NRDC's segments on EcoTalk

TXU Buyout Makes Utility Greener

Good news! NRDC's Climate Center Director David Hawkins tells Betsy how the two private equity firms who are in talks to buy energy giant TXU wanted to talk to Environmental Defense and NRDC about how they could satisfy rising public opposition to proposed coal power plants in Texas.
This is a major victory for grassroots organizing, and the blueprint is clear: citizens make themselves heard in the streets, online, on the air, and in their state capitols; public opposition brings stock prices down; corporations are then forced to meet environmental groups at the bargaining table. Americans, you helped save the air you breathe! LISTEN (11 min)

How to clean coal

Coal-fired power plants are the single largest source of man-made CO2, accounting for one quarter to one third of the world's total.
An entire generation of obsolete coal-fired power plants built in the 1950s and 1960s needs to be replaced.

David Hawkins, director of the NRDC's Climate Center explains the strategic importance of choosing the right technology for the new coal plants that are going to be built:  "If the plants are not designed up front to capture their CO2, they will lock us into large amounts of global-warming emissions for their entire operating lifetimes."   LISTEN (7 min)

Read the feature story by Craig Canine in onearth