” which is a bit like saying your driveway is “Porsche-ready.


CAN CARBON CAPTURE AND SEQUESTRATION WORK?

The other buzz words associated with clean coal are “carbon capture and sequestration,” or CCS. The concept of CCS is that we can curb climate change by capturing the emissions from coal plants and storing them underground, safely away from our atmos-phere for eternity. The most glaring flaw in this concept is that CCS technology is not likely to be a commercially viable option for at least another decade, and new coal-fired plants are slated to begin construction now. There are also no working models of CCS at a commercial-scale power plant anywhere in the world. Why not? Read on.


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Proposals for carbon storage locations include underground depleted oil and gas fields, unmineable coal seams, and even in our oceans. Underground storage of the 1.9 billion tons of C02 waste produced annually by U.S. coal plants is hugely problematic and likely impossible. Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas that can be fatal to humans exposed to high concentrations. In 1986, a C02 leak killed nearly 1,800 people instantly in Lake Nyos, Cameroon. The leak was but a tiny fraction of the amount of C02 we would need to store annually from coal plants.

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According to estimates, using CCS on a typical plant would require a 40 percent energy increase. So, even if carbon emissions could be captured and stored, other air pollutants would actually increase due to the additional fuel being burned.

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In 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that capturing 90 percent of CO2 emissions from IGCC plants would increase the total cost of electricity by 38 percent. The EPA’s definition of “capture” does not include transportation of gas, storage, or the monitoring needed at storage sites for decades to come. Some estimates that include both capture and storage predict a doubling of the cost of electricity, which would make CCS prohibitively expensive.

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http://action.ran.org/index.php/The_Dirty_Truth_About_%22Clean%22_Coal

While President Obama addresses the US Congress in his historic State of the Union tonight, our nation will sit back and burn an estimated 115,000 tons of coal. Close to 250,000 tons of CO2 will be released from coal-fired plants during the hourlong presentation; hundreds of pounds of toxic mercury emissions will enter our air, and inevitably, into the lives of our children.

As we watch the President on our televisions and computer screens generated by coal-fired electricity, arsenic from coal ash, along with boron, selenium and lead, will quietly seep into our watersheds. Drawing from American Lung Association estimates, three American citizens will die prematurely during the State of the Union due to illnesses related to coal-fired plant pollution; three coal miners will also die today from black lung disease. Millions of tax dollars will be allocated in this single hour to cover the external health care and environmental costs of coal.

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But, until we rank the ignominious history of the coal industry alongside the machinations of the tobacco industry, and commit to a roadmap of withdrawal from our deadly addiction, any meaningful progress for a sustainable energy policy will be blindsided.

Every day (and tax dollar) we expend into mitigating the colossal external costs of coal, and into the new bridge to nowhere for carbon capture and storage technologies--which every single energy expert agrees will increase coal production--we take a step backwards into the darkest chapter of history.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/27-8