[ExI] Coal Gasification and CO2 (was Re: Whatever happened to peak oil by 2020?)

[spike]

The most interesting comment is the last sentence in this article:

"Clearly, there was a bias to wind energy in their favor because they are a
renewable source of energy, and justifiably so," said Rob Manes, who runs
the Kansas office for The Nature Conservancy and who served on the
committee. "We need renewable energy in this country."

They have a Nature Conservancy guy recognize that wind power is given a pass
on bird deaths, but in the end he, and plenty of others including me,
realize that there is no free energy; it all comes with a price.  Wind power
kills birds, but we need it anyway.  Ground based solar is bad for the
desert tortoise, but we need that too.  We need green energy, we need blue
energy, black, brown, red, purple, charteuse, mauve and taupe energy, we
need it all, and yes we know, energy all comes with a price.

 

spike

 

Check this:

 

 

 

 


Obama administration gives wind farms a pass on eagle deaths, prosecutes oil
companies


Published May 14, 2013

Associated Press

*	 

A wind farm in Colorado is shown here. (AP Photo)

CONVERSE COUNTY, Wyo. -  The Obama administration has never fined or
prosecuted a wind farm for killing eagles and other protected bird species,
shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the
deaths secret, an Associated Press investigation has found.

More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year,
including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according
to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society
Bulletin.

Each death is federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used
to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power
companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines. No wind energy
company has been prosecuted, even those that repeatedly flout the law.

Wind power, a pollution-free energy intended to ease global warming, is a
cornerstone of President Barack Obama's energy plan. His administration has
championed a $1 billion-a-year tax break to the industry that has nearly
doubled the amount of wind power in his first term.

The large death toll at wind farms shows how the renewable energy rush comes
with its own environmental consequences, trade-offs the Obama administration
is willing to make in the name of cleaner energy.

"It is the rationale that we have to get off of carbon, we have to get off
of fossil fuels, that allows them to justify this," said Tom Dougherty, a
long-time environmentalist who worked for nearly 20 years for the National
Wildlife Federation in the West, until his retirement in 2008. "But at what
cost? In this case, the cost is too high."

Documents and emails obtained by The Associated Press offer glimpses of the
problem: 14 deaths at seven facilities in California, five each in New
Mexico and Oregon, one in Washington state and another in Nevada, where an
eagle was found with a hole in its neck, exposing the bone.

One of the deadliest places in the country for golden eagles is Wyoming,
where federal officials said wind farms had killed more than four dozen
golden eagles since 2009, predominantly in the southeastern part of the
state. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to disclose the figures. Getting precise figures is impossible
because many companies aren't required to disclose how many birds they kill.
And when they do, experts say, the data can be unreliable.

When companies voluntarily report deaths, the Obama administration in many
cases refuses to make the information public, saying it belongs to the
energy companies or that revealing it would expose trade secrets or
implicate ongoing enforcement investigations.

Nearly all the birds being killed are protected under federal environmental
laws, which prosecutors have used to generate tens of millions of dollars in
fines and settlements from businesses, including oil and gas companies, over
the past five years.

"What it boils down to is this: If you electrocute an eagle, that is bad,
but if you chop it to pieces, that is OK," said Tim Eicher, a former U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement agent based in Cody, Wyo.

The Fish and Wildlife Service says it is investigating 18 bird-death cases
involving wind-power facilities and seven have been referred to the Justice
Department. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to discuss the
status of those cases.

In its defense, the wind-energy industry points out that more eagles are
killed each year by cars, electrocutions and poisoning than by turbines. Dan
Ashe, the Fish and Wildlife Service's director, said in an interview Monday
with the AP said that his agency always has made clear to wind companies
that if they kill birds they would still be liable.

"We are not allowing them to do it. They do it," he said of the bird deaths.
"And we will successfully prosecute wind companies if they are in
significant noncompliance."

But by not enforcing the law so far, the administration provides little
incentive for companies to build wind farms where there are fewer birds. And
while companies already operating turbines are supposed to do all they can
to avoid killing birds, in reality there's little they can do once the
windmills are spinning.

Wind farms are clusters of turbines as tall as 30-story buildings, with
spinning rotors the size of jetliners.

Flying eagles behave like drivers texting on their cell phones -- they don't
look up. As they scan for food, they don't notice the industrial turbine
blades until it's too late.

Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in an interview with the AP before
his departure, denied any preferential treatment for wind. Interior
Department officials said that criminal prosecution, regardless of the
industry, is always a "last resort."

"There's still additional work to be done with eagles and other avian
species, but we are working on it very hard," Salazar said. "We will get to
the right balance."

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has proposed a rule that would give
wind-energy companies potentially decades of shelter from prosecution for
killing eagles. The regulation is currently under review at the White House.

The proposal, made at the urging of the wind-energy industry, would allow
companies to apply for 30-year permits to kill a set number of bald or
golden eagles. Previously, companies were only eligible for five-year
permits.

"It's basically guaranteeing a black box for 30 years, and they're saying
`trust us for oversight'. This is not the path forward," said Katie Umekubo,
a renewable energy attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who
argued in private meetings with the industry and government leaders that the
30-year permit needed an in-depth environmental review.

But the eagle rule is not the first time the administration has made
concessions for the wind-energy industry.

Last year, over objections from some of its own wildlife investigators and
biologists, the Interior Department updated its guidelines and provided more
cover for wind companies that violate the law.

Under both the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle
Protection Act, the death of a single bird without a permit is illegal.

But under the Obama administration's new guidelines, wind-energy companies
don't face additional scrutiny until they have a "significant adverse
impact" on wildlife or habitat.

That rare exception for one industry substantially weakened the government's
ability to enforce the law and ignited controversy inside the Interior
Department.

"U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not do this for the electric utility
industry or other industries," Kevin Kritz, a government wildlife biologist
in the Rocky Mountain region wrote in internal agency comments in September
2011. "Other industries will want to be judged on a similar standard."

The Obama administration, however, repeatedly overruled its own experts. In
the end, the wind-energy industry, which was part of the committee that
drafted and edited the guidelines, got almost everything it wanted.

"Clearly, there was a bias to wind energy in their favor because they are a
renewable source of energy, and justifiably so," said Rob Manes, who runs
the Kansas office for The Nature Conservancy and who served on the
committee. "We need renewable energy in this country."

 

 

 

 



Read more:
<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/14/obama-administration-gives-wind-
farms-pass-on-eagle-deaths-prosecutes-oil/?test=latestnews#ixzz2THKMwo3P>
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/14/obama-administration-gives-wind-f
arms-pass-on-eagle-deaths-prosecutes-oil/?test=latestnews#ixzz2THKMwo3P

 

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