Renewables are overtaking coal right now, not in distant future

To The Daily Sun,

Russ Wiles claimed that renewables will take decades, if ever, to replace fossil fuels. It's happening right now. In 2013, Bloomberg Business ran, "Fossil Fuels Just Lost the Race Against Renewables", stating "The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. The shift will continue to accelerate, and by 2030 more than four times as much renewable capacity will be added." In April, the Weather Channel ran: "U.S. Renewables Projected to Surpass Coal This Month For First Time Ever, Signaling Tipping Point" (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis). In June, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reported that renewables passed coal in April. In December, Forbes ran, "Plunging Prices Mean Building New Renewable Energy Is Cheaper Than Running Existing Coal". And last November, Carbon Tracker reported in its assessment of 6685 coal plants worldwide that 42 percent were operating at a loss and by 2030, "new wind and solar will be cheaper than almost all existing coal plants".

Russ errs again with, "the case for harm from catastrophic global warming is growing weaker". Since 2011, support for climate action has risen 50 percent (Pew). Gallup's March poll found 66 percent believe climate change is human-caused and 64 percent want climate action. Wiles then absurdly claims, "an argument can be made that renewables are not more environmentally friendly anyway." Sulfate contamination of surface and groundwater from coal mining can react to create the very poisonous, corrosive, and flammable hydrogen sulfide. Coal mine drainage during and after operations has long term detrimental environmental consequences for all life. Mining pollutes local drinking water sources with toxic elements like copper, mercury, selenium, arsenic, manganese, lead, and iron. Mining reduces life expectancy due to particulates in the air, ozone, heavy metals, benzene, radionuclides, and carbon monoxide. Coal is linked to cancers, congestive heart failure, osteoporosis, degenerative diseases of the nervous systems, kidney dysfunction, chronic bronchitis, increased asthma attacks, reduced IQ, and elevated occurrences of low birth rate and preterm births.

The more than 500 mountaintop removal sites in Appalachia have impacted 1.4 million acres of land. Huge volumes of excess rock and soil are dumped into adjacent valleys and streams, destroying ecosystems and diverting the natural flow of streams. By 2010, mountaintop removal coal extraction had buried nearly 2,000 miles of Appalachian headwater streams, some of the most biologically diverse streams in the country. Surface mining impacts the health and safety of surrounding communities. Mudslides, landslides, and flash floods, polluted water, etc. Beautiful clean coal.

Fossil fuel pollution of the atmosphere is the most lethal because of the variety of particulates released. Up to 8-million people die prematurely every year; 4.2 million from outdoor pollution, 3.8 million from household exposure to smoke from dirty cookstoves and fuels, and 91 percent of the world’s population live in places where air quality exceeds the WHO guideline limits. Sulfates and nitrogen oxides emissions react with sunlight, water vapor, and other atmospheric constituents to create sulfuric and nitric acids. These return to Earth slowly as dry particles to breathe, or as acid rain which harms the environment by poisoning and altering soil composition. Acid rain also causes building materials such as limestone, marble, bricks, carbon-steel, zinc, nickel, various plating, paint, and some plastics to corrode and degrade faster. Fossil fuel air pollution has been linked to higher rates of cancer, heart disease, stroke, and respiratory diseases. In China, burning coal is linked to 670,000 premature deaths a year. In India, possibly 115,000 premature deaths wand hundreds of millions having respiratory difficulties.

James Veverka

Tilton