Yes coal accounts for 80% of our carbon pollution. The best way to reduce our carbon footprint is to reduce our consumption of coal. The easiest way to do this is to save energy at home. Power companies nationwide are offering subsidies for weatherizing and increasing insulation levels . I wish the federal tax credits would come back. Most homes can reduce their power bills 25% or more by adding insulation. This not only saves money every month but reduces your coal consumption and your carbon footprint.

Wherever coal is used, it should be replaced with green energy sources like solar, geothermal or wind. And those companies that use green energies should be given subsidies to encourage their future use. Also all the the coal miners should be automatically given on the job training to learn how to install and build the green energy. That way their families are not impacted negatively.

I believe we have a responsibility to acknowledge that we are years from eliminating coal as a source of energy and while we develop alternatives to fossil fuels we are negligent and remiss not to also further develop and implement clean coal technologies. Calculate the amount of carbon emissions that could be prevented from entering the Earth’s atmosphere in the next 10-20 years- and ask yourself if we can afford to be pious about single devotion to alternative energy sources- we need BOTH- carbon capture AND solar, wind etc. The established energy producers are sandbagging clean technology- did you know solar deals can’t get funding because of Solyndra? We need to be strategic and realistic- let it not be said that people trying to save the planet are the ones with their heads in the sand!!!

Investing in wind and solar can only pay off in the long run. It would be profittable as well as beneficial to the planet and the future generations. We need to abandon coal, let natural gas transition us over, but plan to convert completely to wind and solar.

There’s no question that coal is the major source of carbon pollution. Saving energy at home and in office and manufacturing facilities and increasing wind and water sources for power would help diminish the use of coal for power.

Please remember to focus your efforts to include a ban on fracking. The push is on from oil and gas companies to expand this industry. Your group can help to push back against an industry that will release methane into the environment and increase fossil fuel consumption at a time we can least afford it.

We need a stiff tax first on greenhouse gas emissions as CO2 eq., later also on clean energy, both for prohibitive tariff effect and for revenue. Since prohibitive tariff effect is wanted, the only fair way to impose the tax is to start at only 10% of the before tax retail price of the product to be taxed and increase the tax by the same amount each year. Since the average retail price of electricity is $0.10/kWh and a tax on greenhouse gas emissions as CO2 eq. of $5/metric ton would cause a price increase of $0.01/kWh of electricity from a coal-fired generator, $5/ton would be good for both the initial tax and the annual tax increase. If the elasticity of demand for energy is -0.37, as I believe it is, the maximum revenue rate would be $45/ton in year 9, with 33% of the original physical quantity demanded displaced by the tax. For every $100 spent by consumers on electricity before the tax, with the tax consumers will pay a total of $127, with $67 still going to the electric utility, and $60 being for the tax. Since the retail price of electricity is about half for getting it from the generator to the consumer, about a fourth for owning, operating, and maintaining the generator, and about a fourth fuel cost, the coal miner got $25 before the tax, and will still get $25, about $16.67 for coal bought and burned by the utility, and about $8.33 for coal bought as reserves to be held underground from the $60 of tax, leaving $51.67 to finance the purchase of renewable energy equipment (solar or wind or storage, or smart grid electronics, or geothermal) to generate clean electricity to displace more fossil fuel. Buying as reserves all fossil fuel displaced by either the tax itself or by renewable energy is absolutely essential to making the scheme politically feasible. Once enough renewable energy is in place to consume anywhere near half the tax revenue, it will be necessary to start taxing the renewable energy along with the fossil fuel energy to have tax revenue available for both buying fossil fuel as reserves as it is displaced either directly by the tax or by the renewable energy financed by the tax AND to finance more renewable energy equipment to displace even more fossil fuel.

Reducing individual energy consumption is in some ways analogous to weight loss: success depends importantly on numerous small adjustments in individual life style. A family can encourage members to shut off lights, appliances, computers, when not using them; purchase of major appliances can focus on energy star rated items; one can buy a remote to shut off large screen televisions when not in use (even if it takes a minute or two to warm up on next use. And yes for all those houses built after 1945, they probably have no or low R-value insulation that needs attention. Conservation is the low hanging fruit to reduce fossil fuel energy consumption during this transition period, hopefully to a new energy future before we destroy the climate and planet.

If we are aware that coal is one of the largest contributors of carbon pollution, why is Boardman still operating? Why is there a major plan to mine dirty coal on Powder Ridge, Wyoming, to ship it through the Gorge, and then to China?

We live on one earth using one thin envelop of atmosphere for all living beings. Thank you for your work.

Coal is without a doubt the biggest polluter. But as we know, air pollution knows no boundries (Talking those imaginary lines that denote countries. So even though Western Europe and the US have lower their “Carbon Emissions”, our “Carbon Consumption” keeps rising as we move manufacturing to China……. If we don’t manage to get CHINA off coal, all the solar panels and wind farms we build here will not be enough to counter the damage to the atmosphere that gets done in the near future…the crucial next 50 years or so of the 21st century.