Power Companies Order Up Texas Toast

Texas toast is that super-sized slab of unwholesome white bread that you get with your eggs and bacon at diners in Texas and other red states. Texas toast is also a good name for what power generators want to do in the Lone Star State as they order up a giant helping of new, dirty coal-fired plants.

In October 2005, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita drove up natural gas prices, and after a meeting with power giant TXU, Texas governor Rick Perry issued an executive order fast-tracking new power generation that uses Texas natural resources for “energy diversity.” Although Texas has plenty of solar and wind power potential, power companies like TXU had only one alternative in mind: coal.

Coal is cheap. Cheaper than natural gas and a whole lot dirtier. With Governor Perry’s order in hand, TXU applied for permits for eleven new giant coal power plants. Several other power companies and utilities put projects in the pipeline too, but TXU’s plants are way ahead in the process. That might have something to do with its generous campaign contributions to the Governor. The Dallas Morning News reported in October 2006 that since Perry signed the executive order, TXU and its associates had contributed $87,000.

Coal may be cheap to TXU, but it’s not cheap for people or the planet. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, TXU’s eleven proposed plants, totaling more than 9,000 megawatts, will produce about 78 million tons of CO2 per year. EDF says that’s equivalent to the annual emissions of 10 million Cadillacs and more than the annual emissions of the entire country of Denmark.

Truthout