Clean Coal

For politically progressive types, “clean coal” is an outrage, and is fairly criticized as a greenwashing technique designed to prolong the life of an energy technology that, in a post-carbon future, should be on its last legs. Shouting repeatedly “no clean coal” is something that needs to be done but isn’t the entire answer to making coal go away. Reversing fossil fuel consumption won’t happen overnight even with heroic efforts, and the danger of dismissing the issue with “no such thing as clean coal” is that it cedes the topic to the utilities and mining industries, permitting them to frame the terms of the discussion.

Which they’ve done. “Clean coal” proponents seem to have successfully framed the topic only in terms of carbon dioxide emissions and climate change, deflecting attention from mountaintop removal, New Source Performance Standards, worker health and safety, management of coal combustion wastes and environmental justice, while progressives squabble about whether toxic metals or radionuclides are the bigger risk resulting from the Kingston Fossil retention basin failure.

The right answer is probably “neither”, However, it scarcely matters that the several feet of crud deposited on your front porch or running off into nearby streams is not dangerously toxic, though part of EPA’s handwringing since 1993 about regulating disposal of coal combustion wastes is whether or not to list them as hazardous wastes. Beyond the outrage about Kingston Fossil happening at all or the lackluster media response, this could provide an opportunity. If the utility and mining industries have embraced “clean coal”, don’t dismiss it, rather wrap it around their necks like an anchor. Make it a dialog that includes restoration and management of runoff during mining, protecting the workers, sustaining the communities that are home to coal mining, retrofitting plants with emissions controls for particulates and mercury, reusing rather than landfilling coal combustion wastes – as well as sequestering the carbon dioxide emissions. If the proponents really believe in “clean coal”, then let them stand behind it with dollars and the willingness to submit to regulation for all of coal’s environmental and health problems.

Of course, these changes will make electrical power from coal less affordable, and make utility company stock less desirable to shareholders. Maybe that will give alternatives such renewable energy and conservation more of an edge in the energy marketplace.

Turning the Corner on Coal-Fired Power?

Last month, Lowbagger had an article about the cancellation of 59 coal-fired power plant projects in 2007. The article, which links to an entry in Sourcewatch, lists several reasons including concerns about climate change, coal being taken out of regional long-range integrated resource planning (whatever that means), renewable energy playing a more important role in utility profiles, and plants cancelled due to market forces (community or regulatory objections, lack of demand, excessive costs or lack of financing).

Champagne corks may be popping at this news, but I prefer to wait until I start seeing carbon dioxide concentrations trending downward in the atmosphere before getting too excited about this outcome. Beyond compiling the list of projects, Sourcewatch didn’t provide a lot of commentary, which meant that if I wanted to read any further exploration on this topic, I was going to have to write it myself.

“Cancellation of 59 plants” isn’t a terribly significant fact by itself. It doesn’t directly reflect carbon emissions averted; after all, the power generation is going to come from somewhere, and the replacement sources won’t entirely be renewables. However, it might be an indication of a trend. Earlier this month, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) published a report (actually, a wordy Powerpoint presentation) summarizing the status of new coal plant starts in the U.S.

One tidbit from this report is that 36,000 megawatts of coal-fired plants were commissioned in 2002, while only 4,500 megawatts of capacity were built by 2007. Project delays have shifted some plants out several years. Delays and cancellations have occurred due to regulatory uncertainty regarding climate change, or unfavorable economics brought on by increasing industry costs. The drought in power plant construction reduces the skilled labor available for engineering, procurement, project management and construction; if you can’t find work designing and constructing coal-fired plants, you find something else to do and therefore are less available if future projects are announced. The reduction in available human resources further reduces the viability of bringing more new coal plants on line.

The NETL report indicates that projected growth rate in electricity generation has been declining, which some parties (i.e. the North American Electrical Reliability Council) suggest that electrical generation capacity might become inadequate to maintain reliability and to keep electricity prices from rising. What do these folks (i.e. NERC and NETL) suggest? Why, build more coal-fired plants. The outcome if that doesn’t happen is an increase in the use of natural gas for electrical generation, and with concerns about natural gas resources, there might an increase in liquid natural gas imports.

And, while noone responsible for writing these assessments has said it, you might as well get ready for the climate change skeptics to chime in, “and then the terrorists win, because we’ve given them an opportunity to blow up Boston Harbor”.

In these reports, there hasn’t been any mention of renewable energy or conservation picking up the slack in electrical generation needs. But that’s perhaps because the NETL is oriented towards fossil fuel generation. It would be interesting to see what the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) says about all of this.