Clean coal power plant faces new legal hurdle

May 1, 2012

An environmental group has filed an appeal to once again stop construction of a $2.88 billion integrated gasification combined-cycle power plant in Kemper County, Miss.

The Mississippi Public Service Commission voted 2-1 on April 24 to reissue a certificate for Mississippi Power, a unit of Southern Co. (NYSE: SO), to build the 582 MW Kemper County plant. The Sierra Club appealed the PSC’s ruling to the state Supreme Court on April 27, according to Reuters.

The environmental group’s filing reportedly described the commission’s latest order as “abandoning many of its previous finding from the 2010 Kemper orders, and substituting new and contradictory ones geared at supporting approval of the Kemper project,” the article said.

Sierra Club successfully appealed the earlier Kemper certificate at the Mississippi Supreme Court. The court then ruled in March that regulators did not fully explain why they had to raise a cost cap on the plant from $2.4 billion to $2.88 billion.

 

HERE

Government proposes first carbon limits on power plants

I wonder if Southern Company was the company singing the praises of the new EPA regulations.  Southern Company through Mississippi Power’s new demonstration lignite coal plant in Kemper County, Mississippi will be voluntarily participating in the proposed EPA CO2 regulations and plays an pro-active roll in helping the EPA gain the numbers needed to implement the new regulations.

 

By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON | Tue Mar 27, 2012 4:19pm EDT

(Reuters) – The Obama administration proposed on Tuesday the first rules to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new U.S. power plants, a move hotly contested by Republicans and industry in an election year.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal would effectively stop the building of most new coal-fired plants in an industry that is moving rapidly to more natural gas. But the rules will not regulate existing power plants, the source of one third of U.S. emissions, and will not apply to any plants that start construction over the next 12 months.

The watering down of the proposal led some ardent environmentalists to criticize its loopholes, but a power company that has taken steps to cut emissions praised the rules.

While the proposal does not dictate which fuels a plant can burn, it requires any new coal plants to use costly technology to capture and store the emissions underground. Any new coal-fired plants would have to halve carbon dioxide emissions to match those of gas plants.

“We’re putting in place a standard that relies on the use of clean, American made technology to tackle a challenge that we can’t leave to our kids and grandkids,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told reporters in a teleconference.

Jackson could not say whether the standards, which will go through a public comment period, would be finalized before the November 6 election. If they are not, they could be more easily overturned if Obama lost.

Republicans say a slew of EPA clean air measures will drive up power costs but have had little success in trying to stop them in Congress. Industries have turned to the courts to slow down the EPA’s program.

Some Democrats from energy-intensive states also complained. “The overreaching that EPA continues to do is going to create a tremendous burden and hardship on the families and people of America,” said Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia.

REGULATORY CERTAINTY

The EPA’s overall clean-air efforts have divided the power industry between companies that have moved toward cleaner energy, such as Exelon and NextEra, and those that generate most of their power from coal, such as Southern Co and American Electric Power.

Ralph Izzo, the chairman and CEO of PSEG, a utility that has invested in cleaner burning energy, said the rules provide a logical framework to confront the emissions. The rules provide the industry with “much needed regulatory certainty,” that is needed to help guide future multi-billion dollar investments in the U.S. power grid, he added.

Under the new standards, coal plants could add equipment to capture and bury underground for permanent storage their carbon emissions. The rules give utilities time to get those systems running, by requiring they average the emissions cuts over 30 years. Still, the coal-burning industry says that carbon capture and storage, known as CCS, is not yet commercially available.

Jackson said the EPA believes the technology will be ready soon. “Every model that we’ve seen shows that technology as it develops will become commercially available certainly within the next 10 years”.

The National Mining Association said the rules can only hurt industry. “This proposal is the latest convoy in EPA’s regulatory train wreck that is rolling across America, crushing jobs and arresting our economic recovery at every stop

The portion of U.S. electricity fired by coal has slipped from about 50 percent to 45 percent in the last few years as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and other drilling techniques have allowed access to vast new U.S. natural gas supplies.

NO PLAN FOR EXISTING PLANTS

The EPA is the main tool President Barack Obama has left to reduce greenhouse gas emissions which he pledged at an international climate meeting to cut by about 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

But the agency’s moves are also met by challenges by industry in the courts and have been under withering criticism from Republicans, who have made environmental regulations a big campaign theme ahead of the November 6 elections.

