environmentalists - The Environment Report

Power Plant Tests Carbon Capture

A pipe has been connected to the flue gas duct at We Energies' coal-burning power plant near Milwaukee. The pipe will suck out a small amount of gas and treat it with chilled ammonia, allowing CO2 to be separated and captured. (Photo by Erin Toner)
Workers are building a carbon capture system at We Energies' coal-burning power plant near Milwaukee. The system is designed to remove up to 90 percent of CO2 emissions. (Photo by Erin Toner)
Carbon capture technology is being tested for the first time in the country at a coal-burning power plant near Milwaukee. If it works, it could be added to existing power plants, or incorporated into new ones. (Photo by Erin Toner)

Coal-burning power plants have done a lot to reduce
pollution that leaves their smokestacks. But the power
industry is not controlling the main greenhouse gas –
carbon dioxide. That could change in the next decade.
One utility is about to begin the first test ever of technology
to reduce CO2 emissions at power plants. Erin Toner
reports:

Transcript

When you think about air pollution, you might think of
power plants with giant brick chimneys pumping dark
smoke into the sky. here’s not as much of that stuff being released
into the air as 30 years ago. That’s because power plants have added equipment to control certain types of pollution:

“Okay, just to give you an idea of what we’re looking at,
this big silver building is where all the particulate is
removed, we’re going from that toward the stacks, so
we’re looking at the discharge emissions control
devices…”

Ed Morris oversees environmental projects at We Energies’
coal-burning power plant in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin. In
the past few years, it’s installed equipment that’s cut sulfur
and nitrogen emissions by up to 95 percent. Now it’s going
after carbon dioxide, or CO2, the most prevalent manmade
greenhouse gas that no utility has yet controlled.

By the end of the year, the We Energies plant will begin the
first test in the country of a new technology called “carbon
capture:”

“We are designing the technology to achieve up to 90
percent CO2 removal.”

Sean Black is with Alstom, the company that designed the
process. It will inject chilled ammonia into a tiny stream of
boiler gas. This will theoretically allow the CO2 to be
separated and captured. The test will see how much can be
removed before the gas is sent up the chimney.

Black says after the test in Wisconsin, it’ll go on to a full-
scale demonstration at an American Electric Power coal-
burning plant in West Virginia:

“And that will provide the marketplace with the
credibility that this technology is ready for commercial
deployment.”

The coal-burning power industry is trying to get carbon
capture ready because it believes the government will soon
start regulating CO2 emissions.

Kris McKinney manages environmental policy for We
Energies, and its pilot CO2 program:

“Technology doesn’t exist today to capture, let alone
store, the CO2 emissions, reductions that would be
required in the event that federal legislation is passed.”

Power companies have been criticized for moving too
slowly on cutting CO2 pollution. Some environmentalists
say utilities could have been doing more earlier, but won’t
spend the money on new technology if they’re not required
to by the government.

We Energies’ Kris McKinney says they’re wrong about the
status of the technology, but right about the money. He
says that’s because the cost of adding the CO2 reduction
equipment has to be passed on to customers:

“Whatever happens has to happen over a longer period
of time…it needs to be thought out in a way that doesn’t
cause dramatic cost impacts, unanticipated cost
impacts.”

McKinney says rushing to add new pollution controls
would be a huge risk. And in the case of carbon capture,
he could be right.

The government’s
has raised concerns about the chilled ammonia process. A
report that has not been made public says 90 percent CO2
reduction has not happened in early testing, and might not
be possible.

It also says carbon capture could dramatically increase the
energy needed to run a power plant.

George Peridas is a science fellow with the Natural
Resources Defense Council, an environmental
organization:

“The publicity that this is receiving is disproportionate
to the actual results that they have achieved. And there
are fundamental scientific reasons to question whether
this can be done.”

Alstom, the company developing chilled ammonia carbon
capture, says it won’t comment on the government’s report
because it hasn’t been made public. Company officials do say they’re confident the technology will work. They’re predicting the full-scale process will be
ready to retrofit existing plants or to build into new ones in
five years.

