As enviros urge coal moratorium, federal report questions need for new plants

The Coal Moratorium NOW! conference kicks off this Wednesday in Houston. The two-day event will bring together activists from across the country who are working to stop the building of new coal-fired power plants in their communities.

The event coincides with "America's Energy Future: Houston's Presidential Summit," a Feb. 28 conference sponsored by energy suppliers that will feature a speech by presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, the movement to halt the construction of new coal plants has gotten a boost from the federal government itself. A new report [PDF] from the National Energy Technology Laboratory, a division of the Department of Energy devoted to fossil-fuel research, questions the need for all the new coal-fired power plants now being planned. Titled "Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants," the report states:

Coal-fired power plant development activity significantly exceeds the current estimate of need by [the Energy Information Administration].

The report goes on to suggest that efforts to promote energy conservation and efficiency may be having an effect:

Low forecasts of demand growth add an element of "demand uncertainty" to the problems of regulatory uncertainty and rapidly escalating costs for coal-fired power plant development.