Tag: power plants

Enviros and Coal-Fired Power

  • City Water Light and Power of Springfield, Illinois compromised with environmentalists to build a cleaner power plant and supplement supplies with wind energy rather than fight through the permitting process. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There are around 100 coal-burning power plants
on the drawing boards. Many of them won’t be built.
In some cases environmental groups will fight to
make sure they don’t get built. But, Lester
Graham reports, one coal-burning power plant is
being built with the blessings of the
environmentalists nearby:

Transcript

There are around 100 coal-burning power plants on the drawing boards. Many of
them won’t be built. In some cases environmental groups will fight to make sure
they don’t get built. But, Lester Graham reports, one coal-burning power plant is
being built with the blessings of the environmentalists nearby:


Usually, when a utility wants to build a new coal-burning power plant, the fight is on. The
utility is challenged by environmental groups every step of the permitting process.
Then, more times than not, the utility and the environmentalists take the fight to the
courts. It means years of delays and millions of dollars of legal bills, but that didn’t
happen here.


Construction workers are erecting the superstructure of a new 500-million dollar
coal-burning power plant. This power plant is scheduled to go online in two years.
When it’s complete, it’ll use the latest technology to reduce the nastiest pollutants
from its smokestack: sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides and mercury. And this power
plant is much more efficient.


Jay Bartlett is the chief utilities engineer with City Water Light and Power in
Springfield, Illinois. He says compared to the utility’s older power plants next door,
the new plant will burn about 20% less coal to produce the same amount of
electricity.


“It takes about 1.4 pounds of coal to make a kilowatt of electricity from that plant
over there. This plant will be in the .85 range.”


And that will mean electricity bills for ratepayers won’t have to go up. It also means
the net amount of greenhouse gases is reduced. That makes environmentalists
smile.


And that’s no accident. Jay Bartlett says after being contacted by the local Sierra Club,
the power company and the environmentalists decided to talk:


“It was our goal when we sat down with the Sierra Club, saying, ‘You know we can
fight this out and it will cost both sides lots and lots of money, but will anything good
come out of this in the end?’ And we both decided that something better could come
out of spending those dollars. And what that was investing in wind, investing in
better pollution control, products for this plant to make it as clean as it can possibly be
and move forward. ”


No one really thought this would happen. Not the utility, not the regulators, and not
the environmentalists.


(Sound of coffee shop)


At a downtown coffee shop, Will Reynolds still seems a little surprised. He’s with the
local Sierra Club chapter that worked with Springfield’s City Water Light and Power:


“Yeah, at the start of this I thought there was no chance for any kind of agreement or
compromise. But by the end of it, we had an agreement that reduced the CO2 to
Kyoto Treaty levels, we had a utility that was able to build a power plant to have a
stable, efficient power supply — which was what they were looking for as a small
municipal utility — and in the end, I think it was a win-win for everybody.”


What the two sides agreed to is this: the best off-the-shelf equipment to control
pollution better than the law requires, and to offset the CO2 produced by the plant,
the utility signed an agreement with an Iowa wind-power company to provide part of
Springfield’s electricity:


“Springfield is a small, pretty conservative town that just took a huge step forward
and showed what can be done realistically to reduce our global warming emissions.
And we were able to do it and still provide for our power, still have affordable, reliable
power for the entire city. So, if Springfield can do it, then other cities can do it.”


The state regulating agency, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency,
applauded the efforts. Illinois is a coal-producing state and has been encouraging
power companies to clean up their plants so that coal can still be used without as many
of the pollution worries. IEPA Director Doug Scott says the Springfield utility’s efforts
will be a model for other power companies:


“I mean, all of the things that they did and the things that they worked out with Sierra
Club, the extra reductions that they’re getting over and above what they would have
had to have done in a normal permitting sense. I mean, that they were looking at
trying to be good stewards of the environment as well as being responsive to their
ratepayers as well.”


And Scott says that’s key. Because it’s plentiful and domestic, coal is not going
away. Scott says this can work for not just municipal electric utilities, but private
power companies can keep shareholders happy, keep ratepayers happy and keep
the skies clearer by updating power plants to work more efficiently, seriously reduce
the emissions from coal, and do what they can to offset greenhouse gas emissions
until technology is found that can clean up CO2.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Clean Coal to Use More Water?

