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Billionaires Toast to Merrill Lynch's Investment in Coal-Fired Power Plants

The Billionaires for Coal had a grand old time cavorting outside Merill Lynch in downtown San Francisco yesterday. Toasting with champagne glasses, tossing out one-liners, they sneered at a group of earnest, banner-waving protesters nearby. Just a few pairs of hipster sneakers and some scruffy facial hair poked out from under the Billionaires' suits, top hats, and cocktail dresses.

"Why travel to the tropics when we can bring the tropics to us?" asked Jodie van Horn. In real life she's an activist with Rainforest Action Network, but as a Billionaire she goes by Alata Monie. "We'll convert our winter properties to summer properties, and our summer properties to scuba properties."

"It's Darwinian: Survival of the Richest," said Levana Saxon, also known as Debbie Tont, wearing a jeweled barrette and strappy stilettos.

Across the courtyard, their fellow activists were staging a protest of Merrill Lynch's financing of 11 new coal-fired power plants in Texas, a more than $10 billion project.

The Billionaires presumed to be ready for a cocktail party with executives. Unfortunately, Merrill Lynch had locked the glass doors and was routing all employees through a restaurant on the side of the building. Many of the businesspeople glanced over once as they walked past but quickly turned away.

"Seventy-eight billion tons of greenhouse gases," preached Brianna Cay Cotter.

"Huzzah!" cheered the Billionaires. "More warming, less species!"

One problem is that coal emits more carbon dioxide than any other fuel source, except peat and raw wood. And though a new technology called gasification could keep more carbon out of the air, TXU plans to stick to a cheaper, conventional method called pulverization, according to the New York Times.

The new plants will emit more greenhouse gasses than 21 states or several countries—as much carbon dioxide as the annual emissions of 14 million American cars, according to the Rainforest Action Network.

But the Billionaires just fired back witty barbs.

"Rainforest Action Network? We can have more rainforest right here in San Francisco!" said one. "My daughter could buy RAN with her allowance," said van Horn.

While RAN staged similar protests across the country, a panel of judges yesterday delayed hearings for six of the plants to the summer in order to grant opponents time to prepare their case.

As Marc Gunther of Fortune writes, "Merrill Lynch talks a good game when it comes to saving the earth," claiming in their online "Environmental Sustainability Policy," "We are committed to a policy of environmental excellence…. We hold an annual Renewable Energy Conference…. We have sought to reduce energy consumption and emissions by an average of 2% annually."

Comments

http://www.fpl.com/environment/plant/gpp_faq.shtml#3

Only Rachel Scott of FPL would think of calling a coal burning power plant like the "Glades Power Park" a park.

This is a euphemism built on a euphemism. In the modern world of calling thing what they are not factories and dark satanic mills belching fumes are called plants. Makes them sound green doesn't it.

People have figured out what capitalist appologists mean by plants so now another euphemism is needed. Industrial plants will now be called parks. After all all that CO2 is good for the electric power mills lawn isn't it? If it has a lawn we can call it a "power park" if we can call a block of greasy factories and "industrial park".

A bigger coal burning mill is planned for Polk County, maybe they will get Disney to put coal car rides in that "Park"!!

That does not even mention the 500 Kv, 500 amp power lines used to run the power around the state that would not be needed by a distributed technology like wind or solar that could generate the power locally on your roof and not destroy the climate.

Equal time for Rachel Scott: Most Frequently asked question number eight and FPLs answer:
8. Why build coal-fired generating units rather than natural gas, or solar or wind fro the seabreeze or hydro from our many rivers or ocean thermal or tidal or harness the gulf stream flow??? Why not do one of those Rachel?

Coal is an abundant fuel with significant untapped supplies throughout the U.S. and internationally. The price of coal is relatively low and historically stable compared to natural gas and oil. Additionally, natural gas supplies to Florida, which originate in the Gulf of Mexico region, are vulnerable to interruptions as recent hurricanes have shown. To address price volatility and supply reliability, FPL proposes to balance Florida’s reliance on oil and natural gas by adding state-of-the-art advanced technology coal generation to our mix of fuels used to produce electricity.

Posted by: Clifton McCarthy on 02/24/07 at 2:41 PM Respond