Climate bill moving, but a long way to go
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., back to camera, presides over the committee’s vote on a climate bill. Senate Democrats sidestepped a Republican boycott, empty seats at right. (AP Photo/Harry Hamburg)
Senate Democrats moved the climate change bill out of the Environment and Public Works Committee, despite a boycott of committee meetings by the panel’s Republican members.
But there are at least six committees with possible jurisdiction, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to do a full analysis of the bill … so it’s not clear exactly what is going to happen next.
Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., have formed their own group to work with business groups and the White House to try to develop a bill that could get the 60 votes needed to assure Senate passage.
It will be interesting to see what steps coal-state lawmakers take next in their quest to keep adding more sweeteners for the coal industry. On that issue, a Coal Tattoo reader kindly pointed out this piece from Politico, Critics warn to Boxer’s climate role, which includes some interesting discussion of coal’s role in the climate legislation debate:
Boxer’s decision to help fund clean coal technologies and set emissions cuts at 20 percent kick-starts the Senate climate change debate in earnest, as the committee begins a series of hearings Tuesday on her legislation.
But Boxer’s path to cutting a deal on coal regulations has been rocky.
Moderates have said they cannot support the bill unless it includes significant funding for largely new coal technologies. But liberals remain skeptical about the feasibility of building lower-emitting coal plants.
Balancing those concerns was a top priority for Boxer, who realized to pass the Senate the climate bill would need significant buy-in from coal state members.
“We view this as a regional issue more than a moderate-vs.-progressive issue,” Boxer said.
In April, she tasked Carper with assembling a group of coal state Democrats to work out a list of requests. So senior Democratic senators such as Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Max Baucus of Montana, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and others from coal states spent six months drafting a list of provisions to help the industry transition to a lower-carbon economy.
The coal members brought their recommendations to Boxer’s staff in August. But her staff rejected their language, saying that their request would be a nonstarter for the more liberal Democrats on the committee.
Coal state staffers then spent another month in daily negotiations with industry and environmentalist groups, making what they felt were dramatic concessions, according to moderate aides.
When Boxer still refused to attach their language to her bill in mid-September, they publicized a letter listing their disagreements.
“We believe our nation needs all sources of energy — including coal — to meet our future demands,” the group wrote. “Widespread, commercial-scale deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technology for coal will be critical if we are to meet our national and global climate goals.”
Liberal members of the committee were at odds with the coal state proposals, saying they needed greater environmental safeguards and accountability measures.
“The initial strategy of the coal states was to produce funding up front that would not necessary have to be spent on carbon capture technology, so that was not acceptable,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).
But Boxer made clear that coal interests would be included in the bill, a fact some of the more liberal members of the committee will readily acknowledge.
“There are folks who would say, ‘Well, let’s just shut down coal-powered plants.’ That is not going to happen,” said Merkley. “You are not going to have 60 votes in the Senate to shut down coal.”
On Sept. 26, just four days before Boxer’s initial legislation was released publicly, the coal deal was stripped out of the bill, according to aides to moderate members.
Committee members received final copies of legislation just hours before it was unveiled at a high-profile news conference, timing that irritated some moderate offices.
The negotiations hit yet another snag less than a week later, when the departure of top committee staffer Joe Goffman caused some moderate aides to question Boxer’s leadership. Goffman, who, as legislative director to Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), helped usher a climate bill through the Senate last year, is well-respected by moderate members for his expertise on environmental legislation.
As this infighting unfolded behind the scenes, Boxer turned to Kerry for public support.
She allowed Kerry to be the lead sponsor of the bill, and he drew Graham, a respected conservative, into the fold by co-authoring a New York Times op-ed pushing for a climate bill. Climate supporters heralded the piece as a “game changer” for the bill.
Suddenly, Kerry and Graham were the public faces of a climate change bill, giving it a bipartisan feel.
Boxer and her staff continued to work behind the scenes, and late last Friday, they reached an agreement that satisfied coal state senators by giving them funding for new technology sooner and included protections that some liberal members say are tougher than those in the House bill.
