Comments Ted Nace has made

  • It's so great that Grist has a guy writing on climate issues who has the ability to clean the crap off the windshield and show the reader how to do the same. You're putting your philosophy training to worldly use David Roberts.

    On Gideon Rachman: Inability to prevent mass suffering and death a "dilemma for climate activists" posted 3 months, 4 weeks ago 8 Responses

  • Joe - With all due respect, it's astonishing to see you citing the example of the world's response to ozone depletion to defend cap-and-trade legislation. Climate scientists said that CFCs needed to be directly phased out in a matter of decades, and that is what literally has happened: not a cap-and-trade program for CFCs but a direct command-and-control phase-out. That's right: command and control, not market signalling. Market signalling is prettier and more economically efficient, but as a policy mechanism it's a way of bending the branch, not pruning the tree. It certainly would not have done the job with CFCs, nor will it work fast enough in the case of GHGs. Climate scientists have recommended placing the focus on phasing out coal emissions by 2030. The reasoning is that oil/gas reserves are much smaller than coal reserves, and controlling oil/gas is much more difficult. So coal is the key. Since it's not looking likely that CCS for new plants will be widely available in the mandated two-decade time frame--and it's looking even less likely that it will be available for retrofitting old ones--that means we need a straightforward national policy accompanied by equally straightforward implementing mechanisms to bring about the complete shutdown of existing coal plants by 2030, accompanied by governmental assistance if needed to finance alternatives. That will not happen with cap-and-trade, no matter how much you keep trying to tighten it in multiple iterations. The existing coal plants are simply too cheap to run; they'll pay the carbon fees (or taxes) and keep on operating. What makes cap-and-trade worse than a carbon tax is that the existence of a declining, comprehensive cap will be used as ready evidence that no further steps to directly phase out existing coal plants are needed. Moreover, utilities that have bought permits may well be legally or at least politically immunized from any mandated phase-out. As a result, a large portion of the coal fleet will still be running long past 2030 and the sine qua non for limiting climate change will not have been met. 

    On Memo to Hansen 2: Why is the country’s top anti-science blog reprinting your stuff? posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago 3 Responses

  • Not rhetorical question

    David -

    My question of how exactly the government is going to invest the hundreds of money in utility bill carbon fees so as to replace existing coal plants wasn't rhetorical. Among the items on your list -- "tax credits, feed-in tariffs, high-speed rail, public transit, federal procurement" -- only tax credits could possibly by regarded as such an offsetting investment. Feed-in tariffs are not a public investment. As for federal procurement, that has nothing to do with investments in electrical capacity (unless you're talking about having the feds build a bunch of solar/wind for federal agencies like TVA). High-speed rail and public transit investments also do nothing to get rid of existing coal. I'm sure that when Midwestern and Southern utility customers find out that a big part of the reason their utility bills are skyrocketing is that monies from them are being spent on public transit and rail, they'll certainly rebel. They'll justifiably ask transit and rail projects to be financed in some other ways. Thinking that heavy levies on utility customers in coal-heavy states can be a great bonanza for "good stuff" all over the country is just a ticket for a big fat rate-payer revolt.

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    On Obama's budget contains carbon auction revenue, but how much will be rebated to consumers? posted 9 months ago 22 Responses

  • Please be more specific

    David - Yes, to replace the fleet of existing coal plants will require replacement capacity which means a lot of investments in wind, solar, conservation, and transmission. But in case you hadn't noticed, the bulk of the electricity infrastructure is in private hands. So unless you are planning a major restructuring or modification of the electricity industry (for example, the government building large solar thermal plants on federal land and selling the power into the grid), please be more specific about what you exactly mean by "enormous public investments in green energy and infrastructure." What are these public investments that result in a lot of new private generating capacity?

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    On Obama's budget contains carbon auction revenue, but how much will be rebated to consumers? posted 9 months ago 22 Responses

  • Bingo

    David - The BACT or MACT approaches are very problematic for the reasons you have identified.  If you read the proposed EPA carbon dioxide measures for EXISTING plants, they talk about milquetoast measures for running plants slightly more efficiently. That's because there's nothing else, unless you want to consider retrofits like adding thermal solar pre-heaters, etc. A possible approach would be to have a CO2/kWh ceiling applied for the utility level as a whole, and then make this ceiling decline over time. A simpler approach is simply to declare that coal plants must be retired at age 40 or 45. Yet another approach is to define some CO2/kWh ceiling that causes the most inefficient old plants to be retired as of a certain date. One other problem with all this is that adding scrubbers makes CO2 emissions worse, so complying with one set of Clean Air Act requirements could be contradictory with complying with any potential carbon restrictions. Of course, DOE continues to pursue research into retrofit approaches, but I don't think anybody expects these to be economically viable.

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    On What is the 'best available control technology' for CO2 from coal plants? posted 9 months, 1 week ago 11 Responses

  • BBC numbers

    The $5,000+ estimates for coal with CCS aren't just California estimates. Those were also the estimates of the Lazard study, which was national. BBC's $3,900 per kW estimate can't be realistic, because  EPRI already is reporting multiple plants in construction now at costs above $3500 per kW (Edwardsport, in Indiana, is $3,730 per kW, and Mountaineer, in West Virginia, is $3,545 per kW). Neither of those plants has CCS. So how could it possibly be realistic to add CCS and still come in at $3,900 per kW, as BBC assumes?  

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    On Big Coal's far-out proposal for an economic stimulus posted 9 months, 1 week ago 4 Responses

  • Existing Coal Plants

    CoalSwarm is now documenting every existing coal plant in the United States. See this overview article or these individual coal plant descriptions.

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    On Two more coal plants won't be built, another will switch to biomass posted 9 months, 2 weeks ago 5 Responses

  • Connect windpower expansion to phasing out coal

    Even with carbon taxes or cap-and-trade, wind at 6-8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour beats new coal plants, but not legacy coal plants.

