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The Future of Coal
- LATEST COMMENTS
- Batteries! The only way to remove Coal, Natural Gas, and ... - BryanR
- That aspect of the issue, or at least the perception ... - Alex J
- Null. - Tom D Ford
Last week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled for the first time that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are health-harming pollutants. It's a watershed move that that some say might open the door for greater regulation of coal — a top carbon emitter when burned — as a source of electricity.
So what does this mean for Oregon, where about 40 percent of our electricity is generated by coal, one of the cheapest and most plentiful, if dirtiest, sources of energy? This is our first contribution to The Switch, the OPB News series about the future of energy in the northwest.
In 2007, the state legislature set its own ambitious goal of reducing carbon emissions to 10 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and to 75 percent below those levels by 2050. Efforts to authorize the Western Climate Initiative, of which Oregon is a part, have stalled in many state legislatures. A bill currently under consideration in Oregon would, among other things, require the Public Utility Commission to draft a plan on how utilities will reach 2007 targets. Other pending legislation would effectively bar the construction of future pulverized coal plants in Oregon.
Oregon's major investor-owned utilities — Portland General Electric (PGE) and PacifiCorp — both rely on coal-fired power. PGE's Boardman coal plant (the only one in the state) provides about 15 percent of the utility's generating capacity. Meanwhile, PacifiCorp relies on coal for about 65 percent of the power it provides Oregon residents. Both utilities argue that a state-by-state or regional cap-and-trade approach would be ineffective, expensive and economically crippling. Rather, they assert that the federal government should implement a nationwide cap-and-trade system. At the same time, environmental advocates, such as Ivan Maluski of the Oregon chapter of Sierra Club, contend that the state must proceed "expeditiously" with reducing its emissions instead of waiting for action at the national level.
So what can we expect from Washington, D.C.? Despite the EPA ruling on carbon dioxide, the Obama administration has signaled its willingness to defer to Congress, where this week the House energy committee holds hearings on a plan to reduce greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020. The Obama administration would like Congress to complete emissions-reducing legislation by the end of the year when global climate change talks are scheduled in Copenhagen.
And what about clean coal? Billions of dollars, after all, were included in the stimulus package for research into technology that even its advocates concede may be decades away.
As the country marks Earth Day, what changes are on the horizon when it comes to coal as an energy source? How might increased regulation of carbon dioxide affect you? As a business owner or homeowner, what concerns do you have about your utility rates or the effect of your power usage on the environment? What is the appropriate balance to strike in the state’s energy portfolio?
GUESTS:
- Reuben Plantico: Environmental Policy Director for Portland General Electric
- Angus Duncan: Chair of the Oregon Global Warming Commission and president of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation
- Pete McGrail: Laboratory Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington.
- Dan Ritzman: Western Director of the Sierra Club Beyond Coal Campaign
Tagged as: alternative energy · coal · energy · the switch · utilities
Photo credit: Whateverthing/ Flickr /Creative Commons
COMMENTS: (27 total)
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Null.
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Back in 1965 my weekend job while in high school was to stoke and clean what I believe was the last small coal fired boiler in Bend. It was used to heat a local greenhouse. It was an amazingly dirty job, as coal soot just sticks to your skin like crazy.
So I have some up close and personal experience with coal.
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As far as the current mix of hydro, coal, wind, natural gas and other methods we use to generate electricity, it took us over 100 years to get to where we are today. It will take more time than most folks realize to make significant changes OR it will cost more money than most folks realize!
The various proposals for changes in electricity generation, like 25 percent renewables by 2025 (pick whatever catchy numerical couplet you like) should come with a price tag attached. We can employ the same committee to generate the cost estimates as is used for State of Oregon ballot measures.
Without an up-front agreement on price, these fast-track proposals ring hollow, and pose a potential economic hardship on our region - especially on our low-income citizens.
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That aspect of the issue, or at least the perception of it, is one that makes this all so difficult. Upfront costs of accelerating a transition vs. future costs (potentially including to tens of generations) of not doing so. Some estimates, like here, suggest it's the delayers who are the alarmists - the economic alarmists. But regardless of accuracy, it must be admitted that there's a lot of work that can be done to modernize the power grid and make other efficiency improvements, as well as invest in alternatives. Procedes from any carbon tax, or from cap & trade allowance auctioning, can be used to help lower income people improve efficiency and tap into alternatives.
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Despite the view of certain fossil-funded people with a record of disseminating misleading information, the risk of rapid climate change is something that must be addressed starting NOW. Thermal inertia and amplifying feedback effects in the climate system help make this reality. From what I've seen, "clean coal" isn't ready to make any significant contribution to CO2 reduction, and may end up being non-competitive with other alternatives. We hear about technologies that can reduce cost, but we're still talking about trying to efficiently remove and permanently store huge amounts of carbon dioxide annually. Most coal plants don't lend themselves to that, and most aren't parked right near an oil field for deposit of compressed CO2.
