Activists occupy 450 ft. smokestack in Chicago

[kgrandia]

Before dawn today, eight Greenpeace activists climbed the 450 foot smokestack at the Fisk power plant in Chicago. They are now staying up there to demand its operator shut down the dirty, dangerous Fisk and Crawford coal plants.

Coal fired power plants kill between 13,000 and 34,000 people a year from for heart disease, cancer, and respiratory illness. That staggering figure includes 42 Chicagoans impacted by Fisk and Crawford. That’s why the communities surrounding the plants in Pilsen and Little Village, have been working to shut down these plant for years.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/quit-coal-chicago

Its time its operator, Edison International, respect Chicago’s right to healthy communities and do just that: https://secure3.convio.net/gpeace/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=851&s_src=landing

[reggie the dog]

1. where will the electricity come from?

seriously? there will be blackouts due to not having enough power, you cant just shut down a plant from one day to the next.

[truedelphi]

2. I understand what you are saying, but the Powers that Be did not

seem to mind when speculators shut down the State of California while Enron's "Smartest Guys in The Room" were driving up the price of electricity that one summer.

That fiasco cost the rate payers in California some twenty to sixty billion bucks in over charges. And I have no idea what the financial loss of business happened to be, when one community after another lost power because of the games that
PG & E/Enron happened to find so profitable.

[reggie the dog]

3. it is too bad that tower 7 collapsed into its own footprint on 911

and the SEC's evidence against enron was all "lost" isn't it?

[kristopher]

4. Sure you can, The is sufficient excess generating capacity to shut down coal tomorrow.

It is a financial, economic and private property issue, not a "lights out" technical issue. But thanks for sharing the coal industry's false version of reality.

[reggie the dog]

5. surplus from nuclear?

what is the other source of electricity?

[kristopher]

6. All of the underutilized natural gas peaking plants.

That would eliminate the particulate emissions from coal (including mercury) and would cut the CO2 emissions associated with coal by 60% immediately.

While we currently have a strong supply of natural gas, no one expects natgas could be a basis for any long term energy system. That situation, together with the higher fuel costs of natgas are conditions that would encourage an even more rapid build-out of renewables.

However, I wouldn't advocate that policy until and unless the impact of fracking on water supplies was better understood and found to be a non-issue.

[Confusious]

8. Really? have proof of that?

Or are you just pulling it out of your wild fantasies again? coal provides 44 percent of electricity in the United states, natural gas 20%. If you turn peaking plants into base load, brownouts happen, but you don't really care about that do you?

Brownouts destroy equipment, leading to people buying new equipment, which requires more power to make, which leads to more CO2. Not that you really care about that either.

What about the people doing fracking and ruining the ground water? I suppose you support that.

[kristopher]

7. Latest updates on this "message in the clouds"

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/

And here is the link from Kevin's OP to send an action email of support:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/quit-coal-chicago