    But legacy coal plant sites need to be phased out, and placing wind near these locations means there's minimal need for new transmission. It also addresses the workforce issue. This should be a top priority.

    We need to identify locations where this switch-out makes sense: (1) old coal plants, (2) high wind potential.

    We need to find the right carrots and the right sticks to make this happen.

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    On How the U.S. can stay the global wind leader posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 5 Responses

  • Burning money

    Unfortunately, "lighting revenue on fire" is pretty close to accurate, judging by what's happened in the past with monies that were supposed to go to stuff like renewables and efficiency that would move utilities away from dirty power. For every $1 of federal subsidies that actually ended up being spent on efficiency and renewables, my guess is that $50 has gone for "clean coal" and nuclear boondoggles. An example is the Stanton Energy Center in Florida, which bagged $120,000,000 in state credits and then was cancelled two months after they started pouring concrete. Another is the Mesaba Project in northeastern Minnesota -- $54,000,000 so far for an IGCC project that won't capture its carbon, and even if it did, has no local geology suitable for sequestration. Trying to force utilities to do the right thing through the subsidy approach is like trying to get banks to lend more money by giving them huge "bailouts." Better to mandate what they should do and let them rate-base it.  

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    On Sen. Bob Corker wants a carbon tax posted 10 months ago 5 Responses

  • Yes! Yes! Yes!

    I agree. Regardless of what happens with cap-and-trade, more progress is going to come from well-focused, closely targeted measures that aim directly at rapidly phasing out coal plants and bringing on clean power and efficiency. Your list is a good one: mandates, efficiency requirements, and infrastructure spending. Indeed, the number of handles available to the federal government is quite large, for example:

    • Tightening mining rules to eliminate mountaintop removal
    • Tightening federal coal leasing
    • Raising efficiency standards
    • Phasing out the coal fleet through buy outs of old dirty plants and other simple measures
    • Directing Rural Utilities Service spending toward wind and solar thermal projects
    • Stopping the Air Force from building coal-to-liquids
    • Financing wind and solar projects for federal power authorities like TVA and municipal power authorities
    • Etc.

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    On Obama's quick regulatory actions ring louder than markets posted 10 months ago 3 Responses

  • Oink Oink

    Stop dreaming about an auction-only system. Such a program will never get the necessary votes from the Senators representing coal-heavy states. Watch auction-only go into committee and come out as giveaways, or to use the term de jour: "allowance value distribution." If cap-and-trade passes, it will not be because environmentalists stayed obediently united. Rather, it will be because a big enough coalition of those companies that stand to benefit from the immensely valuable giveaways and offsets managed to politically outmaneuvering the losers. But cap-and-trade (not the ideal system, but one riddled with offsets and giveaways) should not even be called climate legislation; it's really a shell game. It purports to solve a problem, but actually serves basically to enrich a certain well-organized group of corporate players at the expensive of the public. These interests damned well know what they are shooting for, and thinking you can win this game in the scrum is pure folly.  

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    On There's a reason Republicans stump for a carbon tax, and it ain't to reduce emissions posted 10 months ago 37 Responses

  • Be careful what you wish for

    Your argument echoes that of David Hawkins. Both of you are saying that only those who are we're willing to make the necessary compromises to push cap-and-trade through this Congress are serious about solving the climate crisis.

    The USCAP approach only makes sense if: (A) it solves the problem, or (B) it puts us closer to solving the problem.

    I don't hear anyone, even Hawkins, arguing with much passion for (A). So obviously we're talking about situation (B).

    But does the USCAP proposal put us closer to a climate solution? Actually, it could well do the opposite. The most immediately felt effect of cap-and-trade will  be increased electricity rates in Midwestern and Southern states that rely heavily on coal. However, the effect won't be enough to actually make existing coal plants uneconomical, so we'll have the worst of both worlds: (1) an annoyed constituency that will make further legislative progress on climate more difficult, not less; (2) no actual reductions in coal, since the legacy fleet will continue being the cheapest way to drive a watt into a powerline.

    If the USCAP proposal passes, people may remember this Congress the way they remember the California legislature that passed a disastrously complicated deregulation scheme. The Los Angeles Times, for one, thinks so. Those in Los Angeles also lived through the RECLAIM  ozone cap-and-trade system, which wasted seven years before it finally collapsed .

    A better approach than USCAP's grand scheme is a series of smaller, more focused legislative measures aimed straight at the heart of the problem: phasing out existing coal plants.

    It's conceivable that such measures could be enacted on top of a cap-and-trade system. But if the name of the game is being realistic about Congress, then let's not rest our hopes on that sort of fallback scenario. Rather, let's make those measures our top priority.

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    On Legislative proposals must be judged not only as policy, but also as politics posted 10 months ago 6 Responses

  • A different approach

    Gar - I think there's an easier way to skin this cat, based on the fact that the dynamics of oil/gas are different from dynamics of coal. With oil/gas we have virtually no control over the resource, but fortunately (from the climate standpoint), the resource is running out and as it does so prices will inevitably skyrocket. In other words, the market will ration the last drops, stretching them out more or less indefinitely and pushing switchable uses like ground transportation toward the cheaper option -- electricity powered by coal, wind, solar thermal, nuclear, geothermal, hydro, and PV. Both carbon taxes and cap-and-trade will have virtually no effect on the end game for oil. With the price sooner or later skyrocketing, the market will already be sending signals galore, and since the capital transportation stock turns over relatively rapidly, electric vehicles will come to the fore.

