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TOPICS: pollution, sustainability, coal
On Thursday, the Collegiate Times published a letter to the editor entitled “Ad misrepresents coal issue on campus” (CT, Oct. 22). Ironically, this letter is woefully inaccurate and misrepresents both the Sierra Club’s Oct. 20 advertisement in the CT, as well as the issues surrounding our own coal plant here on campus.
Contrary to the author’s claim, the advertisement depicts a typical utility-scale, coal-fired power plant, with both cooling towers and smokestacks clearly in view. The author makes this argument in order to inaccurately imply that coal plants are somehow less than dirty.
Let’s be clear: Coal-fired power plants are massive polluters. All coal plants, including the Virginia Tech cogeneration plant, emit toxic pollution such as mercury, arsenic, sulfur dioxide, as well as global warming-causing gasses such as carbon dioxide. In fact, coal fired power plants are the single largest contributor to global warming in the United States, accounting for over 30 percent of all U.S. CO2 emissions. Global warming threatens to devastate our planet with severe drought, extreme weather and global sea level rise.
Though he seems to overlook the true costs of coal, the author is right about one thing. If polluted water is too dirty for you, coal should be too. That’s because coal pollutes our water supply here in Virginia and around the world. A recent U.S. Geological Survey study tested fish from 291 streams and rivers across the U.S. for mercury contamination, primarily from coal plants. Every fish tested, in every body of water, came up positive. Mercury causes brain damage and other developmental problems in unborn children and infants. Thanks, king coal.
Here in Appalachia, we should know better than anyone that coal is too dirty for campus. Coal mining in the form of mountaintop removal is devastating our Appalachian forests, blowing the tops off our mountains and filling our streams with rubble and waste from coal extraction and processing. To date, the coal industry has destroyed over 500 mountains and filled over 1,200 miles of streams. Here in Virginia, more than 25 percent of the total land area of Wise County has been strip mined for coal.
I don’t speak for the Sierra Club, but I work with fellow students at Beyond Coal at Virginia Tech, and we strongly agree that yes, coal is too dirty for our campus. We don’t want to see our taxes and tuition spent on a power source that pollutes our air and water and jeopardizes our collective future by causing global warming. That’s why we are working to help make Tech a leader on renewable energy and the environment by calling upon our administration and faculty to make getting off coal a top priority.
We know that we can’t just switch off our coal plant tomorrow. The technical challenge is substantial, but who better to lead the world to clean energy than the talented faculty and students of Tech?
Alex Darr
Sophomore
Coalitions coordinator, Beyond Coal at Virginia Tech
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I hope after I graduate VT triples tuition rates so it can install solar panels on all the buildings and wind mills in the drill field. but let's wait until next year for that
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So here is a nice statistic for you, CO2 accounts for about 3% of Greenhouse gasses, so what your telling me is that 30% of that is from coal plants and we have added the huge amount of 0.3% of greenhouse gasses to our atmosphere? OMG run for the hills and triple our energy prices the evil coal is destroying the earth! If you want to pay more for energy you go right ahead.
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Go ahead, believe what industry tells you.
Meanwhile, we need to get off of coal ASAP and I applaud the SC and VT students for taking this issue into their own hands.
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Its 2009, and were still burning a dirty black rock from the ground for most of our energy in Virgina-a dirty black rock known to cause more cancer, respiratory disease, global warming, and environmental devastation than other readily available energy sources. Since when did we permanently resign ourselves to the same polluting energy source that led us into the industrial revolution 150 YEARS AGO? Let's STOP blowing up our mountains and let universities like Virginia Tech move our country forward towards a clean energy future with innovation and ingenuity.
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Who's going to pay for it? If you want to foot the bill fine but the rest of us do not. Coal is vital to our energy demands and will continue to be a key part of our energy production as oil is drying up. We would all like those pie in the sky energy producers but we can't afford them now.
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Yes, coal still plays a big part in energy production, but, like oil, it is a limited resource and a fuel many times more polluting than oil. You need to put economical production on one side of a scale and consideration for a clean future (that will save money and our air) on the other and see which issue weighs in as the more important one.
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Given our current financial problems at the university, not to mention the country (which I know your messiah Mr. Obama is working night and day to fix), we cannot afford to take care of your "green" energy right now. I agree alternative sources a good idea, but they are entirely too expensive right now. As far as I'm concerned there are more important issues we need to address first. And when you get lung cancer from the coal pile over there you let me know.
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stop this "us vs. them" approach and look more into solving the problem as one. If there's one thing that will keep any progress from happening, it people that attempt to polarize issues into black and white. Think more collectively to support the goal.
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"Coal is vital to our energy demands and will continue to be a key part of our energy production as oil is drying up."
Well that's an industry talking point if I ever heard one. Let's be a little creative here and look beyond dirty, polluting and toxic fossil fuels to energy that is cleaner and that we can generate more sustainably. It's not a left or right thing. No matter who you voted for in 2008 we're still breathing the air filled with particulate matter (linked by the American Lung Association to heart attacks and asthma) and drinking the water polluted by the neurotoxin mercury (1 in 6 American women of childbearing age have more mercury in their bloodstream than is safe to carry a child - and coal-fire power plants are the leading cause of mercury pollution.
Coal is dangerous. It's causing global warming to a greater extent than any other CO2 emitting source and that's what the scientific community (read: people with PH.Ds and more evidence that you coal-industry talking heads) has been saying for the past decade.
