Articles by David Roberts

The book of green

Fox News on the "green bible":

Friday music blogging: Murs

Murs is a prolific underground rapper out of L.A. He's been around for over 15 years now, as part of at least five hip-hop groups and, recently, as a solo artist. He's something of a legend in the indie rap world.

His latest album, Murs for President, is a doozy. In particular, this song, "The Science," seems to sum up basically everything there is to know about rap. I guess there aren't many hip-hop fans around here, but this one's worth listening to for the lyrics alone.

Dynegy pulls out of coal-fired power plant partnership

Today Dynegy announced the dissolution of its partnership with LS Energy, formed in 2006. The goal of the partnership was the construction of up to eight new coal-fired power plants -- as part of its dissolution, Dynegy has abandoned plans for six of the eight.

Here's the key bit from the release:

"The development landscape has changed significantly since we agreed to enter into the development joint venture with LS Power in the fall of 2006," said Bruce A. Williamson, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dynegy Inc. "Today, the development of new generation is increasingly marked by barriers to entry including external credit and regulatory factors that make development much more uncertain. In light of these market circumstances, Dynegy has elected to focus development activities and investments around our own portfolio where we control the option to develop and can manage the costs being incurred more closely."

One of those "factors" that has made the development of new (coal) generation "uncertain" is called grassroots organizing. Along with its nonprofit partners, the Sierra Club organized a campaign targeting Dynegy, with protests and rallies that drew unwelcome attention to its plans.

Another little piece of good news in the anti-coal fight.

Stiffer regulation of coal ash would cost the industry billions

If I've said it once I've said it, oh, around eleven kazillion times now: "coal is cheap" because the coal industry externalizes costs.

Take, for instance, coal ash. It contains several substances that are classified as toxics individually, but the ash itself isn't thus classified. That means it can be stored in enormous pools with no liners, behind earthen dams that, as the disaster in Tennessee illustrates again, periodically fail.

What would happen if ash were classified as toxic? The answer can be found in this stellar piece from Bloomberg.

Increased regulation would bring costs to upgrade or close more than 600 landfills and waste ponds at 440 plants nationwide. While the Environmental Protection Agency put the price tag at $1 billion a year in 2000, power generators predict the cost would be as high as $5 billion, said Jim Roewer, executive director of the industry-funded Utility Solid Waste Activities Group, in a telephone interview.

Why so costly?

An EPA report in 2000 found a quarter of retention ponds and 57 percent of landfills lacked liners to prevent pollution from leaking into nearby water supplies, though the 2007 follow-up study found such controls more common at newer sites.

So much for cheap.

Also note this macabre/hilarious bit: