Coal-fired power plants are commonly identified as the nation's biggest emissions villain. But that notoriety hasn't slowed the rush to build them in Texas, where there are nearly 30 coal plants either operating, permitted or proposed.

What has given many folks pause is the amount of water consumed by the plants.

Thermoelectric power plants - those that use heat to generate power, such as nuclear, coal and natural gas - are the single largest user of water in the United States. In Texas alone, they consume 157 billion gallons annually - enough water for more than 3 million people, each using 140 gallons per day, a recent University of Texas at Austin analysis found.

"The Sierra Club applauds this stopgap measure, but it is not enough," said Pennsylvania Sierra Club Director Jeff Schmidt. "We are appalled that the Pennsylvania Senate failed to pass a natural gas severance tax, a state forest protection bill, or other Marcellus gas-related legislation before adjourning. Senate leadership has chosen to put political campaigning ahead of the needs of the people of Pennsylvania."

"We are delighted with this solar power project in the two south Houston schools -- It not only demonstrates the best direction for Texas clean energy future, it also provides real benefits to the schools and the young people," said Sierra Club's Jennifer Powis. "The school district is expected to save over $10,000 annually in reduced electricity bills and the students will study and learn how solar power works."

But, in interviews, scientists who worked on the report said the figures were based in large part on assumptions and estimates with a significant margin of error.

Some outside scientists went further: In a situation in which many facts remain murky, they said, the government seemed to have used interpretations that made the gulf -- and the federal efforts to save it -- look as good as possible.

"There's a lot of...smoke and mirrors in this report," said Ian MacDonald, a professor of biological oceanography at Florida State University. "It seems very reassuring, but the data aren't there to actually bear out the assurances that were made."

The decision to leave the well capped, which was made at the recommendation of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, means that scientists with the government and with BP think that the well is undamaged and that there is little risk it would deteriorate if kept under pressure, as it has been since valves on a new cap were closed a week ago. Reopening the valves would mean that oil, which has not flowed since they were closed, would once again pour into the gulf.

Barton saw his bottom line fall in part because of losses in broad-based funds that invested in companies linked to the recent Gulf Coast oil spill. His campaign reported losing more than $13,000 in the Fidelity Select Energy Service, which lists Halliburton and Transocean Inc. among the fund’s largest four holdings. Transocean is down more than 36 percent for the year, while Halliburton is down nearly 6 percent so far in 2010.
Barton also lost more than $36,000 in Fidelity Dividend Growth, which bought just more than half a million shares of BP at the end of May — after the oil spill began — according to investment analysis service Morningstar.

Related to the BP oil disaster, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson was testifying again on Capitol Hill about the disaster. Her testimony is here.

Speaking of oil, Senators Jeff Merkley, Tom Udall, Tom Carper, and Michael Bennet just released the "Oil Independence for a Stronger America" act, which is all about oil savings. From the senators' news release:

The Oil Independence for a Stronger America Act will set into law the goal of achieving independence from overseas oil in the next 20 years and a specific plan for achieving it. By committing America to developing a robust clean energy economy, the legislation would create new jobs while eliminating the national security vulnerability posed by dependence on oil from overseas to run the economy.

Senators Merkley, Carper, Udall and Bennet are putting us on the right track. This bill to reduce oil dependence is absolutely the right place to start and will focus action where it is most needed. Calling on the President to use all existing authority to reduce the amount of oil we use by at least 8 million barrels a day by 2030 sets an appropriate floor for what together we can achieve. Taking these early steps in the wake of an immediate disaster is also vital to the success of our ultimate goal--an oil-free economy that works for America's middle class.

But seriously folks, some developments have surfaced today in the BP oil disaster saga. BP execs seem to think that if the conditions are right, they can cap the gash in the Gulf by the end of the month -- earlier than expected. With weather getting better in the Gulf, the White House is nudging the oil giant to act.

An oil recovery ship known as the Helix Producer, capable of capturing up to 25,000 barrels a day, has been waiting near the crippled well for more than a week, unable to connect to the well because of high winds and waves from Hurricane Alex.

The weather has also delayed deployment of a new, tighter-fitting cap for the well that not only will be able to capture more of the spewing oil but could potentially shut down all oil releases from the well. Swapping the caps requires disconnecting the well from a recovery ship, the Discoverer Enterprise, potentially increasing the flow of oil by as much as 15,000 barrels a day for two to three days.

The two operations were to have begun a week ago and take place in sequence. The administration now wants BP to move forward with both at the same time to take advantage of a period of seven or eight days of predicted calm weather.

Even after the explosion, BP was still insisting that it had “skimming capacity of more than 171,000 barrels per day, with more available if needed.”

So far, it has managed to skim less than 900 barrels per day. Add burn-offs, and you get to just over 300,000 barrels in total, over 77 days — that’s less than 4,000 barrels per day.

