Environmental reporter Stratton Lawrence reports in from the beat:
NASA’s top climatologist and the director of the Goddard Institute, Dr. James Hansen, weighed in this August on state-owned power utility Santee-Cooper’s efforts to construct a new coal-fired power plant near Florence, penning a letter to CEO Lonnie Carter that called the plant “a terrible, foreseeable, waste of money.”
Carter replied in September, reiterating his position that some scientists still don’t acknowledge a human affect on climate change, and he welcomed the chance to discuss the issue with Hansen. Last week, Hansen traveled to South Carolina to meet with Carter and the utility’s board, also participating in press conferences and a public event at the College of Charleston.
“This is an issue of intergenerational equity and justice,” Hansen says. “We are leaving a certain problem for our children and grandchildren which will be enormous and not of their doing. We risk passing on to them a planet that is unrecognizable from the one we enjoy now.”
In addition to climate effects, Hansen points out that coal releases more radioactive material into the air than nuclear generation, expressed concerns about additional mercury deposition, and decried Santee-Cooper’s current reliance on coal for 78 percent of their power. He condemns scientists hired by companies like Exxon-Mobil and Peabody Coal to downplay climate concerns, and said that coal is far more important to reduce the consumption of than oil in the coming decade.
“There’s enough CO2 in oil to take us well into the danger zone, and it’s practically impossible to prevent the use of our remaining oil,” he said, adding that the possibility of carbon emission taxes will make coal-dependent power bills skyrocket. “So we’re going to have to phase out (coal) emissions. It just doesn’t make sense to build a coal plant at this time.” —Stratton Lawrence
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