“My goal is to get every single Democrat,” said Boxer. I’m “very optimistic that will happen.”
21 comments
I do not know what is in this bill but does it address coal as well as transportation which produces as much CO2 as America?
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Climate_impacts_of_coal_plants
Anyway it looks like the ocean’s and cow’s fault.
http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Bi-Ca/Carbon-Dioxide-in-the-Ocean-and-Atmosphere.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GlobalWarming/story?id=2723201&page=1&page=1
So let’s ride bikes and eat tofu. Works for me!
[…] Bill on the Move The Kerry-Boxer Bill seems to be moving along, due largely to the really impressive efforts of Sen. Barbara Boxer to ignore Republican delaying […]
Casey,
It amazes me that you continue to make jokes about the climate change issue, and want — as most of the coal industry does — to pretend it doesn’t exist.
As for your questions, as I’ve reported before, coal-fired power plants (only one part of the energy sector) accounts for nearly a third of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions — as much as the entire transportation sector combined. See the chart here:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/coal-and-global-warming-faq.html#Figure_2_US_CO2_Emissions_by_Source_2006
And, if you would bother to read some of the background materials on the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, you would see that it does address the transportation sector. Read the fact sheet here:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=0a5c8998-3ec9-4c7a-a9d7-c597dd920929
Also, the Obama administration has already announced major improvements in fuel efficiency standards — a huge step toward reducing global warming pollution from the transportation sector,
http://climateprogress.org/2009/09/15/white-house-rolls-out-details-of-fuel-economy-emissions-standard/
You might also educate yourself by reading the testimony to the Senate EPW Committee by the Transportation Secretary:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=d57c4a97-e8ba-48ef-b72f-4a35b31583d1
There was also transportation-related testimony during day 3 of the Senate hearings — http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=7e80445f-802a-23ad-47e1-3382335f2f34
Ken.
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Casey,
I think your basic question is a good one.
There are transportation-related measures in both the Senate and House bills–funding for research, mass transit, measures that address construction equipment, train emissions, etc. However, these are not what I would characterize as major features of either bill. There are no major efforts to limit GHG emissions from passenger vehicles in either bill. The authors of the House version dropped the idea of including those provisions when the White House announced the new national fuel standards–often called “Pavley” after the CA state senator, Fran Pavley, who wrote the CA bill that became the model for the new federal standards. I think this is also why the Senate bill is similarly structured.
However, both bills count the emission reductions under Pavley towards their respective targets, even though Pavley is technically not part of either bill. Many critics of the bills–and I tend to be in this camp–note most of the reductions in transportation emissions in 2020 under the Pavley standards, estimated at 150 million tons a year, will be lost because of a projected increase in emissions from coal plants, estimated at 10o million tons a year in 2020. There is a reason Rick Boucher said that the House bill “facilitates growing coal production”.
http://thehill.com/op-eds/compromise-protects-jobs-utility-ratepayers-2009-05-20.html
And why the LA Times says, ” even if the emissions limits go into effect, the U.S. would use more carbon-dioxide-heavy coal in 2020 than it did in 2005″ (”Under House energy bill, coal won’t be going away”)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-coal22-2009jun22,0,6722721.story
Folks talk about subsidies for fossil fuels. What I’ve noted above is a kind of indirect subsidy–picking and choosing winners in the carbon world, if you will–that would never show up in a direct accounting of subsidies–totaling up tax breaks or federal spending–but is none the less quite real.
Let me ask everyone (Thom Rodd?) something about the CCS funding. It’s pretty clear CCS is not the way to get us to 20% by 2020. It’s also expensive and energy intensive. But, indeed, CCS may be necessary as part of a global portfolio of solutions. Since the money for CCS is mainly for coal, at least in the foreseeable future, why can’t this money come from a surcharge on burning coal rather than from a surcharge on all electricity and from the skewed distribution of free emission allowances?
