Lester Graham at the coal mine Shay #1 in Macoupin County, Illinois. He's interviewing the mine general manager Roger Dennison.
(Photo courtesy of Phil Ganet)
The coal industry is hopeful
an old technology will help
them clean up an increasingly
unpopular fuel. Lester Graham
reports, without it, coal faces
an uncertain future:
Transcript
The coal industry is hopeful
an old technology will help
them clean up an increasingly
unpopular fuel. Lester Graham
reports, without it, coal faces
an uncertain future:
[Editor’s Note: The script for this story will be posted shortly.]
Burning fossil fuels such as
oil and coal creates carbon
dioxide. CO2 contributes
to climate change. Samara Freemark reports
some scientists say we could
capture the emissions from
smokestacks and put in in the
ground – and they think they’ve
found a good place:
Transcript
Burning fossil fuels such as
oil and coal creates carbon
dioxide. CO2 contributes
to climate change. Samara Freemark reports
some scientists say we could
capture the emissions from
smokestacks and put in in the
ground – and they think they’ve
found a good place:
It’s called carbon capture: collecting CO2 from smokestacks, liquefying it, and piping it underground for permanent storage.
A big question is exactly where to bury the carbon dioxide so it doesn’t escape.
A new study from Rutgers University says one good place might be the underwater lava formations that run all along the eastern seaboard.
Dennis Kent is one of the study’s authors. He says the formations are full of basins that could double as CO2 reservoirs. And they’re conveniently close to population centers.
“You have to get it from the power plant to wherever the reservoir is. So having it closer would be an advantage. Take the Co2 down the road somewhere and lock it away.”
The study measured the capacity of one basin off the coast of New Jersey. It found the basin could hold a gigaton of carbon dioxide- or, the amount of gas a coal-burning power plant produces in four decades.
When it comes to global warming,
America’s in a bind. Almost half
of our electricity comes from coal.
But, compared to other power sources,
coal produces the most carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas. Industry’s testing
so-called ‘clean coal’ technology to
deal with the problem. Shawn Allee has this update on a test
project that has some hard work
left to do:
Transcript
When it comes to global warming,
America’s in a bind. Almost half
of our electricity comes from coal.
But, compared to other power sources,
coal produces the most carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas. Industry’s testing
so-called ‘clean coal’ technology to
deal with the problem. Shawn Allee has this update on a test
project that has some hard work
left to do:
If you live outside coal-mining country, you may have missed this news about a clean-coal project in West Virginia.
“A big announcement has the state and members of the coal industry very excited about the future of the state’s most valuable resource. Good Evening, I’m April Hall…“
The fanfare’s about a company called American Electric Power. Last fall, AEP started a test that could begin a clean-coal revolution.
“The Mountaineer power plant in Mason County is going to be the first facility in the world to use carbon capture and sequestration technology to cut down on the carbon dioxide that that plant emits. AEP is hoping the implementation …“
The Mountaineer test project made headlines because there’s talk of clamping down on America’s carbon dioxide emissions. Coal produces nearly twice its own weight in carbon dioxide. So, if we could bury or sequester the stuff that would help solve the coal industry’s carbon dioxide problem. Expectations are high, but the company is keeping its cool.
“The tension we’re fighting against is the fact that you can’t go from concepts on paper to commercial scale in one step.“
Gary Spitznogle runs an engineering division for AEP, and if you think he sounds cautious, it’s because he is. Spitznogle says AEP needs to validate carbon capture and sequestration.
“Validation is kind of that intermediate step between what is truly research work and full commercial scale.“
Validation is another way of saying this technology mostly works but let’s take it for a spin. Let’s run bigger and bigger tests, so we learn more and more.
“The test is treating the amount of gas that would be coming from a 20MW generating unit, so that’s very small.“
From 20 megawatts now to two hundred fifty megawatts in a few years – that’s still less than a quarter of the power generation at the Mountaineer plant.
But what’s the point of tests like this? Well, there’s a problem with carbon capture and sequestration: it wastes coal. This waste is called parasitic load. Parasitic – as in parasite.