Government researchers say more water will be needed for power plants in the future.
Mark Brush reports:

Transcript

Government researchers say more water will be needed for power plants in the future.
Mark Brush reports:


Power plants use a lot of water – often millions of gallons an hour. A lot of that water is
cycled through the plants and released back into lakes and rivers. But there’s also a lot
that is used up – mostly evaporating into the air.


The Department of Energy predicts that energy needs in the U.S. will increase 22% by
2030. The increase in power generation will drive an increase in water consumption.


And researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory say a lot more
water will be needed. That’s because of the pressure to build coal-burning power plants
that strip carbon dioxide from their emissions to slow global warming. The researchers
say the technologies needed to do this will use a lot more water. They predict that
freshwater consumption at power plants will increase as much as 50%.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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Report Says Build More Power Plants

A new national report recommends building more nuclear power plants in the
U.S. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

A new national report recommends building more nuclear power plants in the
U.S. Chuck Quirmbach reports:


A study by the National Research Council urges the Department of Energy to
place greater emphasis on identifying sites for more nuclear power plants and
improving plant designs.


University of Wisconsin Engineering Physics Chairman Mike Corradini served on
the committee. He says there’s a need for more large scale electricity generation
that doesn’t add to carbon emissions:


“And it’s important we do it with a fuel source which is relatively secure. Nuclear
power is a logical way to do this and therefore that should be the major focus in
the next 10 to 15 to 20 years.”


Another part of the national report recommends scaling back of a new program to
speed the reprocessing of spent uranium fuel to share with other countries. Nuclear power opponents worry about radioactive waste and want to block
proposed subsidies for the nuclear power industry.


For the Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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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)

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

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:


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.

Related Links

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 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:


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.

Related Links

Citizen Lawsuit Targets Foreign Ships

  • Ocean vessel loading grain at elevator in Superior, Wisconsin. Nine foreign ships have been identified in the lawsuit against international shipping companies. (Photo by Jerry Bielicki, USACOE)

For decades foreign ships have brought tiny stowaways – called invasive
species – into the United States. And once they get loose, they upend
ecosystems and cause billions of dollars in damage. The shipping
industry has yet to seriously address the problem, and now conservation
and environmental groups are suing the companies they say are most at
fault. Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

For decades foreign ships have brought tiny stowaways – called invasive
species – into the United States. And once they get loose, they upend
ecosystems and cause billions of dollars in damage. The shipping
industry has yet to seriously address the problem, and now conservation
and environmental groups are suing the companies they say are most at
fault. Mark Brush has more:


In 1988, the now infamous zebra mussel slipped out of a ship’s ballast
tank near Detroit. It didn’t take long for it to spread, first
throughout the Great Lakes, then through the Ohio and Mississpi rivers,
then on to Alabama and Oklahoma, and now it’s as far west as Nevada.


The mussels clog up intake pipes at water and power plants and mess up
the food chain. In some places in the Great Lakes, they’ve severely
damaged the sport fishing industry.


And that’s the damage just one foreign pest can do. More than a
hundred have gotten in and more are on the way. The government has
done little to stop the spread of these pests from foreign ships. In
2005, a federal court in California ordered the EPA to set up a system.
The EPA appealed that ruling.


Andy Buchsbaum is the Director of the National Wildlife Federation’s
Great Lakes office. He says ballast water from foreign ships should be
regulated:


“The law is very clear. The Clean Water Act says you cannot discharge
pollution into navigable waters, like the Great Lakes, without first
obtaining a permit. Period. Any discharge without a permit
is illegal.”


So, instead of waiting for the EPA to act, several environmental and
conservation groups, including Buchsbaum’s group, say they are planning
to sue several shipping companies that operate ocean-going boats on the
Great Lakes. They’re targeting nine boats they feel are the biggest
violators.


Industry representatives have said that ballast water regulations would
hurt international shipping, but in the Great Lakes, it’s estimated
that ocean-going ships make up only 6% of the overall tonnage.