When Jay Rockefeller asks for $25 billion, I think he’s actually asking for a $25 billion increase to $50 billion. (Please correct me) or $5 billion a year. A fair amount of money, but not a huge amount given the seriousness of the issue. What would $5 billion a year add to the cost of a KWH of coal electricity produced? Probably a relatively modest–perhaps barely perceptible–increase for rate payers. This seems like a much fairer way to pay for this targeted subsidy and something that senators from the coasts would prefer.
I also think there needs to be strong performance standards for existing coal plants that kick in over the next two decades. This would be very sensible and make for much stronger bills. The offset provisions in the House bill are also very problematic. As currently written, we have a potentially ineffective bill that may actually increased environmental damage and make more of the economy dependent on government subsidies or inefficient redirection of economic resources. Just look at ethanol.
Final note, it’s interesting how much less dialog there is on this topic than the permitting issue.
Red Desert,
Emissions allowance talk is more than I can take late on Friday afternoon … But I’m not sure you’re right about this:
When Jay Rockefeller asks for $25 billion, I think he’s actually asking for a $25 billion increase to $50 billion. (Please correct me) or $5 billion a year.
I think Rockfeller is referring to a more than doubling of the $10 billion over 10 years that is in the current bill (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/economics/pdfs/EPA_S1733_Analysis.pdf ). That amount is BEFORE you start talking about free allowances and all of that.
Either way, as you correctly point out, not a huge sum of money in the scheme of things and considering the scope of what it’s trying to deal with.
I think the current bill’s $10 billion over 10 years is more than what was included in an MIT report a few years ago,
http://web.mit.edu/coal/The_Future_of_Coal_Chapters_6-8.pdf
I was also very interested in this AP story,
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i9u9GMQj8IuTIkIKDmsiGSXq4KuAD9BPL57G3
In particular:
Legislation working its way through Congress would reduce U.S. emissions by about 4 percent below 1990 levels. The Europeans and developing countries have complained, however, about the Washington’s “low ambitions.”
And:
There was no sign that developing nations were backing away from their demands for next month’s meeting — including that industrial nations pledge to reduce emissions by at least 40 percent of their 1990 levels by 2020. Scientists say at least a 25-40 percent reduction from those levels is required to avert climate catastrophe.
And finally, your point:
Final note, it’s interesting how much less dialog there is on this topic than the permitting issue.
Is certainly correct.
In the last two weeks, one reader has noted to me that discussions of mountaintop removal suck up all of the oxygen in this debates and another noted that folks seldom comment when I write posts about coal-mine safety.
I don’t know what that means … but it’s interesting.
Ken.
Red Desert, I agree there really is not a proportional amount of proposals relative to transportation generated CO2 (or the others that I mentioned) versus coal. A lot of people love to hate coal and mining, despite their continued life style choices.
I looked back over the last several weeks and Tattoo has had several articles about climate and about MTR. There have also been several articles about coal ash/dams, PATH, safety and Massey. Readers have commented on subjects of interest to them. Based on the amount of comments and the level of emotion it appears that the area mining community is more concerned about the immediate threat to their livelihood from Obama’s EPA relative to surface mining than the other subjects. If valley fills are greatly limited we all know what that means for deep mining too.
The environmental community is interested in every blog topic just because they are anti-coal. I’m just surprised that there is not more comments on the topic of overpopulation, 6.5 billion and growing, with an increasing appetite for a higher standard of living. Is that not perhaps the real issue?
Here’s a biggie from Senator Rockefeller, I’d be interested in your all’s reactions:
http://www.wvgazette.com/Opinion/OpEdCommentaries/200911060917
Obviously things are going on at high levels. See also http://www.wvgazette.com/Opinion/OpEdCommentaries/200911050657.
These are the kinds of voices we need to listen to — not the embarassing “denials” that Don Blankenship is putting out there.
Casey,
Well, this is a blog about coal — and a blog that is focused on talking about many of the “external costs” of coal — damage done by mountaintop removal, deaths from failure to follow safety rules, the climate crisis from uncontrolled carbon dioxide emissions, etc.
