Earth Equity News

Environmental Groups in Texas Differ over Coal Deal. By Asher Price, Austin-American Statesman (TX), August 18, 2008. "When the Environmental Defense Fund signed a deal with utility NRG Texas late last month to end its opposition to a plan for a new coal-fired power plant... other environmental groups [including Sierra Club and Robertson County Our Land Our Lives] declined to participate... [their position being that any coal plant] would contribute to the world's warming... Under the agreement, the EDF and... [the] Texas Clean Air Cities Coalition... will withdraw their opposition to [the] proposed 800-megawatt... plant... east of Waco... The utility says it will mitigate CO2 emissions; reduce NO, SO2 and mercury emissions at the plant site, where there are already two coal-fired units; cut its water use; and pay for the development of a utility-scale solar energy project or contribute money to an energy efficiency fund. The plant, large enough to power 640,000 homes, should go online in 2013... [and] will emit about 800 tons of CO2 an hour... 7 million tons... a year... The parties to the deal are not releasing the nitty-gritty details, such as how much NRG might pay toward the solar project or how carbon... offsets... were calculated... Jim Marston, head of the Austin... EDF... said that without government regulations [limiting CO2]... it is up to groups like his to hash out details on offsets... Officials with [the environmental groups opposing the deal]... said they will continue to contest the utility's air permit application... [which] is unlikely to [be decided on] before 2009. 'The reason Sierra Club and others are staying in this fight is that carbon dioxide emissions from this site are huge,' said Ilan Levin... for the Sierra Club... [But Marston said,] 'I have less confidence in the regulators in Texas than in other states... It does not make sense for me to ignore the regulatory climate I'm in. If I get two-thirds a loaf, I'm going to take it.'"