    So the economy will move toward electricity, and our job is to get the coal fleet phased out and make sure that the electricity is supplied by solar and wind. Fortunately, the public has far more leverage over coal than over oil, because so much of the remaining coal supplies are in federal hands. With Eastern sources of coal running out or being reined in by more aggressive mining standards, Western coal will become even more crucial.  If the public chooses, it can accomplish everything through the lease price of this coal that could have been accomplished through carbon taxes or cap-and-trade. Even more direct control is possible, say by limiting leases or stopping them altogether. (Alternatively, aging coal plants could be shut down via a rising carbon output threshhold.) To replace the electricity these coal plants would have produced, government can use any of a range of policy options, starting of course with aggressive efficiency measures and continuing on with the vigorous ramping up of utility wind and solar electricity supplemented perhaps with federal solar/wind authorities. Obviously, wind and solar capacity can't be ramped up from 0 to 60 overnight, but the ramp-up can be relatively rapid and once the manufacturing facilities are built it can proceed at a high speed more or less indefinitely. By 2020, it's not pie-in-the sky to think that 30-50 GW of wind and 30-50 GW of solar could be built and installed annually. Siting issues are much less gnarly for wind/solar than for big central station fossil or nuclear facilities. Lead times are quicker. Once a solar thermal location is established at, say, the 400 MW size, it can simply grow outward to 600 MW, 1000 MW, what have you.

    Thinking in terms of overall carbon reductions by a certain date, whether they be "80% by 2050" or whatever, is problematic because it obscures the huge differences between the two sides of the issue, oil/gas on the one hand, and coal/wind/solar on the other.

    Instead of these percentage/date targets, it's better to think of how much of the carbon-in-the-ground we can afford to free into the atmosphere. I highly recommend the Kharecha/Hansen paper "Implications of 'peak oil' for atmospheric CO2 and climate," which does a great job of laying out this way of thinking about the problem, and clarifying the pace of a coal phase-out that will be needed to minimize the length of time the world stays in the greenhouse danger zone.

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    On We need to cut emissions faster than 80 percent by 2050, but how fast? posted 10 months ago 39 Responses

  • Revolving Door

    The Air Force synfuels program exemplifies the revolving door between the federal government and private companies seeking military contracts. In September 2006, Air Force Under Secretary Ron Sega flew on the first Air Force jet powered by synthetic fuels. Barely a year later, Sega had popped on the board of directors of Rentech, one of the leading developers of synfuels technology with multiple projects in the works looking for federal funding. Source: "U.S. Air Force and Coal" (CoalSwarm)

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    On Air Force to announce the fate of a synthetic fuel plant posted 10 months, 1 week ago 6 Responses

  • Hidden in the numbers

    The coal industry likes to lump all its criteria emissions together and then brag about the reduction in the total. But this is one of those "how to lie with statistics" tricks that allows them to hide various troublesome facts. Notice that neither mercury nor arsenic is anywhere to be found on the ACCCE's list of pollutants. But even if mercury and arsenic were included, the relatively small (but deadly) quantities of these highly toxic materials would be swamped by the millions of tons of less toxic materials such as sulfur dioxide, which have indeed decreased due to stricter regulation. Basically, the tonnages of sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides so outweigh everything else that the coal industry's "77% improvement" claim is really just a measure of progress on those two pollutants. Pollutants like carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, where progress has not really happened, are produced in the hundreds thousands of tons rather than in the millions of tons and therefore are lost in the aggregation. Note also that PM-2.5, the very fine variety of particulates that researchers now consider one of the biggest contributors to mortality from power plants, is still not regulated and is not part of these figures. According to the EPA, PM-2.5 from coal-fired power plants rose from 97,000 tons in 1990 to 116,000 tons in 2000.

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    On Coal industry front group touts benefits of strong emissions regulations posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 2 Responses

  • Sir Isaac Newthead actually has a point here

    Zakaria, like most people, believes that a carbon tax would push the market toward better stuff. This is obviously true to an extent, but if that's all that were needed to fix the energy economy we'd have already have a much more energy efficient economy than we actually do, since energy efficiency investments are clearly cheaper than buying watts or therms from any utility in the country. Yet it's not happening to the extent it should, largely because of a host of institutional factors,  market failures, what-ever-you-wanna-call-em. That's why Gingrich has a good point when he talks about the benefit of prizes. Sometimes you have to do extra stuff to get things to work right. It might be positive incentives like prizes. More likely, though, it's going to be command-and-control stuff, as in: "By 2016 any coal plant built before 1965 must be shut down, whether or not carbon taxes or cap-and-trade have made it uneconomical. Why? Because We the People say so."

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    On Newt Gingrich is an idiot posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 7 Responses

  • If only it were so

    I like your article very much, except for the sanguine presumption that any sort of weighing of utility actually does occur in regulatory matters regarding power plants (not to mention the more comprehensive analysis you describe).

    Maybe this is done somewhere. If so, I'd love to know. You are certainly not correct in saying that "Analyses like Environmental Impact Statements -- required for major federal investments under the National Environmental Policy Act -- are still based on what economists call 'expected utility theory' (EUT)."

    There is no such requirement in NEPA. The law creates a lot of fat reports, but it really doesn't actually provide any legal handle for someone to assert: "Look--this project does more harm than good, so it must not be approved." Environmental Impact Statements just take an inventory of impacts. If adverse impacts are identified, then alternative decisions must be identified. But that's generally as far as it goes. The process does not involve estimating or weighing of utilities. Alternatives are generally raised and dismissed in a pro forma fashion.

    In fact, there is even one state (North Dakota) that expressly prohibits raising "externality" issues in power plant siting permit decision-making.

    It would be great if utilities really were measured and weighed. Of course, to be done properly this would include probabilistic weighing of "accidents," as you describe. Far fewer coal plants would be built. Probably none.

    (Maybe I'm wrong -- I'd love to know of any part of federal, state, or local regulation that formally applies utility theory.)

    By the way, the Kingston Plant, indeed half of all U.S. coal plants, was built before the passage of NEPA in 1969. Perhaps some of the subsequent retrofitting has been subject to an EIS -- would be interesting to find out.

    Thanks for raising an important point. In the nation of Bhutan, it's national policy to "maximize happiness." Why not here?

