storage - The Environment Report

Interview: Coal’s Future

A coal mine in West Virginia. (Photo by Erika Celeste)

The coal industry wants us to
believe in the idea of ‘clean coal.’
But burning coal emits a lot of
carbon dioxide, the greenhouse
gas contributing to climate change.
The coal-burning electric power
industry is just now testing technology
to capture CO2 and to permanently
store it. The second round of tests
is happening at American Electric
Power’s Mountaineer Power Plant
in New Haven, West Virginia. Hank
Courtright is monitoring those tests.
He’s with the non-profit Electric Power
Research Institute. Lester Graham
talked with him and asked how the
tests are going:

Transcript

Hank Courtright: We think it has great progress, it’s really the second step of a multi-step process that we’re doing. We had just concluded a project up in Wisconsin on a smaller scale, the same type of technology, and it was very successful. It capture 90-plus percent of the CO2 that passed through it and saw some great promises as far as reducing the cost of doing it. The idea here is that we’re scaling it up ten times larger at the mountaineer plant and so far the early results seem very good and we’ll continue to test that over a year plus to see how it does produce.

Lester Graham: I understand it takes a lot more energy to run this extra CO2 capture equipment, as much as 30% more coal has to be burned to generate the same amount of electricity, what’s being called a parasitic load. What’s this going to mean for our power bills?

Hank: Well, what we’re trying to Lester is that the parasitic load gets down into the, let’s say, the 10 to 15% range. If you get to that level, it means that the electricity out of a coal plant might be about 25% higher than it is. But right now coal is basically the cheapest form of producing electricity, so it still ends as being an economical option even if you might be increasing the cost of that coal plant by about 25%.

Lester: If they can accomplish that with this experiment, how long will it take to get this technology built into the bulk of coal burning power plants?

Hank: Well, you’re going to be working over this for several decades, really. If this plant at Mountaineer works well, our thinking is around 2020 you’re going to be able to have most new coal power plants use the carbon capture and storage. And you might be able to retrofit about 20%, 25% of the existing plants in the United States with this type of technology.

Lester: If all of these methods fizzle, we can’t capture carbon economically, or at the other end, we can’t find a way to sequester this carbon underground, or whatever type of method they can come up with, what’s next?

Hank: Well, that causes some difficulties because right here in the United States coal is used to produce about half our electricity. And if it doesn’t work on coal, it’s also the issue that it won’t work on any other fossil fuels such as natural gas, which produces about 20% of our electricity. So you’re into a difficult situation that if you’d wanted to significantly reduce the CO2 emissions to improve the climate change issue, then you’d have to be looking at a combination of probably nuclear power and a very large roll out of renewable energy. Both of those would have to take the lion share of electricity production. But our hope is that we can get this working because it is not only here in the US that you need it on fossil fuels of coal and gas, but also in places like China, Russia, India, Australia, country’s that very large reserves of coal and hope to use those natural resources.

Storing Carbon Underground

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

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.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Power Plant Tests Carbon Capture

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

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.

Talk about parasitic load.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Coal Ash Controversy

A broken dam caused this cement-like sludge to spill into the Emory River in East Tennessee. The coal ash sludge could dry out, putting toxic dust into the air. (Photo by Matt Shafer Powell)

This past December a sludge of coal ash broke out of an impoundment at a power plant in
Tennessee. It destroyed homes. It devastated a section of river. And it set off a firestorm
about the problem of coal ash disposal. Now two US Senators and a bunch of environmental
groups are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate coal ash. Tamara
Keith has the story:

Transcript

Coal ash is byproduct produced by coal burning power plants and it’s stored at more than 500
sites around the country.

Anti-coal activist Dave Cooper signed onto a letter this week with more than 100
environmental groups telling the EPA it’s time to get involved.

“What we want is for the EPA to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste.”

But Dave Goss with the American Coal Ash Association says safe storage is an issue, but a
lot of the ash is actually recycled into things like concrete and wallboard.

“If you stigmatize it by giving it some sort of a classification such as hazardous, that’s going
to have a dramatic impact on the ability to re-use the materials.”

The EPA has been studying this issue for years, and hasn’t responded to the latest calls for
regulation.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

Lifting Bans on Nuke Power Plants?

