Next Up For The Everglades - A Planned Giant Coal-Fired Power Plant By Lake Okeechobee

[hatrack]

EDIT

Last year, plans for a similar FPL facility were unanimously rejected by the St. Lucie County Commission, largely because of pollution issues. Glades County commissioners are much more enthusiastic, anticipating 300 new jobs and a $21 million boost in property-tax revenues.

Using pulverized coal is one of the dirtiest ways to produce electricity, and a major source of the greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, that cause global warming. FPL says that Glades Power Park will be one of the nation's cleanest-burning facilities, equipped with advanced devices that will keep the pollution output substantially below state and federal limits. That's nice to hear, but it's also worth remembering that every utility in the United States makes basically the same righteous promise whenever it's seeking approval for a new plant. This is not an industry with unassailable credibility.

Glades Power Park would be built on 5,000 acres of what is now sugar-cane fields near Moore Haven. There would be two 980-megawatt units, the first of which would go online in 2012. FPL says the plant would ultimately supply electricity to about 650,000 homes throughout South Florida.

Critics acknowledge that Glades Power Park would run cleaner than many existing plants, but they also point out that - according to FPL's own estimates - the stacks would belch as much as 14 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air every year. No less disturbing is the projected mercury output of 180 pounds annually, or about seven times as much as what is produced by a larger power plant in Martin County.

EDIT

http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070221/OPINION/202210304/1030/OPINION

[sinkingfeeling]

1. My parents lived for years on Lake Okeechobee.

[pscot]

2. Sounds like a spectaculary bad idea

They're living in an area vulnerable to rising sea levels, and they are doing their very best to hasten the process along. It's the definition of stupid.

[Porcupine]

3. Ironic siting of the plant.

Lets put the source of the destruction of Florida's environment right on top of it's most treasured environmental jewel.

Thats Flori-DUH to the rest of us.

[Dudley_DUright]

4. Soon to be Okeechobee bay

:-(

[NNadir]

5. It's very surprising that they haven't been swept into the renewable revolution.

I mean why would anyone build a coal plant?

Wind power has grown by one zillion percent and solar is growing by a brazillion percent. They're the latest things?

Of course, I'm quite sure that this must be an IGCC plant that could sequester a brazillion tons of carbon dioxide at a later date.

[rman]

6. Of course this has nothing to do with decline of oil production.