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    On TVA could have planned for a normal accident such as the coal ash spill in Kingston, Tenn. posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 3 Responses

  • Federal coal leasing is a key handle

    We can't stop China from building coal plants, but we don't have to provide them with cheap coal for those plants from the Powder River Basin and Appalachia. One very important thing that the United States can do now is prohibit exports of coal from federal lands and prohibit exports of coal from mountaintop removal mines. Since China has only 13% of the world's coal reserves, they're going to look to Australia, Indonesia, and the United States for coal imports. The U.S. federal coal leasing program is the key policy handle.  

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    On China to increase coal production 30 percent by 2015 posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 28 Responses

  • Careful, Joseph

    Yes, it's true that the USGS estimated the Gillette field at 10.1 billion short tons, but that was based on the assumption of coal selling for $10.47 per ton. The same report also said that the reserve would jump to 18.5 billion tons if coal rose to $14.00 per ton. See CoalSwarm's article "Coal Reserves" for details. Note that the actual price of Powder River Basin coal, according to the EIA's Coal News and Market report was $14.50 per ton in late November and was $13.00 on January 2.

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    On U.S. coal supply may last only 10-20 years posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago 8 Responses

  • Excellent piece

    This could basically serve as a national energy plan.

    One addition: An "oldest first" schedule for shutting down the existing fleet of power plants.

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    On An open reply to James Hansen's open letter posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago 32 Responses

  • Resources on Michigan anti-coal activism

    A coal moratorium would be a great development for Michigan. More on the coal politics of the state here:
    Michigan and coal

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    On Michigan governor on verge of important announcement on coal and clean energy? posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago 1 Response

  • The feds totally control the Powder River Basin

    This whole topic deserves a lot more attention. Here's a bit more information including an amazing map showing how much of the Powder River Basin, with 40% or so of all US coal production, is controlled by the feds. (Hint: nearly all.)

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    On American taxpayers help pay for coal sent to China posted 11 months ago 7 Responses

  • Your sources?

    Thanks for the comment. Yes - the plant is dual fuel. But I'd love to know your source on the relative amounts of natural gas versus coal. Also your source that natural gas is burned most of the time rather than coal.

    The information on emissions in this article came from data posted on the website of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments' figures for 2002 and 2009. According to that data, the Capitol Power Plant produced 82.513 tons of PM2.5 particulates in 2002 and is projected to produce 98.59 tons of PM2.5 under both the "uncontrolled" and the "controlled" projections for 2009. One thing that would be helpful to understand is why the output of PM2.5 going up. NOX and SO2 emissions are also projected to be higher in 2009 than in 2002.

    What's really shocking is that the Capitol Power Plant produces 4-5 times as much  PM2.5 as units 15 and 16 of the Pepco Benning Road Generating Station in D.C., which is a 580 megawatt power plant.

    Judging by the amount of coal it burns, the Capitol Power Plant is not that large. But judging by the particulate emissions, it's a monster. What's the explanation?

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    On Climate youth activists target the Capitol Power Plant posted 11 months ago 6 Responses

  • This is a sharp piece

    Deserves to be seen in places like Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, PR Watch, and Columbia Journalism Review's "Behind the News."

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    On Politico lets shill get away with the basic dodge at the center of the 'clean coal' campaign posted 11 months, 1 week ago 5 Responses

  • Background on the Capitol Coal Plant

    The Capitol Power Plant was built in 1910, making it even older than some of the coal-financed senators whose backroom shenanigans have kept it in operation for far too long. Fueled 49% by coal, it continues to spew carbon monoxide and particulates into a densely populated urban area with substantial poverty and poor public health. Plus there's the little matter of the 60,000 tons of carbon dioxide produced annually by the plant. These and other interesting factoids can be found at CoalSwarm's article Capitol Power Plant For details on coal financing of politicians, see Follow the Coal Money, a highly useful database devoted to tracking the flow of coal money to politicians, sponsored by Appalachian Voices and Oil Change International.

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    On Join us March 2 as we protest a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago 3 Responses

  • More background on the B of A announcement

    In addition to the groups listed above, other groups involved in the wave of nonviolent direct action against Bank of America include Rising Tide North America, Student Environmental Action Coalition, and Energy Justice Network. Check out this CoalSwarm backgrounder on citizen action targeting Bank of America and this CoalSwarm survey of worldwide direct action protests against coal in 2008 for more details.

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    On New policy would divest bank from mountain obliteration posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago 4 Responses

  • Nixing coal doesn't mean blackouts

    Sammie - Apologies for the sarcasm. It wasn't aimed at your post, which was excellent and enlightening. In any case, sarcasm is rarely effective nor appealing -- I should leave it to other word slingers.

    Back to the thread. I agree with you that coal plants should not be shut down without reliable alternatives. But those alternatives are here, including thermal solar, of which
    thousands of megawatts     are under development. Ausra, among others, is designing plants with on-site storage, allowing them to serve as baseload power. Then there's wind, which can provide lots of carbon-free power including some measure of baseload displacement especially when distributed over a large area. Currently,
    tens of thousands of megawatts     of wind are under development. And the clean alternatives to coal continue: negawatts, enhanced geothermal, photovoltaics...

    For more details, including further baseload alternatives, check out Google's Clean Energy 2030 plan. It shows how to replace all coal and half of natural gas used in electricity generation in the next twenty years. WeCanSolveIt.org's Repower America plan is even more aggressive, replacing coal in ten years.

    Of course, the existing gas-fired generators don't have to be torn down; instead, they can remain as additional backup.

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    On Is an economic downturn the perfect time for cap-and-trade? posted 12 months ago 6 Responses

  • The emperor's new clothes

    Good post, sammie. Nice reminder of just a few of the little gotchas that we'd all better get used to if we decide to buy this lovely fantasy gown called cap-and-trade, woven on the marvelous loom that magically turns the most tangled bureaucratic threads into a neat fabric of "free market logic," prefect material for our brand new climate protection gown. How elegant, how well fitted! Put it on during a downturn--clever! (Clarifying question: are we talking about this downturn or the one five years from now, after the twenty volumes of implementing regulations are finally issued?)

    Sorry for lapsing into sarcasm. Maybe a good cry would be the appropriate response to this kind of hubris. If it weren't for the terrible consequences of failure, it would be so entertaining to watch this immense Buck Rogers contraption get designed and constructed in all its thousands of glorious pages of regulation and fine print while stimulating the economy to the tune of thirty thousand lawyers' salaries while fifty thousand lobbyists dance gainfully in time. If the downside weren't so urgent and dire, it would be such a fun bit of I-told-you-so to watch it get litigated, re-litigated, rewritten -- stronger, weaker, stronger, weaker -- with every succeeding administration, until it finally collapsed under its own porcine weight. Do y'all have a clue for how the real world works? Did the latest financial collapse teach you nothing about the hubris and folly of investing in stuff too complicated for mortal minds to understand? Why not leave the massive, complicated, theoretically-lovely-but-unworkable schemes to the philosopher kings of the European Union? Let them be the ones who get fooled again ... and again ... and again.

    If we had endless time to play with cap-and-trade, maybe it would be worth a wing, but we've got twenty years to shut down coal. In bureacracy-'n'-litigation years, that's about twenty months.

    The worst result would be to let cap-and-trade replace straightforward stuff that actually has already shut down coal plants -- like Renewable Portfolio Standards.

    Repeat after me: Simple is good! Simple is good!

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    On Is an economic downturn the perfect time for cap-and-trade? posted 12 months ago 6 Responses

  • Too little, too late

    This is not a climate solution. It's essentially a way of upping the efficiency of a coal plant, but you still have a coal plant and that means emitting vast quantities of carbon dioxide. Building one of these hybrid solar/coal facilities next to a coal mine simply means that it will take somewhat longer to transfer the carbon in the mine into carbon in the sky. From a climate perspective, with carbon dioxide staying in the atmosphere for thousands of years, whether the coal is used up slowly or quickly makes no difference. Instead of finding ways to use coal more efficiently, what needs to happen is for coal emissions to stop in the very near future, and that means we can't futz around with all the myriad ways of building new coal plants that run more efficiently. That era should be over. If there's a location with good enough sun to support a CSP pre-heater, then why not go all the way and make the whole facility CSP?

    Nobody has suggested that making a coal plant more efficient constituted an emissions strategy for mercury or other dangerous toxins. Yet carbon dioxin--oops, Freudian slip, I meant carbon dioxide--is the most profoundly dangerous of all.

    The EPA should consider BACT in a broad sense: the best available technology for generating electricity. If that standard is applied, then none of the existing ways of using coal will qualify until full CCS arrives (if that ever happens). In the meantime, the EPA should only allow wind, solar, negawatts, and other non-GHG technologies to move forward.

    If the EPA adopts increased coal plant efficiency as a legally acceptable control strategy for carbon dioxide, we're cooked.

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    On A concentrated solar BACT for new coal? posted 1 year ago 4 Responses

  • Bingo!

    You've made an extremely important point, quite  brilliantly. Thank you thank you JMG (whoever you are).

    It's vital that this understanding be driven into climate legislation. Cap and trade that treats all fossil fuels as equivalent is folly. Those who don't get this should read the Kharecha/Hansen paper:
    http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2008/2008_Kharecha_Hansen. ...

    We desperately needed a simple, direct policy that will phase out coal emissions quickly over the next two decades. This sort of "command and control" approach should not be a dirty word. In fact, "command and control" is exactly what government does best and is the appropriate approach under certain circumstances. This is just such a case.

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    On If we try cap-and-trade systems, we have to handle coal separately posted 1 year ago 19 Responses

  • Intelligence over ideology

    Brilliant piece of slice and dice, David. This is why people go to Grist.

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    On The Economist blows it on the Green New Deal posted 1 year ago 15 Responses

  • You're too pessimistic on solar and wind

    Michael - Your comment that "until they are fully funded, wind and solar power will not be capable of replacing more than a tiny fraction of oil and coal in the nation's overall energy mix," is too pessimistic. Check out this article on the dozens of solar thermal stations that are currently operating or under construction:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_ ...

    It reports that there is a "gold rush" for solar thermal sites going on, and that the BLM has received 125 applications for developments on federal land totally 70,000 MW of solar thermal capacity.

    For wind, see:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_large_wind_farms
    For photovoltaic, see:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_power_stations

    Companies like Ausra do not require Federal funding--private financiers like Kleiner Perkins are confident enough to provide it.

    Ausra says they have storage ready for solar thermal plants. See
    http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/6/20/143633/019  

    But storage is not a limiting factor, since solar availability matches grid peaks so nicely.

    Sure, there will need to be more transmission before solar thermal can permeate the entire country, but it can begin to replace coal now in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and Utah. Plants can be built within two years, and Ausra and others are scaling up very quickly by building large manufacturing capacity.

    Why should we wring our hands over the snail's pace of carbon capture and storage development, when solar and wind are already here at commercial scale and can continue ramping up far more quickly than other options? A huge advantage for wind and solar is that the lead time for construction is maybe a third that of coal and a fifth that required for nuclear.

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    On America's energy crunch comes home posted 1 year ago 8 Responses

  • Who's Playing Whom?

    Excellent series, David. I agree with you that Obama has played the "clean coal" hand that he got dealt in the primaries very intelligently. He's called industry's bluff by saying, "OK, I'll play this hand, but you won't actually get my chips until you show me that your 'clean coal' hand is for real."

    But it's important not to overstate how long this approach can work. Obama has to become an educator and push the whole national debate to a higher level.