If so, it’ll be one option for a power industry that’s under
increasing pressure – and likely government mandates – to
clean up its dirty legacy.

For the Environment Report, I’m Erin Toner.

Nuke Waste Storage at Power Plants

The federal government is being blocked by judges and state officials from building a
nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. While the legal fight goes on, nuclear power
generators store their radioactive waste at their plants. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

The Department of Energy has been stumbling through legal hurdles and political
setbacks for 20 years now. It’s been trying to establish Yucca Mountain in Nevada
as the nation’s storage site for spent nuclear fuel and other highly-radioactive
material.

The Los Angeles Times reports the most recent challenge was a judge’s
ruling that makes it difficult for the Energy Department to drill test holes at the site. It
will likely cause a domino effect of delays.

Many environmentalists and others don’t want Yucca Mountain to ever receive the
nuclear waste. But, in the meantime thousands of tons of spent nuclear power rods
are being stored at the nuclear power plants… and many of those power plants are
located near rivers, lakes and towns. Some of the storage is in buildings, some of it
in casks, sitting outside.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Refinery Pollution Back-Down

British Petroleum says it will not use a new permit which would have
allowed the company to dump more pollution into the Great Lakes.
Tracy Samilton reports:

Transcript

British Petroleum says it will not use a new permit which would have
allowed the company to dump more pollution into the Great Lakes.
Tracy Samilton reports:

The new permit gave BP’s Indiana refinery permission to dump more
pollutants into Lake Michigan. BP said it would need those higher
limits because of refinery expansion. Politicians, citizens and
environmentalists throughout the Great Lakes protested, often and
loudly.

In the end, BP backed off. The company says it will use its old permit
and seek a technological fix to limit pollution as it expands. Cameron
Davis of the Alliance for the Great Lakes says BP tried to play the
country’s needs for energy against the environment:

“It was amazing to see that debate somehow rear its head again this
time around and I think the results show most people just don’t buy it any
more.”

Davis says his group will keep pursuing a lawsuit it filed to challenge
the new permit, just in case BP doesn’t keep its word.

For the Environment Report, I’m Tracy Samilton.

Overloaded Power Grids

Parts of the Midwest have reached record high temperatures on some days
this summer. That means more people are cranking their air
conditioners to full blast. Rebecca Williams reports the electric
industry says more needs to be done to handle increasing energy
demands:

Transcript

Hot summer days test the limits of our electric system.

Ed Legge is a spokesperson for the Edison Electric Institute, a power
company industry group. He says transmission systems in three parts of
the country are overburdened: the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic and
southern California.

“They’re very congested, they’re very similar to a highway system
that’s got way more traffic on it than it was designed to have on it.”

A massive blackout four years ago left about 50 million people in the
dark.

Legge says to avoid future blackouts, new transmission lines and more
power generating capacity are needed.

More than 150 new coal-burning power plants are proposed around the
country, but the power companies and some environmentalists say we
could avoid building some of those plants if we cut our energy use.

For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Refineries Expanding on Great Lakes

The demand for gasoline is leading oil companies to expand refineries around the
Great Lakes region. But those expansions are leading to howls of protests from citizens,
politicians and environmentalists. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

British Petroleum went through all the proper channels, public hearings and
permitting processes to expand its refinery in Whiting, Indiana, not too far from
Chicago. The permit allows BP’s refinery to increase the amount of ammonia and
total suspended solids discharged into Lake Michigan.

But when word got out that it would be increasing the amount of pollution released
into the lake, suddenly citizens, Members of Congress, the Mayor of Chicago and
environmental groups lashed out.

BP has now suspended its expansion plans until the first of September. It’s looking over
suggestions on how to reduce the amount of additional pollution into the Great
Lakes.

Meanwhile, another refinery – this one in Detroit – is looking at expanding, which
likely would cause additional pollution. That Marathon plant sits on the River Rouge, a short
distance from the Detroit River which connects the upper Great Lakes to Lake Erie.

