We believe widespread adoption of home solar will significantly improve life in cities by phasing out polluting coal plants, eliminating miles of ugly new transmission lines, and ensuring cleaner, healthier lives.
Coal used to be a very dirty fuel but coal has become cleaner and cleaner over the decades. Clean coal now is quite clean. Clean coal now has the same emissions profile as natural gas. Clean coal can become cleaner still. We can take even more of the pollutants out of coal and I believe we should. Clean coal, I think, is the immediate answer to Canada's energy needs and the world's energy needs. There are hundreds of years available of coal supplies. We shouldn't be squandering that resource. We should be using it prudently.
I get to be the mayor of the capital city of the most polluting state of the most polluting country on the planet. ... I see truly a non-carbon economy. It's cleaner. It's healthier. We're about out of alternatives, so it's going to be easier and more cost effective to start to do the right thing.
I was recruited to sort of be the doc to advocate for communities that were struggling with polluting incinerators, polluting coal plants, toxic waste sites, etc.
Compared to coal, which generates almost half the electricity in the United States, natural gas is indeed a cleaner, less polluting fuel. But compared to, say, solar, it's filthy. And of course there is nothing renewable about natural gas.
The Fuse is a solar energy station in orbit 22,000 miles above the earth. But it's more than just a big solar panel array. The Fuse is also home to Midway City, a technically illegal settlement that grew out of a bunch of engineers who decided they'd rather make a new life in space than return home to earth.
One of the messages I presented to the coal industry was, "If you want to have major transmission built, start encouraging wind development." That's because the cultural value and acceptance of wind energy provides an opportunity to build transmission lines that are not as desirable with traditional forms of generation.
The Obama administration's EPA ruling to cut carbon emissions at power plants is a direct affront to workers in states like Alabama, which not only rely upon coal-fired plants to generate most of their electricity but are also home to thousands of coal industry jobs.
Keep in mind, coal plants claim plenty of birds too. Sadly, hydro claims the lives of many fish. There is a price for everything. Solar does the best as far as very minimal wildlife damage.
To power the country by building 186,000 fifty-story wind turbines - and running 19,000 miles of new transmission lines - just seems impractical and preposterous compared to the idea of building a hundred new nuclear facilities primarily on the sites we already have.
Britain needs a diverse energy mix - home grown renewables, new nuclear, a switch from dirty coal to cleaner gas, and, when the technology is ready, carbon capture and storage. Diversity will keep the lights on and ensure we go green at the lowest possible cost.
The climate-change industrial complex pontificates that the U.S. has to stop using coal to save the planet. But even if the U.S. cut our own coal production to zero, China and India are building hundreds of coal plants. By suspending American coal production, we are merely transferring jobs out of the U.S.
Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good is one of the reasons we have a coal-dependent infrastructure, with the resulting environmental impact that all of us can see. I suspect environmentalists, through their opposition of nuclear power, have caused more coal plants to be built than anybody. And those coal plants have emitted more radioactive material from the coal than any nuclear accident would have.
The EPA's [Clean Power Plan] is another example of Washington's lack of understanding when it comes to rural and Western energy issues. I oppose this new rule because it hurts my district, which has four coal-fired plants that power Arizona's big cities, small towns, businesses and residences. These plants also provide good-paying jobs in our tribal and rural regions.
Seoul citizens are becoming the owners of solar power plants by directly participating in solar generation through installation of mini solar photovoltaic, energy cooperative activities, or raising solar funds.
Do environmentalists really believe that green progress means looking out at America's majestic mountains, forests, green oceans, wilderness areas and deserts and viewing miles upon miles of nothing but windmills and solar paneling?
Today, natural gas now outstrips coal as the leading provider of electricity in America. If this is as big as people believe it is, natural gas will soon be powering trucks and marine ships. Maybe even standard commercial cars that people use at home through compressed natural gas, other gas to liquids. The potential is there for more energy independence by America and a reliance on cleaner fuel - natural gas emits half as much as coal, in terms of carbon emissions. That's a real bounty.