Dollars dictate

Dirty money (from carbon fuel lobbyists) begets dirty politicians, who beget dirty laws which beget dirty energy.

"Clean coal" is a scam. Coal burning pollutes our air worldwide with mercury, selenium, arsenic and trillions of tons of carbon dioxide and, in the United States, it annually produces 70 million tons of poisonous fly ash. Over 900 leaking fly ash landfills in the United States are exempt from federal regulation. Money talks!

The U.S. Congress is spending $4 billion to develop carbon dioxide sequestration technology when that will serve only to prolong our dependence on carbon fuels. The Marcellus Shale well accidents in Clearfield County and West Virginia presage more of the same.

The BP catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico exposed the lack of technology needed to protect the environment from the other 5,000 off-shore drilling platforms in the gulf.

Nuclear plants produce thousands of tons of solid radioactive waste each year, and routinely vent radioactive gas to the air.

Hiding in plain sight, dirty oil in the gulf is floating on top of the very answer to our energy independence! Water, easily split by photocatalysts, is our only source of renewable, carbon-free hydrogen fuel available in the huge quantities needed to supplant gasoline.

Automobile manufacturers can make internal combustion engines that are designed to use hydrogen as a fuel. Onboard hydrogen-producing systems would obviate the need for a nationwide system of hydrogen refilling stations.

JAMES GARDEN, JR.
Jefferson Hills