Environmentalists are part of Obama’s base and the administration has tried to walk a tightrope with its “all of the above” energy strategy that includes tougher energy regulations and support for renewable energy, while also supporting drilling for oil and gas.

Greens who were stung by Obama’s decision last September to delay a major smog rule, mostly cheered the EPA on Tuesday.

“The bottom line for our country is that cleaner power will cut harmful carbon dioxide pollution, protect our children and help secure a safe prosperous future,” said Vickie Patton, the general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund.

But others bemoaned a concession to industry that left existing plants without limits. The EPA’s Jackson said the agency has no current plans to issue rules on those plants, which backers of climate action say are essential to tackle climate change.

Obama “should stand by EPA Administrator Jackson and her team as they push corporate polluters to reduce the CO2 spewing from smokestacks today,” said Kyle Ash of Greenpeace.

An industry analyst said the proposal gives power companies a break as the rules would not regulate the existing plants subject to other EPA rules on mercury and other emissions. “We think this is very reassuring news to an industry on the cusp of investing billions to meet,” those other limits, said Christine Tezak, an energy policy analyst at R.W. Baird & Co.

“Moving forward, it will be important for EPA to address carbon emissions for existing power plants as well,” said Kevin Kennedy, the U.S. climate director at the research group World Resources Institute. “Existing plants represent a significant opportunity to improve efficiency and reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.”

 

Original post Here

Our Victory Against the Mississippi Power’s Kemper Coal Plant Retruns to PSC For Re-Evaluation

It is a happy day to see that the Kemper County Demonstration Lignite Coal Plant is being reevaluated by the PSC per court reversal.  It will be interesting to see how Leonard Bentz and Lynne Posey explain the public value in carbon dioxide capturing, transport, and storage to the Mississippi ratepayer.

In the wake of the latest exposure of the United Nations fraudulent global warming science, the Sustainable Development plans is no doubt  at risk as well.  In order to substantiate the need to capture carbon dioxide the three Mississippi Public Service Commissioners will need to prove the science behind the Kyoto Protocols of the United Nations. Southern Company is voluntarily following the United Nation’s Kyoto Protocols to implement their Agenda 21  to reduce energy usage via excessive energy costs.  This was clearly to be an experiment of behavior modification.

We need to celebrate and get right back to work because Kemper County Coal plant is moving forward and will surely work with the Obama administration and Steven Chu to find any loop-hole to keep the money pit going on the backs of the people. I say pull the plug.

Presley Issues Statement on Kemper County Coal Plant

March 16, 2012

Today Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley issued the following statement in response to the Supreme Court’s reversal of  Mississippi Power Company’s Kemper County Coal Plant:

Today’s 9-0 decision by the Mississippi Supreme Court reversing the $2.8 billion Kemper County Coal Plant is a major victory for each and every customer of Mississippi Power Company and deals a serious blow to the company’s corporate socialism.

In this case, Mississippi Power Company gave new meaning to the phrase “We got the gold mine, they got the shaft”.

I’ve argued consistently that customers of Mississippi Power Company have been mistreated by the company hiding rate impacts in this case and by putting their shareholders above their customers.

This plant is untried technology. The shareholders have no risks while the customers have all the risks along with a 45% rate hike to boot. The company also wanted to raise rates before the plant produced any electricity. I believe in “pay as you go”, I just don’t believe you should pay BEFORE you go.

I personally wrote multi-page dissents in this case and am pleased today to see that those arguments were not in vain.

This $2.8 billion case comes back now to the commission for further review.

Mississippi Kemper coal Power PSCs Failed to Satisfy State Law Now Will Face More Exposure

The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s ruling that approved construction of Southern Co’s USD 2.8 billion coal gasification project in Kemper County, Mississippi.

In a 9-0 voter, the state supreme court said the Mississippi Public Service Commission’s May 2010 approval of the project failed to satisfy state law and sent the case back to the PSC.

Source – Reuters

(www.steelguru.com)

Mississippi Public Service Commissioners About to Be Exposed For Corruption On Kemper Power Plant

This is an example of corruption being, “above the law.”  The Mississippi Public Service Commissioners will not be able to provide proof that this plant is of public convenience and necessity because 1. It is experimental and is using unproven technology on a commercial scale. 2. Carbon capturing provides no benefit to the public and the ratepayers should not be required to pay for it, ever.

Would love to see them try to prove either one of these 2 issues.  It is illegal to gamble ratepayers’ money for a risky scam of carbon capture that fails to provide a public benefit nor is it the most cost effective.

 

The Mississippi Power will keep building Kemper County

Posted: Mar 16, 2012 3:12 PM CDT Updated: Mar 16, 2012 3:12 PM CDT

By Brad Kessie, News Director – bio | email

BILOXI, MS (WLOX) –

Mississippi Power will keep building its new Kemper County Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle facility, despite a ruling by the Mississippi Supreme Court to send the certification process back to the Public Service Commission.

“We are confident there is substantial evidence in the record to support the Commission’s approval of the Certificate,” said Jeff Shepard, company spokesman.

Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling said the PSC didn’t provide details as to how it reached the decision it did.  That decision approved the certificate of public convenience and necessity Mississippi Power needed to build its Kemper County facility.

The Sierra Club appealed the PSC ruling to the Supreme Court, hoping to derail the $2.7 billion power plant, now under construction in Kemper County’s Liberty community. The environmental group argued the PSC broke the law by failing to lay out its reasoning clearly when it eased the financial terms under which Mississippi Power Co. could build what it calls Plant Ratcliffe.

Mississippi Power officials expect the PSC to rule on its behalf again.  “It is our hope and expectation that the Commission will address this expeditiously. We intend to continue construction of this facility to provide our customers with a sound energy future and unlock the facility’s substantial customer benefits,” Shepard said.

Copyright 2012 WLOX. All rights reserved.

Thomas Fanning, the United Nations Promoter, Now on FED Reserve Bank Board

Thomas Fanning known for teaming up with population control whack-job Ted Turner to waste tax dollars in another solar scam  is now on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.  The corrupt continue to be promoted up in power as they comply with the United Nations Plans for Sustainable Development and the Kyoto Protocols.  Thomas Fanning CEO of Southern Company the parent company of Mississippi Power is involved in their own scams.

Southern Co. (SO) Chief Executive Thomas Fanning has been appointed to the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, the company said Monday.

Fanning will serve the remainder of a term that began Jan. 1, 2010, and runs through Dec. 31 of this year.

Fanning is a Class C director, appointed by the Fed’s board of governors in Washington to represent commerce, industry, agriculture, labor or consumers.

Southern Co. received federal approval earlier this month to build the first new U.S. nuclear power plant in decades.

The company plans to build two new reactors at the Vogtle site in Georgia near the South Carolina border and is waiting for the Department of Energy to close on an $8.3 billion loan guarantee after the company received a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this month.

Southern’s Georgia utility has estimated the project will cost more than $6 billion, to be split among the project’s owners. Southern, which will own 46% of the new reactors, expects to pay $2.2 billion.

Oglethorpe Power, MEAG Power, and Dalton Utilities will own the rest of the project.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu said earlier this month that he expected Southern to obtain the loan guarantee after the company got its construction and operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/2012/02/27/southern-company-ceo-fanning-appointed-to-atlanta-fed-board/#ixzz1ne195cBx

New Smart Electric Meters Collect Data On Devices in Your Home

Experts: Smart grid poses privacy risks

Technologists already are worried about the security implications of linking nearly all elements of the U.S. power grid to the public Internet. Now, privacy experts are warning that the so-called “smart grid” efforts could usher in a new class of concerns, as utilities begin collecting more granular data about consumers’ daily power consumption.

“The modernization of the grid will increase the level of personal information detail available as well as the instances of collection, use and disclosure of personal information,” warns a report (PDF) jointly released Tuesday by the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF), a think tank made up of chief privacy officers, advocates and academics.

Smart grid technology — including new “smart meters” being attached to businesses and homes — is designed in part to provide consumers with real-time feedback on power consumption patterns and levels. But as these systems begin to come online, it remains unclear how utilities and partner companies will mine, share and use that new wealth of information, experts warn.

“Instead of measuring energy use at the end of each billing period, smart meters will provide this information at much shorter intervals,” the report notes. “Even if electricity use is not recorded minute by minute, or at the appliance level, information may be gleaned from ongoing monitoring of electricity consumption such as the approximate number of occupants, when they are present, as well as when they are awake or asleep. For many, this will resonate as a ‘sanctity of the home’ issue, where such intimate details of daily life should not be accessible.”

According to the study, examples of information that utilities and partner companies might be able to glean from more granular power consumption data include whether and how often exercise equipment is used; whether a house has an alarm system and how often it is activated; when occupants usually shower, and how often they wash their clothes.