Spitznogle: “And because it’s taking the power it’s consuming from the generating plant that you’re controlling, it’s in a sense a parasite of that power plant.“
Allee: “Sounds kind of nefarious.“
Spitznogle: “The reason is that it’s such a focus is that, no matter what technology you look at, the number is large.“
Carbon capture and sequestration equipment need power. That adds a parasitic load of thirty percent onto a coal plant. That means it takes thirty percent more coal to generate the same amount of electricity for customers. Spitznogle needs to find out if his technology cuts that parasitic load figure. Other people hope he finds out, too.
“The overarching concern I would have today is urgency.“
Ernest Moniz runs MIT’s Energy Institute. He says if power companies don’t get a handle on parasitic load we’re in for higher utility bills. One estimate puts the cost of clean-coal power at seventy percent above today’s prices. Moniz says we need bigger tests and more of them.
“We’re pushing up against the envelope and we have to do it. If we’re going to be serious about using our extensive coal reserves in a time of carbon constraints, well, then we have to just demonstrate this technology.“
If we fail to demonstrate clean coal technology, the choices aren’t good. We’d have to abandon our cheap coal supplies or we’d burn dirty coal, then deal with the costs of climate change.
Coal train.
(Photo courtesy of the Energy Information Administration)
When you turn on the lights,
there’s a pretty good chance
you’re burning coal. Almost
half of the nation’s electricity
comes from coal. Burning coal
causes the greenhouse gas,
carbon dioxide. But, have you
ever wondered how much?
Lester Graham got a pound of
coal, and then talked to Ezra
Hausman. He’s
the Vice President of Synapse
Energy Economics in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. The first question –
how long would a pound of coal
light up a hundred-watt incandescent
light bulb?:
Transcript
When you turn on the lights,
there’s a pretty good chance
you’re burning coal. Almost
half of the nation’s electricity
comes from coal. Burning coal
causes the greenhouse gas,
carbon dioxide. But, have you
ever wondered how much?
Lester Graham got a pound of
coal, and then talked to Ezra
Hausman. He’s
the Vice President of Synapse
Energy Economics in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. The first question –
how long would a pound of coal
light up a hundred-watt incandescent
light bulb?:
Ezra Hausman: Well, you haven’t told me where you got that pound of coal. Uh, it makes a big difference if it’s from the Appalachian region or the Western region, such as Wyoming in the United States. The Appalachian coal, Eastern coal, would burn a light bulb for about, uh, 10 or 12 hours. A pound of Western coal would only burn it for about 5 or 6 hours.
Lester Graham: There’s that much difference?
Ezra: There’s a big difference in the energy content of the coal, that’s correct.
Lester: And coal, a good portion of coal, is pure carbon. What kind of CO2 omissions would we expect from this one kind of coal?
Ezra: Well, a pound of coal is, let’s say, it’s about half carbon. So that would be a half a pound of carbon, but for every atom of carbon you add two atoms of oxygen from the air. So, you get for every 12 grams of carbon, you get 44 grams of carbon dioxide. That’s basically just how the chemistry works out when you burn carbon and oxygen; it produces carbon dioxide in that ratio.
Lester: So, this one pound of coal, would admit, by weight, more CO2 than I have in my hand here?
Ezra: That’s right; it would end up admitting about two pounds of CO2. Depending again on where the coal came from and how much carbon is in it.
Lester: Now my environmentalist friends would like to see no more coal plants built, no more coal burning power plants built, simply because of the CO2 emissions. The coal industry tells me they’re working on clean coal; there are experiments going on right now to find ways to sequester CO2 and other experiments going on how to store it underground. What do you think is the future of coal?
Ezra: Well, first of all, I think it’s important to say that there is no such thing as clean coal today. So in the first place, coal mining is an extremely environmentally damaging and dangerous process. The high volumes techniques that are now in use including strip-mining and mountain top removal have devastating consequences on mining regions. And secondly, while there are techniques in place that eliminate many of the regular pollutants such as sulfur and nitrogen from coal combustion, there is no current technology that can significantly reduce the amount of CO2 emitted from power plants.
Lester: What do you see as the future of coal and power generation from coal in America in the future?
