Raking Edwards Over the Coals

Just when you think there's a candidate in the race for president that could actually win (well, at least in Iowa) and is against dirty coal, David Roberts goes and blows a hole in your belief.

In today's Huffington Post, he tells us that John Edwards, the darling of anti-coal, isn't exactly against a ban on new dirty coal plants, as most thought:

Edwards would require that all new coal plants be compatible with sequestration -- that they be IGCC plants, which make CO2 easier to separate and bury -- but he would not require them to actually sequester their emissions.

And that means...

The key thing to note is that IGCC plants emit 80-90% as much CO2 as old-school dirty coal plants (they are somewhat more efficient). An IGCC plant without sequestration is almost as bad as a dirty coal plant, from a climate-change perspective (though it emits less NOx, SOx, and mercury).

If we build a bunch of coal plants -- whether they're IGCC or not -- we will
be committing to sequestration (if we're to have any hope of slowing
global warming). It's either that or shutting them down. So if President Edwards requires energy companies to build IGCC plants, he will have done very little to slow global warming. What he will have done is lock us into a policy path we've never rationally assessed or chosen.

Roberts has done his homework, again. And sadly he leaves us with one choice now (at least according to Roberts): Christopher Dodd for president.

"The Dodd Plan requires all new plants to capture and sequester CO2. No exceptions."

Why sad? Well, in the latest polls, Dodd's so far behind he's not even listed.

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