Other privacy risks could result from the combination of information from two separate users of the smart grid: For example, roaming smart grid devices, such as electric vehicles recharging at a friend’s or acquaintance’s house, could create or reveal additional personal information.

At a recent smart grid conference in Madrid, FPF co-chair Jules Polonetsky showed how researchers have already mapped unique load patterns of different equipment, showing that for instance washing machines pull power in different ways than other devices (graphic below courtesy FPF).

In an interview with Security Fix, Polonestsky said some utilities have adopted the stance that existing regulations already prevent them from sharing customer data without prior authorization. But he noted that as power companies transition to the smart grid, those utilities are going to be collecting — and potentially retaining — orders of magnitude more data on their customers than ever before.

“Relatively speaking, [utilities] aren’t big marketing companies with big back end databases ready to handle the tidal wave of data that’s coming,” he said. “But we’re a little worried that without some serious planning now, there’s going to be quite a challenge in a couple of years when people start realizing that maybe should think about developing some solid data retention policies that address what’s going to be done with all of this data.”

Indeed, the report found that “comprehensive and consistent definitions of personally identifiable information do not generally exist in the utility industry. Privacy concerns arise when there is a possibility of discovering personal information, such as the personal habits, behaviors and lifestyles of individuals inside dwellings, and to use this information for secondary purposes, other than for the provision of electricity.”

Ontario is on track to have a smart meter installed at every home and business by the end of 2010. More than 8 million smart meters are used in the United States today, and more than 50 million more could be installed in at least two dozen states over the next five years, according to the Edison Foundation’s Institute for Electric Efficiency.

The report echoes some of the same concerns raised in a recent report (PDF) drafted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which warned that “distributed energy resources and smart meters will reveal information about residential consumers and activities within the house,” A NIST panel tasked with examining the cyber security aspects of the smart grid found “a lack of formal privacy policies, standards or procedures about information gathered and collected by entities involved in the smart grid,” and that comprehensive and consistent definitions of personally identifiable information do not generally exist in the utility industry.

Related articles

• New CRS Report on Smart Meter Data: Privacy and Cybersecurity (geodatapolicy.wordpress.com)
• Your Movements will be Monitored via SMART GRID and SMART METERS (mississippicoal.wordpress.com)

New Electric Smart Meters in Mississippi Can Be Removed or Blocked

Use the letter below to forbid smart meter installation (or modify the letter to demand the meter be removed).

From:
Energy Customer’s Name
Street Address
City State Zip

To:
Energy Provider
Street Address
City State Zip

Date of letter

NOTICE OF NO CONSENT TO TRESPASS AND SURVEILLANCE, NOTICE OF LIABILITY

Dear (Energy Provider) and all agents, officers, employees, contractors and interested parties,

If you intend to install a “Smart Meter” or any activity monitoring device at the above address, you and all other parties are hereby denied consent for installation and use of all such devices on the above property. Installation and use of any activity monitoring device is hereby refused and prohibited. Informed consent is legally required for installation of any surveillance device and any device that will collect and transmit private and personal data to undisclosed and unauthorized parties for undisclosed and unauthorized purposes. Authorization for sharing of personal and private information may only be given by the originator and subject of that information. That authorization is hereby denied and refused with regard to the above property and all its occupants. “Smart Meters” and digital meters violate the law and cause endangerment to residents by the following factors:
1. They individually identify electrical devices inside the home and record when they are operated causing invasion of privacy.
2. They monitor household activity and occupancy in violation of rights and domestic security.
3. They transmit wireless signals which may be intercepted by unauthorized and unknown parties. Those signals can be used to monitor behavior and occupancy and they can be used by criminals to aid criminal activity against the occupants.
4. Data about occupant’s daily habits and activities are collected, recorded and stored in permanent databases which are accessed by parties not authorized or invited to know and share that private data by those who’s activities were recorded.
5. Those with access to the smart meter databases can review a permanent history of household activities complete with calendar and time-of-day metrics to gain a highly invasive and detailed view of the lives of the occupants.
6. Those databases may be shared with, or fall into the hands of criminals, blackmailers, corrupt law enforcement, private hackers of wireless transmissions, power company employees, and other unidentified parties who may act against the interests of the occupants under metered surveillance.
7. “Smart Meters” are, by definition, surveillance devices which violate Federal and State wiretapping laws by recording and storing databases of private and personal activities and behaviors without the consent or knowledge of those people who are monitored.
8. It is possible for example, with analysis of certain “Smart Meter” data, for unauthorized and distant parties to determine medical conditions, sexual activities, physical locations of persons within the home, vacancy patterns and personal information and habits of the occupants.
9. Your company has not adequately disclosed the particular recording and transmission capabilities of the smart meter, or the extent of the data that will be recorded, stored and shared, or the purposes to which the data will and will not be put.
10. Electromagnetic and Radio Frequency energy contamination from smart meters exceeds allowable safe and healthful limits for domestic environments as determined by the EPA and other scientific programs.

