The founder of "Utah Moms for Clean Air" who wrote the May 3 article in the Salt Lake Tribune claiming that there is "no such thing as clean coal" rattled off a lot of scary sounding statistics, all of which are exaggerated, erroneous, or misleading. BUT, on top of all that, I know from personal experience that without coal-fired electricity we’ll go dark as a country and especially in Utah. Having spent ten years working on rural electrification in developing countries around the world I can confirm that having the clean coal power that we have in Utah is infinitely preferable to the premature deaths associated with a lack of vaccines (due to no refrigeration), respiratory diseases (due to cook fires in the home), house fires (due to open flames on candles and kerosene lamps), lack of security (due to lack of street lighting), lack of literacy (due lack of adequate lighting at night in the home), lack of information (due to lack of radio or TV news), food insecurity (due to lack of power for irrigation and grain milling), unrestrained population growth (due to lack of entertainment – TV and movies), deforestation (as populations centers forage for firewood as a primary source of energy), and lack of industry and other employment opportunities (due to a lack of power machinery.) Believe it or not, all of the preceding points are documented justifications for funding affordable and sustainable rural electrification in developing nations. And here in the US we’re trying to go backwards. It makes me really sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment