Senator Byron Dorgan gave Big Coal a cold shower the other day.
Dorgan warned coal’s lobbyists not to strut like roosters in the henhouse if climate legislation falls victim this year to President Obama’s passivity and Harry Reid’s fecklessness.
Looming clean air and water standards, ballooning natural gas reserves, and a long awaited revival in nuclear energy threaten to put three big hitches in coal’s get-along. And just because a climate bill putting a price on carbon might be down this year doesn’t mean it’s out forever.
Dorgan, hailing from the land of lignite, is a friend of the coal industry. The late Robert Byrd, another longtime coal ally, offered the industry a similar message in 2009.
Which is that Big Coal should be at the table negotiating a climate bill that offers regulatory certainty to all energy resources, not trying to up-end the table, egged on by OPEC enablers in Congress who see nothing wrong with perpetuating U.S. overdependence on oil.
It’s not clear yet whether Big Coal is ready to heed its friends’ warnings. But its customers in the utility biz are poised to vote with their feet.
By 2016, half the nation’s coal-fired power plants will be more than 50 years old. Utilities can rely on those don’t-laugh-it’s-paid-for coal beaters only so long before they will have to replace them.
Upcoming clean air and water regulations threaten to speed up those old plants’ trip to the boneyard.
The EPA on July 6 proposed a rule, which would apply in 31 states east of the Rockies, to cut back on pollutants that form harmful ozone and particulate matter.
Another proposed rule targets coal ash, the stuff that spilled out of a TVA impoundment in 2008 and clogged up Tennessee River tributaries.
Another rule to reduce emissions of mercury and other airborne toxins is due next year.
By coming to the table, the coal industry could press for legislation that would goose R&D aimed at finding economical ways of sequestering CO2, the key to boosting utility interest in building new coal plants that could comply with the new rules.
Without a reasonable prospect of sequestration, however, utilities will be wooed by the fetching message of the gas industry, which is feeling its oats. Once the least politically potent of the fossil fuels, gas has been putting out ads that would seem downright uppity if you’re an oilman or coal baron.
Unlike coal, the gas boys say their fuel burns cleanly and emits only half the CO2. Gas is the ticket for utilities to dump their dirty old coal plants, avoid EPA’s red tape, and get ahead of the curve if and when a carbon price is imposed.
Utility execs fret about the risk of gas price spikes, but dramatic increases in the size of domestic gas reserves have dampened that concern to a degree. A 2009 report by gas experts estimated that the U.S. natural gas resource base totals 1,836 trillion cubic feet, the highest in the committee’s 44-year history. Its estimate is equivalent to about 80 years of current domestic consumption.
Utility bosses also are looking afresh at nuclear, which at last seems to be emerging from the shadow of Three Mile Island and other technological screw-ups to advertise its wares as a clean, reliable, zero-carbon energy source that runs 24/7 on cheap fuel.
Applications for nearly 30 new reactors are pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. EDF, a big French utility that builds nukes all over the world, sees a promising market in America and has formed a joint venture with Baltimore-headquartered Constellation Energy to build four U.S. plants.
Competition is coming for utility investment dollars. Coal could be in the game, if it listens to its friends and helps rather than hinders negotiation of a fair climate bill.
Or, coal can continue pretending that the energy market will never change and let the future happen.
jabbermule // Jul 25, 2010 at 7:18 pm
I’m usually against big government regulation, but coal-firing plants emit about 40% of greenhouse gases in the United States, and I think it’s time we initiated a gradual program to eliminate these behemoths and replace them with nuclear power plants that recycle its spent rods (like the French). This is a clear example of an externality that the free market will simply not eliminate on its own, so it’s time liberals backed up their rhetoric about climate change and finally did something useful.
For example, by throwing the cap and trade program under the bus last week, Harry Reid has proven himself once again to be nothing more than a partisan hack who uses environmental policy to bludgeon Republicans but little else.
