U.S. Moving Toward Ban on New Coal-Fired Power Plants

So now that we're opposed to coal - regardless of the technological evolution - what will happen to all the fly-ash? Fly-ash (as my previous post reviewed) is beginning to be used more and more in civic project instead of ending in landfills. Fly-ash makes for lighter, stronger, and more porous (benefiting drainage) pavement - whether sidewalk or street.

It feels like for every uprising and retaliation we have toward a polluting industry, we [humanity] shoot ourselves in the foot by our failures to act early enough but then by acting too late and dealing with a more modern concern with decade-old spectacles.

clipped from www.earthpolicy.org In a report compiled in early 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy listed 151 coal-fired power plants in the planning stages and talked about a resurgence in coal-fired electricity. But during 2007, 59 proposed U.S. coal-fired power plants were either refused licenses by state governments or quietly abandoned. In addition to the 59 plants that were dropped, close to 50 more coal plants are being contested in the courts, and the remaining plants will likely be challenged as they reach the permitting stage. What began as a few local ripples of resistance to coal-fired power is quickly evolving into a national tidal wave of grassroots opposition from environmental, health, farm, and community organizations and a fast-growing number of state governments. The public at large is turning against coal. In a September 2007 national poll by the Opinion Research Corporation about which electricity source people would prefer, only 3 percent chose coal.