Joel Brammeier is with the Alliance for the Great Lakes, one of the
groups that intends to sue the ship owners. He says a few ocean-going
boats have caused a lot of damage:


“The cost savings that we’re seeing from allowing unregulated ocean
shipping on the Lakes pales compared to the economic burden that
invasive species are placing on the Lakes. That’s stunning. The
ocean-going shipping industry is actually bringing in less than the
region is losing because of the things that ocean going ships
unintentionally bring in.”


The environmental and conservation groups who intend to sue say there
are ballast water cleaning technologies available now. The National
Wildlife Federation’s Andy Buchsbaum says they’re willing to back off
their lawsuit if the ship owners promise to clean up their ballast
water:


“This legal action is not designed to shut down the shipping industry
in the Great Lakes. That is not our intention. Our intention is to
get these guys to comply with the Clean Water Act. And that means
putting on treatment technology and getting permits.”


The shipping industry says it needs more time. Steve Fisher is with
the American Great Lakes Ports Association. He concedes there are some
technologies to clean up ballast water:


“I’ll be very frank with you. There’s technologies out there that will
do something.”


(Brush:) “So, why not use those?”


“Because a ship owner needs to know how high the bar is before he jumps
over it.”


In other words the ship owners won’t clean up their ballast water until
the federal government tells them how clean is clean, and so far, the
federal government hasn’t done that.


The EPA and the shipping industry say they’re working on the decades
old problem, but the groups that intend to sue say they’re not moving
fast enough. More invasive species are getting in. They’re hoping the threat of a
lawsuit will help force more action sooner.


For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

The Price of Global Warming

  • Some industries are working with government to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions. People who are worried about their personal CO2 emissions can buy carbon offsets, but there are dozens of programs, making it confusing. (Photo by Lester Graham)

There’s evidence that the Earth is changing
because of global warming. Glaciers are receding.
Polar ice caps are melting. Weather patterns are
altered. That’s prompted some people to look
for ways to reduce their personal contribution to
global warming. Rebecca Williams reports there
are many new companies that claim to help you do
that… for a price:

Transcript

There’s evidence that the Earth is changing
because of global warming. Glaciers are receding.
Polar ice caps are melting. Weather patterns are
altered. That’s prompted some people to look
for ways to reduce their personal contribution to
global warming. Rebecca Williams reports there
are many new companies that claim to help you do
that… for a price:


Whenever you drive, fly, or ride, you’re emitting carbon dioxide. And it’s not just the way you get around. It’s also any time you turn on lights or plug into an electrical outlet. More than half of the electricity in the U.S. comes from power plants that burn
coal and that’s another major source of carbon dioxide.


It’s a problem because carbon dioxide is a potent greenhouse gas.
The vast majority of scientists agree all this carbon dioxide
that people produce is trapping heat in the atmosphere and making
the planet warmer.


David Archer is a climate scientist at the University of Chicago:


“The problem with fossil fuels is that the cost of that climate
change isn’t paid by the person who makes the decision to use
fossil energy so it’s sort of like a bill we’re leaving to future
generations.”


Some people say there’s a way to pay that bill now. About three
dozen companies and nonprofits have sprung up in the past few
years. They’re selling carbon offsets.


The idea of a carbon offset is to balance out the carbon dioxide
that you emit. In theory, you can do this by investing in
something like tree planting or energy projects that don’t emit
greenhouse gasses, such as wind or solar power.


First, you can go to one of the group’s websites and calculate
your carbon footprint. That’s all the carbon dioxide you produce
by driving, flying, and so on, in a year. North Americans have
especially big footprints.


The companies assign a price per ton of carbon that’s emitted.
You can decide how much of your carbon-emitting you want to
balance out. Then you type in your credit card number and voila… no more guilt.


Well, that’s the idea anyway.


But what if you buy a carbon offset
but you don’t change your behavior? If you keep driving and
flying and using electricity just as much as before, or maybe
more than before, you’re still a part of the problem.


“You’re absolutely still emitting the carbon. The idea is that
you’re balancing it out through reductions elsewhere.”


Tom Arnold is a cofounder of Terrapass. It’s a carbon offset
company:


“Now this isn’t the optimal solution of course – you should stop
driving. But it’s a good way that we can get you involved in the
dialogue and help you reduce emissions somewhere else.”


