New Interest in Coal Sparks Energy Debate in Western States
Sep 27 - The Sacramento Bee
Sep. 27--Proposals for electric plants that feed on coal are dotting the West's deserts and plains, raising new questions about how the region should power its drive into the next half-century.
It is the biggest upswing since the 1970s for a fuel that is abundant, home
grown, inexpensive and linked by critics to a Pandora's box of environmental
ills: acid rain, tainted streams, global warming and haze-smeared national
parks.
While no new coal plants are envisioned for California, the state is the
biggest center of energy consumption in the West, so the political debate
resounds loudly here.
California's air conditioners and office parks are the potential future
consumers of coal power from as far away as Wyoming. Clean air advocates say the
state, which was willing to sue out-of-state power plants to curb global
warming, should be equally aggressive in resisting the new drive toward coal.
"California should not have a back-door policy of exporting our
pollution to other states," said V. John White, head of the Center for
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies in Sacramento.
As an energy buyer, White and others argue, California has the leverage to
put the brakes on coal even outside its borders, by crafting rules and
regulations that force utilities to look harder at the environmental costs of
their electricity sources.
Coal has been a relatively low-profile issue in California, with moments of
high visibility, like the late August day when Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn told
the city's utility to end its participation in a coal plant expansion in Utah.
Environmentalists are hoping to target other deals that could make or break
proposed plants, by taking aim at the long-term contracts that plant developers
need to line up their financing.
That means the debate is likely to unfold at the boards that oversee
municipal utilities and at the state Public Utilities Commission, where
regulators pore over investor-owned utilities' plans for future supplies.
Some California utilities, already whipsawed by the state's energy crisis and
the increasing costs of natural gas, don't want to be held back from seeking any
low-cost sources of electricity.
"Coal should be part of the fuel mix for electricity generation,"
said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for Southern California Edison.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said it is unlikely to buy coal power in the
next decade, both for technical reasons and because costs could go up if
emission controls are imposed on carbon dioxide, which is emitted when coal is
burned. But San Diego Gas and Electric Co. sees the potential for using more
coal-fired electricity in the future.
While Edison, the state's second-largest utility, has no plans to build
additional coal plants of its own, Alexander said it considers coal
"readily available, attractively priced, domestic" and one more option
for the fuel diversity that will help safeguard its customers from price spikes.
That's a lot to hang on a lump of compressed vegetation. Formed in swamps and
bogs over eons by heat and pressure, coal is far more abundant worldwide than
oil or natural gas.
It is plentiful in the United States, where it feeds the power plants that
crank out just over half the nation's electricity.
When coal burns uncontrolled, it emits a stink of gases and organic particles
that have given it a filthy reputation since the Industrial Revolution. Much of
that evaporates when modern pollution controls are applied.
Still, even with controls, this remains:
Coal plants being built today emit sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides,
precursors of smog and acid rain. The plants produce particulates, the bits of
fine ash that can lodge in the lungs, aggravating asthma and other ills. They
also produce mercury, which can contaminate fish once it falls into streams and
lakes. And, most notably, burning coal gives off serious amounts of carbon
dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas believed responsible for global warming.
In almost every category, natural gas emissions are lower, sometimes
significantly, although that fuel, in turn, cannot compete for emission
cleanliness with wind, solar or nuclear power.
Environmentalists argue that building coal plants would tie America down to a
50-year investment in a polluting technology that easily could be avoided by
turning to energy efficiency and renewable power.
Much of the nation may feel otherwise.
In separate surveys, the U.S. Department of Energy and consultants with
Energy Ventures Analysis in Virginia estimate that between 90 and 100 coal-fired
power plants are proposed around the United States.
"Coal has witnessed what I would consider a real boom over the last year
or so," said Joe Lucas, a vice president of the Florida-based Center for
Energy and Economic Development, a coal and railroad industry group.
"There's been a recognition that you can't power America's energy future
without coal."
The primary reason for coal's revival is economic: Natural gas prices have
risen more and stayed higher longer than anyone anticipated, making coal look
appealingly inexpensive and stable.
Some also see the hand of the Bush administration, with its perceived
friendliness to the energy industry.
John Barth, director of the Western Clean Energy Campaign, said he believes
the administration's "cavalier" attitude toward tightening mercury
emission rules, its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide and its control of the
EPA have emboldened coal developers.
"It's an economic and political and regulatory climate that is very
hospitable," said Vickie Patton, a senior attorney in the Rocky Mountain
office of Environmental Defense. "We're seeing coal plant proposals just
mushroom across the interior West."
Sempra Energy Resources, an unregulated sister company to San Diego's
utility, is proposing building one large coal plant near the site of the Burning
Man festival in Nevada and another in Idaho.
Wyoming, home to healthy resources of coal, oil and wind, sees energy
exportation as the core of its economy and its future growth, said Steve
Ellenbecker, energy policy adviser to Gov. Dave Freudenthal.
The state has been approached by developers outlining at least six to eight
coal plant proposals, and soon will be discussing with other Western states an
estimated $4 billion to $6 billion transmission network to export new coal power
and wind power to California, he said.
While some grumble darkly about Nevada becoming an "energy colony"
of California, the issue seems more nuanced to Dick Burdette, director of the
Nevada State Office of Energy.
It's true that the fast-growing state has only so much airshed to devote to
its own power plants, new industries and power for export, he said. But it's too
simple to say that Nevada shouldn't deplete that airshed for California's sake.
After all, California's polluting oil refineries turn out the gasoline that
is sold in Nevada.
"Your airshed is being depleted so Nevadans can drive," he said
"We have regional problems, and we need regional solutions."
California has a long history of seeking regional solutions to its own energy
problems, with three major south state utilities owning pieces of coal plants
outside the state.
California today gets just slightly more than 20 percent of its electricity
from coal-fired plants, almost all outside the state and just a handful of small
plants within its borders. And despite a popular misconception, California has
no regulations that prohibit coal plants here, as long as they meet local air
quality rules.
Still, energy experts anticipate that whatever coal-power facilities emerge
to feed the state's energy demands will be built outside its borders. Energy
Ventures Analysis ranks California third in its list of regions least welcoming
to coal, just behind New England and New York.
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