I have an ongoing fascination with issues that are, to most people, boring as hell. I’m fascinated with school reform, demographics, infrastructure, and in all cases, data.

The problem with such stories, from a freelance perspective, is that they’re tough (for me) to make interesting enough to sell, even if they’re really important.

Fortunately, I met up with David Cohn at CopyCamp in San Jose last month, and he encouraged me to put a pitch up on Spot.us, his new project to crowdfund local investigative reporting (more info here). Here’s what I want to write about:

California has committed to reducing greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 (AB32). The cement industry is at the center of this effort. Making cement is one of the dirtiest industries in the state, and California’s 11 kilns produce about 10 percent of the total US cement output each year.

Making cement naturally releases CO2. It’s part of the chemical process. On top of that, most kilns burn coal or petroleum coke, which adds to the pollution. Other fuels are possible–natural gas, saw dust, biosolids–but those come with added costs and other issues.

If plants leave or shut down, they’ll likely be replaced by kilns in other states with less stringent environmental laws, or by international competitors like China, which already produces half the world’s cement and more carbon dioxide than the US.

Can cement plants in the Bay Area cut emissions and stay in business?

I wrote about cement plants a few years ago, when I worked in the Antelope Valley. What I kept wondering, long after I left the newspaper and moved to China: Why do they even bother? Why run a cement kiln in California when every regulation and every state legislator behind it seems determined to push you into the ocean, or at least into Nevada. I’m still looking for an answer to that question.

Here’s a bit more background:

If this is interesting, if it’s something that should be written about, please consider pledging a small amount (even a dollar) to help me get this story produced. I promise words, pictures, video and probably a map (or some kind of visualized data), and I promise it will be interesting.

Click here to join the campaign.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 4:05 pm and is filed under News, projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.