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The downside of cap-and-trade
Bill Paul, Energy Tech Stocks
Cap-and-Trade Market Could Ruin U.S.’s Delicate Energy Balance & Cause Sharp Price Rise (Pt 3 of 4)
“I freaked myself out.”
That’s how Catherine Elder, energy analyst for noted consultancy R.W. Beck, described how she felt when she took a good look at how a cap-and-trade market could possibly ruin the U.S.’s delicate energy balance.
Elder’s work, which is required reading in the electric utility industry, posits that in order for the U.S. to meet its twin goals of economic growth and environmental protection in a world with a cap-and-trade market, the nation will need to rely on four basic fuel sources to generate the increasing amount of electricity that will be required over the next two decades. They are coal, nuclear, natural gas and renewables (solar, wind and so on).
In part Elder is worried about the impact on the other three if coal isn’t cleaned up through carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), a technology which, although unproven, is at the heart of Washington’s long-term CO2 reduction plans.
Elder is also worried about Washington’s notion that roughly a quarter of expected power needs by around 2025 can be met with nuclear power, a timetable that she (and others) find audaciously ambitious, given the nature of the permitting process plus chronic manpower and materiel bottlenecks.
If both coal and nuclear falter in the coming carbon-constrained world, Elder says renewables can contribute a lot more than Washington anticipates. That’s the good news, especially for investors looking to prosper along with wind and solar energy developers.
(12 November 2008)
W.Va. Democrats explore green politics (coal)
Associated Press via Charleston Gazette
Coal may keep the lights on for about half the country, but in West Virginia it also keeps politicians in office.
During this year’s campaign, Republicans and Democrats alike jockeyed to prove their devotion to the fuel source, with politicians from both parties running TV ads in which they held up lumps of coal like good-luck talismans.
It might therefore seem foolhardy to give the other party an opening by disavowing any aspect of the industry, but Danny Chiotos doesn’t see it that way.
Chiotos is the head of the environmental caucus of the West Virginia Young Democrats. He played a crucial role in getting that group to pass a resolution earlier this year calling for an end to new mountaintop removal permits, thereby opening a new chapter in one of the state’s most contentious debates.
(10 November 2008)
Environmentalists look to Obama to limit drilling
Ayesha Rascoe, Reuters
Environmentalists on Monday applauded an announcement that U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama would consider curtailing oil and gas drilling in some areas, and expressed hope future energy policy decisions would contain more environmental protections.
The co-chair of Obama’s transition team, John Podesta, said on Sunday that Obama probably would reverse an executive order by President George W. Bush allowing drilling in fragile lands in Utah.
Mike Daulton, legislative director of the National Audubon Society, said reversing the order would be a promising step away from the Bush administration’s energy policy, which he called too slanted toward the oil industry.
(10 November 2008)
Obama expected to tighten coal regulations
Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Coal industry watchdogs are looking for Obama to reverse Bush administration rule changes, beef up enforcement, and put the nation’s first ever limits on carbon dioxide from power plants.
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When Barack Obama becomes president, the coal industry isn’t likely to go bankrupt. But coal operators and coal-fired utilities should brace for tougher regulation of mine safety, strip mining and especially greenhouse gas emissions.
Coal industry watchdogs are looking for Obama to reverse Bush administration rule changes, beef up enforcement, and put the nation’s first ever limits on carbon dioxide from power plants.
“While coal mining is vitally important to the nation, it can kill and maim miners and foul the land, air and water when mine safety and environmental laws are violated,” said Patrick McGinley, a West Virginia University environmental law professor.
“I expect the Obama administration will act decisively to both promote responsible coal mining and vigorously enforce mine safety and environmental laws that protect coal miners’ lives and coalfield communities.”
(9 November 2008)
Taking On King Coal
Bryan Walsh, TIME
Nothing could sway the Dominion 11 from their mission–not the cops and certainly not the prospect of free food. Early on the morning of Sept. 15, activists from a range of environmental groups formed a human barrier to block access to a coal plant being built by Dominion in rural Wise County, Virginia. As acts of civil disobedience go, this wasn’t exactly Bloody Sunday. The police took a hands-off approach and even offered to buy the protesters breakfast if they unchained themselves. (They declined.) But the consequences were far from trivial. The activists who had formed the barrier to the construction site were arrested and charged with trespassing, and they eventually paid $400 each in fines. That’s nothing, of course, compared with the punishment the Dominion plant will inflict on the environment. If completed, the plant will emit 5.3 million tons of CO2 a year into the atmosphere, roughly the equivalent of putting a million more cars on the road.
The future of coal will dictate the future of the climate. Plants in the U.S. that burn this low-cost, high-carbon fuel account for about 40% of the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions, not to mention other air pollutants. Right now there are about 600 coal power plants in the U.S., and an additional 110 are in various stages of development. Without ways to capture the carbon burned in coal and sequester it underground, new plants all but guarantee billions of tons of future carbon emissions and essentially negate efforts to reduce global warming. “Business as usual can’t continue as long as coal is destroying the climate,” says Hannah Morgan, 20, one of the Dominion 11. “We are not going to back down.”
(5 November 2008)
Should Big Oil give up tax breaks — or get cuts?
John W. Schoen, MSNBC
Q: We kept hearing from the presidential candidates about the taxes that the big oil companies pay. One side will give them more tax breaks and the other will increase their taxes one way or another. With another round of record profits by Exxon and extremely high prices at the pump, why would the oil companies be getting a break on their taxes in the first place?
— Phillip H., Tampa, Fla.
A: The bulk of the tax incentives in question were part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the comprehensive legislation Congress enacted after years of debate and two failed attempts to reach a consensus. This $14 billion package (seems like such a small number these days) included a long list of tax incentives for nuclear power, “clean” coal, ethanol and other renewable fuels. Also included were several billion dollars in tax breaks and “royalty relief” for oil producers to encourage more drilling on federal leases — especially in deep water drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico. At the time, the Bush administration’s basic solution to the energy crisis was to produce more oil, gas and coal.
(10 November 2008)
