Jeff

Regardless of how we are thinking, this editorial is increasingly the way most of the rest of the country is thinking. To remain competitive, and get off the bottom of Forbes' list, we need an aggressive approach to diversify the State's economy, including the energy industry. As I have said so often, and will not let up stating, "We MUST participate, and/or even be seeking leadership roles, in the rapidly growing alternative and renewable energy technologies, including their manufacturing and jobs potential!".

I am concerned that yesterday's meeting, while interesting, was not particularly helpful in considering the changes in thinking, as well as the unique future policies and actions needed for the participating in the energy dynamics, not of the past, but of the today and the future. We certainly must avoid a token, pacifying or just tolerant approach. I did not come away from the meeting with any sense of accomplishment.

You will recall that Charles Bayless urged you and I to look at the Ontario Power web pages for their innovative and aggressive efforts at energy conservation and efficiency. I did, and it is quite revealing.

Global Warming is real. Mandating efforts for efficiency and conservation is appropriate from the power plants on down to the consumer, residential, commercial and industrial.

When is the appointment with WV Tech's Charles Bayless and faculty rescheduled, and why was it cancelled? The potential for clean safe jobs in the construction and operation of CSP plants must be investigated...the PEA made that decision several meetings ago, and the investigation is dragging on much too slowly. Progress should be reported at the next PEA Meeting, billed as the "Renewable Energy Public Hearing".

We were asked again at the meeting yesterday why we are not investigating this, and no answer was provided. I don't enjoy being embarrassed.

The agenda yesterday called for members to speak. We skipped that, and went to the public. It seems to me that we would be better served if we have Q&A after each speaker, and, as I tried to do yesterday, that we have a dialogue with those who speak so that they feel we are listening and value their input.

Jeff, I trust that you understand I am submitting these thoughts in an effort to help us all improve these important hearings.

Allan

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/...http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/08/23/coal_miners_nation/

Coal miner's nation August 23, 2007

LATE IN HIS presidency, George Bush finally brought himself to lament the nation's addiction to oil. But neither he nor leading Democratic politicians have ever rallied the country to break its addiction to a more lethal form of energy: coal, which supplies half the nation's electricity.

This month, an accident in Utah entombed six miners, forever. Three more died trying to rescue them. Four days after the first accident, three coal miners plunged down a shaft to their deaths in an Indiana mine. In China, which has the world's worst coal-mining fatality record, 181 miners are trapped in a flooded mine shaft with little hope of survival. More than 2,000 Chinese coal miners have died in accidents this year.

Then there are the respiratory conditions, including asthma, that are made worse by the sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and fine particulates emitted in coal's combustion. Coal-burning power plants are also the principal man-made source of the nerve-system poison mercury. Its buildup in many species of fish has caused the Food and Drug Administration to advise women of child-bearing age to limit consumption of that otherwise healthful source of protein. Despite such warnings, women in the United States face a 10 to 15 percent risk of bearing children with mercury levels high enough to slow their mental development.

In Appalachia, mining by mountaintop removal is changing the face of the earth. Coal burning is changing the climate of the earth.

Of all the fossil fuels, coal emits the most carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas. Forty percent of the US total of carbon dioxide comes from coal burning, mostly to produce electricity. Gasifying coal before burning it makes it possible to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions, but the process raises the cost of the electricity produced and has yet to be tested at full scale. In the meantime, utilities in the United States and elsewhere continue to build coal-fired plants without controls on carbon dioxide. Last year alone, China built more than 90 major coal-fired power plants.

Legislation passed by the US House that would force utilities to start getting more of their power from renewable sources faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where it is opposed by senators from states without ready access to renewables.

The United States cannot wean itself from coal overnight. But as Congress and all Americans chart the nation's energy future, coal's environmental costs, especially its contribution to global warming, have to be factored into the equation. So do those accidents in Utah, Indiana, and China. No other energy solution -- not wind, solar, nuclear, biomass, natural gas, geothermal, and certainly not conservation and efficiency -- takes a toll in lives and environmental destruction that is at all comparable to coal's.