The Sierra Club has started a new campaign for responsible energy policy called Power2Change . This program is an action campaign where you may sign up to promote better energy policies. Wisconsin is one of the key states in the campaign. Please go take a look and consider signing up. There will be multiple activities revolving around this campaign, culminating in events around the country on Earth Day. More on this later.

Another ruling against the Bush Administration's failed environmental policy - this is a novel argument - the EPA should be protecting the environment, rather than building crazy loopholes to protect the energy industry. 

A federal appeals court yesterday threw out the Environmental Protection Agency's
approach to limiting mercury emitted from power-plant smokestacks,
saying the agency ignored laws and twisted logic when it imposed new
standards that were favorable to plant owners.

The ruling, issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the D.C. Circuit, was another judicial rejection of the Bush
administration's pollution policies. It comes less than a year after
the U.S. Supreme Court rebuked the administration and the EPA for refusing to regulate greenhouse gases.

As more coal-fired power plants implement "clean coal" technologies to improve air quality, there is a growing concern over the new problems being caused in ash disposal. The injection of chemicals into the output of coal-burning may clean the air coming from the plants, but makes it impossible to use the ash in some of the traditional ways to keep it from leaching quickly into the environment.

For example, coal ash could previously be used to make concrete, but the new "clean coal" ash cannot be used for this purpose as the added chemicals make the resulting concrete unreliable in use.

The answer? Putting the coal into landfills rather than using it for other purposes. Although the EPA does not consider coal ash to be hazardous or toxic, it is in fact riddled with small amounts of mercury and heavy metals. Disposing of this ash in landfills replaces some of the problems of air quality with serious potential water quality issues.

Remember back when Congress decided we needed to muck about with Daylight Savings Time to "save energy"? A lot of us were skeptical about the concept at the time (including the Department of Energy) and couldn't understand how playing even more havoc with nature would help save energy any more than, say, Indiana declaring Pi to be equal to 3 made math any simpler. In both cases, we're dealing with a bunch of legislators trying to look like they're doing something useful, rather than actually attending to the matter at hand, which is more complex than "passing a law to make it look like we're doing something". I know that science is kind of out of favor in Washington these days, and treated kind of like a quaint old cult belief, but --

Well, the early results are in , and as predicted, it hasn't been saving any energy. Turns out that time that you schwerp out of one end of the day just comes back to bite you at the other end. Who woulda thunk it? Daylight really is a finite commodity, and passing laws doesn't make the days longer.

So I have a suggestion. Rather than causing havoc with the country (trust me, I had to make all these silly web sites and computers work after the time change, and I still can't convince my VCR we're in the Midwest), why doesn't congress actually pass some laws that make sense for energy conservation. Heck, a few million more efficient light bulbs and cars might have done a whole lot more good than changing the time I get up in the morning.

Happy Anniversary, Three Mile Island - - Will There Be More?

Today, March 28, is the anniversary of the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island.

Twenty-eight years later, the nuclear industry is no closer to solving the problem of what to do with deadly nuclear waste than it was in 1979 - - but that hasn't stopped Dick Cheney's Energy 'Policy' group and others from pushing nukes back into the debate.

Clean Wisconsin (Founded as Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade)
Your environmental voice since 1970.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 20, 2006
Contact: Katie Nekola, Clean Wisconsin, Ofc: (608) 251-7020, ext. 14

As expected, Xcel Energy announced Wednesday that they have decided not to build a power plant at the Tyrone location north of Durand, but instead will pursue other plans:

Xcel on Wednesday said it filed an application with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for a combined Manitoba Hydro and wind-power package to fill a 375-megawatt shortfall by 2015.

The plan calls for purchasing power from Manitoba Hydro in 2015 and purchasing or building 380 megawatts of wind generation by 2015 or earlier.

This decision has been expected for months, and is a big relief to CVSEA and to other groups that have been fighting against this location for a huge coal-powered generating plant. This location, which had been purchased by Xcel's predecessor as a site for a nuclear power plant that was rejected after immense opposition, is a spectacular wildlife area that would not have absorbed the building of a power plant in any sustainable way.

Dodged another bullet.

November 15th, 6PM: "Out of Balance"
November 16th, 6PM: "Out of Balance"
Running Time Not applicable as of yet."Shows the influence that the
largest company in the world has on governments, the media and citizens
and what can be done about global warming. While the Earth's climate is
pushed further out of balance by increasing use of fossil fuels,

Location(s)

November 15th, 6PM: "Out of Balance"
November 16th, 6PM: "Out of Balance"
Running Time Not applicable as of yet."Shows the influence that the
largest company in the world has on governments, the media and citizens
and what can be done about global warming. While the Earth's climate is
pushed further out of balance by increasing use of fossil fuels,

Location(s)

November 8th, 6PM: "Homeland"
November 9th, 6PM: "Homeland"
Running Time 90 Minutes "Homeland: Four Portraits of Native Action", is
a ninety-minute documentary, that takes a hard look at the stories of
five remarkable Native American activists in four communities who are
fighting the "new Indian Wars"

Location(s)