And you can get a little sticker for your car to show you’re in
the offsetting club. But Tom Arnold admits there aren’t a whole
lot of drivers of huge SUVs buying offsets.


“We have this nice little SUV sticker – it’s pretty expensive and
a horrible seller. Most of our members already drive passenger
cars, very efficient cars. They’re just looking for a tool to
balance the rest of their impact out to zero.”


Erasing your carbon footprint sounds pretty positive, but there
are quite a few critics of the carbon offset industry. They
point out there aren’t any agreed-on standards for what an offset
is, and prices are all over the map. So it’s not always clear
what you’re getting for your money.


Mark Trexler is president of Trexler Climate and Energy Services.
He’s a consultant who reviews the groups selling carbon offsets.
He says you do have to ask questions about what you’re buying:


“Am I putting my money into something that wouldn’t have happened
anyway? Because if somebody would’ve built that windmill anyway
or if they would’ve done whatever it is you’re putting money into
anyway, you’re really not rendering yourself climate neutral.”


Trexler says there are certification programs in the works so
consumers can know more about what they’re buying. But the people
who are buying offsets now say it feels like they’re making a
difference.


Kate Madigan bought offsets. She started thinking about it when
she was awake at night worrying about the world her new baby
would live in:


“Some people say oh, global warming, it’s going to change the
world in 100 years, but I’ll be gone by then. But I think that’s
a horrible way to look at things because we’re leaving the world
to a lot of people that we love.”


Madigan says she doesn’t think carbon offsets alone will really
solve the problem. She says she thinks it’ll take a lot of
harder choices too, like driving less and using less electricity.


Supporters say that’s the real power of offsets. It’s getting
people to talk about the role they play in global warming.


For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

States Pass Feds on Invasives Law

  • Federal restrictions have not stopped importation of invasive species. Now some states are passing laws that will stop some ocean-going ships from docking in their ports. (Photo by Lester Graham)

US ports receive more than imported cargo.
They often receive fish and other aquatic organisms
from foreign ports. They stow away in the ballast
water of cargo ships. Once in US waters, some of
the foreign species become invaders, damaging the
ecosystem. The federal government has done little
to stop these invasive species. Rick Pluta reports now some states have decided to take
things into their own hands:

Transcript

US ports receive more than imported cargo.
They often receive fish and other aquatic organisms
from foreign ports. They stow away in the ballast
water of cargo ships. Once in US waters, some of
the foreign species become invaders, damaging the
ecosystem. The federal government has done little
to stop these invasive species. Rick Pluta reports now some states have decided to take
things into their own hands:


The damage caused by invasive species carried to the US in
ballast water is not only harmful to the environment, but it
hurts the economy. The federal regulations have not stopped the
problem. So, states such as California and Michigan have passed
laws that require foreign ships to treat ballast water like
pollution. They have to clean it up before they can discharge it
into a port. The problem is, almost no ships have a way to treat
the ballast.


In Michigan, the Great Lakes shipping industry is trying to delay
the new Michigan rules. Shipping companies, port owners, and
dock workers say Michigan’s new rules are jeopardizing jobs
without actually stopping the introduction of new species into
the Great Lakes.


The damage caused by invasive species carried to the US in
ballast water is not only harmful to the environment, but it
hurts the economy. The federal regulations have not stopped the
problem. So, states such as California and Michigan have passed
laws that require foreign ships to treat ballast water like
pollution. They have to clean it up before they can discharge it
into a port. The problem is, almost no ships have a way to treat
the ballast.


In Michigan, the Great Lakes shipping industry is trying to delay
the new Michigan rules. Shipping companies, port owners, and
dock workers say Michigan’s new rules are jeopardizing jobs
without actually stopping the introduction of new species into
the Great Lakes.


People in the shipping business say the problem is Michigan is
the only state in the Great Lakes region that is requiring ocean-
going freighters to install expensive technology as a condition
of using one of its ports.


John Jamian is the president of the Seaway Great Lakes Trade
Association. He says requiring ocean-going freighters to install
expensive technology before they can dock in Michigan ports won’t
solve the problem. The ships will just go to other Great Lakes
ports.


