Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
US killing as many as 2.700 Canadians anually? May hospitalize 12,000 per year with ill-winds.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
While Ontario plans to close the 4 remaining coal-fuelled plants by 2014 the US is continuing to relax its emission standards for coal fuelled plants.
Coal emissions are a hot topic in the US. Some are even suggesting a form of coal powered autos. The relaxed emissions for coal pollution in the US may have quite a lot to do with that. Even China is making a move to eliminate coal to liquid synthetic petroleum. The process for turning coal to synthetic liquid fuel consumes nearly as much non-renewable energy as it returns. Liquid coal fuel is a fools folly.
The US clearly plans to exploit its cheap and abundant coal supply. The cost to convert is estimated at $25.00 a barrel. Compare that with the estimated $100.00 a barrel it could garner and coal to fuel looks like an appetizing investment. Meanwhile Canadians will be dying prematurely and those that don’t die will be suffering sever health consequences.
With more than 600 coal plants in the US Midwest many with no pollution scrubbers the winds that blow into Ontario contain as much as 90% of the pollution in Windsor and Sarnia. The cost of this pollution from the US is growing exponentially. The cost to human lives can’t be calculated.
Huge volumes of sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide, ozone and mercury flowing over the border from the US have spurred the government to lodge yet another formal complaint southward to the US EPA.
More trouble brewing on the winds would be the prospect of using CTL (coal to liquid) fuel in jets traveling over Canada. The US Air Force has been working on synthetic CTL mixtures to feed its need for less expensive fuel plans to increase its use of CTL mixed fuels to 100 million gallons in the next 2 years. This is a daunting number when one considers that the US military accounts for only 1.7% of the US fuel consumption.
Commercial airlines always trying to find ways to cut their expenses will be on board the CTL pipeline.
The 2Nd attempt to pass a Bill, in as many years, as it applies to CTL federal funding and inclusion in the nearly non-existent US national ‘energy policy’ went down in flames in a vote of 39-55. The thumbs down on these proposals is fueling speculations that many coal producing States in the US will be more determined to pass their own legislation stoking the CTL fires.
It may be quite demoralizing to nearly everyone concerned, but the fight must continue to prevent the cross contamination of the Canadian environment by the America’s ill-winds.
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© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
US killing as many as 2.700 Canadians anually? May hospitalize 12,000 per year with ill-winds.