BP’s reaction to being massively wrong, by a factor of over 100, is to grab onto the biggest numbers it can find — to try, in other words, to deal with the optics, rather than the reality. Take the much-vaunted super-skimmer, for instance. Some reports say that it “can collect up to half a million barrels of oil a day”, but it’s much more accurate to say that it can theoretically collect that many barrels of contaminated water, which is only about 10% oil. And, as Kindy drily notes, “thus far, it has been unable to produce those results in the gulf.”

Back in the 1970s. the search for offshore oil was so exciting that BP put out a board game on "the thrills of drilling." Better hope you don't draw a "hazard card," though: "Blow-out! Rig damaged. Oil slick clean-up costs. Pay $1 million." Present day BP wishes it could get off so cheaply; the latest estimate of its costs thus far in controlling its Macondo gusher is $3 billion. (h/t to Metro.co.uk)

In a very similar optimistic mood, the Washington Post reports that in March, BP promised federal regulators that in the event of a major spill it could skim 491,721 barrels of oil each day. In practice, skimming since the disaster began has captured only 67,143 barrels total, or 1/500th part of what BP promised for the period.

You might notice that these suggestions are not anything new. But walking the talk a little at a time will go a long way. And if you're frustrated by the slow political process in Washington, click here to take action. Have a happy and safe long weekend!

And if you haven't already added your flag online, you can still join the crowd -- and you won't have to go through airport security to be a part of it.

In the wake of the BP oil disaster, the U.S. Minerals Management Service--the agency that signed off on the Macondo well's ludicrous disaster plan--was disbanded. Bidding MMS adieu, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is auctioning off MMS paraphernalia, including MMS safety whistles, oil drop paperweights, and embossed lunch bags.

"These kitschy souvenirs exhibit a blithe cluelessness that helps explain the agency's mindset," noted PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "For example, what was the focus of the 2009 Safety Week at MMS? Well, if you guessed diet conscious snacks, you would be correct."

Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered the breakup of the disgraced MMS into smaller units, the largest bearing the onerous title of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement. There is apparently some disagreement within the new agency as to how it should properly be referred. Initially new director Michael Bromwich suggested BOE, a directive that was countermanded days later by an urgent email insisting on the full acronym, BOEMRE. There is as of yet no official pronunciation guidance, but the new agency is inevitably already known as "Bummer."

"The view out the window for most of the two hours was either the sheen of oil, looking for the next sheen of oil, or seeing the tritest of the clean-up of vessels, skimmers, shrimp boats that have been retrofitted with booms to lay out in the open water. [...] and we've seen where they have lost the battle."

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Above - Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune (left) and banner holders look back at President Obama's helicopter flies nearby during the press conference.

George Kohl, Senior Director of the Communications Workers of America, speaks at today's Beyond Oil rally.

All photos above by Javier Sierra. All photos below by Heather Moyer.

It's not officially Flag Day (that was June 14th), but on the National Mall in Washington, DC, today is a sort of an unofficial flag day.

We've got our Beyond Oil action up and flowing in the wind on the Mall - 10,000 flags that spell out "Freedom from Oil," that volunteers worked late in the night on Tuesday to stake into the ground.

These 10,000 flags represent the more than 50,000 people who took action on our Beyond Oil website asking President Obama to move our country beyond oil.

Glen Besa of the Sierra Club in Virginia took a great video of the flag planting last night, so take a look. (Sorry, the humidity got to our flipcam)

And if you want to see more of Glen's photos (all of the photos in this entry were taken by Glen), click here to see his online photo album.

The "Freedom from Oil" flag event continues today with a 11am ET press conference and all-day tabling to inform people about our country's oil addiction and asking them to join us in calling for a plan to get off oil.

We hope to have video of today's press conference later on.

Mike Ellis is a boat captain who's been rescuing the endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtles near Deepwater Horizon. He's got some pretty horrifying news to share: BP is burning turtles caught in the oil spill and turning away rescue workers who want to save them.

Read Part IV: Public transit.
Read Part III: Telecommute.
Read Part II: Bike and walk.
Read Part I: Eat smarter.

"The president also renewed his call for bolder action to create a clean energy future. We share the President's commitment, and recognize the steps we take as a nation must balance America's environmental, economic, and energy goals."

You can watch the hearing live at that link above - as of 10am ET, it was underway.

UPDATE: Two quotes of note from this morning's hearing thus far. First up, the big one - Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward for the government making them create a $20 billion liability fund to pay for the impact of the disaster on Gulf residents.

Yes, you read that right. Barton pretty much said, "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" Or as a Twitterer Delrayser paraphrased, "We're sorry we got all that seawater in your oil, Mr. Hayward." Here's video of that apology:

The Sierra Club ran this ad in the New York Times in 1989 after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. "Who should pay for this mess? Exxon. And not just for the short term cleanup. And not just through advertisements and PR." Sound familiar? Note that at this point, the BP oil disaster is now estimated to be dumping an Exxon Valdez sized amount of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every 5 to 13 days.

For more oil-spill deja vu see here.