The nuclear power plant in Braidwood, Illinois, was started up just after the state banned new nuclear power construction. For its entire history, it's been operating without a permanent home for its spent nuclear fuel. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

There’s been plenty of buzz
about dozens of proposed nuclear power
reactors in the US. Well, Wall Street’s
financial mess is making power companies
scramble to find all the investment money
for them. But, in twelve states, it won’t
matter whether power companies have cash
in hand or not; it’s illegal to build new
nuclear power plants there. Shawn Allee
reports there are efforts to repeal some
of those bans:

Transcript

JoAnn Osmand represents a state legislative district in northeastern Illinois.

Nuclear power is close to her heart – there’s an old, dormant nuclear power plant in her
district. Osmond thought, maybe that plant could be useful again. So, she sat down with
the plant owner.

”And I asked a question: ‘Why are you not taking some of the parts away and
putting them in other nuclear locations?’ They said, ‘there’s a moratorium, we’re
not building any more nuclear plants in the state of Illinois.’”

Osmond was stunned.

Illinois has six existing nuclear power plants – she didn’t know it’s illegal to build more.
She hears plenty of gripes about energy prices – so she thought, why leave nuclear energy
off the table?

“I don’t want my granddaughters to have to buy their electricity from another state.
I want to be able in 2020, 2030 to be able to plug in our electric cars.”

Osmond’s bill to lift the moratorium stalled – it’s still illegal to build nuclear power
plants in Illinois. California and Wisconsin recently had similar fights over their nuclear
moratoria.

Some veterans of nuclear politics are shocked anyone would want to life a ban on nuclear
power plants.

“It makes absolutely no logical, rational sense in any mode of analysis.”

I find Dave Kraft at a coffee shop. Kraft is with the Nuclear Energy Information Service,
a group that’s worked against nuclear power for almost thirty years.

Twelve states severely restrict or ban new nuclear power plants. Kraft says seven have
language almost identical to Illinios’.

“The moratorium simply said, no more new construction of nuclear reactors until
the federal government has a demonstrated means of dealing with the waste
permanently.”

Kraft says states tried protecting themselves from becoming dumps for the most
dangerous nuclear waste – the radioactive spent fuel.

The federal government is supposed to store spent fuel – maybe in Yucca Mountain,
Nevada. But so far, that hasn’t happened, so it’s piling up in nuclear power plants – like
this one in Braidwood, Illinois, southwest of Chicago.

(sound of a door)

Bryan Hanson manages the Braidwood power plant. He leads me to a square storage
pool. It has the bluest water I’ve ever seen.

Hanson: “This is where we store our spent fuel. It’s about thirty feet of water
between us and the top of the fuel bundles down there. So you’re looking at thirty of
water and another twelve feet down below.”

Allee: “If you look into it, it’s almost like honeycomb.”

Hanson: “Honeycomb … looks like an egg crate or honeycomb. Within those cells
are fuel bundles that have been used in the reactor, generated energy, and now
they’re waiting for eventual disposal.”

Braidwood’s pool was meant for short-term storage, but spent fuel’s been stored here for
nineteen years. Hanson says the company is planning for when spent fuel will have to be
stored on-site, but outdoors, perhaps for decades.

It’s a situation the nuclear industry’s is unhappy about, but it’s confident the federal
government will come up with a solution – some day.

So, most power companies support removing bans on new plants. This drives critics like
Dave Kraft crazy.

“To build more reactors at a time when we have no place to put the waste makes no
sense at all. The first rule of waste management is, stop producing.”

Even though Kraft says it doesn’t make sense to lift bans on nuclear power plant
construction, he predicts those bans will get challenged again soon.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Price of Natural Gas Falling

The price of natural gas spiked last fall after Hurricane Katrina knocked out production in the Gulf. But prices have come down substantially since then, and the amount of natural gas in storage is growing. The GLRC’s Erin Toner explains what that could mean for consumers:

Transcript

The price of natural gas spiked last fall after Hurricane Katrina knocked out production
in the Gulf. But prices have come down substantially since then, and the amount of
natural gas in storage is growing. The GLRC’s Erin Toner explains what that could mean
for consumers.

During the summer, natural gas is put into storage for the coming winter.
Because last winter was relatively warm, the amount of gas in storage has grown
to its highest level since the government began collecting data in 1994.