Ezra: Well, I think we really have no option but the phase out the use of coal for power generation over the next several decades. The problem with coal is not that each pound has so much carbon; the problem is that there is just a vast reservoir of carbon and potential carbon dioxide in the coal reserves under ground in the United States.
Ezra Hausman is Vice President of Synapse Energy Economics.
He talked with The Environment Report’s
Lester Graham.
The US Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas monitoring program will cost businesses about $115 million total this year.
(Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
The government wants a better
sense of where America’s greenhouse
gas emissions are coming from,
so starting today -January 1, 2010,
more than ten-thousand businesses
will have to report them. Shawn
Allee explains:
Transcript
The government wants a better
sense of where America’s greenhouse
gas emissions are coming from,
so starting today -January 1, 2010,
more than ten-thousand businesses
will have to report them. Shawn
Allee explains:
Oil refineries that fuel our cars now have to report greenhouse gas emissions to the federal government. So do kilns that make cement for homes and businesses. Same thing for landfills that take our garbage.
Ed Repa is with the National Solid Waste Management Association – a trade group.
“The gas itself that’s being generated at the landfill is basically 50% methane, which is what natural gas is, and fifty percent CO2. Those gases are produced by organic materials for the landfill. That’s either paper or grass, or yard waste.”
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s greenhouse gas monitoring program will cost businesses about 115 million dollars total this year.
Most businesses can handle the new costs, but some small businesses with big emissions could be hit harder.
Cows burp methane gas and their manure also emits methane. Methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
(Photo courtesy of the USDA)
The US Department of Agriculture
is planning to give dairy farmers
more money to cut some of their
greenhouse gas emissions. Rebecca
Williams has more:
Transcript
The US Department of Agriculture
is planning to give dairy farmers
more money to cut some of their
greenhouse gas emissions. Rebecca
Williams has more:
Cows are gassy. They burp methane gas and their manure also emits methane. Methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
In Copenhagen, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions on farms. He said the government will be giving farmers more money for methane digesters. They’re machines that capture methane from manure.
Katie Feeney is with the environmental group Clean Air Council.
“If you can make it easy for them and cost effective for them to be sustainable, to reduce their emissions, then I foresee a lot more people participating in programs such as that.”
But some environmentalists say voluntary programs are not enough. They say big dairy farms should be regulated more.
Starting in the New Year, all kinds of businesses will have to report their greenhouse gas emissions. But there’s a big exception: large concentrated animal farms don’t have to.
The EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, announced the U.S. is moving ahead to eventually restrict greenhouse gases.
(Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
The US Environmental Protection
Agency has ruled CO2 is a dangerous
pollutant. Lester Graham reports
the finding gives President Obama
something to take to the climate
talks in Copenhagen:
Transcript
The US Environmental Protection
Agency has ruled CO2 is a dangerous
pollutant. Lester Graham reports
the finding gives President Obama
something to take to the climate
talks in Copenhagen:
The EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson, announced the U.S. is moving ahead to eventually restrict greenhouse gases.
“EPA has finalized its endangerment finding on greenhouse gas pollution and is now authorized and obligated to make reasonable efforts to reduce greenhouse pollutants under the Clean Air Act.”
But even with an administrative rule, Jackson says it’s still important that Congress pass a climate change law.
“I stand firm in my belief that legislation is the best way to move our economy forward on clean energy and to address climate pollution.”
The new rule sends a strong message to the climate summit currently going on in Copenhagen that the U.S. is getting serious about the emissions that are causing global warming. And next week, President Obama will go to Copenhagen with something a little more substantive.
Europe was the first to do carbon cap-and-trade, four years ago.
(Photo courtesy of NASA)
Congress is haggling over a climate
bill that includes a carbon cap-and-
trade system. In many ways, it’s
similar to the one the European Union
put in place several years ago. Liam
Moriarty looks at what
the European experience has been and
what the lessons for the US might be:
Transcript
Congress is haggling over a climate
bill that includes a carbon cap-and-
trade system. In many ways, it’s
similar to the one the European Union
put in place several years ago. Liam
Moriarty looks at what
the European experience has been and
what the lessons for the US might be:
Slashing greenhouse gas emissions is hard. Our economy is powered mostly by fossil fuels. Switching to clean fuels will be disruptive and expensive, at least to start with.