It’s not a general blog about climate change, the environment or overpopulation … so that explains that lack of posts and comments on those issues … I don’t think you should interpret the lack of posts or comments to mean that I or other readers aren’t interested in those topics. It’s just that this isn’t the blog to discuss them … just as it’ s not a blog to discuss transportation impacts on climate change.
Joe Romm had a great post on the population/consumption issue, though:
http://climateprogress.org/2009/04/13/consumption-population-global-warming-resource-threat/
Consumption dwarfs population as main global warming threat
April 13, 2009
A number of commenters suggested I write about population and global warming (see here). Leading environmental journalist Fred Pearce beat me to the punch with an excellent piece at Yale’s e360 that I almost entirely agree with.
Pierce’s key point is that the rapacious consumption of hydrocarbons and other non-renewable resources practiced by the planet’s wealthiest 10% far outweighs the effects of population growth in developing nations:
It’s over-consumption, not population growth, that is the fundamental problem: By almost any measure, a small portion of the world’s people –- those in the affluent, developed world -– use up most of the Earth’s resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions.
Ken.
“Nine years ago, Bill McKibben was raked over the coals for making a similar proposal [to stop having children] in his vasectomy memoir, Maybe One. (”It’s the last remaining taboo thing to talk about,” he said after it was published.) Maybe times have changed. As social policy, population control seems like an infringement on fundamental human rights. That’s been the case in China, where mandatory birth planning has been a ghastly failure in both moral and practical [really?] terms. But these days, we tend to think of saving the environment in terms of personal choice, rather than government programs. We’re obsessed with our green lifestyles—eating local, driving hybrids, paying off our excess carbon-dioxide emissions. From that perspective, voluntary familial extinction (or at least reduction) might not be such a bad idea. If you want to reduce your carbon footprint, cutting back on kids is the best choice you can possibly make.”
This from a Slate article cited by a reader in a comment on Romm’s population post.
http://www.slate.com/id/2173458/
Romm is right about what is needed to reduce GHG emissions now and over the next few decades–it’s fossil fuel consumption, not population. But he misses something important. 1) Not all the increase in population comes from the developing or undeveloped world. Population increase in the energy-intensive developed world (or immigration from the developing to developed world) will erase tough gains made in reducing emissions the developed world. 2) More importantly, the undeveloped world is not static. Those people desperately want the lifestyles of the developed world. To deny them that is, of course, a human rights issue.
Other commentators brought up food. There are huge issues with arable land right now. We barely have enough for 6.5 billion people. Where are we going to get the additional land to create offsets & store carbon, grow biofuels and provide food for another 3 billion people?
Isn’t this the leit motiv for Andrew Revikin’s Dot Earth? What to do as the earth spins quickly towards 9 billion”?
Hey Casey,
You are someone on the other side of the debate to acknowledge a point. So let me ask you to consider this: We rapid rabid environmentalists are not strictly anti-coal. Sympathy for coal-miners, coal mining and the history of labor struggle are frequently expressed by folks on all sides of the issue on Coal Tattoo. Americans accept digging gigantic holes in the Powder River Basin and filling them back up. They accept hollowing out mountains. But most Americans–not just environmentalists–won’t accept tearing down mountain after mountain for the coal. This building political pressure is why a Democratic administration is struggling (or perhaps doing its best to avoid) the issue.
Ten or twelve years ago I thought we just needed to get scrubbers on all our power plants and the coal problem would be solved. Then I learned about the mining issues and the carbon issues. Then of course the mining waste issues and the post combustion waste issues and the hazardous waste issues that come from removing the pollution from the air. I have to say, I’m not against coal, but coal has a lot of incredibly expensive problems. Basing our future on coal seems increasingly problematic.
Thomas Rodd,
Thanks for mentioning Sen. Rockefeller’s op-ed … I’ve written a post this morning:
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/coaltattoo/2009/11/09/ny-times-no-climate-bill-likely-this-year-or-next/
That includes some mention of it … The question I’m asking is: Why aren’t folks like Rockefeller explaining the nature of the problems associated with coal to their constituents?
