Liberal judge that hates Perry? OR a bad idea for Texas? _____________________________________________________________ Judge blocks Perry's coal plant order, urges delay of hearing By KELLEY SHANNON Associated Press Writer AUSTIN — A judge on Tuesday blocked Gov. Rick Perry's executive order fast-tracking the permitting process for proposed coal-fired plants and ordered that state hearing administrators reconsider environmentalists' request for a delay. A major hearing on the coal plant permitting is scheduled to begin Wednesday. But lawyers for several environmental groups argued before state District Judge Stephen Yelenosky that Texas and Oklahoma citizens opposed to the plants were at a disadvantage because there hadn't been enough time to prepare. They claimed the governor's order was unconstitutional, and the judge agreed that the plaintiffs were likely to prevail in their argument. Yelenosky's temporary injunction did not cancel the hearing, but he said administrative judges should reconsider the schedule. "He basically wants to liberate them from the executive order," said plaintiffs' attorney Jim Blackburn. He said the judge declared the Republican Perry's order illegal and non-binding. "No one should be surprised that a single liberal Austin judge would rule against Gov. Perry and his efforts to increase energy capacity in Texas," Perry spokesman Robert Black said in a statement. "We will take a close look at the ruling and make a determination on how we will proceed." The Texas Attorney General's Office, which represented Perry in the case, referred all comments on the judge's ruling to the governor's office. All sides in the case expected the Wednesday hearing to convene as scheduled and for the request for a delay to be raised at that time. At issue in the hearing is Dallas-based TXU Corp.'s proposal to build six coal-fired plants in North, East and Central Texas. "We're obviously disappointed in this decision," TXU spokeswoman Kim Morgan said. "Every day of delay means that meeting the goal of providing newer, cleaner power generation is denied." TXU contends the coal plants will lower utility costs and help provide needed power supplies for the future. Plaintiffs' attorneys argued that Perry's fast-track executive order, issued in October 2005, was illegal and unconstitutional. They said the Texas governorship is intentionally weak under the state Constitution and that Perry's order interferes with the legislative branch. "The governor is doing something that he has no power to do," said attorney David Kahne, representing Citizens Organizing for Resources and Environment, known as CORE, along with other plaintiffs. The Legislature set up the State Office of Administrative Hearings as an independent forum for contested cases, and the governor doesn't have the authority to direct the way it holds its hearings, Kahne told the judge. State attorneys said the plaintiffs failed to show how they would be irreparably harmed by the upcoming environmental hearings. "There is no injury based on this purported accelerated schedule" of hearings, said Shelley Dahlberg, an attorney for the state. She said the citizen groups don't have legal standing to make the argument that they've been harmed at this point, though they might after the hearings, depending on the outcome. A number of Texas cities and citizen groups oppose the plants. Dallas Mayor Laura Miller, a critic of TXU's coal plant proposals, told KRLD radio station in Dallas that it will become clear Wednesday what will happen next. "We'll take this news that we just heard, and consider it, and see where we are in the morning," Miller said from a bus headed to Waco for a Clean Air Coalition meeting Tuesday night. Texans who live near proposed plants showed up in state district court in Austin on Tuesday representing CORE, Texans Protecting Our Water, Environment and Resources, or TPOWER, and other groups. "We're actually in the ring of fire," said Robert Cervenka, a rancher in McLennan County who lives amid proposed coal plant sites. Outside the courtroom, he said he and his wife worry that the plants could hurt the air quality of their region for cattle, wildlife and people. Katrina Baecht, whose family farm is six miles from the site of a proposed plant near the Oklahoma border, said she also was worried about air quality if the plants are built. As for the Wednesday hearing, she said the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality was added to the case just last week and wouldn't have time to prepare for the proceeding. Blackburn said preparing for the hearings was crucial because they establish the record connected to the permitting of the plants. "It will basically be an indelible stamp on those six plants from now on, and they're bad for Texas," he said. "If your kids have asthma, if your kids have any type of breathing problems, they'll get worse because of these plants." Dahlberg, disputing a plaintiffs' legal argument on property rights, told the judge, "There's no property right these people have to clean air." statesman.com
Building these plants is VERY important to Texas' energy future. Coal-fired generation has experienced dramatic gains in efficiency and cleanliness in recent years. It really gets a bad rap from the environmentalists. If you've seen the smear campaign in the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning-News, etc regarding coal, you'd see a person with soot all over their face. The irony is that the coal that would serve these plants is low sulfur coal (clean) from the Powder River basin -- an area of open pit mining. None of it would come from underground Appalachian mines -- where you would get soot on your face. The other irony is that the campaign is being financed by Cheseapeake -- a natural gas provider...not exactly an un-biased opinion in the debate. IGCC plants using coal is what the environmentals would settle for here (they'd prefer natural gas-fired, which are woefully expensive and would drain the pocketbooks of every utility customer). The problem with IGCC is that it's not a commercial technology at the moment. It's very very risky and unproven -- particularly at a scale as large as this. Texas needs these plants. BADLY. Our electricity bills will skyrocket in the coming years if we don't build these plants.
