While the Obama administration continues to boast reductions in U.S. carbon emissions through the incorporation of renewable energy resources such as wind and solar, the darker side of America’s changing role as a “dirty energy dealer” and one of the world’s top carbon pollution exporters is seldom told.
As journalist Tim Dickinson explores in a new feature-length piece for Rolling Stone, Obama’s rhetoric of a reduced U.S. carbon footprint is betrayed by the increasing amount of carbon-intensive fossil fuels that are now being exported all over the world. And as critics of his energy policies continue to point out, the president is in danger of having the destructive realities of his climate related policies overwhelm the promises that he’s made about addressing the dangers of a rapidly warming planet.
According to Dickinson:
A major factor in this carbon outsourcing is the proliferation of one of the world’s dirtiest energy forms: petroleum coke. “Petcoke” is the “the dirtiest fuel on the planet,” says Lorne Stockman, research director for Oil Change International. Petcoke is a byproduct of the tar sands oil refining process and can be burned like coal.
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