geomancer
06-10-2015, 11:52 AM
Published on [I]InsideClimate News (https://insideclimatenews.org (https://insideclimatenews.org/))
Home (https://insideclimatenews.org/) > Coal Industry Fighting for Survival on 7 Fronts
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Coal Industry Fighting for Survival on 7 Fronts
The 'war on coal' started long before Obama took office to control the costly and deadly health impacts of an otherwise cheap and abundant fuel.
By John H. Cushman Jr., InsideClimate News
Jun 1, 2015
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2015-06-10_14-03-44.pngIndustry groups have long blamed President Barack Obama, seen here with his former senior adviser John Podesta, for the so-called "war on coal." With the exception of the Clean Power Plan that Obama has pushed forward, almost all of the coal regulations were first promulgated before or during the administration of George W. Bush. Credit: White House photo
Editor's note: This article is part a series of stories by InsideClimate News reporters exploring the future of the coal industry, Coal's Long Goodbye: Dispatches From the War on Carbon (https://www.insideclimatenews.org/coal-long-goodbye-dispatches-war-carbon) [2].
When Duke Energy announced a billion-dollar plan to shut down a 50-year-old coal power plant, switching the 376-megawatt site over to cheap natural gas and clean solar, the company proclaimed (https://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/2015051901.asp)[3] the "end of the coal era in Asheville, N.C."
The largest electricity plant in western North Carolina—where Duke has closed half its coal-fired plants in the past five years—burns 700,000 tons of coal each year, some 6,300 rail cars full. Anti-coal campaigners have sought its closure for years.
Across the industry, old plants like this one are closing under the weight of a broad range of federal regulations, and under competitive pressure from natural gas and renewables. Nearly 200 have closed in the last five years. Dozens more are nearing the brink.
This closure illustrates just how many forces have been assembled on one side of the so-called war on coal. For decades, coal has been fighting for its survival on many different regulatory fronts at once, from limiting climate-warming carbon to lung-scarring pollutants to water-soiling waste. The regulations are often looked at and judged in isolation, but they work in concert, and their combined power has gathered so much force that even Duke, which had resisted ending the use of coal in Asheville, now calls it a "win-win-win" for the company, the community, and the environment.
https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/styles/img_sm_breakpoints_theme_solve_mobile_1x/public/MASTERCoalGoodbyeLogoWhite_1.jpg?itok=XCMz8hy1 (https://insideclimatenews.org/coal-long-goodbye-dispatches-war-carbon) [4]
At the Asheville plant, Duke said, the links between various pollution targets were plain. As gas and solar replace coal there, sulfur dioxide emissions, which environmentalists had complained were hitting unhealthy levels, would go down 90 to 95 percent; nitrogen oxides down 35 percent. Mercury pollution, being regulated for the first time this year, would drop to zero. Water withdrawn from nearby Lake Julian, for cooling, would go down 97 percent, and water discharges would drop 50 percent.
Coal ash, an especially sore point for Duke after a spill last year into the Dan River led to criminal prosecution of the company and a recent $102 million fine (https://www.insideclimatenews.org/news/21052015/huge-coal-ash-fines-justice-dept-puts-industry-notice) [5], would be brought under control in Asheville, where containment ponds were targeted for closure.
And the carbon dioxide emission rate per megawatt of electricity would be 60 percent lower at the new, efficient plant Duke plans to build. That would be a significant step toward meeting the state's tough new targets under the Obama administration's proposed crackdown on the greenhouse gas, a regulation that calls for CO2 emissions to be cut 40 percent across the state.
It's not entirely certain how much coal will be driven out of the market by the EPA carbon rules, known as the Clean Power Plan, because they give states a lot of latitude in how to meet emission targets. But according to the latest government estimates (https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/powerplants/cleanplan/?src=home-b1) [6], the carbon dioxide regulations could bring about the closure of an additional 50 gigawatts of coal fired capacity in the decades ahead, on top of 40 gigawatts that would be expected to close without new controls on carbon.
According to Ken Colburn of the Regulatory Assistance Project (https://www.raponline.org/) [7], a group that advises energy and environmental regulators around the country, utilities should integrate plans to cut carbon emissions with required reductions in other pollutants in order to avoid repeated, costly investments. Otherwise, inefficient and costly pollution controls may render plants unable to compete in the marketplace. (RAP, as the group is known, has developed a model known as IMPEAQ for this purpose.)
"How many times do you want to beat your head against this wall?" Colburn said of power companies that only recently addressed the need to control mercury, and now must reduce carbon emissions, and soon will likely face tougher limits on ozone. "I hope that behind the scenes, utilities are trying to look at a comprehensive picture."
Coal's Hidden Costs
Perhaps no industry has inflicted such widespread costs on society as coal. From debilitating black lung disease to the devastating removal of whole mountaintops, from decades of lung-scarring smog to unrestrained emissions of greenhouse gases, coal has imposed its own deadly taxation—hiding the charges under the smoky cloak of cheap and abundant power.
