Article published Mar 1, 2008
The Spectrum
The day before a St. George meeting on the proposed Toquop coal-fired power plant, representatives of Sithe
Global - the comp-any that wants to build the controversial facility - told the editorial board they were talking to St.
George officials about a contract for electrical power.
The night of the meeting, however, St. George Mayor Dan McArthur said the city opposes the plant because of the
negative impact of its emissions.
The day before St. George residents stood up in large numbers against the Toquop plant, company officials denied
any ties to the coal industry.
However, the Blackstone Group, which owns 80 percent of Sithe Global, also owns Foundation Coal - one of the
top coal-producing companies in the nation.
The day before a new generation of potential Downwinders drew a line in the sand and said "No!" to a coal-fired
power plant just across the border, officials of the company argued again that the prevailing winds would only blow
emissions into St. George 3 percent of the time.
The National Weather Service, which has no dog in this fight, has told us a much different story.
That's three strikes and you're outta here, Toquop.
And, just to keep it real, please take Rep. Mike Noel, R- Kanab, and Rep. Aaron Tilton, R-Springville, with you.
Tilton and Noel are laying the groundwork to build a nuclear power plant in Utah, possibly in the Green River area.
Tilton is the head of Transition Power Development, a company looking for a license to build a nuclear reactor.
Nuclear plants need a lot of water, which is where Noel comes into the picture. He happens to be executive
administrator of the Kane County Water Conservancy District, which signed a $1 million a year deal with Tilton's
company to provide water for the plant. How they'd get the water from Kane to Emery county is anybody's guess.
Tilton also, by the way, sponsored a bill to oppose the federal government's proposed Red Rock Wilderness Act, a
measure that would create 9.4 million acres of wilderness in Southern Utah and prohibit future energy development
in that area.
So we not only have an ethical problem, we have a compounded health problem because the great experiment in
nuclear power is not going well.
Heat is the enemy of nuclear reactors. Last summer, several plants in France, Spain and Germany had to go offline
because of high temps. Sweden shut down four of its 10 reactors because of a dangerous design flaw that resulted
in short-circuiting that caused power outages. The Czechs have had problems with a leaky reactor.
France has also stockpiled more than 80 tons of weapon-grade plutonium, has no high-level radioactive waste
repository and liquid discharges from its plants have polluted the waters as far north as the Arctic Circle.
And, the cost of the reactors is growing at exponential rates that show no sign of tapering off.
So, what do we do?
For starters, we switch to gas-fired power plants.
Then, we bite the bullet and get serious with generous incentives for companies that invest in renewable energy.
Either that or we leave it all to the cockroaches who'll be left after we poison ourselves into extinction.
Contact Local News Editor Ed Kociela at eko ciela@thespectrum.com or call 674-6237.
