Remember, oh, about a year ago when every day brought a new article about the coming Coal Boom? How times change.
A few pieces worth noting, just from the last few days:
- Mark Clayton covers the Coal Bust;
- Keith Johnson covers the latest blow to Big Coal, Missouri's Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. canning a planned 660MW coal plant due to skyrocketing costs;
- Matthew Brown at AP covers the suspension of a federal loan program for coal-fired plants in rural communities;
- Greenwire covers a new lawsuit filed against the Bush administration (sub rqd) by North Carolina advocacy groups -- they say the feds' subsidies for clean coal are exacerbating the destruction wrought by mountaintop-removal mining, violating the National Environmental Policy and the Administrative Procedures acts.
There are a lot of threads, but they all come together into a web of Really Bad News for coal.
Coal's being battered on two sides. On one side is cold, hard economics: coal plants just don't pencil out any more, and with one source of financing after another expressing reservations or pulling out, the outlook looks grimmer and grimmer. In addition to skyrocketing (I need a new word that means skyrocketing) construction costs, there's the cost of climate regulations, which is unknown but potentially enormous. Coal is just a terrible investment -- something only an unaccountable government bureaucrat handing out subsidies could love.
On the other side are environmentalists. The Sierra Club gets the lion's share of the credit for its spectacular, coordinated, nation-wide, tooth-and-nail fight against individual coal plants. But the anti-MTR groups are getting in on it too now, and I have a feeling that's going to be one of the big stories of the next year. You just can't call coal "clean" when it means ravaging Appalachia.
One thing to note as you read these stories -- and it's particularly clear in Clayton's piece -- is that just about the only people willing to defend coal are people who make money off the coal industry (and I count coal-state legislators in that group). Clayton gets quotes defending coal from Joe Lucas, executive director of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, and Richard Storm, CEO of Storm Technologies, "an Albemarle, N.C., company that specializes in optimizing coal-fired power plants." No independent economic or energy analysts show up to claim we "have to" keep building coal plants.
Clean or cheap. Never both.
Ask Umbra on ditching dirty things
Comments
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NSaggie Posted 7:08 am
05 Mar 2008
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Pompey Road Posted 8:30 am
05 Mar 2008
Coal county reps hung bill up for 4 years, but with the rest of the counties getting to vote on it I feel it has a very good chance of passing this time.
I can't believe the state may actually stop the MTR before the Feds act on it, lets keep our fingers crossed.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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Aberwulf Posted 8:56 am
05 Mar 2008
ascend, catapult, escalate, go through the ceiling/roof, rocket, take off, zoom
(to pick a few)
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David Roberts Posted 9:19 am
05 Mar 2008
And thanks Aburwulf. My vocabulary is, um, zooming.
grist.org
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LPS Posted 10:47 am
05 Mar 2008
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Tasermons Partner Posted 11:04 am
05 Mar 2008
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LPS Posted 11:33 am
05 Mar 2008
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Tasermons Partner Posted 3:30 pm
05 Mar 2008
It's what the Earth wants that makes the difference.
And I'm pretty dang sure that means non-polluting renewables.
As for timeframe...well, that's the good thing 'bout being humans. We can create a huge amount of destruction in a short period of time...but we can also build prodigious wonders just as quickly.
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jcwinnie Posted 11:02 pm
05 Mar 2008
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Pompey Road Posted 1:33 am
06 Mar 2008
While attacking in force on the larger front nibble away with small actions and weaken your enemy. The world is the front line of Co2 all nations will come to the fight given the tools and the education.
MTR is in the Appalachian Mountains where the enemy is dug in deep and entrenched in the heart of coal country. Tough fight but the repuslive damage is just begging for national attention. Here is an early victory and a toe hold on the enemy's territory. The nation needs to see where this coal is coming from and how it is being mined. It's not high brow intellectual stuff, a picture is worth a thousand words to the masses.
If I could get a "Sicko" type documentary with all the accompanying hype. The MTR Battle would be over. They are teetering on the edge and just need a small push now. I am hoping when some liberal wind starts blowing after the election we may seeing some progress on this.
Take your small victories where you can, Rome was not built or destroyed in a day.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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nancylaplaca Posted 7:53 am
06 Mar 2008
Gasified coal is very, very expensive and risky - and carbon sequestration is unproven. Although carbon sequestration is possible on a small scale, the amount of CO2 we'd need to pump underground is staggering.
