Hey BMG! I mostly lurk here, but want to share something that I did yesterday with my friend Ken Ward from JP. Ken and I, in our 50 year old wooden lobster boat named the Henry David T (get it?) took action to stop 40,000 tons of Appalachian coal from being delivered yesterday to the Brayton Point power station in Somerset. We have such love for the world we have grown up in, and to bear its destruction without trying to stop it would be impossible for us. So we put the Henry David T between the ship and the pier and dropped anchor.
You can find out more about the campaign at coalisstupid.org where there’s video archive of the beginning of the action and things you can do to help. Also a good article from today’s Globe. And find out more about upcoming Coal action that’ll be part of 350.org’s “Summer Heat”
Here’s our full statement below:
Our Statement: Coal is Stupid
Why we seek to close Brayton Point.
Ken Ward & Jay O’Hara
May 15, 2013
“I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.”
-Genesis 9:15
God promised never another flood, and who would have thought we’d be stupid enough to do it to ourselves? We are breaking the first covenant — a three-part agreement, it should be remembered, between God, Noah and his descendants, and all living creatures.
Atmospheric carbon hit 400 ppm last Friday, May 13, 2013, at Manua Loa and global carbon emissions last year were nearly two-thirds above 1990. We are on track to achieve a temperature increase of 6°C / 11.8°F by 2100, at least, and on a steep upward trajectory thereafter. There is no question that without abrupt political change, a second flood of biblical proportions will erase the conditions in which life remotely like that we know now is made possible.
The fact that we’re staring catastrophe in the face isn’t surprising. There have been plenty of warning signs that too much fruitfulness, especially in the rapacious manner which has been our practice, would prove impossible to sustain. What is surprising, is that we still aren’t talking about it publicly in any forthright and pragmatic way.
Decades of top notch PR work (bankrolled by a handful of people who value record profits above protecting their grandchildren from experiencing collapse first-hand) has a lot to do with the great silence on climate, but it isn’t the whole reason. The reality is so appalling that most everyone prefers to participate in a collective delusion that there is no problem.
And surely, who can blame anyone for that?
To lose the world on our watch is a miserable prospect. To lose the world when a solution is available is perverse. Denying outright that climate change exists is the most extreme response, but considering climate change to be anything other than the single most important matter facing humanity has the same effect.
What we need to do is relatively simple. Whether there is time to avoid the tipping point, we don’t know, but that shouldn’t prevent us from making the best possible effort.
First thing: stop burning coal.
We are doing exactly the opposite. Coal is experiencing a “renaissance,” increasing 5%, last year, to reach 30% of the global energy market. Coal emissions in the US have declined, it is true, but that isn’t because US coal is staying in the ground — exports broke previous records in 2012. Due to the natural gas bonanza brought about by fracking, existing US coal plants are being closed and few new plants are being built. Were natural gas prices to rise, coal might well experience a “renaissance” in the US, and some energy sector heavyweights, like Energy Capital Partners, the planned purchaser of Brayton Point, are betting heavily on this outcome.
As we said in our letter to Thomas F. Farrell II, President & CEO of Dominion Energy, current owners of Brayton Point, and Doug Kimmelman, Senior Partner, Energy Capital Partners, decisions which appear intelligent in a business context, such as the sale of Brayton Point, are actually quite stupid when viewed in the aggregate from a planetary perspective.
We are in uncharted territory, so far as global geo-physics goes, with new studies tumbling in almost daily delivering across-the-board dismal findings – increasing Antarctic temperatures, rising methane releases in peat bogs, rapid decline in snow cover, and so on. The only reasonable and ethical action is to call a halt to the ghastly fossil fuel experiment, starting with coal.
If Dominion Resources sells Brayton Point –– the single largest source of coal emissions in the Northeast – to Energy Capital Partners, the likelihood that this plant will continue operation is substantially strengthened. We don’t know the selling price, but market analysts, talking in terms of “fire sale” and “scrap value,” peg it around $100-200 million, peanuts compared with Dominion’s $1.5 billion investment, and so cheap that a well heeled outfit like Energy Capital Partners can afford to keeping it running for quite some time.
Nowhere in the decision-making process is there any means or mechanism by which the lunatic aspect of choosing to burn coal can even be raised, let alone factored into the decision. Not one of the measures taken (such as the Regional Green House Gas Initiative) and none of the measures contemplated (such as a carbon tax), has or would have any significant impact on the decision to keep coal plants like Brayton Point in operation. Nothing even remotely approaching the true costs of burning coal is included in the business calculus.
Yet Brayton Point should be shut down immediately – and by “immediately,” we mean today –– for more than one reason. First, every day of additional emissions is a terrible, immoral imposition on our children and, in ways we do not fully understand, on the other living things of God’s creation. Second, we do not need this power plant – efficiency measures alone can reduce demand by far more than the 6% of Massachusetts electricity generation supplied by the plant. Third, in order for the US to exert global leadership on climate, we must take decisive and difficult steps in the right direction for our own nation. The closure of all US coal plants, coupled with the sort of vigorous advancement of efficiencies and renewables that is much talked about but little acted upon, would create the political and moral basis for effective global leadership by the US, without which no global solution is possible.