Jim Kendell is director of the Natural Gas Division at the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
He says the buildup of gas in storage will likely mean lower energy bills this winter:

“Unless we have a really hot summer this summer, or unless we have some more hurricanes.”

Kendell says barring those extremes, consumer prices for natural gas in the winter
shouldn’t rise too much from where they are now, meaning prices could be down 20 percent
over last year.

For the GLRC, I’m Erin Toner.

Storing Nuke Waste Outside

Across the country, nuclear power plants are running out of room to store nuclear waste. The GLRC’s Brad Linder reports temporary storage at some plants is decades old:

Transcript

Across the country, nuclear power plants are running out of room to store
nuclear waste. The GLRC’s Brad Linder reports temporary storage at some
plants is decades old:

With no consensus on a plan to store the nation’s spent nuclear fuel in
one location, power plants are storing the waste onsite. For example, in
Limerick, Pennsylvania officials say they’re concerned about the plans to
build concrete casks to store nuclear waste outside a power plant. For
decades, they’ve been using storage pools inside the plant.

The proposed casks are described as temporary, but Assistant County
Planning Commissioner Mike Stokes says temporary storage at the plant
doesn’t mean much:

“They’ve been the permanent storage facility for every ounce of fuel used
at the power plant since it was first opened 20 years ago. So we can’t
always believe that things will be temporary.”

A spokesperson for Exelon Power, the owner of the Limerick plant and many others, says
the concrete casks are safe. Exelon says the casks are designed to withstand tornado-
force winds, or strikes from projectiles.

For the GLRC, I’m Brad Linder.

Storing Nuke Waste on Above Ground Lots

Nuclear waste storage is an issue that concerns many. Some worry that if storage facilities at Yucca Mountain aren't completed soon enough, above-ground storage will have to be employed. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission)

Some federal officials say work on a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain isn’t moving fast enough. So they want the government to start developing above-ground storage sites. But one private firm says above-ground storage is already available. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandra Harris
reports:

Transcript

Some federal officials say work on a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain isn’t moving fast enough, so they want the government to start developing above-ground storage sites. But one private firm says above-ground storage is already available. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sandra Harris reports:

House Energy and Water Development Committee Chair David Hobson has put ten million dollars in an appropriations bill to find interim above-ground waste storage sites.

But the CEO of private fuel storage says a temporary site his groups worked on for more than ten years will hold all the country’s waste.

John Parkyn says Hobson may not be aware of it.

“I’m certainly communicating to him exactly where we are, but the idea that we would spend significant amounts of taxpayer money to replicate something that has already been funded with non-taxpayer money would certainly involve a lot of political scrutiny, as to why you would ever replicate it and add another six or seven years on.”

Parkyn says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could soon approve or deny his company’s license for its site on the Skull Valley Indian Reservation in Utah.

For the GLRC, I’m Sandra Harris.

Rethinking Water Runoff Design

Rainwater that falls on paved areas is diverted into drains and gutters. If the rainfall is heavy enough, the diverted water can cause flash flooding in nearby rivers and streams. (Photo by Michele L.)

Some planning experts are worried that the rapid development in cities and suburbs is paving over too much land and keeping water from replenishing aquifers below ground. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham
reports:

Transcript

Some planning experts are worried that the rapid development in cities and suburbs is
paving over too much land and keeping water from replenishing aquifers below ground.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

In nature… when it rains… the water slowly soaks into the ground and makes its way
through the soil and rock to eventually be stored as groundwater. Some of it makes its
way underground to be stored in aquifers. And some of it slowly seeps through the rock
for a while and then resurfaces as springs to feed streams during times when there’s not a
lot of rain. It’s a natural storage system and a lot of cities rely on that water.

But when we build buildings and houses and parking lots and roads, a lot of the land
where the rain used to soak into the ground is covered up. Instead the rainwater runs off
the hard surfaces and rushes to stormwater gutters and ditches and then overloads creeks
and rivers. Even where there are big expansive lawns in the suburbs… the rain doesn’t
penetrate the ground in the same way it does in the wild. The grass on lawns has shallow
roots and the surface below is compact… where naturally-occurring plants have deep
roots that help the water on its way into the earth.

Don Chen is the Executive Director of the organization Smart Growth America. His
group tries to persuade communities to avoid urban sprawl by building clustering houses
and business districts closer together and leave more natural open space.

“With denser development you have a much lower impact per household in terms of
polluted runoff.”