Ken.
“When I first came to West Virginia more than 40 years ago, it was to work with coal miners and their families — good people who worked hard and risked their lives so that the rest of America could turn the lights on and build a strong economy”
The obvious response to Rockefeller’s opening statement is, after decades of sacrificing its land and people for the rest of America, shouldn’t it be West Virginia’s turn to build a strong economy now?
Rockefeller writes coal is West Virginia’s heritage. Heritage, of course, is the past.
He exaggerates (by nearly 20%) that coal is “absolutely irreplaceable as the energy source for half of our nation’s electricity”, and then goes on to list the ways it’s being replaced: “declining demand, increased competition from other energy sources, environmental impacts and technology delays.”
Rockefeller seems to paint himself into a corner. He opposes the climate bill and cites the numerous threats to coal–Wall Street’s reluctance to invest, EPA CO2 regulation, the courts, separate climate regulation in 23 states, widespread disapproval of Appalachian strip mining. Then he turns around and writes that it’s absolutely vital to get a climate bill passed in order to neuter those threats.
Rockefeller’s op-ed is the most articulately written case I’ve come across for not passing any legislation at all. Things are moving forward via regulation and free market forces. If you are concerned about CO2 and the climate, the kind of legislation Rockefeller envisions would slow or reverse those positive trends.
Any thoughts on my original question above, having coal pay for the CCS?
“An effective cap-and-trade mechanism would treat all carbon equally, whether it comes out of a tailpipe or a smokestack”
“Lower-carbon future? Try natural gas”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110504329.html?sid=ST2009110504424
A bit of happy talk from BP’s chief, but definitely worth reading. He’s right that it makes no sense to favor carbon from coal over carbon from gas. Also answers some of Thom’s questions about the distribution of gas shales elsewhere on the globe
Red Desert,
On your question … I’m flipping through Gore’s new book, “Our Choice,” which was sent to me by the publisher …
A chapter on CCS ends this way:
“There is actually a fairly simple solution to resolving all of the questions and uncertainties about whether CCS is economically plausible and, if so, which techniques are the best ones to use: Put a high price on carbon. When the reality of the need to sharply reduce CO2 emissions is integrated into all market calculations — including the decisions by utilities and their investors — market forces will drive us quickly toward the answers we need.”
Ken.
Red Desert, thanks for your comments on population as its importance will increase in the future. Also I agree that there are definitely external costs associated with coal but there are definite benefits also.
The Hendryx WVU study failed to properly account for these benefits. Coal is not an end product but a raw material used to make electricity and steel. These things have huge economic and personal benefits and were not tabulated on the credit side of the equation.
Of course Hendryx’s hypothesis was to show that the costs exceeded the benefits and that is what his study subsequently indicated (not proved). Surprise. From his radio interview it was clear what his personal beliefs are.
I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with Sen. Rockefellers’s statement. No politician-speak just clear language on his stance which may reflect his personal views but also largely represents his constituents. By the way Churchill had some good thoughts on how people’s views change with age.
Why not go down parallel paths and mine coal as CCS technology is funded and also pursue alternatives including nuclear, conservation, transportation solutions, etc?
Casey,
As I believe has been pointed out to you before on this blog … All scientific inquiry starts out with a hypothesis … That’s the way the scientific method works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
Also, while the Hendryx study did not capture all of the possible economic benefits of coal, it also did not include figures for all of the damages … The study is posted here:
http://wvgazette.com/static/coal%20tattoo/Mortality%20AppCoalRegions.pdf
And here’s what it said about that:
Finally, the cost estimates may be conservative
because they do not consider reduced employment
productivity resulting from medical illness, increased
public expenditures for programs such as food stamps
and Medicaid, reduced property values associated with
mining activities, and the costs of natural resource
destruction. Natural resources such as forests and
streams have substantial economic value when they
are left intact, and mining is highly destructive of
these resources. For example, Appalachian coal mining
permanently buried 724 stream miles between 1985
and 2001 through mountaintop removal mining and
subsequent valley fills, and will ultimately impact more
than 1.4 million acres. Coal generates inexpensive
electricity, but not as inexpensive as the price signals
indicate because those prices do not include the costs
to human health and productivity, and the costs of
natural resource destruction.
