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Student Environmental Center (SEC) is a Registered Student Organization at Southern Illinois University Carbondale dedicated to the struggle for environmental justice. Through our campaigns we hope to help SIUC become a leader in sustainability while educating the university community and providing this generation's fresh crop of starry eyed dreamers with the necessary knowledge and skills to become tomorrows dedicated activists.
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SIU is currently looking into building a new “clean” coal power plant that could cost upwards of $250 million. SEC is determined to do everything within its power in order to make sure the University chooses a more responsible solution to its energy needs. Climate change is quite possibly one of the most important issues facing this generation. There is a relative consensus in the scientific community that we will face devastating environmental catastrophes if our CO2 emissions are not dramatically cut by mid century. Renewable energy and conservation technology are simply the only sustainable solution to both the university and the nation's energy needs. If SIU is to move forward it must commit its research and investment power into developing alternatives to dirty coal-fired energy production. The Myth of Clean Coal: There is NO SUCH THING as clean coal. PERIOD. The technology which is supposed to generate energy with less global warming contributing pollution is called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC.) In basic terms, the coal is turned into a synthetic gas instead of being pulverized and burned. This technology has only been used in a small number of plants so far, and has proven to be only marginally more efficient than traditional coal plants but much more costly to operate. The only way IGCC does promise lower Global Warming contributing CO2 is by sequestering the emissions (locking them deep underground). The infrastructure for large scale sequestration does not exist and will take at least ten to fifteen years before it will be ready to be used in Illinois The truth is: the global warming contributing CO2 emissions that would be generated by an IGCC at SIUC would not be sequestered in the foreseeable future. Therefore, there is nothing remotely clean about the project – just the possibility of cleaner energy production in the hypothetical future... if the state is willing to invest millions upon millions into infrastructure for an increasingly outdated energy source. When all direct and indirect costs are considered, it is much cheaper to begin investing in renewable energy projects now that will be the norm sometime in the not too distant future. Not convinced? |
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