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Photo by Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg Recent interest in the future of the Navajo Generating Station near Page is part of a larger dialogue about the future of coal-fired power plants everyw

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The eclipse of coal: An energy source on its way out

Posted on July 2, 2013 by gctrust

By Mike Pasqualetti

Photo by Kuni Takahashi/Bloomberg

Recent interest in the future of the Navajo Generating Station near Page

is part of a larger dialogue about the future of coal-fired power plants

everywhere, and the signs are that we are, after more than a centurylong

marriage, falling out of love with coal

Regionally, California’s Senate Bill 1368 is pushing local utilities to

divest themselves of coal, including their shares of NGS Nevada is following

suit with Senate Bill 123, which clears the way to sell its share of NGS and to

close the Reid Gardner plant near Moapa, Nev

To make up the difference, both states plan to rely on efficiency,

and natural gas In fact, they are working together on this approach Los

Angeles, for example, will be purchasing 250 megawatts of solar power from the

Moapa Band of Paiutes, one of the groups that worked to retire Reid Gardner

To put that into concrete terms, every hour the solar plant runs at full

it will produce 20 times more electricity than my Tempe house uses in a year

Coal is also losing momentum nationally It dropped from 50 percent in

2005 to 35 percent in 2012, driven by cheap natural gas Fifty-two gigawatts (about 16 percent of the existing coal fleet) has been announced for retirement

by 2025

For their part, environmental groups are applauding this downward

trend They link the use of coal to global warming, rising sea levels, diminished visibility, several respiratory disorders and the egregious rearrangement of landscapes from the mountaintop-removal brand of coal-mining

As one indicator of coal’s uncertain future in the U.S., some in the coal business are couching their bets

Warren Buffett, not one to throw his money away, is preparing to move millions of tons of coal along his Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad from Wyoming to the West Coast, where still other investors are planning to build large export terminals to handle the growing volume If domestic coal markets

in the U.S shrink, the reasoning goes, China and other Asia markets will

happily take any coal we don’t want

Despite these signals, predicting whether Arizona will continue relying

on coal for a third of its electricity is a complicated matter, made more so because thousands of jobs, including many held by Native Americans, are involved One thing is certain, however: If we are to continue using coal here,

we will have to overcome two challenges

The first challenge is to reduce air emissions Total removal is

impossible, of course, and power plants such as NGS already capture almost all the ash and sulfur that is produced during combustion Newly installed

equipment there is also reducing nitrogen-oxides emissions This is all to the good, and Salt River Project and the other owners deserve thanks for making NGS as clean as it is

However, they will need to make it even cleaner and soon In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency finalized the Mercury and Toxics Standards (MATS) rule This rule regulates the emissions of particulate matter, mercury and acid gases

According to the EPA, implementing this rule will prevent 35 premature deaths in the state while creating up to $290 million in health benefits in 2016

But the biggest and possibly insurmountable hurdle at NGS and all

other coal plants will persist: carbon dioxide NGS alone emitted close to 17 million tons of CO2 in 2012 Taken together, Arizona’s coal-fired power plants emitted over 58 million tons This is equivalent to nearly 6 billion gallons of gasoline consumed

The second challenge is the competition from three alternatives:

efficiency, renewables and natural gas

Nothing is cheaper than efficiency, and renewables are on the rise, but

it has been natural gas that has been the biggest threat to coal

Not only has natural gas been less costly than coal over the past few

years, but it burns much cleaner, up to 70 percent lower greenhouse-gas

emissions than existing brown-coal-fired generators, and less than half of the greenhouse-gas emissions of the latest-technology black-coal-fired power stations

Natural-gas power plants also discharge smaller amounts of other

pollutants such as particulates, sulfur and nitrogen oxides

And the benefits do not stop there Natural gas can generate electricity with greater thermal efficiency, and that translates into a much lower demand for cooling water, a major advantage in deserts

So, the question is: Should Arizona continue to depend on coal?

Among the arguments in favor, at least regarding NGS, is that it

almost all the electricity to pump Central Arizona Project’s water That amounts

to about 500 megawatts Much more than that, it should be noted, is

in Arizona’s natural-gas fleet

A second argument is that phasing out coal would have economic

consequences, including lost jobs Although that seems a valid concern, at least

on the surface, one can imagine several scenarios that would mitigate that impact and even create better, more long-term, jobs

A third argument is that we should increase our use of the carbon-free atom New nuclear plants are, however, extraordinarily expensive and very thirsty, making them, one would think, a non-starter in Arizona

A fourth argument is that if we phase out coal, consumers will end up

paying more for their electricity While this may appear to be true, if we were to include all the unpaid costs of coal, including what economists call

“environmental externalities,” it is a questionable assertion

And even if it were true, would that be such a bad thing? Residents here currently pay about 10 percent less for their electricity than the national average and about 50 percent less than Californians Paying a bit more for cleaner

power would be a trade-off that an informed public is likely to accept, if

comparisons with other sources were made on a truly level playing field

If we are concerned about the various costs of coal, what can we do

about Arizona power plants that now use it?

Our options are quite limited We could retrofit them all with even more environmental devices, but the power plants would remain They would

continue to rely on coal mines and coal deliveries They would still need

dedicated space for on-site storage and waste disposal They would still be marked by tall chimneys visible for miles and miles, even at night And they would still need to face the problem of those 58 million tons of carbon dioxide they discharge every year

If anything is certain, there is no free lunch But just as certain, there

be anything that we can honestly describe as “clean coal.”

But we have options Arizona is uncommonly blessed with alternatives

we can use to help wean ourselves from coal These alternatives will include energy-efficiency without question, and even wind to some degree Mostly, they include solar energy that will be the keystone in the bridge to the future

Realistically, reaching that future may take decades, but we do need to begin the transition Arizona can lead the way by showing that solar energy can,

at least here, bring about the eclipse of coal

Martin J “Mike” Pasqualetti is a professor in the School of

Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and senior sustainability scientist

at the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University

Original post at AZCentral.com

This entry was posted in Arizona Issues, Plateau-wide Issues and tagged arizona, coal, natural solar Bookmark the permalink

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