In a major study published in 2009,....
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Home (https://insideclimatenews.org/) > Coal Industry Fighting for Survival on 7 Fronts
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2015-06-10_14-05-12.png
Coal Industry Fighting for Survival on 7 Fronts
The 'war on coal' started long before Obama took office to control the costly and deadly health impacts of an otherwise cheap and abundant fuel.
By John H. Cushman Jr., InsideClimate News
Jun 1, 2015
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2015-06-10_14-03-44.pngIndustry groups have long blamed President Barack Obama, seen here with his former senior adviser John Podesta, for the so-called "war on coal." With the exception of the Clean Power Plan that Obama has pushed forward, almost all of the coal regulations were first promulgated before or during the administration of George W. Bush. Credit: White House photo
Editor's note: This article is part a series of stories by InsideClimate News reporters exploring the future of the coal industry, Coal's Long Goodbye: Dispatches From the War on Carbon (https://www.insideclimatenews.org/coal-long-goodbye-dispatches-war-carbon) [2].
When Duke Energy announced a billion-dollar plan to shut down a 50-year-old coal power plant, switching the 376-megawatt site over to cheap natural gas and clean solar, the company proclaimed (https://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/2015051901.asp)[3] the "end of the coal era in Asheville, N.C."
The largest electricity plant in western North Carolina—where Duke has closed half its coal-fired plants in the past five years—burns 700,000 tons of coal each year, some 6,300 rail cars full. Anti-coal campaigners have sought its closure for years.
Across the industry, old plants like this one are closing under the weight of a broad range of federal regulations, and under competitive pressure from natural gas and renewables. Nearly 200 have closed in the last five years. Dozens more are nearing the brink.
This closure illustrates just how many forces have been assembled on one side of the so-called war on coal. For decades, coal has been fighting for its survival on many different regulatory fronts at once, from limiting climate-warming carbon to lung-scarring pollutants to water-soiling waste. The regulations are often looked at and judged in isolation, but they work in concert, and their combined power has gathered so much force that even Duke, which had resisted ending the use of coal in Asheville, now calls it a "win-win-win" for the company, the community, and the environment.
https://insideclimatenews.org/sites/default/files/styles/img_sm_breakpoints_theme_solve_mobile_1x/public/MASTERCoalGoodbyeLogoWhite_1.jpg?itok=XCMz8hy1 (https://insideclimatenews.org/coal-long-goodbye-dispatches-war-carbon) [4]
At the Asheville plant, Duke said, the links between various pollution targets were plain. As gas and solar replace coal there, sulfur dioxide emissions, which environmentalists had complained were hitting unhealthy levels, would go down 90 to 95 percent; nitrogen oxides down 35 percent. Mercury pollution, being regulated for the first time this year, would drop to zero. Water withdrawn from nearby Lake Julian, for cooling, would go down 97 percent, and water discharges would drop 50 percent.
Coal ash, an especially sore point for Duke after a spill last year into the Dan River led to criminal prosecution of the company and a recent $102 million fine (https://www.insideclimatenews.org/news/21052015/huge-coal-ash-fines-justice-dept-puts-industry-notice) [5], would be brought under control in Asheville, where containment ponds were targeted for closure.
And the carbon dioxide emission rate per megawatt of electricity would be 60 percent lower at the new, efficient plant Duke plans to build. That would be a significant step toward meeting the state's tough new targets under the Obama administration's proposed crackdown on the greenhouse gas, a regulation that calls for CO2 emissions to be cut 40 percent across the state.
It's not entirely certain how much coal will be driven out of the market by the EPA carbon rules, known as the Clean Power Plan, because they give states a lot of latitude in how to meet emission targets. But according to the latest government estimates (https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/powerplants/cleanplan/?src=home-b1) [6], the carbon dioxide regulations could bring about the closure of an additional 50 gigawatts of coal fired capacity in the decades ahead, on top of 40 gigawatts that would be expected to close without new controls on carbon.
According to Ken Colburn of the Regulatory Assistance Project (https://www.raponline.org/) [7], a group that advises energy and environmental regulators around the country, utilities should integrate plans to cut carbon emissions with required reductions in other pollutants in order to avoid repeated, costly investments. Otherwise, inefficient and costly pollution controls may render plants unable to compete in the marketplace. (RAP, as the group is known, has developed a model known as IMPEAQ for this purpose.)
"How many times do you want to beat your head against this wall?" Colburn said of power companies that only recently addressed the need to control mercury, and now must reduce carbon emissions, and soon will likely face tougher limits on ozone. "I hope that behind the scenes, utilities are trying to look at a comprehensive picture."
Coal's Hidden Costs
Perhaps no industry has inflicted such widespread costs on society as coal. From debilitating black lung disease to the devastating removal of whole mountaintops, from decades of lung-scarring smog to unrestrained emissions of greenhouse gases, coal has imposed its own deadly taxation—hiding the charges under the smoky cloak of cheap and abundant power.
In a major study published in 2009,....
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