    If Obama stays too long within industry's framing of things (i.e. that "clean coal" is an actual near-term solution, which it isn't), then he risks falling into a big trap when industry comes back with: "OK, we'll show you the 'clean coal,' but you have to give us the big subsidy money for all our projects." Before that happens, Obama needs to shift gears--quickly.

    Basically, Obama has to start painting on a bigger canvas where "clean coal" is positioned more in the background of "things that are in the R&D stage and might happen in subsequent decades." He has to say -- (1) the climate crisis is dire, (2) we have to make a huge transformational shift in our infrastructure, (3) this should be approached as an infrastructure issue on the scale of the moon race, the interstate highway system, etc., (4) this big new infrastructure project requires us to retire our existing coal fleet, which is actually getting quite old, (5) this infrastructure project will solve the climate crisis, but it will also help our economic recession and our security issues.

    With regard to clean coal, Obama needs to start distinguishing between things that are ready to roll now (efficiency, wind, solar), and things that will not be ready for prime time until after his administration ("clean coal," 4th generation nuclear, enhanced geothermal).

    This way, he continues to give lip service to clean coal and nuclear, but establishes the principle that a distiction needs to be made between rolling out some big new infrastructure (bigger expenditures) and doing R&D on possible steps for the coming decades (smaller expenditures).

    As for the politics of coal, Obama needs to state repeatedly that an underlying principle of the new energy infrastructure transformation is that coal industry workers will not be the sacrificial lamb.  

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    On Obama's pushing a clean energy agenda with swing-voter-pleasing rhetoric posted 1 year, 1 month ago 7 Responses

  • Response to "odd numbers'

    GreenEngineer - Thanks for your comments. I think that your perception that something is amiss is based on one of your numbers (832 kg of carbon dioxide per MWh for a combined cycle gas plant) being based on the wrong measurement units. Looks to me like this should have been lb per MWh, not kg per MWh. If you correct that particular figure, I think you'll find that the other numbers do fall into place and that the Future of Coal numbers are not out of line in terms of the efficiency of new non-capturing coal plants.

    A couple of clarifications and comments:

    1. The current U.S. fleet is not fluidized bed; it's mostly sub-critical pulverized coal (PC) but with a substantial amount of supercritical now in the mix. Although fluidized bed has been under study for decades, it's only recently been getting commercialized. See this DOE Report.

    2. As I mention above, I'm not sure where you get the figure "832 kg/MWh" for combined cycle plants, but it sounds much too high. Yes, such a figure would be out of line. The California regulatory staff used figures as low as 800 lb (not kg) per MWh for new combined cycle. That would put combined cycle where it logically belongs: more efficient than the gas turbine fleet as a whole (which includes lots of inefficient single cycle units).  

    3. Yes, the Future of Coal study does claim that ultra-supercritical PC plants (i.e. supercritical plants running hotter than 565 degrees C) can perform at 738 kg/MWh. That's a bit forward looking, but probably realistic. Santee Cooper has one under development in Florida (the Pee Dee station); Southwestern Electric is also developing one. If achievable, the 738 kw/MWh would be a lot less efficient in terms of carbon dioxide production than the new combined gas plants, and that makes sense since, as you note, the best coal plants will always perform worse than the best gas plants, since coal is naturally more carbon intensive.

    Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

    On How the new European carbon standard could backfire posted 1 year, 1 month ago 5 Responses

  • Details on Proposed New Coal Plants in Europe

    For more details on the build-up of coal plants in Europe and elsewhere, check out this article on CoalSwarm and the linked articles on individual countries:

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Europe_and_coa ...

     

    Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

    On Hansen's trip report finds 'sobering degree of self-deception' in Germany, U.K., Japan posted 1 year, 3 months ago 13 Responses

  • Silly argument

    Dear David of ACCCE:

    Regarding your claim that "current plans for new power plants make sure the schematics leave room for the carbon-capture control of the future to be installed," that's like me saying I'm building my driveway to be "Prius ready." It's meaningless unless the costs of such hypothetical retrofits have actually been taken into account.

    In fact, considering such costs is exactly what evey power plant developer is RESISTING, in regulatory hearing after regulatory hearing. In North Dakota, for example, the coal industry actually pushed through a law that explicitly prohibits regulators from taking potential carbon regulation into account as a factor to consider in new plant permitting decisions.

    As for your claim that we need more conventional coal plants in order to create a "marketplace" for carbon capture retrofit technology, don't the 500 existing coal plants already constitute such a market?

    Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

    On Poll shows 86 percent of public wants a five-year halt on new coal plants posted 1 year, 4 months ago 14 Responses

  • This was not a push poll

    KenG - You're right in your instinct to question any poll that provides a response above 80%, but please don't call this a "push poll." A push poll, according to both Pollster.com and SourceWatch, is a political tactic in which propaganda, rumors, and misinformation are spread among the public under the guise of a "poll." An example is the "poll" conducted in South Carolina on behalf of the Bush campaign in 2000 in which voters were asked: "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"

    The Opinion Research Corporation poll conducted for Civil Society Institute does not fit that definition. First, it was done by a well respected polling group with a 70-year track record. If rouge elements inside Opinion Research have decided to join forces with radical environmentalists using Karl Rove tactics, I'm sure their management would like to know. Opinion Research Corporation has now posed the exact same question on three separate occasions to samples of over 1,000 people each time. The longitudinal repetition increases the credibility of the results.

    But leaving aside the loaded term "push poll," is this a biased poll? Let's look at the question and the results. The full question was:

    "Please tell me how much you agree or disagree with the following statement: 'A national energy strategy based on phasing in of new technologies and phasing out of carbon based energy sources would require specific actions. America should commit to a five year moratorium on new coal-fired plants and instead, focus on aggressive expansion of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. Tax and other incentives should be provided for all new construction to help reduce energy consumption. Homeowners should get incentives to make their homes more energy efficient and to help reduce energy demands. Would you say you strong agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, strongly disagree, or don't know."