As of early October 2007, 9 IGCC plants were cancelled or put on hold- see Emerging Energy Research, Oct. 5, 2007, TECO, Nuon Cancellations Underscore IGCC's Woes. Since the report was issued, at least 2 more IGCC's have been cancelled: Colorado and Orlando. TECO's cancellation is notable it has been running an IGCC plant for the past ten years; while Orlando is notable because it received $235 million in federal funds, which it must now return.
There are only TWO IGCC (Ingrated Gasification Combined Cycle) plants that produce electricity in the U.S. (for a total of four in the world) - see;
* no IGCC plant currently captures CO2;
* the costs and parasitic load (how much energy it takes to run the capture and storage processes) are enormous.
* - IGCC capital cost: $3,400/kW
* - parasitic load to capture CO2: 15-20% (higher levels of CO2 = higher parasitic load; it's easier to capture the first 30% than the last 30%)
* - cost of compression: $17/ton
* The percentage of CO2 that is being captured and stored right now is a pittance. The total CO2 emissions from coal plants is ~2.5 billion tons/year in the U.S., with an average plant emitting ~5 million tons. EACH location in the world is capturing and storing about 1 million tons/year -- about 1/5 of the emissions from a single coal plant. That's not a solution, it's a niche market.
CO2 compression alone costs $17/ton, so a plant emitting 3 million tons/year of CO2 would cost $51 million/year JUST to compress the CO2! And that's assuming it will "stay" underground for a long time. The parasitic load from the compression, transportation etc. is estimated to be 20-25% - and that could be low. See Ramgen's excellent description from the Western Governor's Ass'n meeting Oct. 23-24, 2007 in Denver: http://www..westgov.org/wga/initiatives/cdeac/index.htm
A July 2006 EPA study estimated the added costs of IGCC with carbon capture:
-plant output reduced 14%
total capital cost increase - 47%
cost of electricity increase 38%
Summary, page. ES-6: http://www.epa.gov/air/caaac/coaltech/2007_01_epaigcc.pdf ...
Finally, the risk is enormous. In the 1960s, the US Army Corps injected 165 million gallons of liquid toxic waste from Rocky Mtn Arsenal beneath the Denver basin, triggering 1,500 seismic events between 1962-67 -- three over Richter magnitude 5; induced seismic activity is a real danger when injecting large amounts of a pressurized -- and corrosive -- substance like CO2. High Country News recently reported on it: http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17188# ...
CO2 is heavier than air and displaces air, which is why a cloud of CO2 released from a volcanic lake in Lake Nyos, Cameroon in the mid-1980's instantly killed the village's 1700 inhabitants and animals.
A fact sheet on IGCC can be found at: http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/igcc.
Renewable energy is cost-compeititive. Xcel Energy's 2007 Colorado Resource Plan estimated these capital costs:
wind - $1,645/kW (with Production Tax Credit);
wind- $2,000/kW (no PTC);
concentrating solar with 6 hrs thermal storage- $2572;
IGCC with 50% capture - $3912/kW;
pulverized coal, dry cooled with 50% capture- $3688/kW.
Energy efficiency is 1-3 cents/kWh!
http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWEB/CDA/0,3080,1-1-1_41994_45 ... -(go to Vol. 1, p.1-55)
Nancy LaPlaca
http://www.energyjustice.net/coal/igcc
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Pompey Road Posted 5:09 am
07 Mar 2008
Well just blow up a mountain
Blow up a hill
Do a big ol valley fill
Don't do no tally
Don't figure up the cost
Don't take no heed
Of what we just lost
Fire on the mountain
Fire in the hole
Blow up a mountain
Got to get that coal
Don't look back
Don't look closer
Push it over the hill
With a big ol Dozer
Well just blow up a mountain
Then we'll rally
Take a big ol Dozer
And push it in a valley
We ain't foolish
We ain't mean
Just kinda selfish
And we don't like green
Flat land, flat land we can't stop
Got to blow off a mountain top
Take a big ol dozer push it over the hill
That's what we call a valley fill
We'll keep pushin till we run out of steam
Cover up a valley cover up a stream
We don't care about our young un's
Lite the fuse, keep the dozer runnin
Who needs a mountain, who needs a hill
All we need is the dollar bill
We blow up a mountain just to get that coal
We sold our mineral and we sold our soul
Grab green back dollars till we get our fill
Don't need a mountain don't need a hill.
Well go tell uncle Bill and old aunt Sally
Got to move were gonna fill your valley
Well I guess you think it's all insane
Why we blow up your domain
You think its silly, you think its sad
But the money's all good if the water's all bad
We just don't need your approval
To do a mountain top removal
We'll keep fill'n till the valley's all gone
Blow up the mountains then we'll move on
We'll it don't take no concentration
That's what we do, a coal corporation
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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