Coal Power Online

Today on my daily walk, I got a special treat. I BNSF unit coal train pulled up from the north and stopped. The engine on the head end decoupled and came past me, then after a series of switching moves, some KCS power lashed on to the BNSF engine and coupled onto the train and took off. Not only were there units on the front, but some on the rear pushing as well (distributed power). It is interesting to see railroaders at work doing what they do everyday.

Texas energy utility TXU says that coal is high demand. Merrill Lynch, one of three major financial arrangers to the utility’s massive coal power plant project (11 new plants in TX for a mere $11 billion), agrees. We decided to find out how much of a demand there really was. Checkout http://www.DirtyMoney.org to sign the petition to get our banks out of dirty energy and ask Merrill Lynch to clean up.

…….

Video from our tour of the Monticello Xcel Coal Power Plant.