Let's Put an End to Ted Strickland's Dirty Coal And Nuke Plants

[irishbobcat]

Let's Put an End to Ted Strickland's Dirty Coal And Nuke Plants

U.S. dependence on and overuse of dirty and dangerous energy sources has generated an unparalleled assault on the global environment and human rights in many nations. In the U.S., low income communities and communities of color bear the greatest burden of health impacts due to exposure to emissions from coal and gas-fired power plants. Native American communities have been devastated by uranium mining, and the poor of Appalachia witness helplessly as their ancient mountains are destroyed for a few years' worth of coal-fired electricity.

The regional and global peaks in supply of oil, gas, coal and uranium production are driving up costs of conventional fuels, threatening continued wars and social chaos. To avert this we must move beyond the dirty and dangerous energy sources immediately and invest in only the cleanest, most sustainable energy strategies. We can and must strengthen our conservation and energy efficiency standards. Of highest importance is to use less, then to use wisely, and to have clean production of what is used.

GREEN SOLUTIONS

CLEAN RENEWABLES

1. Support public subsidies for clean renewable energy technologies – technologies that do not create pollution in the course of generating electricity. These can include wind, solar (including solar thermal and concentrating solar), ocean power, geothermal, and small-scale hydro. Since even clean renewable energy can have negative environmental impacts, care must be taken to minimize such impacts. Clean renewable energy does not include nuclear power, any sort of combustion or process in which by-products are ultimately combusted, or hydroelectric dams that block entire rivers.

2. Federal commitment to the mass-production of cheap, non-toxic solar photovoltaic technology to enable widespread deployment of solar power. To make solar more cost-competitive, we support large-scale government purchases of solar cells for installation on government facilities.

3. We support efforts of individuals and institutions to voluntarily purchase wind and solar power products through tradable renewable energy certificates. However, there are limits to the volunteer, market-based approach to promoting clean energy. Just as we cannot expect that individual purchases of organic food will cause all food production to become organic, we cannot expect that voluntary approaches will be sufficient to fully replace current energy supplies with clean energy. We support net-metering to make decentralized energy production economically viable.

4. We support further research to identify more safe, clean renewables and safe energy storage strategies.

END THE USE OF DIRTY AND DANGEROUS ENERGY SOURCES

1. Oppose further coal, oil and gas drilling or exploration.

2. Ban the construction of hydroelectric dams.

3. Ban mountaintop removal mining.

4. Stop the development of fuels produced with polluting, energy-intensive processes or from unsustainable or toxic feedstocks, such as genetically-engineered crops, coal and waste streams contaminated with persistent toxics.

5. Support small and community-scale renewable and biofuels fuel production operations or programs that recover otherwise wasted biomass or utilize clean primary energy sources such as wind and solar.

NO NUCLEAR POWER

1. Ban any new construction of nuclear fission power plants

2. Decommission all existing U.S. nuclear power plants expeditiously

3. Phase out technologies that use or produce nuclear waste, including non-commercial nuclear reactors, reprocessing facilities, nuclear waste incinerators, food irradiators, and all commercial and military uses of depleted uranium.

4. Ban plutonium (MOX) fuel, nuclear fuel reprocessing, uranium enrichment, and the manufacturing of new plutonium pits for a new generation of nuclear weapons.

5. No public subsidies or bailouts for the nuclear power industry.

CONSERVATION AND EFFICIENCY

1. Create extensive energy conservation efforts, with a goal of reducing energy consumption by 50% by 2030. (Review amount and time goal)

2. Decentralize electric grids.

3. Authorize tax-exempt bonds to finance public ownership of utilities and to allow publicly owned utilities to finance conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy projects.

4. Enact smart energy utility regulation for generation, transmission and distribution, not deregulation.

5. Support building codes for new construction that incorporate the best available energy conservation designs. For existing homes and buildings, we support programs to aid in their weatherization and increased energy efficiency.

6. Support research into advanced fuels when the purpose of the research is to develop a fuel that in its full cycle does not create more problems than it solves.

PUBLIC CONTROL AND TRANSPARENCY

1. Support municipal, county-level, and state efforts to regain control over electricity by establishing democratic, public utility systems, to locally coordinate supply and demand and to eliminate energy trading.

2. Provide ratepayers deserve full disclosure of the specific electric generating facilities used to produce their electricity.