FINALLY! No Up Front Costs to go Solar!

There is a company now that has a solar lease product which makes solar affordable now for every homeowner who wishes to save money on their electric bill and reduce their carbon footprint at the same time! This is an exciting discovery...

US Coal Plants Dump Thousands of Gallons of Waste Into Drinking Water Supplies a Day!

This next article comes to you thanks to Treehugger. The video at the end shows the visual consequences of this problem as well.

Why is anyone fighting to save these things again? A detailed report in the New York Times just revealed that hundreds of coal plants across the country are routinely dumping thousands of gallons of waste water into rivers and lakes--rivers and lakes that millions of people get their drinking water from.

So here's why all that dumping is going on, in a nutshell--coal plants, as you well know, are extremely heavy polluters. Some plants pollute so heavily, some even spewing sickly yellow smoke, that little coal waste chunks litter nearby residents' yards and coat their property in a thin film. So when a community gets tired of this--and gets sick of the respiratory illnesses and intermittent acid rain the plant creates as well--sometimes they're able to get the state to insist on stricter pollution regulations.

If they're lucky, as in the case of the super-polluting coal plant in Masontown, Pennsylvania, they're successful, and the coal company installs 'scrubbers' that trap up to 150,000 tons of the pollution and keep it from entering the air. Hooray! Right?

Not so fast. Since the scrubbing process creates waste water from all that pollution, it turns out that the coal companies are simply dumping all of into nearby rivers and lakes, many of which Americans get their drinking water from.

And if you're anything like me, you're first reaction will be something like, "how the hell are they allowed to do that?" The answer is, oftentimes they're not. But they're getting away with it unpunished. You see, there's no federal regulation--at all--that specifically determines how much, if any, waste coal plants can dump into water sources. There are state regulations, and restrictions set by the Clean Water Act, but the Times found that while the plants are receiving notices for violations, nothing is being done about it:



Ninety percent of 313 coal-fired power plants that have violated the Clean Water Act since 2004 were not fined or otherwise sanctioned by federal or state regulators.

It also notes those few plants that have had to pay fines--but they're egregiously low, even for excessive violations:

Hatfield's Ferry has violated the Clean Water Act 33 times since 2006. For those violations, the company paid less than $26,000. During that same period, the plant's parent company earned $1.1 billion.

In other cases, there's no existing framework at all to prevent companies from dumping harmful chemicals. This, for example, is particularly alarming:

only one in 43 power plants and other electric utilities across the nation must limit how much barium they dump into nearby waterways ... Barium, which is commonly found in power plant waste and scrubber wastewater, has been linked to heart problems and diseases in other organs.

The atrocities go on and on. No wonder coal companies are balking at the prospect of limiting their pollution under a climate bill--they're evidently entirely unfamiliar with taking the environment and/or people's health into account at all. So allow me to hark back to my opening question: coal plants pollute the air, give people heart and respiratory problems, contribute to climate change, and now, dump tons of dangerous waste into our drinking water every day. Why is anyone trying to save these things?



People that are the closest to the issue say it best:
jakkman69 wrote:
I live right here. We have our corrupt officials to comfort us and tell us it's all A-OK. As long as those people are rich and happy, we are all OK. ALL the creeks in knoxville run grey with polluted waters. Way Way before this spill happened. We are so polluted u would shit ur pants if you knew what oak ridge and our corrupt officials have done here. Cancer all over the place here. Thank God we have corruption to protect us.......

Is Cleantech Just a Myth?

We don't think CLEANTECH is just a myth; not at all! But from the deplorable action of big oil, coal, and nuclear power companies you'd thing that it was. See the next article (coming soon, above this one) on Coal Companies deplorable reaction to being asked to clean up their act and install air pollution equipment.

Some of what you see on this blog is not new but we'd sure like to help spread the education to those who haven't exactly been finding truths in all the usual places:

The 4 Biggest Lies Told about Alternative Energy

So let's just clear the air. Those public relations hot-shots at Big Oil spent years trying to convince investors and consumers that "cleantech" was really just a myth. A crazy idea with no basis in reality.

It's pathetic, really-- when you think about the depths Big Oil's sunk to in order to keep its massive pockets padded. Of course, their distractions, diversionary tactics, and -- outright lies -- have now been exposed. Take a look. . .

* Outrageous Lie #1 - Wind energy is inefficient and only provides a small amount of electricity.

Absolute hogwash. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates America's wind energy potential to be larger than total U.S. electricity consumption today. Financial News Online estimates the wind sector, which has been developing for more than 10 years in Europe and for about five years in the U.S., could bring in annual revenues of $10 billion to $12 billion.

* Outrageous Lie #2 - Renewable energy can't survive without subsidies

Right. . . that's why "Big Oil" invested more than $58.4 billion of its own money into alternative energy from 2000 to 2008. And, as I mentioned earlier, more than $155 billion was invested in 2008 in clean energy companies and projects worldwide. Does that sound like an industry that can't survive without government handouts? Didn't think so.

* Outrageous Lie #3 - Solar energy can only serve a tiny fraction of U.S. or world electricity needs

Actually, the truth is. . . solar photovoltaic (PV) technology can meet electricity demand on any scale. The solar energy resource in a 100-mile-square area of Nevada could supply the U.S. with its entire electricity demand using modestly efficient commercial PV modules. Bear in mind, the market capitalization for pure-play solar companies has jumped from $1 billion in 2004 to over $118.3 billion today. The carbon based energy companies in the State of Florida which is dubbed the "Sunshine State" keep utility rates artificially low just to thwart interest in alternative energy development. Sad...don't you think? The Sunshine State isn't a model for solar usage in the U.S.A.???

* Outrageous Lie #4 - Geothermal energy is still new and experimental

It's exactly the opposite. Geothermal energy has been used to generate electricity since 1904. Today, the United States has nearly 2,800 MW of geothermal electricity connected to the grid, which generates a yearly average of 15 billion kilowatt hours of power. That's comparable to burning about 25 million barrels of oil... or six million short tons of coal per year.

It's easy to understand why lies like these would be spread.

But now that you know the truth — Want in on a couple more "truths" that might surprise you?

*According to Morgan Stanley, banks will soon become reluctant to lend money to fossil fuel projects. Take a look at this from a Morgan Stanley press release:

Leading Wall Street Banks Establish The Carbon Principles

"The Principles are... Energy efficiency. An effective way to limit CO2 emissions is to not produce them. The signatory financial institutions will encourage clients to invest in cost-effective demand reduction."

Seems that the banks have made their decision — and they're placing their bets squarely on renewable energy.

*Think coal is still our future? Consider this: since 2002, 100 coal plants have been cancelled in the U.S. alone. This trend "demonstrates an undeniable trend of American communities moving beyond coal and toward clean, renewable energy," according to Reuters.

*And don't even think about coal as a possibility in Los Angeles:

"Los Angeles will eliminate the use of electricity made from coal by 2020, replacing it with power from cleaner renewable energy sources, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said."

-- Reuters, July 2, 2009

As you can see — the evidence is truly overwhelming. And our future is crystal-clear. Question is; will you be able to find which solar, which wind, which geothermal will shoot to the top of the charts and will you get into the market near the bottom? Or will you catch the wave just before it breaks and miss the next new wave rising from the bottom? This is where most individual investors get in. If you want to make big money, you have got to spend more time researching and watching potentials via a watch-list of ten or fifteen in each category, weeding out one by one as new confirmed data comes in on each company.