Good gravy … how's this for “optics”?
The anti-Cape Wind group, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, has tapped “coal industry insider” Glenn Wattley as its new head, according to the Cape Cod Times. Here's a PowerPoint (in pdf form) of Wattley's work; maybe someone who knows the industry can decode this thing. In any event, that's really what he's known for: The coal game, helping good folks find good opportunities in a really, really awful product.
In case we forgot, coal is “the enemy of the human race”, as Grist's David Roberts puts it. You can dig it, you can scrub it, you can blow the tops off mountains, you can leave your miners underground, you can liquify it, or fold it into an omelette with porcini mushrooms for all I care … and the stuff is just still absolutely rotten for people, the earth, and the climate.
In the end, I'm not sure this will make any difference at all … but good to see that the Alliance knows who they are. Coal vs. Wind, everyone. That's the battle — it always was, anyway.
Update: Here's Wattley's full bio.
Glenn G. Wattley
Mr. Wattley is the managing director of WestBayEnergy, LLC offering business strategy and private investment placement services for innovative and breakthrough technologies/projects. He has spent over 30 years in industry; he has a diverse client base including Fortune 500 companies, utilities (gas and electric), energy producers (coal, oil and gas), and high-growth technology startups. Mr. Wattley began his career as a maintenance engineer with Consol Energy, the leading US underground producer of coal. He was also employed as a product line manager for Mine Safety Appliances Company, marketing mechanical and chemical safety systems. He spent 14 years with Arthur D. Little, Inc., as Vice President of the corporate utilities and mining practices. He was also a Strategic Services partner at Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). Throughout his career, Mr. Wattley has spoken at numerous trade conferences as a keynote speaker addressing industry trends and investment opportunities in clean-coal technologies, distributed generation, IT strategy, eCommerce, etc. He has written articles for trade journals, and has been quoted as an industry expert in various publications (e.g., The Economist, Fortune), and the Special Energy Section of the New York Times. He has appeared on CNBC cable TV and The Wall Street Journal Report aired on NBC TV. Mr. Wattley holds a B.S. in Engineering from Columbia University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
A few hundred MILLION years ago, Our Dear Mother Earth, in her infinite wisdom, started REMOVING the CO2 from her atmosphere. It was a very long drawn out process, but she persevered and eventually made the place inhabitable for us more evolved species. And what are we doing to thank her???
Closely related to the “Healthy Forests Initiative” and the invasion of Iraq to seize Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
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Do the anti-Cape Wind people think we have the brains of Miss Teen South Carolina?
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Clean air versus choking sooty potentially carcinogenic coal-fired smog. That’s what Cape Wind evidently comes down to.
Here’s a PowerPoint (in pdf form) of Wattley’s work; maybe someone who knows the industry can decode this thing.
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Let’s look at a few things. One, Wattley is nothing more than a salesman, who happens to have an engineering degree. That’s clear from his bio (MBA? give me a break.) The PDF that you linked to is nothing more than a sales presentation. That should be evident from the fact that it had the name of his company on every page of the PDF.
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Two, from the PDF, the meaning of the assertion that “CO_2 sequestration is “proven”” is unclear, but the idea that is projected there (with the acknowledgement that it is nothing more than a sales presentation) that CO_2 sequestration has been proven is nonsense.
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It is rather interesting that the anti-Cape Winds people would hire such an individual as their public relations person. What did they think that they would accomplish?