Regulations could render coal plants useless by 2030

Apr 12 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Kent Jackson Standard-Speaker, Hazleton, Pa.


New federal regulations won't close plants that burn coal to generate electricity, but they will make building new plants impractical after 2030, local power companies believe.

The regulations that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on March 27 limit emissions from new plants of carbon dioxide, a gas that is building up in the atmosphere and linked to global warming and other climate changes.

Jeff McNelly, executive director of ARIPPA, an association of Pennsylvania plants that produce electricity by burning waste coal, said the regulations that EPA announced haven't been published yet.

"Would they directly affect existing plants in Pennsylvania? The answer would probably be no," McNelly said.

ARIPPA, however, remains concerned about the regulations because they indicate that the Obama administration promotes a shift from coal to other fuels. To comply with the regulations, coal-fired plants would need to capture carbon dioxide and store it underground, but the technology to do that isn't yet on the market.

Even without the new regulations, power plants in ARIPPA face financial difficulties, McNelly said. Other federal regulations, a mild winter and new gas wells created low prices for natural gas, a competing fuel, he said.

The Northampton generating plant in ARIPPA filed for bankruptcy. A biomass plant in Northumberland shut down on April 1, a plant in Gilberton is slowing production and one is Sunbury stopped running, although it might switch to natural gas, McNelly said.

Natural gas plants already comply with the new regulations, in part because natural gas has less carbon than coal contains.

While a molecule of natural gas -- or methane -- contains four hydrogen atoms and one carbon atom, anthracite -- the hard coal for which northeastern Pennsylvania is famous -- is nearly all carbon.

Creating a megawatt of electricity by burning gas gives off less carbon dioxide than creating the same amount of power by burning coal, Sarah Saylor, a spokeswoman for Earthjustice in Washington, D.C., said.

On Thursday, Earthjustice sued EPA to set regulations for disposal of coal ash from power plants. Saylor did not think that the agency is close to unveiling those regulations, which were promised more than two years ago.

McNelly said the plants in ARIPPA provide an environmental benefit because they burn waste coal, which pollutes water when left in piles around the anthracite region.

Coal ash and flue gas desulfurization material trapped by air-pollution controls at coal-burning plants are among the substances that Hazleton Creek Properties has permission to use when filling mines and covering ground at the site of the proposed Hazleton amphitheater.

PPL, the distributor of electricity to much of northeastern and central Pennsylvania, paid $600 million to install scrubbers and other pollution controls at its Montour coal-burning plant.

George Lewis, a spokesman for PPL, said by email that the company spent $2.7 billion on controls for coal-fired plants across Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Montana.

EPA's regulations will not affect PPL directly, Lewis said, because the regulations apply to new plants, which PPL doesn't plan to build.

Still, Lewis said the regulations will phase out coal because PPL doesn't think technology to capture carbon dioxide will be commercially viable for years.

"That's a concern because PPL believes diverse sources of electricity are needed ... which should include coal, used responsibly," he said.

kjackson@standardspeaker.com

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