trader jorge you are thinking VERY short sightedly. i strongly oppose these and people need to get over their greed. so what if your electricity is 3 more cents per KwH. at least its clean.
Non-sense, just use wind / solar / and biofuels/hydrogen. According to the liberal educated gang - that will solve all the energy problems and release no CO2 or other pollutants.
1) These plants are clean 2) The difference is going to be a HECK of a lot more than $0.03/KwH 3) This isn't about greed -- it's about providing low cost energy to ALL Texans The natural gas supply/demand picture in the United States is in *horrible* shape. Natural gas prices over the long-term are going no where but up. That's your alternative in Texas for electricity generation. Wind doesn't have a high enough capacity factor to serve baseload needs. No one wants nuclear in their backyard. Hydro isn't an option. It's coal vs. gas. And coal is a heck of a lot cleaner than it used to be. Don't buy into the environmentalists' propaganda -- it's lies and it's financed by disingenuous gas producers.
sure they can clean up all the other emissions liek mercury, nox, and blah blah blah. buy you can clean up CO2 pollution can you? do you NOT understand that building these plants will texas, the state itself emit more pollution than the whole country of norway itself? i dont see why you cant consider geothermal, solar, wind, biogas. hey man, coal and NG are gonna run out someday and leave our children and grandchildren in the dark. id take higher prices now, a few rolling blackouts, but a cleaner grid in 10 years.
Irrespective of the sulfur output, coal plants are the #1 carbon emitters. Using the greatest coal in the world won't help in this respect. I don't believe that they are going to add carbon scrubbers, or other methods of carbon sequestering. Of course, I'm not sure that you aren't still claiming that global warming is a conspiracy beteween Al Gore and the Illuminati. There are better options. Sincerely,
You are talking about old, antiquated plants like you'd find in the Southeast or in the Ohio River Valley. These plants are vastly superior from an efficiency perspective. Name them. Name the better options that provide baseload power. You can't. Do a little research folks.
If your grandchildren are around in the year 2250, then yes, they may see coal run out. The facts are that we have 200+ years of coal in the UNITED STATES. Why not use a clean domestic resource, provide jobs for Americans, lower energy bills for us all, and reduce our dependence on foreign sourced energy?
ok yeah i understand that. i just researched and saw that was have 300 years of coal left. IF we keep using it at current rates. which we wont, dont you see? us humans are greedy electricity pigs that refuse to use newer more efficient light bulbs. i hope walmart paves the way for it by installing CFLs and LEDs in thier stores(heard it on NPR). and if we switch to coal, why not make them all FutureGen plants(where CO2 is injected into the ground. oh, and if this continues, then by 2250, houston will be the next atlantis
New IGCC plant in Sugar Land and you said IGCC couldnt be done on a large scale? the groundbreaking for this plant is scheduled for Q1 of 2008. it gasifies petroleum coke(pet coke) and then burns the clean, resulting gases.
