Don’t listen to snake oil salesmen touting ‘clean coal’

Ten million gallons of water a day. What’s that worth in Poland Spring dollars? You know, if Poland Spring sold an extra 10 million gallons of water every day, how much money would that be? Let’s figure this out.

A New York City hot dog vendor sold me a bottle of Poland Spring water for $1.50 the last time I was there. It wasn’t that long ago, so let’s figure the price hasn’t changed. The bottle contained 16 oz. of fresh, clean Maine water and you get eight of those from every gallon, right?

So eight times a buck fifty is 12 dollars. Now 12 times 10 million, errr, um, wait let me get my shoes off … $120 million dollars – a day!

New question. How numb do you have to be to consider taking that kind of a valuable commodity and using it for a coal plant in Wiscasset?

For just a minute let’s set aside all the rest of the argument against building new coal power plants that I’m bound to make before this column ends and ponder that one question.

It doesn’t take long to realize that a “clean coal” power plant in the picturesque coastal community of Wiscasset, Maine, that would use 10 million gallons of water a day makes no economic sense.

Now, on to the snake oil sellers who want us to buy “clean coal” as a solution to our energy problems. Because let’s face it, even if they end up using salt water it doesn’t make this a good idea. We can’t just forget about our planet’s greenhouse gas issue.

And while Maine lobstermen already made some pretty great points at the protest they had on Monday, I’d like to throw in my two cents.

When folks use the term clean coal what they mean is cleaner coal. According to my tree-hugging hippie freak scientist buddies (and I know that you know that I know many) we are talking about raising the energy output of dirty coal from about 37 percent to about 43 percent. My scientist buddies threw in a bunch of mumbo jumbo about carbon capture, sulfur-absorbing chemicals to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, and electrostatic precipitators to reduce particulate emissions. Oh, and they spoke of heavy metal residues and landfill requirements.

But really you don’t need that glazed-over look: I’ll translate.

As much as 30 percent of a piece of coal is waste material. A bunch of the energy created gets used to dispose of this junk. That non-energy-producing part contains things that are bad for you and other living creatures – even things you like to eat, like tuna. Yep, mercury, cadmium and arsenic are a few of the leftover components. So before we even talk about the corresponding air emissions, we know up front that we’ll be stuck with toxic solids that we’ll have to put somewhere.

And how do they “clean” coal and increase energy output that whopping 6 percent? You guessed it – they wash it (with water worth $12 a gallon, mind you!) This creates a gunk called slurry. Slurry is generally stored outside. In fact, I couldn’t find reference to any place that didn’t store it outside. And if a big pile of gunk in picturesque Wiscasset doesn’t creep you out, wait until it rains. The rain washes through the slurry and runs off into other places that rain goes. How’s that well of yours doing? Did you ever get all the MTBE out of it? You see my point.

Anyway, then there’s the power thing. We already know that so much energy is wasted in this country that the most effective way to provide more energy where we need it is to conserve it where we waste it.

And unless you’re a really big Al Gore fan and you like him getting Nobel Prizes and Academy Awards for telling you stuff that you should already know: Try turning off the lights or turning down the thermostat.

Want to save energy and help Maine’s economy? Buy locally; don’t buy poison toys from China. Go to a Maine craft fair. You’ll impact the power grid far more favorably than building Maine’s first “clean coal” power plant would, and you won’t waste our water.

Pat LaMarche of Yarmouth is the author of “Left Out In America: The State of Homelessness in the United States.” She can be contacted at PatLaMarche@hotmail.com.