We are faced with an imperative like none confronted by any previous generation; we are living in a society that is disavows responsibility for this greatest of crises, and lacks any process or means by which decisions, like that to extend the life of Brayton Point, might be affected. It is our choice to take direct, non-violent action – putting our bodies between the Brayton Point coal plant and its water-borne coal supply – in an attempt to achieve the outcome necessary for planetary survival; the immediate closure of Brayton Point Power Station.
Jay O’Hara and Ken Ward
This made national headlines and put more attention on the fact that coal pollution is a real killer. The Brayton plant reminds me of the Salem one, pristine waterfronts wrecked by some of the deadliest toxin spewing power plants one can think of. The Pilsen/Bridgeport one in Chicago was directly linked to high risks of lung cancer, asthma, and strokes. The Salem one was almost as bad. Whenever anybody who opposes Cape Wind screams ‘not in my back yard’ to oppose clean and harmless wind power, remember that for those without clout their backyards are literally getting dumped on by toxic fumes from these killer power plants.
Thank you.
I recall it was SomervilleTom telling everyone that the coal we burn in MA, for elecricity, is from South America, b/c we dont have a rail system to haul it in from PA. But this post suggests a 180 degree departure from Tom, that the coal we burn is homegrown, harvested and shipped by working Americans, who pay taxes, and purchase goods and services, in essence, helps the economy. Curious to know which is correct.
I disagree with the tactics used by this group. The people working at the plant, driving the tanker, tug boat operators, all have lives to lead, schedules to keep, “family time”, perhaps a little league game to watch their son or daughter play, etc, etc, etc. I don’t believe delaying the delivery of a vital, legal product is helpful, only causes frustration with those who are just doing their jobs.
8% of our electricity comes from coal, which is higher than I thought. I know this spring seems like late fall temps, everyone bundled up at the little league fields in hats and blankets, watching the kids shiver on the baseball diamond. Just b/c we will use less air conditioning this summer, due to cool temps, the plant is still necessary to keep the lights on.
but it’s not a certainty. The rail congestion to get “past” NYC makes South American coal a bit easier. Coal consumption in New England is far lower than it was 10 years ago, and in fact a number of coal stations (like Mount Tom) aren’t even bidding in any more, because they can’t compete with the cheap natural gas.
As for the people working having schedules to keep… so do all the people who don’t work for power plants who get asthma attacks, cancers, or any other host of illnesses caused by or abetted by the coal power plants. Those people have schedules to keep too.
2 minute video is from Duke Energy of a coal plant that installed a exhaust gas scrubber to its coal plant. The guy said what you see coming out of the stack is water vaper and hot air. 95% of the SO2 is captured, and gypsum is created as a byproduct, good enuff to make wall board.
See below, what is wrong with this plant? How does water vapor cause asthma? Thanks.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YyyBN5o4yNo
95% of SO2 is not 95% of the pollutants. In fact, in coal burning, SO2 is a very small fraction of the overal pollutants emitted.
Most of what you see coming out of an unscrubbed stack is also water vapor and that does, indeed, represent the most visible portion of the effluent. That does not mean that most of what comes out of the stack is water vapor OR THAT the only thing coming out of the stack is water vapor.
and then there’s the NOx, the Hg, the coal ash, and the CO2. Then there’s the particulate matters — PM10 and PM2.5. They’re all bad for you, and while less is preferable to more, less doesn’t make it perfectly OK from a health perspective.
That we can capture some of the gaseous air pollutants and trap them in a solid does not make the pollutants any less dangerous in their gaseous form.
I said absolutely nothing like the rubbish our Walthamite attributes to me. I have no clue what he’s talking about. I invite DFW (or anybody else) to cite a comment of mine that is remotely similar to this brain-fart.
Is there something in the water in Waltham that produces delusional comments like this?
As you can see above, Stomv confirmed what I thought I read on this subject. Sorry i got you and Stomv mixed up.
but don’t interpret that to mean that I agreed with your post.
When in doubt, assume I don’t. In fact, unless I explicitly state that I agree with a specific post of yours, know that I likely don’t.
I was talking with a famous scientist the other day, who said to me, “God loves and has blessed the United States of America. Seas may rise from fossil fuels, but if the coal being used in American plants comes from the good old U.S. and A., there’s an automatic exemption. A magical water-lowering force will appear and Fall River shall know no floods.”
If we’re burning coal from some other country, it’s stupid on two levels. If we’re burning coal from this country, it’s still stupid on the most fundamental level there is. If we f*** up this planet, those jobs in Ohio and whatnot won’t count for much in the balance.
Many times in the past, I have made the mistake of Feeding the Troll, and have been called out for the idiot that I am (and rightfully so). But this time, I did Not Feed The TROLL. Nor did I invoke “Beetlejuice” anywhere within this diary. I just saying, for once, this is not me.
Anyway, super ultra-Nerdist weekend this weekend between Star Trek and Doctor Who this weekend. Have a Great Weekend everybody!