Indiana
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Cleanup efforts bring life back to Grand Calumet River
Grand Calumet River near Gary AirportLeslie DorworthThe first time I saw the Grand Calumet River, I was driving down the Indiana Toll Road. It was 1996, and I had just arrived in northwest Indiana from North Carolina to take a new job as an aquatic ecology extension specialist with the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant Program. All […]
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Daylight saving time doesn’t save energy
You can’t save daylight by moving around the hands on your clock, of course. So daylight saving time remains as absurdly named as it ever was. The general pointlessness of DST was the subject of a Rachel Maddow interview Friday (video below) with the author of a whole book (!) on the subject. What’s germane […]
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New ‘Repower America’ ads target conservative Dem Senators on clean energy jobs
Repower America, a project of Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, unveiled a new ad campaign targeting senators in key states to win support for clean energy legislation to create green jobs. The ads feature testimonials from elected leaders, small business owners, union workers and farmers who advocate for clean energy job creation in their […]
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Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) [UPDATED]
Richard Lugar “I don’t see any climate bill on the table right now that I can support,” Sen. Richard Lugar said on Nov. 10, dashing any hopes that he might get behind some version of the Kerry-Boxer legislation that’s moving through the Senate. “We really have to start from scratch again,” he continued. Lugar has […]
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Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) [UPDATED]
Evan Bayh Sen. Evan Bayh is widely considered to be a fence-sitter on climate legislation. He has a generally respectable environmental record, but his home state of Indiana is reliant on manufacturing and coal, so he worries that a climate bill could raise energy costs for his constituents and their employers. In August, Bayh […]
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No ‘renewable’ nukes and coal for Indiana
Indiana renewable package: No can do.Photo: JayskIndiana lawmakers finished their legislative session Wednesday without passing a renewable electricity standard, which might be just as well. This was the plan that would have defined “renewable” so as to include “clean coal” and nuclear energy (as reported earlier on Grist). The plan would have required utilities in […]
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An interview with author Scott Russell Sanders
Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Conservationist ManifestoCourtesy of Indiana University PressI’ve had some great teachers over the years, but none quite like Scott Russell Sanders, the gentle guru of Bloomington, Indiana, and a leading light of Midwestern environmentalism. To call him articulate doesn’t begin to do justice. He exudes a sort of intellectual clarity, […]
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Indiana bill would define clean coal and nuclear energy as ‘renewable’
Indiana’s statehouse.Flickr: mattindy77The Indiana lawmakers are considering legislation that would define “clean coal” and nuclear-generated electricity as renewable energy. They’re also mulling bills that would define John “Cougar” Mellencamp as a jazz musician and categorize the pork tenderloin sandwich as a vegetable. Seriously, the energy change, being debated as part of a set of changes […]
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Duke wins approval for a $3100/kW plant
From E&E News ($ub req'd): Indiana has approved a $2 billion, 630 MW integrated gasificiation/combined cycle coal plant.
Two billion divided by 630 MW = $3,174/kW.
If we assume that coal equity investors expect to recover their investment over 20 years, with an 11 percent return, that works out to 5.7 cents/kWh just to pay off the capital for the power plant. Add in another 3 cents or so for transmission and distribution, and a couple cents for fuel and operating costs, and this plant will work out to over 10 cents in retail prices.
This in a state where the current average retail electric rate is 6.79 cents/kWh.
So why was it approved? Simple:
"In the Midwest, coal is plentiful and low-cost, and finding ways to burn it cleanly is fundamental to meeting our customers' demand for power," Duke Energy Indiana President Jim Stanley said in a statement.
The head spins.
Excerpts of the story below the fold.