Chen says the rain washes across driveways and parking lots, washing engine oil, and
exhaust pollutants straight into streams and rivers instead of letting the water filter across
green space.

Besides washing pollutants into the lakes and streams… the sheer volume of water that
can’t soak into the ground and instead streams across concrete and asphalt and through
pipes can cause creeks to rise and rise quickly.

Andi Cooper is with Conservation Design Forum in Chicago. Her firm designs
landscapes to better handle water…

“Flooding is a big deal. It’s costly. That’s where we start talking about economics. We
spend billions and billions of dollars each year in flood damage control.”

Design firms such as Cooper’s are trying to get developers and city planners to think
about all that water that used to soak into the ground, filtering and being cleaned up a bit
by the natural processes.

Smart Growth America’s Don Chen says those natural processes are called infiltration….
and Smart Growth helps infiltration…

“And the primary way in which it does is to preserve open space to allow for natural
infiltration of water into the land so that there’s not as much pavement and hard surfaces
for water to bounce off of and then create polluted runoff.”

People such as Chen and Cooper are bumping up against a couple of centuries or more of
engineering tradition. Engineers and architects have almost always tried to get water
away from their creations as fast and as far as possible. Trying to slow down the water…
and giving it room to soak into the ground is a relatively new concept.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is trying to get communities to give the idea
some consideration. Geoff Anderson is the Acting Chief of Staff for the EPA’s Office of
Policy, Economics and Innovation.

“Anything you can do to keep that water on site and have it act more like it does in its
natural setting, anything you can do to sort of keep that recharge mechanism working,
that’s helpful.”

The EPA does not require that kind of design. It leaves that to local governments and the
private sector. The Conservation Design Forum’s Andi Cooper says sometimes getting
companies to think about treating water as a resource instead of a nuisance is a hard
sell…

“You know, this is risky. People tell us this is risky. ‘I don’t want to do this; it’s not the
norm.’ It’s becoming less risky over time because there are more and more
demonstrations to point to and say ‘Look, this is great. It’s working.’ ”

But… corporate officials are hesitant. Why take a chance on something new? They fear
if something goes wrong the boss will be ticked off every time there’s a heavy rain.
Cooper says, though, it works… and… reminds them that investors like companies that
are not just economically savvy… but also have an environmental conscience.

“A lot of companies are game. They’re open. If we can present our case that yes, it
works; no, it’s not risky; it is the ethical thing to do; it is aesthetically pleasing; there are
studies out there that show you can retain your employees, you can increase their
productivity if you give them open spaces to walk with paths and make it an enjoyable
place to come to work everyday.”

So… doing the right thing for the environment… employees… and making investors
happy… make Wall Street risk takers willing to risk new engineering to help nature
handle some of the rain and get it back into the aquifers and springs that we all value.

For the GLRC… this is Lester Graham.

RETHINKING WATER RUNOFF DESIGN (Short Version)

Rainwater that falls on paved areas is diverted into drains and gutters. If the rainfall is heavy enough, the diverted water can cause flash flooding in nearby rivers and streams. (Photo by Michele L.)

An Environmental Protection Agency official wants local governments to take a broader view when making land use plans for their communities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

An Environmental Protection Agency official wants local governments to take a broader view
when making land use plans for their communities. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester
Graham reports:

Often planners don’t look past their own city borders when making decisions. Geoff Anderson
wants that to change. He’s the Acting Chief of Staff for the EPA’s Office of Policy, Economics
and Innovation. Anderson says city officials often look at land use planning one site at a time
instead of looking at how their decisions will affect the entire area…

“The two scales are very important and I think in many cases too much is paid to the site level
and not enough is given to the sort of broader regional or community context.”

Anderson says that’s especially important when planning for stormwater drainage. He says too
many communities think about getting the water to the nearest stream quickly without thinking
about how that rushing water might affect flooding downstream.

For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Tag: storage

Interview: Coal’s Future

Transcript

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Storing Carbon Underground

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Power Plant Tests Carbon Capture

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Coal Ash Controversy

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Lifting Bans on Nuke Power Plants?

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Price of Natural Gas Falling

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Storing Nuke Waste Outside

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Storing Nuke Waste on Above Ground Lots

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Rethinking Water Runoff Design

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RETHINKING WATER RUNOFF DESIGN (Short Version)

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