If a ship goes to Windsor or Toledo that doesn’t have these rules
and regulations, they will discharge their cargo. If there were
any critters on those ships they could still swim or crawl into
Michigan waters, so you still haven’t solved anything.


Jamian represents the owners of ships that travel from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes via the Saint Lawrence Seaway.
He says ship owners will very likely avoid Michigan ports, and
choose to unload at ports in other states and Canada:


“The fact of the matter is that they’re not going to put an
expensive piece of equipment just because Michigan calls for it
on their ship when in fact it may not be acceptable anywhere else
in the world and it might just be easier to take that cargo
across the river and unload it where they don’t have these
regulations.”


And for Michigan ports that are near other competing ports,
that’s a concern. Patrick Sutka is the treasurer for Nicholson
Terminal and Dock Company at the Port of Detroit:


“We fear these ships may be going to other ports, such as Windsor
right across the waterway, or other competitors of ours such as
Toledo or Cleveland.”


At the height of the shipping season, there might be three
freighters at a time moored to the docks, offloading steel and
other cargo. A hundred trucks a day will move in and out of the
docking area to get those commodities to factories.


On the dock right now are dozens of stacks of 20-ton slabs of
steel from France and Russia. That Russian steel was most likely
shipped from a port in the Caspian Sea or the Black Sea. The
freighters take on ballast water from those seas for the voyage
to the Great Lakes. That ballast water helps keep the ships low
and steady in the water.


The ships are required to exchange the water in deep ocean mid-
journey. The salt water is supposed to kill the fresh water
organisms. But, some organisms can survive the trip. That’s how
zebra mussels, quagga mussels and the round goby fish made their
way from the Balkans to the Great Lakes.


Those invasive species and others combine to cost the economy an
estimated 5 billion dollars a year. For example, zebra
mussels cost taxpayers and utility customers. It shows up in
your power bill because the utilities have to pay divers to
scrape the crustaceans off pipes carrying cooling water to power
plants.


Shipping companies, port owners, and dock workers’ unions are all
pressuring Michigan to hold off on enforcing its new law. What
they’d really like is for the federal government to step in,
negotiate with Canada, and create a regional set of rules for
combating aquatic invaders:


“…But the federal government has not had the guts or the
gumption to step up to the plate and get this done.”


Patti Birkholz chairs the Michigan Senate Environmental Affairs
Committee. She sponsored the law:


“So we’re going to do it on a state-by-state basis. Our eco-
system within the Great Lakes is what many scientists have termed
‘on the tipping point.’ We cannot deal with any more invasive
species in this system, and we know the majority of the invasive
species come through the ocean-going vessels. They know they’re
the cause. We know they’re the cause. We’ve got to deal with this
situation.”


Michigan’s new law is as much a political statement as anything
else and other states are starting to follow Michigan’s lead.
Birkholz says Wisconsin and New York could pass ballast standards
this year.


In the mean time, Michigan environmental officials say they
intend to enforce the state’s requirements when the Great Lakes
shipping season resumes in the spring. But, so far, no ocean
freighters have applied for a permit to dock at a Michigan Port.


For the Environment Report, this is Rick Pluta.

Related Links

Cleaning Up Coal-Fired Power Plants

  • Tom Micheletti (right), and Excelsior Energy Vice President of Environmental Affairs, Bob Evans (left). They are locating where the proposed power plant will be built near the town of Taconite, Minnesota. (Photo by Bob Kelleher)

Acid rain, mercury pollution, and huge amounts of the heat-trapping gas carbon-dioxide are the down sides of burning coal in electric power plants. And yet, some energy experts are saying America should be using more coal. They say new coal technology can produce electricity with few of the pollution problems of traditional coal power plants. Bob Kelleher reports:

Transcript

Acid rain, mercury pollution, and huge amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide are the down sides of burning coal in electric power plants. And yet, some energy experts are saying America should be using more coal. They say new coal technology can produce electricity with few of the pollution problems of traditional coal power plants. Bob Kelleher reports:


Coal has a well deserved bad reputation. Typical coal burning power plants release mercury, sulfur, nitrogen oxides, and lots of carbon dioxide. Those releases mean toxins in the air, soot, acid rain, and many believe global warming. But Tom Micheletti says there’s a way to use coal with very little pollution.