For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Imported Bottled Water

Environmentalists have been concerned about bottled water. They say it wastes
plastic and uses a lot of fuel to transport it. But one group points toward a certain type of
bottled water that’s more wasteful than others. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Some bottles of water travel farther than others. Imported bottled water is growing in
popularity. Jon Coifman is with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says
bottles of water imported from Europe or the south Pacific use a lot of energy in the
containers and shipping:

“It’s a bottle that gets pumped out of the ground, put into a plastic bottle made from
oil, shipped across the ocean on a boat that’s burning oil, trucked to a retailer, using
more oil. All of that for a sip of water you could be getting out of your faucet.”

Coifman and the NRDC acknowledge that bottled water can be convenient. But
they’re trying to persuade people that because of its environmental impact, bottled
water should not be appearing on the dinner table every night, no matter how trendy
the import.

For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

FIGHT FOR AMERICA’S LONGEST RIVER (Part 2)

Barge companies question the science of the Army Corps of Engineers' studies that indicate habitat restoration and changes in river management help threatened species and other wildlife. (Photo by Lester Graham)

The US economy relies heavily on the nation’s rivers to transport goods bound
for foreign markets. Each year river barges carry hundreds of millions of
tons of cargo to busy ports. Traffic is bustling on some rivers, but it’s dying on
others. Commercial shippers say their situation is made worse by attempts to
balance their interests against conservation. In the second of three reports,
Kevin Lavery explains why some barge companies say mismanagement is
squeezing them out of the marketplace:

Transcript

In 2004, America celebrated the bicentennial of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of
Discovery mission to the West. At the start of the 19th century, the Missouri River
was center stage in an age of discovery.

By the start of the 21st century, the river was in an age of discontent. Riverboat
companies, environmentalists, Indian tribes and state governments were
deadlocked in legal battles over water releases.

Paul Davis’ shipping terminal in Boonville, Missouri has been around for 36
years. In 2004, he watched two major shippers call it quits. One of them,
Blaskey Marine, was a family venture:

“And Blaskey had been in the towboat business on the Missouri River for as long as I can
recall, and business just got too tough for them, so they just gave it up. And that’s what
really was the beginning of the end in our involvement with barges, at least for the time
being.”

Industry watchers say the riverboats have been clanging their death knell for
a long time. In 1977, barges carried just over 3 million tons of cargo. Since then,
floods, drought and market forces have cut barge shipments by two-thirds. Chad
Smith is with the environmental group American Rivers in Lincoln, Nebraska:

“They don’t move a lot of tons, and agriculture basically dictates that grain moves the
market by truck and rail. Everybody agrees those numbers don’t lie.”

But everyone doesn’t agree. Paul Rhode is with the national shipping advocacy
group Waterways Council, Incorporated:

“People say barge traffic is dying on the Missouri. That’s not true. Barge traffic is being
killed by the way the Missouri river is managed right now.”

Rhode blames the industry’s woes on the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal
agency that regulates the Missouri River.

In May 2006, the Corps released more water than usual from a South Dakota
reservoir. The rise was meant to tell an endangered fish, the pallid sturgeon, to
spawn. Rhode says that artificial rise in the spring later lowered the river’s depth
in the summer. He says unpredictable flows kept shippers from carrying a lot of
freight… and making long-term plans:

“The levels could be managed much better. We don’t need a spring rise. We need water
down here in August and September. Barge traffic has been cut short by leaps and
bounds over the past few years, in part because of the spring rise issue.”

How short? Despite heavy rains earlier this year, the Corps plans to shorten the
navigation season by at least 45 days. That means shippers who normally finish
in December will be lucky to still be hauling by Halloween.

But there’s only so much water that can be released from upstream
reservoirs… and the Corps stands by its decision to raise the river. Spokesman
Paul Johnston says biologists are encouraged by the data they’re seeing on the
pallid sturgeon. And he says the man-made flood pulses are minor:

“They’re certainly not aggressive, at least in our perspective, and I know that there are
people who think that it’s too much too soon. But if we don’t do anything, then we
certainly will not have any data to back up any decisions.”