So how do we get from here to there? The approach that’s proving most popular is what’s called “cap-and-trade.” It works like this – first, there’s the cap.
“We’re going to put an absolute limit on the quantity of carbon-based fuels that we’re going to burn. And we’re going to develop a system to make sure we’re not burning more fossil fuels than that.”
Alan Durning heads the Sightline Institute, a sustainability-oriented think tank in Seattle. He explains that once you put the cap in place…
“Then, we’re going to let the market decide who exactly should burn the fossil fuels based on who has better opportunities to reduce their emissions.”
That’s the “trade” part. Companies get permits to put out a certain amount of greenhouse gases. Outfits that can cut their emissions more than they need to can sell their unused pollution permits to companies that can’t.
The cap gets ratcheted down over time. There are fewer permits out there to buy. Eventually even the most polluting companies have to reduce their emissions, as well.
The goal is to wean ourselves off dirty fuels by making them more expensive. And that makes cleaner fuels more attractive.
Europe was the first to do carbon cap and trade, four years ago. And things got off to a rough start. They set the cap on emissions too high and way overestimated the number of permits – or allowances – that companies would need.
“We have too many allowances. Simple supply means that the prices of those allowances crashes. They don’t have much value, and therefore the price went down to close to zero.”
That’s Vicki Pollard. She follows climate change negotiations for the European Commission. She says the whole system got knocked out of kilter.
For the first two years, European carbon emissions actually went up. After the collapse of Phase One, big changes were made. The next phase of the trading system has a tighter cap, more stringent reporting requirements and enforcement with teeth.
Today, Europe’s on track to meet its current emissions target. But environmentalists, such as Sanjeev Kumar with the World Wildlife Fund in Brussels, say those targets are still driven more by politics than by science.
“We have a cap that’s very weak, i.e. that means that it doesn’t mean that we’re going to achieve the levels of decarbonization that we need within the time scale.”
Leading climate scientists say we have to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by the middle of this century to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Business still has concerns about the EU cap and trade scheme. Folker Franz is with BusinessEurope, sort of the European version of the US Chamber of Commerce. He says companies worry about the additional cost of carbon emissions putting them at a competitive disadvantage.
“If you produce one ton of steel, you emit roughly one ton of CO2. So any ton of steel produced in the EU is right now some 17 dollars more than outside the European Union. And that makes a difference.”
But, Franz says, European businesses accept the need to take prompt action on climate change and are on board with the stricter cap and trade rules coming over the next few years.
Americans have watched Europe struggle with carbon cap-and-trade. The Sightline Institute’s Alan Durning says we can benefit from Europe’s willingness to break new ground.
“It was a big advance when they started it, because nothing like it had ever been done. But, it’s not the be-all-and-end-all. In fact, the United States now has an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and leapfrog ahead to a much better climate policy.”
Durning says an American cap and trade system could avoid the costly stumbles that’ve hampered Europe’s carbon reduction efforts.
Indonesia's peat forests are home to Sumatran tigers, Asian elephants and orangutans.
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
When the peat is burned, it releases tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Officials from every country in the
world have gathered in Copenhagen
this week to build the
framework for a global climate treaty.
One of the goals is to slow the
destruction of forests in developing
countries. Those forests process and
store massive amounts of carbon dioxide.
Ann Dornfeld reports:
Transcript
Officials from every country in the
world have gathered in Copenhagen
this week to build the
framework for a global climate treaty.
One of the goals is to slow the
destruction of forests in developing
countries. Those forests process and
store massive amounts of carbon dioxide.
Ann Dornfeld reports:
Preserving forests will be a huge debate in Copenhagen. Poor countries want wealthier countries to compensate them for not cutting the forests for lumber and to convert it to farmland. To find out why that might be important, you have to visit a place like this peat forest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
(sound of the forest)
Forests like this one are home to orangutans, Sumatran tigers and Asian elephants. But these forests may be more important for what lies beneath their marshy floors. The peat is composed of thousands of years’ worth of organic material. Indonesia’s peat forests are storage units for much of the world’s carbon. And they’re being destroyed at an alarming rate.
