Coal and Condos
I’d rather live by an old coal plant than a condo development. —manuki
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@elegantmint—Did you ever consider that the asthma could be caused by other (documented) sources such as dust from your new home—which is probably within an older building or from traffic in this congested area (including the constantly jammed Dan Ryan and Stevenson)? It’s so easy to blame the power plants for everyone’s ills, but also not intellectually honest.
I’ve briefly worked at these plants doing retrofits and it’s another world on the inside. Years and years of said retrofits and upgrades lend them this labyrinthine feel like you’ve crawled into the belly of the industrial beast. These facilities transport you—I mean it’s this crazy dichotomy of beautiful art deco ornamentation and railing and tilework and brick construction that’s survived in this atmosphere of coal dust, turbines, and very loud powerful machinery. The view from the top of State Line is unbeatable too.
Just because we have a lot of coal does not mean that we need to mine it all and burn it for electricity. Burning coal to produce electricity releases neurotoxins into our air and water and CO2 that is produced by burning coal is the leading cause of climate change. We literally CAN’T burn all the coal we have. How about a clean energy economy? We can manufacture wind turbines and solar panels and put people back to work while kicking our dependency on foreign oil and climate altering fossil fuels. The U.S. should stop giving govm’t subsidies to coal and oil companies and instead subsidize solar and wind. That sounds like a common sense plan to me. —applejack
