Blocking Ferrari-ready driveways

Maine becomes third state to pass tough coal law 3

Yesterday, Maine Gov. John E. Baldacci signed LD 2126, "An Act To Minimize Carbon Dioxide Emissions from New Coal-Powered Industrial and Electrical Generating Facilities in the State." The law, which was sponsored by Rep. W. Bruce MacDonald (D-Maine), requires the Board of Environmental Protection to develop greenhouse gas emission standards for coal facilities. It also puts a moratorium in place on building any new coal plants until the standards are developed.

Three states (Calif., Wash., and Maine) as well as New Zealand now have laws effectively blocking new coal plants that don't meet a carbon dioxide emission standard roughly equivalent to that of a combined cycle gas plant (i.e., 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour). That standard could be met with even a moderate level of sequestration, but so far no utilities have stepped to the plate. As a result of Washington state's standard, Energy Northwest's proposed Pacific Mountain Energy Center in Kalama was rejected by regulators in November because its plans for carbon capture and sequestration were judged to be merely "a plan to make a plan."

Laws such as Maine's LD 2126 are valuable in blocking plants that merely declare themselves "carbon capture ready." As NRDC's David Hawkins told Congress (PDF): "A 'carbon sequestration optimized' coal power plant is not defined and could mean almost anything, including a plant that simply leaves physical space for an unidentified black box. If that makes a power plant 'capture-ready' Mr. Chairman, then my driveway is 'Ferrari-ready.'"

Ted Nace is the director of CoalSwarm, a collaborative information clearinghouse on U.S. and international coal mines, plants, companies, politics, impacts, and alternatives.

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  1. Russ Posted 6:07 pm
    16 Apr 2008

    "capture ready"The 2007 MIT report basically dismisses the concept of "capture ready" and retrofitting. They say if you're not going to build capture and sequestration pipelines into it right from the start, then all you can do is maybe set aside some space to later insert the capture module.

    IOW it's a scam.

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  2. amazingdrx Posted 11:31 pm
    16 Apr 2008

    Yeahbut(rhymes with rabbit) Does Hawkin's org still hawk CCS?  
    Yep!
    "We can instead choose a 21st-century alternative: Using existing technologies -- each in commercial operation today -- we can convert coal into a clean-burning gas and capture and dispose of the carbon dioxide deep underground, dramatically reducing air pollution from this dirtiest of fuels."
    http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/solutions/step4.asp
    Beware, don't let NRDC fool you.  Unless/until they experience a radical green rebirth, they are not to be trusted.  They support fuel farming too.
    This presentation by Hawkins, is it designed to boost "clean" coal CCS (sarbon capture and storage)?  My guess is yes.  
    Their support for nuclear power has waned, but who knows when they will change back to pro-nuclear?
    NRDC members and contributors?  You been sold out.

    http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

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  3. GRLCowan's avatar

    GRLCowan Posted 3:28 am
    17 Apr 2008

    The right place for the black box is far awayIt looks to me as if the easiest way of reducing net emissions of CO2 is by pulverizing olivine and strewing it over large out-of-the-way regions of the Earth's surface, including perhaps its sea surface. This turns out to consume at most ten percent as much energy as is gained when CO2 is emitted. More here.
    How shall driving gain nuclear cachet?

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