Last Friday in the Washington Post I read "Scientists say mountaintop mining should be stopped." According to the article, for the first time the scientists studying blasting off mountaintops and burying stream valleys under tons of rubble in order to mine coal are taking a political stand against issuing any new permits.Most of the mountaintop removal is occurring in the Appalachian mountains in West Virginia and Kentucky, so what does this have to do with Healdsburg?
More than more many people think, including our city government. We pride ourselves on our clean energy source from the Geysers, but if you look at our Power Content Label sent with your city utility bill, you'll see that in the column "Healdsburg's System Average (projected), coal is the source of 14% of our electricity. The surrounding area, served by PG&E, has electricity generated with 2% coal.
When I talk with city council members and electricity department employees, they tell me that we don't know how much of our energy comes from coal because it's part of a "mix" and therefore not quantifiable. How can this be? Doesn't the supplier of the mix to the city know? Isn't there a cost attached to each of the energy resources purchased by the city?
Mountaintop mining is just one of the environmentally damaging aspects of using coal to produce electricity, but the photo above is enough to prompt me to ask these questions of those in charge of where Healdsburg gets its energy.
(Photo from NRDC article about mountaintop mining.)
Very interesting question - I will be watching to see what you find out. I hope that we could start to see more renewable energy sources being used throughout all utility companies.
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