Ken.
Casey,
You say:
Why not go down parallel paths and mine coal as CCS technology is funded and also pursue alternatives including nuclear, conservation, transportation solutions, etc?
Most analysis of the House-passed climate bill and the bill pending in the Senate conclude it does exactly what you say … so will you now speak up in favor of it?
Ken.
Ken, I tried to find the discussion in June related to “scientific inquiry starts out with a hypothesis ” but could not find it on Tattoo. Anyway a reader had corrected me after I quoted some verbiage from wikipedia and the reader said something like a social scientist does NOT start with a hypothesis like other scientists doing experiments. So then I found Dr Hendryx’s grant request which discussed what he hoped to show. I took it that the reader was correct since it was not disputed. So I’m confused.
But my point remains that electricity and steel have made huge benefits to mankind and have certainly allowed life expectancies in this country to greatly increase. His study indicated that surface coal mining decreases life expectancies in the community and he assigned a large dollar amount if a life was less by 1 year than his control group. Why not assign bigger benefit dollars for lives extended 10 or 15 years from all the modern conveniences made possible from coal?
Red Desert,
I will try to answer your question on the CCS and coal.
To start, it is a misapprehension to consider CCS as only a coal-centric technology. It is a technology that will be necessary to reduce CO2 emissions from coal and natural gas plants.
The legislation that passed the House as well as that pending in the Senate has a wires charge for electricity generated from coal, natural gas and oil to support accelerated the researach and development of CCS for power plants (using fossil fuels) as well as for application in industrial plant scenarios. There are other provisons to incentivize early movers in commercial deployment.
There are also performance standards for new coal plants that are pegged to using the more advanced coal technologies with CCS. If we could remove some of the regulatory impediments to upgrading existing coal plants by making them more efficient, there could possibly be some meaninful CO2 reductions there as well.
You correctly note that CCS will be a critical part of the global portfolio of solutions. The International Energy Agency has forecasted that without coal with CCS, the cost of GHG reductions will be 70% higher. They as well as others (MIT, Duke etc) have conclused that without CCS, no climate policy will be successful.
Some claim that coal is getting too much. But there is much in the legislation for nuclear, renewables (including a mandate for specific market share), efficiency etc. It should be kept in mind that with many emerging energy technologies, the goverment has been heavily involved in jump starting or esablishing them on a larger scale. For example, the nuclear industry began with the federal goverment taking it from milatary to civilian use. The hydroelectric infrastructure in the West was laragely built by the federal government (e.g., Bureau of Reclamation, Bonneville Power Administration). The renewable industry (wind, solar, bio) is all supported through production tax credits and other measures.
Your post questioned the 20% target for 2020. I don’t believe focusing on the interim target is that helpful from the standpoint of a long term successful climate policy. This is a long road, and perhaps more meaninful is the longer range target in 2050 (83%). A more stringent or sharper target in the interim may pose risks related to economic impacts that make legislation politically unsustainable. I note your reference to a Rep. Boucher comment that the bill “facilitates growing coal production.” I must assume he means in the long term if CCS is widely deployed. I have yet to see a realistic assessment that sees coal production in the US growing under the House legislation or Senate legislation between 2012 and 2030. In fact, what I have seen shows coal decreasing–and quite substantially depending on actual availabilty of offsets and carbon prices.
I am curious about your note regarding the motor vehicle emission rductions and how they are counted toward the targets even though they are not in the bill. Do you mean that in setting the cap they counted emissions from that sector? If so, are those emissions allocated to another sector or use?
Don’t know the answer to your question on Senator Rockefeller’s $25 billion increase, but I will try to call someone in Washington and see what that is about.