You are wrong. No matter how efficient you get, you can't help that the output product of heat + coal +O<sub>2</sub> -> CO<sub>2</sub>. The process to get energy from coal is an oxidizing reaction, which by its very nature results in CO<sub>2</sub>. If you don’t end up with CO<sub>2</sub> you don’t generate electricity. Period. If you try and cook coal without the presence of O<sub>2</sub> you end up with coke, very useful for making steel, but not exactly an exothermic reaction useful for generating electricity. If you then burn the coke, you get a whole lot of CO<sub>2</sub> As efficiency rises, so does carbon dioxide output, since a greater portion of the coal is being properly burned. The only way you affect this is by using a carbon scrubber. These plants do not contain carbon scrubbers, because carbon scrubbers are expensive. Coal fired electricity production accounts for 40% of the CO<sub>2</sub> emitted. Burning coal produces much more CO<sub>2</sub> than any other method of generating electricity. To quote you, Do a little research, folks.
coke which is going to be used in the new sugar land plant is basically the byproduct of petroleum refining. once again, like ottmaton stated int he absence of O2. now i dont fully understand the gasification process, but it produces a gas similar to CH4(methane). and yeah, you say the plants are more efficient, but they will still emit the same amount of CO2 pound per pound of coal. now unless they put carbon scrubbers on these things, theres no way in hell im letting 11 billion dollars go down the drain towards the payment of them.
Read this please. http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/DAM01822012007-1.htm TXU is already taking steps to address concerns about global climate change, including investing in the development of new technologies and displacement of older, less efficient power plants with new, carbon capture- ready units to lower CO2 emission rates. Unfortunately, no economical technology exists today to capture and sequester CO2. However, TXU is investing to make its reference plants carbon capture-ready because it believes future technologies will enable economical capture and sequestration of CO2. TXU's vision includes: * Building advanced, carbon capture-ready plants. TXU's new reference plants will use the nation's most advanced supercritical coal technology and meet standards defined by the International Energy Agency for carbon capture- and storage-ready. * Displacing old, inefficient capacity. Using the latest advanced technology, new generation units can improve air quality and environmental efficiency by displacing older, higher-emitting power plants, reducing pollution and carbon emission intensity. * Investing in technology. TXU is investing up to $2 billion to commercialize state-of-the-art clean technologies, including the formation of a $200 million clean energy venture fund to advance next- generation technologies. * Striving for lower carbon. As announced in early November, TXU's 15-year vision is to reduce the rate at which CO2 is released when power is generated from coal by 50 percent, such that coal compares favorably with modern gas units.
1) The plant is not operational 2) Unproven technology at that scale Everyone is racing to be the SECOND IGCC operator. No one wants to be the guinea pig. Who wants to invest billions for something that is untested at that scale?
the plant a carbon capture ready? who says? okay TXU says. but will they stay true? and i honestly think 15 years down the line is way too long to start getting less CO2 emissions. it has to start now. and why do you keep downing the IGCC plant? its GOING to be online by 2009 and will use clean technologies. doy uo work for TXU or something?!
What there disagrees with anything I wrote? It basically says we suck. We hope we can eventually get as good as the second worst alternative, but our most optimistic projections place this 15 years down the line. Furthermore, being the wise 'trader', I assume you read enough press releases to know exactly how full of **** they always are. The best way that they can come up with is to spin 'in the distant future we might get better'.
Just build nuclear plants...no more CO2 issues....the natural gas plant craze is a horrible long term solution: does it burn cleaner than coal? yes. But does this just mean that we're dependend on other countries for oil and gas - i.e, huge portion of our energy? YES. Ultimately, this is why, in addition to the renewable sources (wind and solar really since we're pretty much tapped out on hydroelectric) we should seriously be looking at nuclear for base capacity.
Still waiting on a compelling argument from the environmentalists' side. You guys can't go 5 on 1 and win an argument? Why not? Telling... Guess you don't have much of an argument... TOODLES
