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Beshear energy plan a big letdown
Just a few days ago Governor Steve Beshear made our hearts flutter with his opposition to the Bush a

taylorshelton
Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:39:00 +0000

Just a few days ago Governor Steve Beshear made our hearts flutter with his opposition to the Bush administration's proposed changes to the stream buffer zone for mine sites. Today, he released what was supposed to look like a visionary plan for the state's energy future - but instead he produced a giant letdown. Beshear's energy plan calls for a few things good and a few things that make you wonder whether or not some of the folks in Frankfort use their brains very often.

The good

1. Improve the energy efficiency of Kentucky's homes, buildings, industries and transportation fleet; so as to offset at least 18% of Kentucky's projected 2025 energy demand.

2. Increase Kentucky's use of renewable energy; so as to triple Kentucky's current renewable energy production (to appox. 1000 mW) by 2025

3. Sustainably grow Kentucky's production of biofuels; so as to provide 12% of the state's motor vehicle fuels demand through biofuels.

Essentially, this is the sort of stuff that should have been happening years ago - not just in Kentucky, but across the country. Sadly, we aren't alone in being behind. Governor Beshear's plan would supposedly decrease per capita carbon emissions by 50% over the next seventeen years, which is an excellent undertaking. We are, however, picking the low-hanging fruit here by not aggressively pursuing renewables to a greater degree. Kentucky has great potential for solar and biofuels, and enough potential for wind that it could be effectively deployed in some areas. Efficiency is good, and it saves us all money, but it doesn't address the real problem at hand, which is the massive burning of fossil fuels in our state. Which brings me to...

The bad, ugly and downright atrocious

4. Develop a coal-to-liquids industry in Kentucky to replace petroleum-based liquids; so as to achieve energy independence for the state by producing four billion gallons of liquid fuel a year, to be derived from fifty million tons of coal.

5. Implement a major and comprehensive effort to increase gas supplies, including coal-to-gas in Kentucky; so as to produce the equivalent of the state's natural gas requirement through natural gas production and synthetic natural gas.

6. Initiate aggressive carbon capture/sequestration projects for coal-generated electricity in Kentucky; so as to be used in 50% of the state's coal-based energy applications.

7. Examine the use of nuclear power for electricity generation in Kentucky.

Allow me to crunch some of those numbers - this plan will, if I'm reading it right, require increased coal production of 59 million tons per year in order to deploy the less-than-intelligible coal-to-liquid and coal-to-gas technologies. All of that in addition to the ridiculous tonage of coal that we already consume just in the heating and cooling of our homes and businesses means that mountaintop removal is going to skyrocket. On top of that, only 50% of Kentucky's coal plants (whether they be traditional plants or these new synthetic fuel plants that Beshear is calling for) would have any sort of carbon sequestration mechanisms - which is preposterous, considering that nobody even knows if carbon sequestration will actually work! It hasn't been done! Throw in some nuclear power and you've got air and water pollution in such great amounts so as to completely eliminate the benefits of points 1 thru 3. Maybe everybody has different priorities and nobody in state government cares that our state's three metro areas are some of the country's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases - but this plan will do absolutely nothing to stop global warming. All benefits seem to be offset by regressions in other areas, resulting in no net gains. Perhaps one of the more alarming things about the Governor's energy plan is his thorough backing of the coal industry, stated so explicitly by promising to continue...