Below are a few letters received at EnergyBiz Insider on topics that appeared in the past few weeks. They capture the essence of how many readers say they feel.
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The Nature of Mercury - March 24, 2010
I enjoyed reading your article on mercury reduction as it is something that PSEG Power takes very seriously. Our coal plants have been using Activated Carbon Injection technologies for mercury reduction for several years and we are currently in the final construction phase of significant back end technology designed to reduce all forms of pollutants from our two New Jersey coal plants. It would be nice to see additional articles detailing the positive steps that PSEG Power and others in the industry are doing to reduce emissions, while meeting the electricity demands of our country.
The push for renewable energies is good, but we need to acknowledge our country's reliance on coal and the positive steps being taken by those companies involved in supplying and using this abundant fuel.
Tom Copus
Senior Operations Supervisor
Mercer Generating Station
EPA's own studies show that mercury pollution in fish comes from paper mill chlorine production plants discharge of mercury into rivers polluting large regions of the river bottoms in America, which is ingested by fish and which will take a millennium to dissipate, I suspect. Fish meat pollution by mercury is not caused by airborne mercury emissions per EPA studies.
Again, on these pages we are not dealing scientifically with a pollutant, but instead are engaging in a "Group Think" knee-jerk unscientific approach, and ignoring the real science and hard data on the subject, just like with CO2. Because the airborne mercury tonnage seems or is large does not mean it is an environment problem. How many tons of heavy metals are airborne from the heavy unfiltered smoke due to brush fires that vast numbers of humans and animals breathe every year? Because it's untreated heavy smoke, I suspect it's much more hazardous than what coal plants emit.
The major sources of mercury toxicity: the consumption of fish (which is from closed chlorine plants along our rivers), amalgam dental fillings, and vaccinations. Of the environmental abuses, fish, as I said, is the only significant one industrial based, and per EPA studies it is caused by the chlorine plant point source discharges that seeded river bottoms over broad areas, and that bottom feeding fish ingest.
Lloyd Weaver
The process of achieving emissions control in regulated power plants must begin with a commercial scale demonstration of the efficacy of the control technology. This is then followed by an EPA regulation which sets a reduction requirement. Once utilities are required to install control equipment on their plants to achieve a specific reduction in pollutant emissions, the state regulatory commissions will authorize the necessary investments and incremental operating costs for the control equipment.
It is unreasonable to expect regulated utilities to get out ahead of their regulators. The utilities will not make the investment in control equipment unless they are assured that the investment will be approved for inclusion in the rate base by the state commission.
Edward A. Reid, Jr.
President
Fire to Ice, Inc.
Energizing America - March 26, 2010
CEOs will say what they think the public wants to hear to keep their company looking good and profitable.
You need look no further than Spain to see the decline brought on by chasing the "green dragon". As for America in decline, have you such a short memory? You speak of Jimmy Carter without bringing up Ronald Reagan. But even Reagan couldn't fight some stupidity. The Departments of Energy and Education are still in place. They are monetary vampires, sucking out the life blood of a capitalistic society and giving nothing in return. You have dozens of economic failures in government created and run programs, from Social Security, Fanny, Freddy, Amtrak and even the postal service and now we have health care as icing on the cake.
Carbon sequestration and the green energy generators will drive another nail in the coffin of the republic. It is more technology being driven by bad science in the name of "climate change", while in fact it only pads people like Al Gore's pockets.
Sorry, but as a country we are on the decline until we follow Thomas Jefferson's advice. I hope that we start in 2010 and throw the bums out followed by Obama in 2012. As a retired military person, I remember that I swore an oath to protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The peaceful way to do that is with a vote.
Thomas G. Peschke
How come these articles never mention energy conservation that will result in negative electricity load growth? They keep on mentioning carbon sequestration -- a pipe dream.
Until we get truth we can not make progress on this issue or any other issue. We need leaders who will not sugarcoat the answers and show us a path to sustainability. George Washington never told his soldiers that fighting the British would be easy. He knew he would loss battle after battle but win the war with the correct strategy. We need leaders that will put their self-interest or industry interest aside and tell use the truth. We can only reduce energy cost and environmental impact by using less energy through conservation.
Scott Greenbaum
Washington may be intransigent, but expecting utility company executives to step up is a stretch. The reason -- "legal and regulatory certainties must be established before they take risks."
"Utility leaders complain that while the United States has spearheaded much of the (renewable energy) innovation, many of the products and services that have earned a global following now emanate from overseas." They may complain, but talk is cheap. What has the utility industry done to foster commercial deployment of innovative renewable energy technologies that were developed in the U.S.? It takes money, not talk, to develop and commercialize new technology.
Larry Miles
Investing for the Future - March 29, 2010
I found your article to be thoughtful and accurate.
In my consulting practice, I deal with owners/developers and investors on a daily basis and would like to add that the permitting process is long and tedious. Local and national agencies need to figure out how to fast track projects that demonstrates their validity so as not to bog down governmental resources. For example, most investment quality projects require at least a 15 percent IRR to be worthy of financing risks and the technology should demonstrate its commercial ability to perform.
I just came from Germany where I did technical due diligence on several bio-energy projects, that can provide electricity and natural gas quality biogas from farm wastes that also provides environmentally safe fertilizer as a byproduct -- a remarkable and proven process. The government provides a 20-year guarantee at price levels that promote investment. In the U.S., our officials cannot seem to think outside the box when it comes to energy production in an environmentally safe way that is cost effective to build, provides the investors a reason to fund, and solves some of the environmental issues that we are trying to fix.
It is beyond reasonableness that we do not learn from what the rest of the world has demonstrated. I have 40 years of experience in this arena and it seems like I am watching a train wreck in slow motion.
Steve Griller
CEO
Enertrix LLC
Greening the Grid - March 31, 2010
Sorry but I can't "buy into" the statement that this work will "deliver cleaner and cheaper electricity to American homes and businesses". First of all what is "clean" electricity? "Clean generated" electricity will not stand on its own without government subsidies. We are moving away from what is justified on a cost basis to politically "generated" energy systems. There is no way that the result of all of this will provide "cheaper" electricity.
Bruce Mitchell
Respond to the editor.
