Lexington Herald Leader (Editorial)

Dec. 10, 2004

When the Hummer-lovin' Republican governor of California demands cleaner vehicles, you know it's just a matter of time until this country finally gets serious about reducing heat-trapping pollution.

Reducing climate-changing auto emissions will require smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Producing energy from Kentucky's favorite hydrocarbon, without spewing greenhouse gases into the air, will be more complicated than that.

The most promising technology for cleanly producing electricity from coal, integrated gasification, is probably 20 years from wide-scale commercialization. That's according to a privately-funded commission that's just issued a a must-read report for those making energy policy in Kentucky.

One lesson from "Ending the Energy Stalemate'' at www.energycommission.org: Be extremely cautious about licensing new coal-fired power plants that can't control greenhouse gases. Especially if the power is to be exported to other states, Kentucky should demand the most advanced pollution control technology.

This will require a change in the state's tradition of never requiring anything more stringent in environmental regulation than the minimum demanded by the federal government.

Some in Kentucky's coal industry would howl. But they shouldn't.

The last thing their industry needs is more soon-to-be obsolete power plants contributing to global warming. Pushing more advanced pollution controls would do more than anything to ensure that Kentucky coal has a long-term future.

The best way to hasten truly-clean coal is for the federal government to require reductions in greenhouse gas production, say the energy report's bipartisan authors.

The Bush administration has resisted requiring such limits and won't lean on the auto industry, despite mounting pressure from around the world and in Congress.

But change is inevitable. Even Cincinnati-based Cinergy Corp., a major operator of coal-fired power plants, has endorsed limits on greenhouse gas production similar to those proposed by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz, and Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.

It's just a matter of time. The U.S. will follow the rest of the industrialized world in limiting the pollution that almost everyone except the U.S. agrees is contributing to climate change. Kentucky should put itself at the front of that trend.

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National Commission on Energy Policy