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Environmentalists Win Big EPA Ruling on Coal Emissions
Bryan Walsh, TIME
Environmentalists have long known that when it comes to climate change, coal will be a dealbreaker. The carbon-intensive fossil fuel provides nearly half of the United States’ electricity, and is responsible for some 30% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s just due to the coal plants already operating — as the U.S. looks to expand its energy supply to meet rising demand in the future, over 100 coal plants are in various stages of development around the country. If those plants are built without the means to capture and sequester underground the carbon they emit — and it’s far from clear that such technology will be commercially viable in the near-term — our ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avert climate change will be meaningless.
That’s why a decision issued on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Appeals Board is so important. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over a new coal plant being build on American Indian reservation land in Utah, the board ruled that the EPA has no valid reason to refuse to regulate the CO2 emissions that come from new coal-powered plants. The decision pointed to a May 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court that recognized CO2, the main cause of climate change, is indeed a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act and therefore needs to be regulated by the EPA. In the months since that landmark decision, the EPA — with the support of the Bush Administration — has doggedly refuse to regulate CO2, much to the dismay of environmentalists. The board’s decision will force the EPA to consider CO2 when issuing permits for new power plants, potentially making it — at least in the short-term — all but impossible to certify new coal power plants. That’s because the EPA will need to reconfigure its rules on dealing with CO2, which is found in greater concentrations in coal than any other fossil fuel, that force plants in the permitting process to be reevaluated, delaying them for months or longer.
(13 November 2008)
Related:
From The Oil Drum: Breaking News: EPA Ruling – Coal Plants Must Limit CO2?
Does Natural-Gas Drilling Endanger Water Supplies?
Abrahm Lustgarten, Business Week
A debate is heating up over whether the fracturing technique used in natural-gas drilling could result in chemicals contaminating drinking water
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Natural-gas operations are proliferating from Wyoming to New York. At the same time, Halliburton (HAL) and other gas-service giants are fighting to keep secret the potentially hazardous chemicals they use to split thick layers of rock and release the fuel beneath.
Some regulators and many environmentalists worry that the fluids injected into many U.S. gas fields could be contaminating drinking water with benzene, methanol, and other toxic substances. The industry counters that its methods are safe. Drillers point to a 2004 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that supports their position, as well as a key legislative exemption from federal oversight they won in 2005.
The debate is heating up as reports of water pollution near gas drill sites accumulate and the incoming Obama team considers reversing a recent Bush Administration move to permit more drilling in Utah. A close look at the EPA’s 2004 study reveals that the agency may have played down evidence of health dangers. And now some regional EPA officials say it’s time for the industry to disclose precisely what it’s pumping into the ground.
Energy companies are taking a tough stance. Last summer, Houston-based Halliburton threatened to cease natural-gas operations in Colorado if regulators there persisted in demanding the chemical recipe used in a common drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing.
(11 November 2008)
More by Abrahm Lustgarten.
Limited feasibility of Carbon Capture and Storage systems will mean more nuclear electric power
Rolf E. Westgard, Brainerd Daily Dispatch
GUEST COLUMN
The continued presence of Congressman Jim Oberstar as chairman of the U.S. House Transportation Committee suggests the Central Corridor and North Star light rail projects will move ahead. The St Paul City Council has approved seven University Avenue stops on the Central Corridor line, resolving a dispute over station locations.
More than 100 U.S. cities now have similar urban rail programs. From Albuquerque to Winston-Salem and from Boise to Tucson, the U.S. is attempting to catch up with Europe and Asia in using energy efficient urban electric rail. These programs, coupled with the coming move to plug-in electric hybrid cars, will add substantially to the demand for base load electric power.
Fueled by coal and uranium, base load power plants run round the clock, supplying about 70 percent of our electricity. Most of the rest comes from natural gas fueled “peaking plants.” They are turned on when demand rises in the evening hours, or on those sultry summer days when all air conditioners run, and there isn’t a “breath of air.”
Limits on carbon capture and storage technology will restrict the growth of coal plants to meet this demand.
Environmental concerns are restricting construction of new coal plants. Burning coal produces particulate matter like sulfur (acid rain), mercury, lead, and arsenic. This can be controlled with expensive modifications to the plant.
But burning coal also produces green house gases like carbon dioxide (CO2). A large 1000 megawatt (MW) coal plant burns a 100-car train load of coal (10,000 tons) every 24 hours. During combustion, each carbon atom in the coal unites with a pair of oxygen atoms to form the heavier CO2 molecule. This is why that coal plant puts 20,000 tons of CO2 into the air daily.
There are future plans to capture the CO2 (Carbon Capture and Storage) and store it in underground formations like saline aquifers. Saline aquifer is a fancy name for waterlogged porous rock. Studies show that CCS can add about 50 percent to the cost of a coal based power plant. And to bury a significant portion of the 7 billion tons of CO2 that we in the U.S. emit yearly, could require about 100,000 new injection wells. They would cost at least a trillion dollars, plus more dollars for extensive pipelines. New wells are constantly needed in CCS, as the buildup of CO2 causes the aquifers to resist more injections. There are two or three small CCS projects in the world, but no large scale program. CCS may never work.
The problem of replacing coal for base load power generation is illustrated at Canada’s huge 4000MW coal plant in Nanticoke, Ontario on Lake Erie. Scheduled to close in 2007 for environmental reasons, the closing is now set for 2014 for lack of substitute energy. Bruce Power Company is proposing 3300MW of new nuclear facilities at Nanticoke.
Wind power is being proposed by environmentalists. Denmark’s electric grid is widely reported to get 20-30 percent of its fuel from wind energy. It doesn’t. Denmark’s 5300 turbines do produce about 20 percent of Denmark’s total electric demand. Then Denmark has to look around for somebody to buy the power, as the grid can’t use most of the wind power at the time it is generated. The buyers are Norway, Sweden, and Germany who pay less than Denmark’s cost. Countries like Germany, Denmark, and Spain have seen massive subsidized investments in wind power. but they are finding that achieving more than 5-10 percent wind in a large electric grid is very difficult, as wind tends to blow when least needed. Unlike other fuels, wind turns itself on and off, whether the grid needs it or not.
Large wind farms also need natural gas plant backup of 50 to 80 percent of the installed wind to cover the times when wind is too light or too strong for the turbines to function. As a result, the U.S. Energy Information Administration is forecasting that erratic wind will only provide about 2-3 percent of our electric grid power by 2020.
Our trend to urban electric rail and electric autos is well underway. Nuclear power plants, which have a 90-plus percent availability factor, may be the only practical way to provide the increased capacity to power it.
ROLF E. WESTGARD is a professional member of the Geological Society of America and a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.
(14 November 2008)
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