Abandoning power plant no victory
WARREN D. GRANT
Page Two cannot comprehend the sweet smell of victory that the Sierra Club and others are tasting in closing down the proposed power plant in Early County.
Although I do not have much of the information involved in their fight, I think that promoting the plant could have had more beneficial results if approached from the right angle.
It seems that the biggest opposition was that there was no limit to the CO2 emissions that would have been placed on the plant. There are a lot of small plants around the country that have no limits of any kind, as they were grandfathered in when regulations were set.
People who fight these kinds of wars are usually the first to complain when their lights go out. I would have thought that getting the emissions included in the permit and then getting an agreement to close smaller plants that have no restrictions would have been the answer. The small plants (less than 100 MW) that are grandfathered can belch anything they want and are very inefficient. Getting some kind of compensation by getting them closed permanently and working out a deal on everything else would have been a better solution.
I guess in these times the fact that a lot of jobs were just lost in the poorest counties in the state was not considered. To me the victory stinks. More later from Page Two.