Daily Score Blog

Our friends at Climate Solutions have a big new report out today. It's called "Carbon-Free Prosperity 2025: How the Northwest Can Create Jobs, Enable Energy Independence, and Be a Global Clean-Energy Leader."

From the press release:

 A new study concludes that five emerging clean-tech industry sectors offer the Pacific Northwest one of the best opportunities for sustained economic vitality and job growth. It also charts the course for private and public investment and leadership to capitalize on the opportunity.  
 
The study focuses on five clean-energy sectors that provide the best opportunities for Oregon and Washington to build a leadership position in intellectual capital and job creation. They are: 

• Solar PV Manufacturing, which is projected to provide up to 22,560 new jobs in  the region by 2025;
• Wind Power Development, expected to reach up to 6,000 new jobs; 
• Green Building Design Services, creator of up to 16,834 new jobs; 
• Sustainable Bioenergy, which could account for 10,419 new jobs; and
• Smart-Grid Technologies, an industry that could create up to 7,000 new jobs.

In all, the study find these industries have the potential to create more than 63,000 new jobs in the Pacific Northwest by 2025 — a figure that matches the employment in Silicon Forest during its height as a chip manufacturing center. The growth of these clean-tech sectors would position the region as a leader in the dramatic global shift toward cleaner and more efficient forms of energy, transportation, and building systems that reduce pollution and reliance on volatile imported fossil fuels.

Read all about it here. Big fat pdf here.

Apparently, everybody loves clean coal. Barack Obama loves it and John McCain loves it. Joe Biden really loved it during his VP debate -- and Sarah Palin loved it too.

But here's the problem. Clean coal is very much like a unicorn: it doesn't exist.

And because it doesn't exist, it will not save us from climate change.

Via Kate Sheppard, Carolyn Auwaerter of 1Sky nails it:

"Clean coal" is a contradiction in terms. Conventional coal-burning power plants are the leading cause of global warming pollution in the United States. Coal lobbyists will immediately reply that they can develop coal plants in the future that will capture and sequester carbon pollution.

But this is misleading. Carbon capture and sequestration is unproven, dangerous, and exorbitantly expensive. At best, the technology will not be commercially available until 2030 and the U.S. Department of Energy calculates that installing carbon capture systems will almost double plant costs, which won't provide any relief to Americans' soaring utility bills.

Exactly.

Allow me to elaborate. There are basically two meanings of "clean coal." The first is new conventional coal plants, which can indeed be more efficient and cleaner than the awful old ones. But even the new ones are a disaster. New coal plants are "clean" in the same way that it's "healthy" to switch from Marlboro Reds to Camel Lights.

“Buy one, Daddy!” That’s what my daughter Kathryn said after her recent ride behind Daily Score reader Jay Morrison on his all-electric scooter. Jay’s Vectrix captured her fifteen-year-old heart. Just seeing it roll up in front of the house sent her scurrying to her closet for her most Italian-looking scarf, which then fluttered in the breeze as she toured the neighborhood. She rhapsodized about being picked up from soccer practice in such style. (Apparently, being picked up on my tandem is déclassé.)

Car-less I remain, but as my kids’ peak soccer season (and peak Zip-car bills) overtake me, I’ve been thinking about motor scooters. Apparently, I’m not alone: motor scooters are selling like never before in the Northwest. In fact, last year and this year to date, two-wheeler sales (including both scooters and motorcycles) are outpacing sales of passenger cars even in auto-friendly Boise and surrounding Ada County, Idaho.