Cap & Trade or Bait & Switch? Pols and Groups Played for Dupes, Says ACARE

October 20, 2009 11:24 AM EDT

Cap-and-trade bills are bait-and-switch scams, says new report; Carbon capture, nuclear power provisions of Kerry-Boxer, Waxman-Markey are traps for unsuspecting politicians & industries says American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Politicians and industries are being lured into supporting the cap-and-trade bills in Congress with false promises concerning carbon capture and storage (CCS) and nuclear power, says the American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy (ACARE).

"Bait-and-switch is the thought that comes to mind," said Mike Carey, executive director of ACARE.

"CCS is physically and economically impossible, and CCS and nuclear power are essentially politically impossible," observed Carey. "Our new report explains why," added Carey.

The ACARE report spotlights new research indicating that doing CCS for a single 500-megawatt coal-fired power plant could take an area the size of the state of Maryland - and there are more than 220 coal-fired power plants of that size or larger.

"As it turns out, CCS is a vastly different process than enhanced oil recovery (EOR), our only experience so far with injecting carbon dioxide underground," said Carey, "Any cap-and-trade that is based on this key misconception will be disastrous for coal-fired utilities."

The ACARE report says special attention should be given to the Obama administration's termination of the 25-year-old, multi-billion dollar effort to store spent nuclear fuel at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

"If it's politically impossible store a comparatively small quantity of spent nuclear fuel one-mile underground in middle of nowhere," said Carey, "it's difficult to believe either that we will be pressurizing the Earth with CO2 or that more nuclear power plants producing even more non-disposable spent fuel will actually be built," Carey concluded.

"With the exception of some of the technical issues regarding CCS presented in our paper, none of this is a secret - except apparently to politicians like Sen. Lindsey Graham and groups like the American Council for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), both of whom are being played as dupes by proponents of the Kerry-Boxer and Waxman-Markey bills," Carey said.

The ACARE report can be read here: http://www.acarenow.org/studies/EnergyBaitandSwitch.pdf

SOURCE American Council for Affordable and Reliable Energy

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