    This question was asked in September 2007, February 2008, and June 2008. The results in June 2008 were: strongly agree 49%, somewhat agree 37%, somewhat disagree 7%, strongly disagree 6%, and don't know 2%. In September 2007 the results were: strongly agree 44%, somewhat agree 40%, somewhat disagree 7%, strongly disagree 6%, and don't know 3%.

    One thing is clear--the support for the statement did not weaken between September 2007 and June 2008, despite a large pro-coal advertising campaign conducted in the interim. That was one point of my article, and I think the poll results prove it out. Even if we were both to agree that the question is biased, the wording did not change from one survey to the next so at least we're comparing apples to apples, something that the shifting sands of poll question phrasing typically render impossible. If anything, the pro-moratoriuim position seems to have firmed up a wee bit during that period, though the difference is close to the 2% margin of error of a survey of this size (1,003 respondents in September 2007; 1,005 respondents in June 2008).

    But I think what you're really getting at is the idea that putting the question of a coal moratorium in the context of increased renewables constitutes a degree of bias. If so, I certainly see your point. In response, I would say that every poll on energy has to deal with context--there's simply no way around that. And consequently, depending on how the facts are presented, the public will be pushed one way or another. Should the question mention global warming? Should it mention the possibility of power shortages? Should it mention alternatives or leave them out? Should it present the idea of a coal moratorium in isolation? These questions have no simple answer. The litmus test, I think, is whether the policy context is factually sound and reasonably likely to be implemented. And I do think that the poll passes that test.

    Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

    On Poll shows 86 percent of public wants a five-year halt on new coal plants posted 1 year, 4 months ago 14 Responses

  • Follow the science! Inspire!

    First, and foremost, the new president should make it clear that he intends to follow the science. Why do we fund NASA if we're just going to ignore them? NASA's Hansen was just in Washington saying that the key to the climate problem is to phase out coal emissions by 2030. The new president's job is to flesh this out and make it happen.

    How?

    1. Immediate: The president should show leadership by using the art of explanation and persuasion. Start by saying that if NASA's scientists told us that a meteorite were heading toward the earth, they'd certainly give us warning and suggest a plan. Explain that this is exactly what NASA's climate agency and its leader James Hansen have pointed out, and that we intend to follow the science.

    2. Immediate: Nation-wide federal efficiency and building standards modelled after California and other successes to bring per-person electricity use down by 40%-60%. The new president should make it absolutely clear that we are NOT talking about lifestyle reductions here. Californians aren't freezing in the dark, yet they use 40% less electricity each. And we can do far better than that, as groups like Architecture 2030 have pointed out.

    3. Immediate: Nation-wide decentralized renewables, expanding on state programs such as Hawaii's new Solar Roofs law requiring solar water systems on all new houses. Talk about the innovative public and private financing approaches that make this, again, painless.

    4. Immediate: Moratorium on new coal plants. Explain that such moratoriums already exist in many states and are supported by Republican governors AND Democratic governors AND business leaders like Warren Buffett. This is a bi-partisan approach.

    5. Immediate: Establish a federal program within an existing agency to work out the phase-out of all existing coal plants in an orderly, careful way by 2030, beginning with the oldest and dirtiest. Explain that the nation will do everything necessary to protect the families of mine and plant workers from being the sacrificial lamb. Talk about how we've managed such realignments before with programs such as the Base Realignment and Closure program (BRAC).

    6. Immediate: Create the appropriate incentive structure to phase in clean technology, starting with what already works commercially (wind and concentrating solar thermal) and expanding into further sources as they become economical. Point out that this will require big expenditures but also lots of jobs and economic stimulation. Put it in perspective by showing that it's actually less money than we've been spending in Iraq.

    7. Immediate: The new president should talk about what a beautiful country we have, what beautiful skies and mountains, how beautiful our children are, what a great future we can have. America is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL country imaginable, our people deserve THE BEST FUTURE -- think of how much more beautiful this country will be when it's running entirely on clean quiet energy. Think of how us parents will sleep better when the solar's running and the fuel's free.

    8. Future: The new president should say that we're going to keep researching energy, but that actually we have all the solutions in our hands right now.

    Merits of the above approach:
    1. It sensibly puts the most emphasis on decentralized solutions but it recognizes that fact that utilities will remain in the picture in a big way and that we frankly need a new approach to baseload power--i.e. solar.
    2. It follows the science, recognizing that we need a schedule that gets us to 2030 with no coal emissions
    3. It talks frankly about the effects on miners and plant workers and proposes solutions
    4. It inspires

    Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

    On What the next president should say posted 1 year, 5 months ago 6 Responses

  • Where does the power come from?

    Once again, the old canard that "wind and solar won't cut it." Ridiculous nonsense.

    Here's a simple three-step program that will allow ending all coal emissions in the next twenty years, in keeping with the scientific ultimatum that doing so is essential to avoiding the danger of moving past catastrophic climate tipping points.

    First: efficiency improvements brought on by strengthened state and federal standards and by utility-sponsored programs. California's per-capita electricity consumption used to be the same as the national average; now it's about 40% below that, due to easily implemented programs. This is the biggest, cheapest, and quickest  source of "new" power.

    Second: concentrating solar power and wind. CSP in particular can now provide baseload. Both are cheaper than coal with carbon capture. A 100 by 100 square mile area of CSP alone could supply the entire grid.

    Third: enhanced geothermal. This will require additional R&D but MIT's recent study found no major hurdles to widespread implemention over the coming decades. The resource is available nation-wide and will provide major amounts of baseload power at competitive costs.

    Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

    On CNN and clean coal posted 1 year, 5 months ago 4 Responses

  • Error has been fixed

    Please note that the error noted by Charles Barton and Nathaniel Bullard (100 square miles is wrong -- 100 miles by 100 miles is correct) has been corrected and Grist has printed a mea culpa and an apology to the authors for mis-editing their post.

    Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

    On Solar thermal can save us, but it needs public clamor posted 1 year, 5 months ago 35 Responses

  • Dr. Hansen is one of the heroes of our time

    If humanity makes it through this bottleneck, a great deal of the credit must go to James Hansen for going outside the safety of the scientific journals and courageously informing the general public.

    Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

    On James Hansen writes to Duke Energy on coal posted 1 year, 7 months ago 11 Responses

  • Responding to davdABEC

    ABEC Assertion: Gains in energy efficiency may be slightly changing the slope of the demand curve and we see that in the EIA forecasts.
    Response: Gains in energy efficiency are anything but slight. In just a single year the EIA has reduced the projected growth rate by 27% -- from 1.5% to 1.1%. The EIA attributed this to newly tightened efficiency standards for appliances, lighting, and industrial motors.

    ABEC Assertion: By all accounts America's electricity demands are increasing.
    Response: It is more correct to say that electricity demand has increased in the past, but what it does in the future depends on how aggressively we invest in efficiency measures. Since 1975, California's per capita electricity use has steadily fallen relative to the national average and is now nearly 45% lower, simply because the state has successfully implemented a battery of measures to raise efficiency. Yet even California could squeeze far more functionality out of a kwh, with better building standards being the most promising avenue. Each time an end-user demand is met through greater efficiency rather than increased generation, the generation slope progressively flattens until eventually it falls.

    ABEC Assertion: New advanced coal-based power plants can replace older, less efficient units when those plants are due to be taken out of operation.
    Response: Replacing old coal-based plants with new coal-based plants is an economic loser (why else would the coal industry come begging for subsidies?), an environmental disaster (zero emission plants sound nice, but the technology does not exist), and a jobs loser (efficiency, wind, and solar create many more jobs).

    ABEC Assertion: Meeting America's future electricity needs will include a variety of fuel resources ... including coal.
    Response: Coal usage needs to diminish quickly; otherwise the world's carbon burden will increase past the 350 ppm point into the dangerous zone.

    ABEC Assertion: Coal is a domestically-abundant energy resource.
    Response: Cigarettes are abundant, junk food is abundant...

    ABEC Assertion: Fuels like solar and wind are not replacements for coal.
    Response: The point is not to replace coal with a single alternative, but rather to look at an integrated array--investments in efficiency, heat pumps, passive solar, solar hot water, distributed photovoltaics (PV), central station PV, concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, energy storage, etc. Here are four studies that explore alternative ways of decarbonizing the energy mix:


    • Tackling Climate Change in the U.S. (PDF file)
    • The War on Coal: The Outside the Pits (PDF file) - Khosla Ventures white paper (draft)
    • A Solar Grand Plan (Scientific American)
    • Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy

      Help build coalSwarm-- a shared informational resource on coal and alternatives to coal.

      On The magic mouse of Guy Caruso posted 1 year, 8 months ago 10 Responses

    • 59 Coal Plants Cancelled in 2007

      CoalSwarm, the new wiki covering the coal boom and the coal moratorium movement, has released a comprehensive count of cancellations that shows 59 coal plants cancelled in 2007.

      Details at http://cmnow.org/59plants.pdf.

      Also at:
      http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Coal_plants_ca ...

      Conclusions:
      Climate concerns have begun to play a major role in plant abandonments and cancellations: Concerns about global warming played a major role in 15 cases. These included five proposed Florida plants (Glades, Taylor, Seminole, Polk, and Stanton), seven proposals in Western states that have newly implemented strict carbon regulations on coal (Avista's unnamed unit, Sunflower's Holcomb unit 3; Idaho Power's unnamed unit; Energy Northwest's Pacific Mountain Energy Center; PacifiCorp's Intermountain Power, Bridger IGCC demonstration, and Bridger expansion); and Sunflower's Holcomb units 1 and 2.

      Coal plants are being eliminated from long-range plans: Increasingly, coal plants are disappearing before they can even be named, due to increasing regulatory scrutiny of long-range integrated resource plans. In addition to the plants abandoned by PacifiCorp and Idaho Power Company, it is likely that other utilities around the United States have eliminated coal plants from their long-term planning rosters without public announcement.

      Renewables are elbowing out coal: Regulators in several states have begun favoring utility-scale renewables over coal. In Delaware, regulators cancelled a coal power plant proposed by NRG Energy in favor of an alternative proposal that combined wind and natural gas. In California, the combination of a strict carbon emissions standard and a renewable portfolio standard has prompted utilities to enter into contracts for large thermal solar projects sponsored by Ausra, BrightSource, and Solel. Solar thermal companies have found success in recruiting top utility executives such as Robert Fishman, who left an executive VP position at CalPine to take the helm at Ausra.

      More plants are being abandoned than rejected: Of the 59 projects listed below, only 15 were rejected outright by regulators, courts, or local authorities. In the remaining 44 cases, the decision was made by utilities themselves. Reasons for abandoning plants include (1) rising construction costs, (2) insufficient financing or failure to receive hoped-for government grants, (3) lowered estimates of demand, and (4) concerns about future carbon regulations.On Thirteen stories of coal getting stiffed posted 1 year, 9 months ago 5 Responses

    • 59 Coal Plants cancelled in 2007

      Here are some more resources on the 59 plants cancelled or abandoned in 2007, as well as the approximately 115 plants still in the pipeline:

      http://cmnow.org/59plants.pdf
      List of cancelled plants, footnotes, analysis.

      http://coalSwarm.org
      Descriptions of approximately 200 proposed coal plants (including cancelled plants)

      http://cmNOW.org
      Tables and spreadsheets with descriptions of cancelled plants, and breakdowns by type of utility, utility region, and year projected in serviceOn Anti-coal activism news posted 1 year, 10 months ago 5 Responses