Facts–
I appreciate the detailed response and agree with much of what you’ve written.
I don’t have time to dbl check all that I’m writing this morning, but a response to the major issues you’ve raised.
The CCS wire charges pay for a new agency to administer the CCS funding or allocation programs. It’s a small part of the total. The figure $500 million sticks in my mind. Are you sure this applies only to fossil fuel generated electricity? I’m not sure that’s true or even that it would be practical. The real money for CCS will be the billions for CCS research and pilot projects from the sale of emissions allowances. (Those monies will also be used to research and subsidize renewable energy, as you point out.) Additionally, lots of free emissions allowances—allowances with a value guaranteed to be higher than market—are to be given out to “incentivize” early adopters of CCS technology.
You bring up an interesting point that existing regulation discourages upgrades to existing power plants. I believe you mean New Source Review. This is correct. Under NSR, upgrades trigger the installation of expensive pollution controls, so utilities may choose to stick with an inefficient boiler or postpone replacing an old power plant. It’s the grandfathering conundrum. That is why I say we need performance standards (that kick in over time) for existing power plants under new climate legislation.
The proposed performance standards in Waxman-Markey (W-M) only apply to coal plants as far as I know. Originally there was a standard for CO2 per electrical output in W-M for all new power plants; essentially the standard met by a state of the art nat gas plant. (A modern gas plant emits less than half the CO2 of a modern coal plant for an equivalent amount of electricity produced.) But those standards were changed to the more complicated system currently in the bill. Eventually, when CCS is considered commercially viable, all newly-built coal plants will be required to cut emissions. I think 50% is the reduction that will kick in–about where nat gas is today. This, of course, is an expensive way to go that would not happen w/o government involvement. And, based on the industry’s history of compliance with environmental requirements, will the eventual reductions happen on schedule or even happen at all?
There is also a big loophole in the standards. Proposed power plants that have been ‘initially’ permitted are exempt from the new performance standards. Last I read, there are currently 43 such proposed plants. If all were built, current CO2 emissions from coal would increase 20%. 250 millions tpy is the figure I remember.
You write that CCS may be necessary to control emissions from nat gas and oil as well as coal. This seems very rational—in fact, I think it makes more sense for nat gas than for coal–but I don’t see this being discussed much. For what it’s worth, the last EPA analysis of W-M I saw assumes a gradual drop in the use of coal after 2020 (replaced by nuclear). But only forty percent of the remaining coal has CCS in 2050. A huge percentage of economy-wide reductions in the analysis are not actual emission reductions, they come from offsets.
More significantly than the CCS money, I think coal gets the lion share of free allowances that are meant to keep electrical rates low. It’s a much higher, much more significant percentage of the total allocation.
I think the nat gas industry feels that coal gets lots of funding to make coal competitive–to bring coal up to where nat gas already is today. The free allowances keep coal from being disadvantaged while money from auctioned allowances are channeled towards coal projects to cut their emissions, not to zero, but to 50%–about where nat gas is today.
Not to argue too much, but interim targets are important. It’s the total CO2 in the atmosphere we are concerned with. A thought experiment: Consider we maintain the current rate of GHG emissions until the last day of 2050, then throw a switch and cut those emissions by 80%. Alternatively, assume a straight-line reduction to 80% beginning today. Visualize the area below those two curves—an area equal to total emissions. The first case, we have kept no long-lived emissions out of the atmosphere. The second case cuts total CO2 emitted by nearly half.
Finally, yes it’s my understanding that emissions reductions under the new fuel efficiency standards (Pavley) count towards the economy-wide reductions mandated under the climate bills. I guess this means that the reductions from the transportation sector are shifted to the electricity and manufacturing sectors because more allowances (in tons of CO2 per year) can be issued. Does this make sense?
Thanks for all of the above posts. I hope that the policy people in West Virginia’s Congressional offices are monitoring this blog, because there are hard facts and thoughtful opinions here that our representatives need to be aware of.
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