Historically, the Corps’ decisions tended to favor riverboats, especially in the
1930’s, when the Corps turned 735 miles of the Missouri into a shipping channel.
American Rivers’ Chad Smith says while that was viewed as the best course for
the river then, its time to set a new one:

“It’s now the year 2007 and I think our hopes and dreams have changed. And it’s probably
time for Congress to go back and see what’s happening in this basin with market forces in
agriculture and a lot of these big drivers that put pressure on the way we use and manage
the Missouri now, and see if there are things we need to do differently.”

Smith suggests some of those uses of the Missouri River might be changing
soon. With their balance sheets already razor-thin, barge operators worry those
changes might sink them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kevin Lavery.

ANCHOR TAG: Tomorrow, Kevin reports on how the recreation and wildlife
preservation search for their place on the Missouri River.

Canada’s Co2 Plan Called Scam

Canada’s conservative government recently unveiled the final details of
its long awaited policy on fighting climate change… and it says it
will not meet its Kyoto targets. And as Dan Karpenchuk reports, so far
the proposed eight billion dollar policy has been a tough sell:

Transcript

Canadian Environment minister John Baird, laid out the details of the
framework policy called Turning the Corner, something he described as
the most ambitious environmental plan ever tabled in Canada:

“Canadian industry is today served notice that it will have to become
more efficient in order to both reduce its greenhouse gasses and to
reduce air pollution. We will do this by mandating strict targets for industry.”

Under the new green plan, the government hopes to reduce current
emissions 20% by the year 2020. It calls for industries to make
in-house reductions, participate in domestic emissions trading, buy
energy offsets and invest in a technology fund.

But there are no specifics. Canada’s oil industry, one of the biggest
polluters, is breathing easier, relieved there will be no hard caps on
emissions.

But environmentalists say it doesn’t even match the commitments made by
some other countries. And the liberals call it a scam.

For the Environment Report, I’m Dan Karpenchuk.

Call to Close Foreign Shipping

Some environmentalists are calling for a moratorium on foreign ships entering the Great Lakes. Foreign ships are believed to be responsible for many of the invasive species causing billions of dollars of damage to the Great Lakes economy and ecosystems. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Environmentalists are trying to ratchet up pressure on the shipping
industry over invasive species. They’re calling for a moratorium on
allowing ocean-going ships into the Great Lakes. David Sommerstein
reports:

Transcript

Foreign freighters account for about 25% of overall tonnage on the
Great Lakes.

Jennifer Caddick says those ships’ ballast water bring a new invasive
species into the region, on average, every six months. Caddick’s
group, Save The River, has joined Great Lakes United in a petition
campaign for a moratorium:

“There is continuous talk, you know over the past 10 or 15 years, about having new, stronger ballast regulations
to stem the flow of invasive species, and unfortunately, nothing has
happened. Frankly, we have said enough is enough.”

Caddick admits a moratorium is unlikely. The agency that runs the
shipping lanes says it would violate a 1909 treaty with Canada.

Invasive species do billions of dollars of damage in the Great Lakes.
There are five bills in Congress to address the problem, but none has made
it out of committee.

For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.

Selling Forest Land for Schools

The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:

Transcript

The Bush Administration is proposing to sell more than 300-thousand
acres of public forest land to raise money for schools in rural
communities. Lawmakers, environmentalists and former Forest Service
directors have come out against the plan, calling it short-sighted and
shameful. The GLRC’s Erin Toner reports:

The goal of the plan is to raise 800 million dollars for schools that have
lost money generated by timber sales, but lawmakers from both parties
say auctioning off forest land is short-sighted. Environmental groups say
it’s one of the latest attempts by the Bush administration to give oil,
timber and mining interests access to pristine natural areas.

Amy Mall is with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“These lands are part of America’s natural legacy. Some of them are really wild
areas where there is very high-quality wildlife habitat. They might be
areas where a lot of people recreate. They might go hunting or fishing.
Or they might just think that these areas should remain wild.”

An agriculture department official described most of the land proposed for sale
as isolated and expensive to manage.

For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Tag: environmentalists

Power Plant Tests Carbon Capture

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Canada’s Co2 Plan Called Scam

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