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"We would all like those pie in the sky energy producers but we can't afford them now."
Again, good job sticking to coal industry talking points. As usual, it's completely false. The cost of coal is a non-issue - the pollution has already been externalized to the general public in millions of dollars worth of health-care costs and unspeakable human costs(ask the people at coal river mountain if they liked their mountain home before it was blown up). coal is already getting more expensive to mine. After November with a price on carbon it will become more expensive to burn coal (burning 1 ton of coal releases 3 tons of CO2).
So it's really not an issue of how much (the cost of dealing with what we have now only gets higher the longer we wait) but an issue of when we'll have the courage and the sense to do what we know is right and cost-effective in the long-term - which is the only view that won't screw us over - health and cost-wise - in the next 5 years.
Coal's way to dirty! Let's get off of it and create a cleaner, healthier future. Now that's something for VT to be proud of doing!
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What could be more important the saving the planet? Is this what our society has come to? You say too expensive while completely ignoring all of the external costs of coal plants .. 24,000 deaths per year, 160 billion in health care costs, the list goes on.
The cost of renewables are steadily decreasing while the cost of coal is on the rise (especially with all of the recent victories with MTR and increased concern about coal ash). What are you going to do when your internal cost arguments are no longer valid and there is no renewable infrastructure?? The time is coming sooner than you think!
I commend the VT Beyond Coal students for being forward thinkers. It takes guts to work for positive change but that's why our country is great.
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Pie in the sky? Hardly would I consider "$155 billion invested in clean energy companies and projects worldwide, not including large hydro" just in 2008 a dreamers movement. And whats more vital - money in a few peoples pockets? (& probably not yours might I add) - or clean air? clean water? four to tenfold the amount of good jobs available in our failing economy? can you really be so short sided - so addicted to dirty obsolete energy - that you can't see that coal is a fix that's not only debilitating ALL of our systems (environmental and yes economic included) - but its harming you, its harming me, your mother, your children, your dinner.
Consider this your intervention. If you don't end that coal addiction right now, its going to end us all.
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man, people just throw numbers and statistics out there like they are true. I agree that a cleaner form of energy would be great. I don't know a single person that would rather have a coal plant powering the city instead of solar energy if they could. Maybe somebody sitting on a pile of coal but that's about it. It just takes time to figure all this stuff out. In the meantime, you don't need to lie to prove your point. That just makes you look like a dishonest fool.
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It's not that I'm against new forms of energy I don't want to pay more for them. If you could provide power with solar and wind as cheaply and reliably as coal than I would be for it. In this economy especially we can't be burdened with expensive energy costs. Coal is abundant and cheap if we switched over too soon we would lose jobs because of firms paying more for energy. The earth is alot stronger than you give credit it's not going to matter if we continue to use coal for a little while longer.
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Politely brushing away the problem won't fix it anytime in the near future.
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the free market will determine when we switch
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When Kennedy set the goal of getting a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s there was resistance. There were people who thought this was crazy, or a fool's adventure or just impossible.
History doesn't remember those people. History remembers those who in the face of great adversity dared to dream and dared to do because they knew it was right. At this moment in time we are facing catastrophe if we fail to act. Mobilizing to transition our economy from fossil fuels that poison our water and our air is the greatest achievement we can hope to achieve in the next decade. If we don't, then all life on the planet is imperiled.
And that's a fact!
It takes a lot to rise above fear and dream with high expectations. I fully support the VT students who have dared to dream. Those are profiles in courage.
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Can you provide a specific source that indicates that coal power plants contribute the most to CO2 emissions?
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The campus power plant, with the yellow fog spilling out the top, there's your source.
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Alex,
Why are you afraid of "global sea level rise"? Are you so self-righteous as to think that you know the optimum sea level for all life on this planet? Another 300 ft and I am right on the beach. Can't wait.
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that might make sense if we were a true free market, but as it is the costs are being externalized to all of us in the form of health care costs and environmental clean up.
Not to mention the subsidies and assistance the government has given to prop up the coal industry.
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drama indeed. I've never seen somebody take such bold action and dared to dare against such odds with other people's money.
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Probably not money out of our pocket??? Bull!!! Everyone moans and groans about their electric bill when AEP raises rates. Whats going to happen if they have to invest billions in windmills and solar panels?? CONSUMERS will feel the effects, just like if the energy cap and trade was passed.
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All statistics and studies are crap and should never be used in reasonable arguement.
Think about it, I have a political agenda that will get me 3 million extra votes if I pass an bill that limits the amount of fat that burgers can have. To get this bill passed I need a statistic that says that burgers contain too much fat. I take 2 million dollars to invest in a research study of burger fat. Amazingly the study returns that burgers have fat and when people eat them they become fat, and amazingly the fat people have health problems and OMG make the connection its all the burgers fault I get my 3 million votes.
See studies garner the results of those who pay for the answers. If a scientist returns a result that goes against the agenda those results will never be seen by the public, get it its easy?
So apply that to your wonderful lung cancer studies, are you surprised that particles in the air cause lung cancer? No of course not but how many cases are a DIRECT result of Coal that can be proven? Maybe the person smokes or any other number of things that could be potential problems but because somebody wanted new energy sources it is ALL coals fault, as studies have shown.
Simple really. We need to rid ourselves of coal but using studies and research to back up claims is not the way to make your point.
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