Martin Rosenberg | Oct 29, 2010

America is becoming less reliant on its long-time mainstay, coal-fired electric power generation. Total coal consumption in the electric power sector this year is expected to reach 998.8 million tons, according to a U.S. Energy Information Administration report this month.
In 2011, that figure will slip to 992.3 million tons, the government predicts.
The drop in coal-burning for generation reflects the steep decline in electricity demand faced by utilities, a direct outgrowth of the recession. Total electricity production last year fell 3.7 percent, the steepest one year decline in 72 years, according to federal figures.
Utilities, faced with a sharp downturn in revenues from power sales, are shelving plans for new coal generation.  A total for 43 coal plant projects have been cancelled or deferred in the past two years, according to the Edison Electric Institute.
For planned future growth in demand, utilities are banking on natural gas for generation. Natural gas generation will represent 82 percent of the capacity additional in 2013 - up from 42 percent in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In comparison, coal will be just 10 percent of new generation capacity in 2013, down from 18 percent in 2009.
Utility executives dependent on coal generation are beginning to develop new strategies as a result of concern about the contribution fossil fuels may make to climate change. Ameren, a St. Louis based utility, gets 85 percent of its electricity from coal generation. Even so, Thomas Voss told EnergyBiz, "We are accumulating carbon, and I don't think we can indefinitely accumulate carbon."
One strategy for addressing that concern is the FutureGen research effort, which plans to develop a near zero emissions coal-fired generation plant. Kenneth K. Humphreys, the new FutureGen chief executive officer, will describe that initiative in detail at the 2011 EnergyBiz Leadership Forum.
Mark Crisson, president of the American Public Power Association, said that if all coal generators were converted to burn natural gas, annual consumption of natural gas for power generation would rise from current levels of about 7 trillion cubic feet to approximately 36 trillion cubic feet.
Ample natural gas resources are available as a result of recent development of new shale drilling technology.
John Kelly, Galvin Electricity Initiative deputy director, said this month at GridWeek, that today power generators use 25 percent of our natural gas capacity to generate 400,000 megawatts of power. There is plenty of room for growth, with natural gas prices low and stable.
Still, natural gas supplies about 22 percent of our power, and coal generation about half.
We are still dependent on coal-powered generation. One week this month, 139,310 railroad cars were loaded with coal at America's mines and transported across the country to coal generating plants.
But one of the leading coal generation experts in the nation said the future of coal depends on whether significant industry uncertain about its future can be addressed. Julio Friedmann, carbon managment program leader at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said, "that uncertainty breeds inaction."
Utility executives want to know if Congress will or will not place a price on carbon emissions, and they want to know if carbon sequestration will work and be affordable. If carbon capture and sequestration is not an option, Friedmann said, "We're on a fly path to the end of coal. Period. Coal sunsets in 20 years."

 

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