When some of Canada's corporate people go to Copenhagen to argue their positions on global warming, they will be demanding that their coal fired power plants should be allowed to continue operating "until their usefull life is over", or at least that "the investors should be allowed to make their money back".
Really? Should they?
It has allways been the capitalist mantra that "bad investments deserve to lose money". Now the most vehement proponents of capitalism [the oilmen] are asking for a soft cushion. Ahhh, aren't they CUTE??
Investing in coal fired power plants in Canada after 1990, when Kyoto was being discussed and everyone was at least aware of the issue of global warming, was a stupid investment. They deserve to lose their money - shut those plants in as soon as cleaner energy producing sources are available to replace them. I vote for renewable energy.
By 2020 we could surely have installed enough capacity in renewable energy projects to compensate for all the coal fired power plants remaining in Canada. BC has allready enacted legistlation to shut in all coal fired power plants [by 2020?], and is not allowing any new ones to be built.
I say lets shut them down, asap. Efficiency and renewable energy installation can easily compensate for the loss of electricity generation from coal burners. We just have to have the guts to stand up to the fossil fools!!
K
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PS - in the first paragraph here, I mentioned that the corporate reps will be in Copenhagen at the global warming meeting next week. I know one of those people personally - an oil exec CEO who will be speaking at the conferance. Did you know that there will be a heavy presence of oil industry execs there?
It surprises me a bit that they will have such direct influence on the Copenhagen proceedings because they are the main sticking point in "the shift", which is the moving on to a new way of getting our energy as fossil fuels are being phased out. It is like inviting the enemy to say how they want things to be run.