My Responsibility: Keeping the Lights on, Always

Venita McCellon-Allen of American Electric Power knows affordable energy is important to her customers; watch as she explains why we need American coal to generate the reliable electricity we all depend on. See more at http://www.americaspower.org/real-people/venita

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• AEP
• American
• Electric
• Power
• coal
• clean
• technology

[mediageez]

Of course this is utility company messaging! Why else would they go to the trouble? But electricity users need to know about the benefits of renewable power along with the costs and the reliability issues. Solar and wind are not going to replace base load. Right now, coal is the affordable base load, and we ALL need to start getting on board with looking for another cleaner, and affordable technology. Why sit back and criticize the power companies? Be part of the answer or pull the plug.

[balancedenergy]

Mediageez: Actually, the name of our organization is the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Check out americaspower(dot)org for a full list of our members and an outline of our mission statement.

[uk311420]

Balanced energy is nothing but an attempt to confuse the droves of sheeple in this country that clean coal does exist. Hey smart guy sellout- has the coal industry addressed what happens if the CO2 you pump into the ground causes earthquakes or soil subsidence/explosions? Who will take that liability hit? The US taxpayer? Natural gas is our less dirty bridge to the future.

[balancedenergy]

uk311420: Almost 41 percent of the world uses coal to make electricity. It's a steady, reliable and abundant source of energy. Right now, renewables don't provide the base load power that we need to meet energy demand.

[SVBarnard]

Coal and oil need to go bye bye!!! Renewable clean energy is the future!!!! in twenty years coal will no longer be used for generating electricity. They sayt that in 5 to 7 years solar power will be cheeper than coal!!!

[atomicchitlin]

Blow up a mountain - fill in the valleys and streams - spew mercury - poison our fish... 48 states advise against eating fish due to (coal) mercury poisoning - The coal industry DOES NOT PAY the externalized costs We do -- Respiratory ailments.... coal -- Should I go on?

[wturner0018]

How can we say that Co2 emissions should be controlled when studies show Co2 is not related to climate change?

[soylentgreenb]

Natural gas is not that much worse than oil as a chemical feedstock or transportation fuel. I don't support wasting any of it on the electric grid or for space and water heating.

[DrBuzz0]

There are two methods of generating energy that are reliable, economical, scalable to large sizes and not intermittent, which do not produce large amounts of Co2 emissions in addition to ash, sulfur dioxide, heavy metal emissions etc: Nuclear and hydroelectric.

[musicman7505]

Hmmm clean coal? Thats like saying your smoking to get rid of asthma.

[lakewood78]

One of the biggest windmill farms in the world is the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Taylor, Texas. It has 421 windmills (each about 300 feet tall), covers 73 square miles, and generates 735 MW - when the wind blows, which it doesn't more often than it does. That's almost enough electricity to run a city the size of, say Tacoma, Washington, which is about 51 square miles and has about 200,000 people. That is, it would be enough when the wind blows... which it doesn't most of the time.

[jeffreysyang]

honestly, i don't understand y ppl r so persistent in using fossil fuels....

Yes, coal may be cheaper and more "reliable" but coal generates hella greenhouse gases. I am a firm believer in global warming cuz in California, the weather here is almost never perfect anymore. Most of the time it is too cold or too hot.

If u were advocating nuclear energy, i would support it cuz (next post)

[ammonman]

1. "Clean coal" doesn't exist in actuality, only in theory. There's one plant in the Dakotas that is a model of the technology, but it is currently too prohibitively expensive.

2. Baseload isn't an issue once you have a national grid (which we're building now) and once you have enough windmills in enough parts of the country (east coast, plains, offshore, etc.) It balances out.

3. We can see through your corporate propaganda. We're educated and we vote. Your days are numbered.

[mclefty1]

Nuclear power, bro. Ask a mining engineer and they'll tell you that's the only form of alternative energy that could feasibly cut into coal use in the next 20 years.

[UGLandrum]

Natural Gas is better and cheaper than coal, and is easier to capture and separate harmful toxic gases and fumes than coal. Oil has so many other uses other than fuel, we need to use it for what we really need it for.

[spasticteapot]

Until you can make all that fly ash disappear, coal power is a nightmare.

I'd rather have nuclear - at least you can *contain* the toxic byproducts.