The senator from West Virginia is bought and paid for by Big Coal. With his help the dying industry is pulling one final heist — and the entire planet may pay the price
, who, paradoxically, may have more control over the trajectory of the climate crisis than any other person on the planet right now. Kidus Girma, a 26-year-old Sunrise Movement activist who helped organize protests against Manchin this past fall, calls him “the final villain.”, D-W.Va., greets Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources hearing on the FY 2022 budget request for the Department of Energy in Dirksen Building on Tuesday, June 15, 2021.
All this could change overnight. “I think that the climate thing is one that we probably can come to agreement much easier than anything else,” Manchin said a few weeks after his appearance on Fox. Perhaps Manchin’s takedown of BBB was a negotiating ploy, and deals will be cut and a pared-down version of the bill will be passed. Or perhaps, as asuggested, he’s decided to walk away from negotiations with the White House.
But now the endgame of coal has begun in earnest. You could feel that at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last fall. “Sometimes, the coal industry isn’t just the elephant in the room,” commented Wolfgang Blau, co-founder of the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, “but the actual room itself.” Overnight, 23 countries made commitments for the first time to phase out coal power.
Manchin’s personal wealth is directly linked to a small coal-fired power plant about 10 miles outside Farmington, in a place called Grant Town. The Grant Town Power Plant, which went online in 1993, sits in a holler littered with rusty double-wides and muddy ATVs. The plant itself doesn’t look like much more than a flimsy steel warehouse with a smokestack. As far as power plants go, it’s an old clunker in a world of Teslas.
Manchin has a long history of using his political muscle to boost the company, and the coal industry in general. In 1994, he was state chair of ALEC and a national director of the Koch-backed pro-fossil-fuel group that has been one of the central forces spreading climate disinformation.
And who knows how deep this cesspool of corruption really goes. Exhibit A: FirstEnergy, the parent company of Mon Power, was recently enmeshed in an epic scandal in which it paid $60 million in bribes in a complex scheme to pass a state bailout of nuclear plants in Ohio. The criminal enterprise was led by then-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, who was removed from office last year and now faces federal racketeering charges.
Demonstrators in boats and kayaks protest near Senator Joe Manchin’s houseboat in the Washington marina. Protesters – including some of his constituents from West Virginia – are calling on him to pass the Build Back Better Act and its investments in healthcare, citizenship, and climate solutions.With the clean-electricity standard, Manchin kept everyone on edge until a few weeks before the Glasgow climate summit, in which Biden and his team hoped to prove to the world that the U.S.
like John Amos in West Virginia are dinosaurs from another age. The good news is, there will never be another conventional coal plant like it built in America again. Forget the climate: In sheer economic terms, the price of renewables is far cheaper than coal, even in places like West Virginia. The bad news: Big old coal plants are surrounded by a phalanx of politicians, regulators, and engineers who believe civilized life depends on keeping these old coal burners running.
But that’s just a cute slogan. CCS for coal plants is wildly expensive — the technology to capture and bury the CO2 can cost almost as much as the plant itself. Despite the fact that the power industry has been touting CCS for more than 20 years, there is precisely one coal-fired power plant in the world right now that actually captures and buries CO2. And it injects the compressed CO2 into old oil fields to push more oil out of the ground, making any climate benefit dubious.
But coal plants do not just generate power. They also generate jobs and community purpose and identity. And that can’t be replaced with a simple cash buyout, Guay says. “What would a just transition look like for West Virginia? How do you replace the good pay and union jobs that will be lost as we shut down the coal industry?” Guay argues that for all the talk about the Green New Deal, there has been no real thinking about how to actually manage the transition away from coal.
So what did the PSC do? They not only greenlighted $400 million in investments to keep the old coal plants running until 2040, but, according to Van Nostrand, they also basically directed the utility to spend whatever it takes to keep them running, even if clean energy is cheaper. “I’ve worked on utility regulation for over 40 years,” says Van Nostrand. “West Virginia is the worst. They don’t care about rate payers. They only care about keeping coal alive.
On the day we spoke, Mullins had just come back from a meeting in Kentucky to pitch Revolt Energy to a solar developer backed by global investors who is exploring investments in West Virginia. Mullins explains that she is worried that clean-energy development, when it inevitably comes to West Virginia, will be driven by outsiders rather than homegrown companies.
Bevil is a rough-hewn guy who worked most of his life as a mining engineer for West Virginia coal companies. Now, as general manager for Beaver Coal, he has one simple job: maximizing income from all of the property the company owns. “We have a mixture of timber, gas, and coal development, real estate, and soon, we hope, solar,” Bevil explains. The company recently agreed to lease 225 acres to a solar developer.
Bevil is no tree-hugger. He grew up in a hardcore Democratic family outside Pittsburgh, but then drifted to the right in recent years. He voted for Trump twice. He’s not convinced the climate crisis is real . But he says that if the climate crisis is real, he thinks it’s China’s job to solve it, since they are the biggest polluters on the planet.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
Similar News:Vous pouvez également lire des articles d'actualité similaires à celui-ci que nous avons collectés auprès d'autres sources d'information.
Indonesia holds talks with industry on coal distribution problems, export banIndonesia is yet to reach a decision on lifting its coal export ban as authorities discussed overcoming logistic issues that have slowed efforts to distribute coal to domestic power plants, a mining group executive said on Sunday.
Lire la suite »
State sues company for dumping toxic chemicals into southern Illinois coal mine in unsuccessful attempt to extinguish underground fireOwners of a southern Illinois coal mine violated multiple state laws by dumping toxic foam deep underground in an unsuccessful attempt to extinguish a fire, according to a new lawsuit that documents high levels of pollution in nearby creeks and ditches.
Lire la suite »
Pelosi says 'there's an agreement to be reached' with Manchin on Build Back BetterSenator Joe Manchin pulled his support for Mr. Biden's $1.75 trillion social spending plan last month.
Lire la suite »
Manchin Accused of 'Bad-Faith Negotiating' for Spurning His Own BBB CounterofferThe West Virginia senator has reportedly rejected his own $1.8 trillion counteroffer to Biden's Build Back Better Act.
Lire la suite »
Omicron sent N.J. schools back to COVID purgatory. How soon can they escape?Things could get worse before they get better.
Lire la suite »