I forbid, refuse and deny consent of any installation and use of any monitoring, eavesdropping, and surveillance devices on my property, my place of residence and my place of occupancy. That applies to and includes “Smart Meters” and activity monitoring devices of any and all kinds. Any attempt to install any such device directed at me, other occupants, my property or residence will constitute trespass, stalking, wiretapping and unlawful surveillance and endangerment of health and safety, all prohibited and punishable by law through criminal and civil complaints. All persons, government agencies and private organizations responsible for installing or operating monitoring devices directed at or recording my activities, which I have not specifically authorized in writing, will be fully liable for a fee of $100,000.00 for any violations, intrusions, harm or negative consequences caused or made possible by those devices whether those negative consequences are provided by “law” or not.

This is legal notice. After this delivery the liabilities listed above may not be denied or avoided by parties named and implied in this notice. Civil Servant immunities and protections do not apply to the installation of smart meters due to the criminal violations they represent.

Notice to principal is notice to agent and notice to agent is notice to principal. All rights reserved.

Signature

Smart Meter (Photo credit: Duke Energy)

 

Related articles

• Your Movements will be Monitored via SMART GRID and SMART METERS (mississippicoal.wordpress.com)
• Smart meters: Can they save you money on your gas and electricity bills? (confused.com)
• Smart Meters: ‘We must separate skepticism, conspiracy’ (junkscience.com)
• Southern Company Hides Electric Meter Dangers – Fires the whistle Blower and Hopes not to get Burned (mississippicoal.wordpress.com)
• Physician group questions smart meters (junkscience.com)

United Nations Environmental Program Bureaucrat Lays Out Green Economy Agenda

This is not our original thought or idea, nor is it one man’s opinion. The United Nation‘s Sustainable Development plans also named Agenda 21 by the U.N.,  is based on false science and will cost us everything especially our freedom.  PLEASE begin to learn for yourself.  Until you have determined your own opinion and done your own research you will not understand what we as Americans are up against.

Southern Company with Mississippi Power united with a foreign government agency United Nations following the Kyoto Protocols that will bring hardship to American families.

agency (United Nations) to destroy the economy of this nation.

http://www.jbs.org/issues-pages/stop-agenda-21

http://www.freedomadvocates.org/

United Nations Environmental Program Bureaucrat Lays Out Green Economy Agenda

United Nations Environmental Program Bureaucrat Lays Out Green Economy Agenda

February 6,2012

Achim Steiner, the U.N. bureaucrat who heads up the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP) lays out his green economy plan — and touts government “stimulus programs” to create “green jobs.” At least 100 nations are pushing for expanded powers for the UNEP to control the world’s economies.

Sierra Club took $26 million from natural gas lobby to battle Mississippi Power’s Lignite Coal Plant

This battle has more to do with the destruction of America’s economy and energy than the environmental issues of coal. This is Sustainable Development through the United Nations  and will be the end of America IF we don’t stop it.  The first step is for us to learn more about it and see for yourself, know for yourself, then decide what action you can do.

Start here.   http://www.freedomadvocates.org/

Sierra Club took $26 million from natural gas lobby to battle coal industry

12:45 AM 02/04/2012

A Time magazine blogger reported Thursday that the Sierra Club, America’s oldest and most august environmental organization, accepted millions of dollars in donations from one of the nation’s biggest natural gas-drilling companies for a program lambasting coal-fired power plants as environmental evildoers.

The total take for John Muir’s conservation group? A whopping $26 million over four years from Chesapeake Energy and its subsidiaries, mostly through Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon.

The news rocked the environmental movement, sent the Sierra Club headlong into explanation mode, angered coal companies that the organization targeted with natural gas money, and had free-market advocates shaking their heads.

