Dousing the Coal-Fired Plant
Sep 21 - USA Today; New York
In a report compiled in early 2007, the Department of Energy listed 151
coal-fired power plants in the planning stages and talked about a resurgence
in coal-fired electricity. However, over the next several months, 59
proposed coal-fired power plants either were refused licenses by state
governments or quietly abandoned. In addition to the 59 plants that were
dropped, close to 50 more are being contested in the courts, and the
remaining plants likely will be challenged as they reach the permitting
stage. What began as a few local ripples of resistance quickly is evolving
into a national tidal wave of grassroots opposition from environmental,
health, farm, and community organizations and a fast-growing number of state
governments. The public at large is turning against coal. In a recent
national poll by the Opinion Research Corporation about which electricity
source people would prefer, only three percent chose coal. One of the first
major coal industry setbacks came in early 2007, when environmental groups
convinced Texas-based utility TXU to reduce the number of planned coal-fired
power plants in that state from 11 to three-and now even that trio of
proposed plants may be challenged. Meanwhile, the energy focus within the
Texas state government is shifting to wind power. The state is planning
23,000 megawatts of new wind-generating capacity (equal to 23 coal-fired
power plants).
In May, Florida's Public Service Commission refused to license a huge
$5,700,000,000, 1,960-megawatt coal plant because the utility could not
prove that building it would be cheaper than investing in conservation,
efficiency, and renewable energy sources. This argument by Earthjustice, a
not-for-profit environmental legal group, combined with widely expressed
public opposition to any more coal-fired power plants in Florida, led to the
quiet withdrawal of four other proposals. Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who
keenly is aware of Florida's vulnerability to rising seas, actively is
opposing new coal plants and has announced that the state plans to build the
world's largest solar-thermal power plant.
The principal reason for opposing new coal plants is the mounting worry
about climate change. Moreover, construction costs are soaringand then there
are intensifying health concerns about mercury emissions and the 23,600 U.S.
deaths per year from power plant air pollution.
Utilities have argued that carbon dioxide from coal plant smokestacks can be
captured and stored underground, thus helping keep hope for the industry
alive. Yet, on Jan. 30, 2008, the Bush Administration announced that it was
pulling the plug on a joint project with 13 utilities and coal companies to
build a demonstration coal-fired power plant in Illinois with underground
carbon sequestration because of massive cost overruns. The original cost of
$950,000,000 when the project was announced in 2003 had climbed beyond
$1,500,000,000 by early 2008, with further rises likely. The cancellation
effectively moves the date for any coal plants with carbon sequestration so
far into the future that this technology has little immediate relevance.
Some utilities are being refused licenses for coal plants because they have
not examined alternative methods of satisfying demand, such as increasing
the efficiency of electricity use. For example, insulating buildings greatly
reduces energy needs for heating and cooling. Shifting to more efficient
light bulbs would save enough electricity to close 80 U.S. coal power
plants.
The Sierra Club, a national leader on this issue, is working with hundreds
of local groups to mount legal challenges in state after state. Other
national groups that actively are involved include the Rainforest Action
Network, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Environmental Defense.
States that are working to reduce carbon emissions are banding together to
discourage other states from building new coal plants simply because it
would cancel their own carbon reduction efforts. In late 2006, for instance,
the attorneys general of California, Wisconsin, New York, and several other
northeastern states wrote to Kansas health officials urging them to deny
permits for two new coal power plants of 700 megawatts each. The permits
subsequently were denied, citing that carbon dioxide is an air pollutant and
should be regulated, as determined in an April 2007 Supreme Court ruling, hi
a letter on Jan. 22,2008, a similar grouping of states urged South
Carolina's Department of Health and Environmental Control to refuse a permit
for the proposed 600- megawatt Pee Dee coal plant.
Coal's future prospects also are suffering as Wall Street turns its back on
the industry. In July 2007, Citigroup downgraded coal company stocks across
the board while recommending that its clients switch to other energy stocks.
In January 2008, Merrill Lynch downgraded coal stocks. In early February
2008, investment banks Morgan Stanley, Citi, and JP Morgan Chase announced
that any future lending for coal-fired power would be contingent on the
utilities demonstrating that the plants would be economically viable with
the higher costs associated with future Federal restrictions on carbon
emissions. Later that month, Bank of America announced it would follow suit.
In August 2007, coal took a heavy political hit when Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid of Nevada, who had been opposing three coalfired power plants in
his own state, announced that he now was against building coal-fired power
plants anywhere in the world. Investment banks and political leaders are
beginning to see what has been obvious for some time to climate scientists,
such as NASA's James Hansen, who points out that it makes no sense to build
coal- fired power plants when we will have to bulldoze them in a few years.
In early November 2007, Rep. Henry Waxman (D.-Calif.) announced his
intention to "introduce legislation that establishes a moratorium on the
approval of new coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act until EPA
finalizes regulations to address the greenhouse gas emissions from these
sources." If a national moratorium is passed by Congress, it will mark the
beginning of the end for coal-fired power in the U.S.
"... NASA's James Hansen points out that it makes no sense to build
coal-fired power plants when we will have to bulldoze them in a few years."
Lester R. Brown, Ecology Editor of USA Today, is president of Earth Policy
Institute, Washington, D.C., and author of several books; his latest is Plan
B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
Copyright Society for Advancement of Education Sep 2008
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