Ohio\u2019s NOT Clean Air Program<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s called the \u201cOhio Clean Air Program.\u201d If you live in Ohio and watch television, you\u2019ve seen the commercials for it. A relatively young worker, talking about his or her job in the \u201cclean energy\u201d industry, worries that 2000 workers will lose their job to petroleum industry-financed forces who are against them unless House Bill 6 is passed. It is reasonable to assume that those workers are making wind turbines, or solar panels, or electric cars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But they aren\u2019t. The Nuclear industry has rebranded itself as \u201cclean energy.\u201d They have somewhat of a point; they aren\u2019t burning hydrocarbons and putting pollutants in the air. But the \u201cclean air program\u201d in Ohio is actually a bailout for First Energy, the company that owns two nuclear reactors on Lake Erie; one at Oak Harbor near Toledo, and one at Perry northeast of Cleveland. These plants currently provide twelve percent of Ohio\u2019s electricity. The Oak Harbor plant, Davis-Besse, started construction in 1970, while the Perry plant began in 1977. The passage of the \u201cClean Air Program,\u201d aka House Bill 6, would give First Energy a $190 million per year windfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They, like all nuclear plants, are \u201cclean\u201d energy (with the exception of thermal pollution) until they aren\u2019t. Standard operation produces nuclear waste that must be stored, currently onsite first in cooling pools, and then in concrete casks. With some of the byproducts hazardously radioactive for thousands of years, the ultimate disposal may be in deep mines. Currently, those wastes remain onsite at the plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the great concern with nuclear reactors is accidental release of radiation. With both the two Ohio plants designed in the 1960\u2019s and built in the 1970\u2019s, fifty-year old technology is a serious concern. Both plants are working past their anticipated lifespan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the meantime, the \u201cOhio Clean Air Program\u201d would cut subsidies to other \u201cclean energy\u201d programs such as wind and solar. In the political wrangling over the bill, when those industries refused their support, Republicans rewrote the bill to cut out what little access they had been given. It also removes targets for clean energy production from other Ohio utilities using natural gas and coal. And the \u201cClean Air Bill\u201d would allow for coal-fired plants, the ones with the greatest amount of pollutants, to receive subsidies from their customers so they can continue to compete with cheaper natural gas plants. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is where the \u201cpetroleum\u201d industry angle comes in, allowing supporters to claim that the natural gas producers are opposed to the bill because it supports nuclear and coal. But they really aren\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether nuclear power is an acceptable \u201cenvironmental\u201d alternative to wind or solar is a subject for a different debate. As someone old enough to have lived during the Russian Chernobyl plant disaster, not an American design, and the Pennsylvania Three-Mile Island crisis, I think there are credible arguments for not using nuclear energy. But more importantly, the nuclear energy industry shouldn\u2019t be using us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First Energy is the main beneficiary of the House Bill 6, not the environment. They have branded themselves as \u201cclean energy,\u201d but the Bill cuts funding for other clean energy sources. They have picked the \u201cstraw-man\u201d opponent of \u201cbig petroleum\u201d as their opponent, trying to draw Ohio citizens to the conclusion that they are fighting petroleum-produced electricity in favor of the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They aren\u2019t. The \u201cOhio Clean Air Program\u201d is a gift to the twice-bankrupted First Energy, and will ultimately result in more pollution. It will remove standards first set in 2008 for Ohio\u2019s electricity producers, and allow subsidized coal energy production, the worst offending polluter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a Republican dominated State House in Ohio, and the number of political donations from coal, gas, and nuclear energy producers is high. It should be no surprise then, that the \u201cwinner\u201d in the \u201cOhio Clean Air Program\u201d isn\u2019t Ohio\u2019s clean air, or the citizens that breathe it. Nor are the truly \u201cclean energy\u201d industries, the wind farms, solar, and geo-thermal encouraged to keep producing in Ohio (an estimated 112,000 jobs versus the estimated 4000 combined at Davis-Besse and Perry.) They are left on their own, and we depend on the engineering of the 1960\u2019s to protect us on Lake Erie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not a great choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"