Claude // Jul 25, 2010 at 8:59 pm
I don’t think anyone really likes coal as an energy source. Mining it is dirty and dangerous, but it gives people with limited education a chance at a middle class income. That’s why politicians, including President Obama, embrace “clean coal technology,” even though it’s largely mythical and probably always will be.
dante // Jul 26, 2010 at 9:14 am
In my area, coal is pretty much finished. At the main utility-owned power plant, there used to be 1-2 trains per day bringing in coal, and you could smell it in the air on a non-windy day when you were in that neighborhood (yes, the power plant is located *downtown* for some reason). Now it’s been completely converted to natural gas. The state-owned power plant is being sued by the Sierra Club under the clean air act, and the governor has stated that the state will wind down coal burning at state-owned power plants by 2012. Anything that’s built new around here (Madison, WI) are either wind farms or converting coal power plants to gas. That’s it.
Oh, and to Claude, go watch King Coal to see how they’re (not) providing a middle class income to the populations around the mountain-top mining areas. It’s wholesale destruction on an unprecedented level, and since it’s much less labor-intensive than traditional mining, they need far fewer people to do it. It’s a pretty eye-opening documentary, and shows that even if you burn it “clean”, there’s the entire process of removing it from the ground that’s nowhere near “clean”.
Maybe it’s just that I grew up about 5 miles from a nuclear power plant, but we definitely need to be building more nuclear plants in this country. Utilize the resources in your area, whether it’s hydro, wind, solar, etc, and augment it with gas or nuclear power plants. Seems pretty simple to me.
sinz54 // Jul 26, 2010 at 9:45 am
dante:
It seems simple to me too.
The answer to climate change is not to be punitive (raise the price of existing energy with taxes and emissions trading), but to launch an accelerated program to commercialize alternative sources of energy, including nuclear. That’s the only answer Americans will accept in a time of economic distress: Show you can improve their standard of living, not make it worse.
I had submitted to FrumForum a diary on the new miniaturized nuclear reactors, which would enable even towns to get electricity from their own safe nuclear reactors and profit by selling the excess electricity to the national grid. Unfortunately, FrumForum chose not to publish this diary.
You can read about this exciting development for yourself:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/product.html
(Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with them)
To get the airlines to switch from propeller-driven airliners to jet airliners, it didn’t require a government tax on propellers. The airliners switched as soon as jet planes were shown to be safe and affordable, by Boeing with its 707.
JJWFromME // Jul 26, 2010 at 11:04 am
This author of this post says nothing about his own party’s filibuster junkies in the senate–that’s the 800 pound gorilla here, not Obama or Reid.
If coal can really take care of its externalities (and not just give the appearance that it is), then it deserves to survive:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/carbon-capture-on-the-cheap/
However, I’m deeply skeptical that coal companies will do anything besides meet the immediate need of their shareholders. And meeting those needs will include confusing the public with greenwashing campaigns, etc.
sinz54 // Jul 26, 2010 at 11:23 am
JJWfromME:
The cap-and-trade bill didn’t fail because of lobbying by coal.
Originally, the bill had a decent chance of garnering moderate GOP support, with its sweeteners for offshore drilling and nuclear power.
Then the BP disaster happened, and out went those sweeteners.
A solar-and-wind-only bill won’t be passed, and it shouldn’t be passed.
JJWFromME // Jul 26, 2010 at 11:33 am
I wasn’t blaming coal companies, I was blaming the filibustering minority party in the senate:
http://apture.s3.amazonaws.com/00000129f64171db8c5f265b007f000000000001.yearly_graph.jpg
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/research_desk_graphs_more_fili.html
dante // Jul 26, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Sinz54
Why? Why are you letting perfect be the enemy of good? If we can use gov’t subsidies to promote wind and solar, why are you going to oppose that just because it doesn’t have something “from the other side”? I don’t see why a good bill should be derailed just because the public opinion has swung against the GOP’s position on off-shore drilling. Because the climate bill will be delayed now until after the elections, and if the GOP picks up seats / control of Congress you’re going to see a drilling bill come out that has a neutered wind/solar component. Here’s a better idea, pass wind and solar now, and when the GOP gets into control pass an offshore drilling bill.
Rabiner // Jul 26, 2010 at 5:37 pm
Sinz54:
“The answer to climate change is not to be punitive (raise the price of existing energy with taxes and emissions trading), but to launch an accelerated program to commercialize alternative sources of energy, including nuclear. That’s the only answer Americans will accept in a time of economic distress: Show you can improve their standard of living, not make it worse.”
That is exactly what we should do, be punitive against polluting forms of energy. They profit from what they produce while the externalities are paid by society or government. That’s not right and makes coal artificially cheaper than it should be.