09 May Portland: significantly greener than Austin

I was in sunny Portland, Oregon last week — enjoying the spoils of touring with Amy Cook, and thinking about Austin’s coal. When it comes to coal, I’m amazed at the similarities between Portland & our own ATX…

PDX & ATX
Portland’s one and only coal plant was built in 1980. Austin’s pretty much was too. In 2009, Portland’s coal plant produced about 4.8 million tons of CO2. Austin’s pretty much did too. But, here’s a difference — Portland’s citizens and political leaders have joined together to put a date on shuttering their coal plant forever.

No Coal 2020
In January 2010, Portland General Electric (PGE) announced plans to shutter Portland’s coal plant by 2020.

Why?
Money, of course. PGE would be required to invest more than a half billion dollars in pollution controls by 2017, in order to comply with federal and state clean air regulations if they stayed with coal. (Austin Energy just invested $230M in our coal plant for the same reasons, and there’s more work to be done.*) Instead of spending all that $$ on coal, PGE proposes to invest $45 million to partially clean up its emissions and shutter the plant by 2020.

How’d they do it?
People: In September of 2009 a coalition of local environmental, rate payer, and community health groups sued PGE, arguing the power company had violated clean air regulations.

Mayor: In October, Portland Mayor Sam Adams sent a letter to PGE which criticized the plant and argued for its closure.

System: Later that month a federal judge dismissed PGE’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. PGE compromised.

Portlanders consider this normal, social behavior:

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One More Similarity
Austin and Portland both get their coal from strip mines in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. According to Portland’s Sierra Club, strip mining in Wyoming has claimed approx. 31,000 acres, to date. (That’s roughly 1/5th the size of the Austin area.)

Sources
– got a lot of info from here: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_and_coal
– notes from here: http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/or/resources/r00001_choose_file_name.aspx

Notes
* In 2007 Austin’s coal plant ranked the 8th worst polluter, out of over 2,000 industrial complexes and power plants surveyed, by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
**For more information on Austin’s coal plant, check out "Austin Has a Dirty Secret" (facebook group)

Your comments appreciated.