Using heat, steam, pressure, and oxygen, coal can be broken down to a relatively clean gas, and a handful of other chemical products. The gas is burned, to turn generators and produce electricity. The technology is called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle. Micheletti says, the technology isn’t new, but applying it this way is.


“All we’re doing is marrying the gasification technology, with a technology that’s been well established, the combined cycle gas technology – power plant technology. And all we’re doing is simply putting those two technologies together.”


Micheletti is Co-President of Excelsior Energy, a company formed to build the nation’s first large scale coal gasification electric power plant in northeast Minnesota. At 600 megawatts, it would dwarf demonstration plants now online in Indiana and Florida.


Some experts say coal gasification is not only promising, it’s more practical than nuclear power, natural gas, solar or wind. Daniel Schrag is a climatologist and head of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.


“We have a lot of coal in the US. We’re very fortunate that way. The problem is that coal produces more carbon dioxide per unit energy than any other fossil fuel. And so, when we burn coal and make electricity, it’s really bad for the climate system.”


Schrag says there’s more carbon dioxide around us now than humans have ever experienced. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Most scientists believe it blankets the earth, forcing temperatures higher.


Schrag says, when used to generate electricity, coal gasification has big advantages over conventional power plants, because it can capture CO2.


“You get more energy for the amount of coal you put in, and that’s good for carbon emissions. The other thing is that it seems to be cheaper in an IGCC plant, or a gasification plant, to capture the carbon dioxide after one extracts the energy from the coal, and then makes it much easier to capture it and inject it into a geological reservoir.”


The key, Schrag says, is a process called sequestration. You capture, and then sequester it, or lock that carbon dioxide away, where it won’t escape into the atmosphere. It’s already being done.


This is the Dakota Gasification Company, just outside Beulah, North Dakota. Here they turn coal into a burnable gas and almost a dozen other products. They also produce plenty of carbon dioxide, but the CO2 is not vented into the air; it’s trapped and compressed. That’s the noise.


The CO2 is piped more than 200 miles into Canada where it’s pumped into oil wells, forcing the last oil out and leaving the CO2 underground. Near oceans it can be pumped under deep ocean sediments, where it stays put.


And that’s all very good, but others say even good power plants might be a bad idea.


Ross Hammond is with the Minnesota based organization Fresh Energy. Hammond says gasification’s proponents are overlooking conservation and the opportunities for clean energy.


“When we’ve exhausted all the clean options including biomass and photovoltaics, and wind and the other options, then we need to look at coal.”


But Harvard’s Daniel Schrag says it’s not as simple as pushing money toward pollution free energy.


“And the answer is complicated. The answer is perhaps not. It may be that coal is so cheap that even the extra cost of capturing the carbon and storing it underground may still make it cheaper than the alternatives, than wind and solar.”


Schrag says we’ll need it all – nuclear, hydro, wind and biomass. But to satisfy the nation’s hunger for energy, he says we’ll need coal – best used in coal gasification.


For the Environment Report I’m Bob Kelleher.

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Removing Co2 From Power Plant Emissions

Coal-burning power plants are under pressure to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. One type of carbon removal technology is about to get a multi-million dollar test. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

Coal burning power plants are under pressure to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. One type of carbon removal technology is about to get a multi-million dollar test. Chuck
Quirmbach reports:


Government regulators are looking into potential controls or taxes on carbon dioxide and other gases that contribute to global warming. The electric utility industry says it’s trying various ways to reduce CO2 emissions on its own.


A $10 million project at a power plant in Wisconsin will use chilled ammonia on the gas coming from the plant’s boiler. Barry McNulty is a spokesperson for WE Energies. He says the hope is to make the CO2 more dense:


“What we’re trying to do is use ammonia, much like you do in the scrubbers and whatnot of some of the other air emission equipment and separate that carbon.”


If the experiment works, utilities may be able to capture the C02 and sell it or store it deep underground. The Electric Power Research Institute and a French company that developed the chilled ammonia technology are part of the project.


For the environment report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach

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