Not far down the road, Greenpeace Indonesia campaigner Bustar Maitar looks out on a charred landscape. You’d never know a forest stood here just a few months ago.
“Is the no more ecosystem here. No more forest here.”
Only a few burnt tree trunks are standing. Sour smoke curls up from the blackened ground. Maitar says this fire has been burning for a month.
“Fire is coming from not from in the top of the ground, but the haze is coming from inside. It means it’s the underground fire, especially in peatland. And underground fire is very difficult to handle.”
Indonesia’s peat forests are rapidly being logged, drained and burned in order to clear the land for tree farms and palm oil plantations.
The peat can be dozens of feet deep. When it’s burned, the carbon it’s been storing is released as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. All of that burning peat has made Indonesia the world’s third largest emitter of CO2.
Until recently, industrialized nations topped the list of greenhouse gas emitters. Now the United States shares that shortlist with developing nations like China, India and Brazil. As these countries industrialize, demand for timber and open space has stripped many of their forests bare. But leaders of developing countries insist their nations should be allowed to do what it takes to build their economies – even if that leads to climate change.
Paul Winn works on forest and climate issues for Greenpeace. He says the only alternative is for wealthy countries to pay developing countries to slow their emissions.
“If the industrialized world is serious about climate change, it’s essential. It just has to be.”
Winn says wealthy countries have pledged 45 billion dollars so far to help poor countries reduce emissions. But he says that’s just a start.
“If you compare that to what the industrialized world spent on protecting its banks and its financial institutions during the financial crisis, it’s a pittance. And it’s far more essential that they do it now. Because these forests are threatened, and the emissions that go up into the atmosphere are going to come back and bite the industrialized world if they don’t fund its protection.”
Some of the funding plans on the table at Copenhagen would still involve drastic changes to the world’s forest ecosystems. The UN’s current plan would give pulp and paper corporations in Indonesia carbon credits to convert peat forests into acacia plantations.
Winn says that’s the opposite of what needs to happen. Greenpeace and other environmental groups want industrialized countries to fund a moratorium on logging.
One complicating factor is the rampant corruption in many developing countries.
“It is a concern. And I would imagine that’s why many of the industrialized countries haven’t committed to funding.”
Winn says a thorough verification process would ensure that if countries allowed logging, they’d have to repay donor nations.
Winn is in Copenhagen to promote forest protection in the developing world. He says he doesn’t expect anything major to come out of this conference – but hopefully it will lay some groundwork.
In cap-and-trade, businesses can purchase the right to pollute from other companies that reduce their emissions more than they need to.
(Photo courtesy of the US EPA)
Congress is considering restricting
carbon emissions causing climate
change with a cap-and-trade scheme.
But, recent polls show only a handful
of people have heard of cap-and-trade.
Even fewer understand what it is.
Lester Graham reports cap-and-trade
is not new:
Transcript
Congress is considering restricting
carbon emissions causing climate
change with a cap-and-trade scheme.
But, recent polls show only a handful
of people have heard of cap-and-trade.
Even fewer understand what it is.
Lester Graham reports cap-and-trade
is not new:
We’ve been using the market-based tool to reduce other pollution.
Frank O’Donnell is with the environmental group Clean Air Watch. He says ‘remember acid rain?’ The government ‘capped’ the pollutants causing acid rain. And then came the ‘trade’ part.
“Sources can either reduce their emissions further or purchase the right to pollute from other companies that reduce their emissions more than they need to.”
O’Donnell says that cap-and-trade was cheaper than anybody predicted, and it reduced acid rain. But it didn’t eliminate it.
“And the reason is that the cap-and-trade target was essentially a politically-driven target. It was not one based fully on science.”
In fact, the US EPA is now proposing cutting acid rain pollutants more.
O’Donnell thinks a cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emmissions could be far more susceptible to political maneuvering.
Lester Graham at the coal mine Shay #1 in Macoupin County, Illinois. He's interviewing the mine general manager Roger Dennison. (Photo courtesy of Phil Ganet)