Until someone cites a firm, scientifically-based study suggesting any carbon sequestration technology can be successfully and cost-effectively scaled up within a decade, we should be focusing more on efficiency and other alternatives. Including importing baseload power from solar thermal plants and exploring geothermal. There's too much at stake to bet CCS technology will be ready in time, let alone cost competitive. There's some discussion of the prospects of "clean coal" here. -
There are people who call themselves "green" Who oppose nuclear, liquid narural gas, hydro, so that leaves coal and I guess corn ethanol. I do not think that turning off the power 12 hours a day like in Bagdad would go over very well
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The only thing I heard from all that was Money money money. Once we figure out that all the money in the world will not make a difference when the world is gone, we will pull our head out of the sand and figure it out. But then all these people attempting to fix the not so green planet will just shoot it down becuase its not going to make them any money. So we go on with killing the only planet we have to live on. Good job human race!!
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<a href="http://www.thedirtylie.com/">Coal is the dirtiest form of energy</a>
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Out here in reality, coal has never actually been cheap, it is only cheap for the owners and producers of coal and the true costs have been shifted onto the public, onto The Commons.
Think back in history to London and Paris when burning coal in the cities smogged up the air, causing lung diseases, acid rain that corroded marble stautes, soot that dirtied the buildings, and acid air that put that lovely patina on everything copper and bronze.
All that the coal owners and producers have done is move the burning of coal from inside the cities and peoples homes and factories and out to the wide open spaces like Boardman and Wyoming and so out of the publics mind. But now their abuse of our Common, our public air is so huge that it is hurting our world climate.
Polluting our air is really a "Taking" from the public and the public has never been compensated for that "Taking". Cap and Trade shares should not be "given" to the polluters of our air, but ought to be charged direstly to the shareholders of the Coal industries and they should not be allowed to pass only the costs to the public.
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As a Native Oregonian, Life Long Environmentalist, and now steward of my own micro forest located on the high desert of Oregon. Today I find that I am often environmentally on the opposite side of many, many resource issues popularized by the currently popular Green Action Groups or GAG’s.
IF you are going to use energy form any source to facilitate your life style you are going to pollute in some way. You can not escape this simple fact. You can “Feel Good” by taking the popular carbon neutral mantra as your own, not necessarily a completely bad thing. Yet follow your money the highly profitable GAG’s and Government benefit. The much more harmful pollutants are overlooked. The impact on lifestyle can be minimized, and the cost to the private sector is also minimal. One can only hope that one day the Sheep look up.
However socially acceptable it is to focus on carbon emissions; carbon and “Human Based Global Warming” are not actually the primary pollutant threat environmentally. Your beloved Prius pollutes as much as any other land transportation vehicle of its class, several, studies indicate that the total pollution may be greater then a same class non hybrid vehicle.
If we want to go green, a good choice and more then 50 years late in starting, we need to deemphasize Carbon as the risk from carbon is actually low in comparison to many of the other chemicals we emit deliberately into our environment. All that we need to do is to find a productive use for the emissions thus eliminating them becomes profitable. When pollution capture becomes profitable there will be no/little pollution.
Until then you and I are emitting Plastics, Fluoride, Petrochemicals like chemically synthesized fertilizers, toxins like Dioxin and similar, and tons of solid waste that are not recycled… You may feel good in your Prius yet you have done at the end of the day damn little with your contribution. Go Sheep Go. -
We have a great, natural way of sequestering carbon underground. The problem is we keep digging it up and burning it.
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Yow! Ha ha ha!
Good point!
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How will advances in energy storage (compressed air, pumped storage hydropower)transform intermittant renewable energy into dispatchable sources of "base load"?
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Could hydro generators be modified into a more dynamic power source so that we could get most of our power from the wind and bring up hydro generators quickly when there is a wind shortage?
Dalton
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A fundamental point that hasn't been made:
ALL fossil fuels - coal, oil, natural gas, coal tars, etc., are all time-transferred energy from the sun. We are moving the saved energy from the sun from one era in time, collected over a very long period of time, to the present and consumingit - releasing it back into the earth's environment - at a very rapid rate. Can there be any doubt that this is the source of global warming?
Discussion of reducing the effects polution from extraction and refinement is fine tuning the problem - not offering a solution. The only long-term balance is using the energy we are given daily - solar; in direct wind, tidal, short term bio or whatever. Only this will keep the planets energy budget in balance.
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Yeppers! You are exactly right.
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The following is from a report by the Sightline Institute titled, "Cap and Trade 101: A Climate Policy Primer":
"Why Not Give Away Permits? Put simply, giving away free permits is the worst program design for consumers. Cap and trade puts the same price on climate pollution whether the permits are given away or auctioned. The only difference—an extraordinarily important one—is who gets the extra money that consumers are paying for energy: fossil-fuel companies or in-state families and communities?
"Giving away permits is just like handing out money, taking billions of dollars out of the pockets of energy consumers and handing them to energy companies."
You can read more at ( http://www.sightline.org/research/energy/res_pubs/cap-and-trade-101/ ).
