Renewable Energy Advocates Oppose Two New 'Clean' Coal Plants in OR, WA

Dec 05 - Daily Journal of Commerce (Portland, OR)

Two proposed "clean" coal plants in Oregon and Washington have ignited a debate among the Northwest's renewable energy advocates that argue there is no such thing as clean coal.

At their semi-annual meeting in Portland on Friday, members of the Northwest Energy Coalition, an alliance representing over 100 environmental organizations in five Northwest states, celebrated the voter passage of a renewable energy portfolio standard in Washington in November.

But they voiced concern over the proposed addition of two new integrated coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants to the Northwest's energy portfolio at a time when the region has made great gains in promoting renewable energy production.

"From the Northwest's perspective we think that energy efficiency and renewable energy are the resources that should be developed first in meeting the local communities' needs," said Nancy Hirsh, policy director for the Northwest Energy Coalition.

Developers are still in the process of the state application and review process for siting the new facilities, to be located in Kalama, Wash. and at the Port Westward Industrial area near Clatskanie. Proposals now are for completion as early as 2012.

How clean is coal?

IGCC plants - based on a new energy technology that produces and burns a synthetic natural gas made from coal - emit less mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides than traditional pulverized coal plants and provide for the possibility of carbon capture and storage to reduce global warming pollution.

According to the Department of Energy, the proposed plants would not lower carbon dioxide emissions without the addition of carbon sequestering methods.

Carbon capture and storage, in which carbon dioxide gases are pumped underground for storage, are also largely untested in the long term and would not be immediately active on the new plants.

"The timing is such that it's very likely that we'll be making siting decisions with long term commitments to the emissions, before we have what is satisfying knowledge about the prospects for responsibly disposing of pollution," said K.C. Golden, policy director for Climate Solutions and a board member of public power agency Energy Northwest.

"This technology at least has the prospect of responsible disposal of pollution," said Golden. "But that prospect is still a long way from being proven in any kind of scale that gives me a lot of confidence."

Costs of carbon pollution

A national tax on carbon emissions is currently being considered and has a high probability of being enacted sometime in the next ten to 20 years, according the to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, which oversees energy planning in the region.

A 2005 energy portfolio cost analysis by the council that calculated the additional cost of a potential carbon tax on new energy projects in the region showed a cost preference for conservation and development of renewable energy plants such as wind and solar power over carbon-based plants, including integrated coal.

To keep energy costs as low as possible "you would develop less carbon based technology in the portfolio and move wind forward in time and get as much conservation as you could to avoid producing carbon," said Tom Eckman, conservation manager for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council.

"An integrated coal gasification plant would be preferred rather than a standard pulverized coal plant because it has less carbon output," said Eckman.

The cost-benefit analysis was completed after the power council's current regional power plan was enacted and thus isn't formally incorporated into the council's planning.

IGCC concerns

Construction of new coal plants, regardless of the new technology, should thus be a last resort, coalition members say.

"If there is more load growth than we can achieve with renewable energy and its cost competitors then we should look at new technologies," said Hirsh, "and IGCC would be one of those if it fully captured and mitigated the carbon emissions and greenhouse gases."

Coalition members have long opposed the construction of any new coal-powered energy plants on the West Coast. But, some argue, if coal must be an energy source, burning gasified coal is still a cleaner alternative to pulverized coal.

"As a comparison, IGCC with responsible disposal of global warming pollution versus pulverized coal, there is a material, ethical, economical, global climate difference between those two things," said Ralph Cavanaugh, energy program director of the National Resources Defense Council.

"If prospects for using coal responsibly are to go anywhere," Cavanaugh said, "we have got to actually have ways of disposing responsibly of the global warming pollution."