The episode “raises concerns about influence industry may have had on the Sierra Club’s independence and its support of natural gas in the past,” wrote Time’s Bryan Walsh.

The Daily Caller asked Chesapeake Energy spokesman Jim Gipson whether his company’s donations were made with the expectation that the Sierra Club would attack the coal industry, and whether the company has subsidized other green groups that oppose generating electricity by burning coal. Gipson did not respond to the email.

The Sierra Club launched its “Beyond Coal” campaign in 2001 on a shoestring budget, aiming to shut down as many coal-fired power plants as it could. McClendon’s money appears to have helped that campaign during a critical time when it was firing on all cylinders, lobbying against new power plant construction and working to close existing facilities, all the while hammering clean-coal advocates and blaming “big coal” for mercury pollution, asthma and assorted unforgivable ecological sins.

In 2007, the natural gas industry was also engaged in trying to persuade the federal government that its product was a more environmentally benign alternative to coal. Having the Sierra Club as a compatriot didn’t hurt.

“Back in 2007,” Gipson told Time, “Chesapeake and the Sierra Club had a shared interest in moving our nation toward a clean energy future based on the expanded use of natural gas, especially in the power sector.”

The company made its Faustian bargain with the Sierra Club’s then-leader Carl Pope, whose replacement Michael Brune put an end to it more than a year ago and refused an additional $30 million of Chesapeake’s money. The green group likely found that bitter financial pill easy enough to swallow, however, after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg pledged $50 million from his personal philanthropy in July 2011 for the anti-coal program.

On the Sierra Club’s blog Thursday, Brune explained his organization’s past lapse of judgment, saying “[t]he idea was that we shared at least one common purpose — to move our country away from dirty coal.”

But that was then. When the Chesapeake dollars began flowing five years ago, the natural gas extraction process called hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking,” in industry-speak — had not yet become the environmental movement’s bête noire.

Now, Brune quickly added, “It’s time to stop thinking of natural gas as a ‘kinder, gentler’ energy source.”

A Charleston, West Virginia-based business newspaper reported that a Friday morning meeting of the West Virginia Coal Association ended with a new accusation of undue influence by natural gas industry insiders.

Kentucky Coal Association president Bill Bissett told the meeting that Chesapeake has also funded the American Lung Association’s Clean Air Initiative. The result, he said, is that the lung health group has attacked the coal and oil lobbies while leaving the natural gas industry alone.

Scott Rotruck, Chesapeake’s vice president of corporate development and state government relations, holds a seat on the American Lung Association’s board. The association’s Clean Air Initiative website currently features a large Chesapeake Energy logo and describes a $500,000 matching-gift pledge by the company.

Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Chris Horner told TheDC that the natural gas industry’s financial support “apparently dictated, as opposed to followed,” the Sierra Club’s advocacy work.

“Here we see the group being paid so much money I have no idea how they could possibly spend it all, to tout gas, block — according to their own boasts — more than 100 coal plants and now force closure of many existing plants. Only to no longer receive support and coincidentally find gas to be a very, very bad thing. Huh.”

Food and Water Watch, another environmental group with a strong position against natural-gas fracking, declined to comment.

Ron Arnold, the executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, told TheDC that the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign is a divide-and-conquer tactic to convince electric utilities to use natural gas instead of coal. But by 2010, he said, with the Sierra Club nearing its goal of making coal-derived power production burdensome and prohibitively expensive, “it backed out of the gas deal and suddenly refused to take any more dirty money.”

“How long will the Sierra Club’s grassroots members put up with this?” Arnold asked.

National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich was livid Friday, blasting the Sierra Club for “both its hypocrisy and its incompetence.”

“[I]ts support for gas as the bridge fuel has ironically dampened investment in renewable energy which the Club claims to support,” Popovich told the Platts energy newswire. “With friends like the Sierra Club, the renewable energy industry doesn’t need any enemies.”

At the helm of a crisis of confidence, the Sierra Club’s Brune may find himself with a shrinking pool of allies after President Obama fondly name-checked natural gas in his Jan. 24 State of the Union address.

“We have a supply of natural gas that can last America nearly 100 years,” Obama said, “and my administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.”

“Experts believe this will support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade. … The development of natural gas will create jobs and power trucks and factories that are cleaner and cheaper, proving that we don’t have to choose between our environment and our economy.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/04/sierra-club-took-26-million-from-natural-gas-lobby-to-battle-coal-industry/#ixzz1lfqTeXVX