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We don't give or even sell permits for people or factories to dump raw untreated sewage into our rivers and lakes, we just tell them to "Stop Right Now" and we ought to do the same with the Coal industries about our air!
And, for many many years they have taken huge profits by polluting our air, now they should be made to pay for all costs of cleaning up their act out of their past profits and without passing along any cost to the public or consumers! The public did not make the mess, the coal industries did!
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Any effort to retain coal as an energy option must not only be based on reducing carbon emissions; but must also include a radical change in current mining practices.
Coal is relatively cheap now in part because the Bush administration allowed "strip & run" methods such as "mountaintop removal" and failed to enforce safety regulations at the mines.
The true price of coal must include the cost of strict safety compliance and "lowest-impact" mining technology; which would include the full reclamation of mining sites.
"Clean coal" (if such can exist) must be defined from mine site, to the smoke-stack and finally the ash pile. Carbon emissions are not the only issue.
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Ms. Harris:
When disussing wind and base load you made a common eror that seems logical. The biggest problem with wind generation is not what to do when the wind isn't blowing as back-up generation capacity already exists. Also, as wind power expands into more areas it becomes less likely that the wind won't be blowing somewhere in the system. The biggest problem is rather what to do when the wind is blowing too much. Companies are currently working to improve battery technology, use fly wheels to store the excess power for later use or hydrolize water to generate hydrogen to burn for later use. These technologies have not, as of yet, been perfected. I don't doubt that they will be though.
Karl
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The conventional wisdom of ensuring baseloads should be discussed further.
Below from a March 2009 article ("The energy should always work twice") in the scientific journal Nature:
"A common question is whether a distributed generating system with many small seasonally variable suppliers can ensure that peak demand will be met.
"But, says [German energy consultant, Thomas] Ackerman, in a reversal of the standard cliché about free-market United States and socialist Europe, “we don’t talk about guaranteeing power from wind or other sources all the time – we just believe that the market will cope.” In Germany, he says, peak demand is about 74 gigawatts and the market can supply about 120 gigawatts, so that as demand waxes and wanes, more expensive producers enter and leave the market, and the price of electricity rises and falls. … “The US system looks like our system did maybe 25 years ago,” says [head of Denmark’s state-run Energinet.dk, Per] Lund."
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090311/full/458138a.html
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It is tragic that OR has not taken a leadership position in energy production and conservation, as it has very diverse resources and capable stakeholders.
I've done the alternative energy thing since the 1970's, but I realize Alternative and Green Energy sources can only provide a small percentage of required power. Conservation and efficiency is critical and an open opportunity for the PNW to show leadership.
I'm grateful there is a united Renewable Energy effort taking place in the Gorge. http://www.cgbrez.org/
Too bad OR doesn't have a nice, clean, functioning nuclear facility, as it is a critical part of the oil / coal free future. Works great in many counties I have lived, and the longer as we pass this opportunity up, the further into oil / coal dependence and further away from a reasonable solution we get.
As a gorge dweller, I hate to realize I am exposed to a higher level of emission and acid rain that those residents downwind of the entire Midwest USA gray cloud coming from IL, IN, OH, PA. (Which is sickening to see as you fly over the area.)
I feel coal use in Boardman is disgusting, and a disservice to a relatively 'green' region.
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Oregon has the ability to sustain itself coal-free, and we need to if we are going to confront climate change and send a signal to national and international policy makers that they need to do the same.
I already purchase the green energy option from PGE. I know that there will be additional costs for ratepayers like myself to absorb as we increase our renewable portfolio, but with careful planning and good policy the increase will become part of my monthly budget, just like my current green option.
We need to confront climate change on all fronts, and a cap on carbon (and coal-based energy both from in and out of state) is a great first step.
Christine Lewis, Milwaukie
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We ought to imagine a future world that has run out of Oil and Coal and what the energy sources would be and then make those energy sources happen.
The people who made their economic bet on Oil and Coal are going to have to stretch out and extend their Return On Investment horizon, ROI, and slow down their attacks on our atmosphere and climate.
We need a mobilization like the Allies did in WW2, to drastically change our energy supplies from Oil and Coal and we need to enlist the rest of the world in this new mobilization.
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The amended Senate Bill 80 would provide a blueprint for how we will achieve the climate goals adopted by the 2007 Oregon Legislature and build a clean energy economy that will create good, family wage jobs and stabilize energy costs.
You can learn more about the proposal and contact your legislators here.
Jake Weigler
Healthy Climate Partnership
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Batteries!
The only way to remove Coal, Natural Gas, and other Carbon producing energy is to store your clean energy in batteries.
Currently we have no batteries in our grid, the technology is still very new. Without batteries electricity made by wind or soloar must be used immidiately. This is why they talk about replacing Base-load energy with Base-load energy.
But what we need to do is add Batteries to the grid and convert Solar and Wind INTO base-load energy.
for more info read this article in WIRED magazine:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/17-04/gp_intro?currentPage=1
What's the point in investing in Solar and Wind if it's not reducing our need for Coal?