Help, I need new coal-bashing material!

grist.org

First up, the railroad industry, darling of many environmentalists, is stepping forward as a shill for coal in the Rocky Mountain states.

Railroads putting money on coal despite pollution concerns

GILLETTE, Wyoming - The cloud that hangs over the coal industry for its contribution to global warming has yet to cast a shadow here, across the vast network of railroad lines that haul coal from the sun-baked flats of the Powder River Basin.

Railroads across the country are spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying locomotives, adding track and building cars. Much of the activity is focused on upgrades to the nation's coal transportation network that includes Colorado Springs, and nowhere is the spending as intense as in the Powder River Basin of northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana.

. . .

Coal accounts for 21 percent of industry revenues -- $11 billion of $53 billion in 2006. More than 852 million tons were hauled last year by the major railroads, accounting for almost 80 percent of the coal produced in the United States, according to the Association of American Railroads. Almost all of it went to power plants such as those in the Springs.

So as mining and utility companies wage a public relations campaign to parry rising criticism of their contribution to climate change, railroads are joining the fight. In public speeches, on media tours and in corporate reports, railroad executives are touting the advantages of coal as a low-cost energy source with ample domestic supplies.

Parroting the message of the utility industry, they point out that coal produces an estimated 52 percent of the nation's electricity. They stress future technologies could potentially reduce power plant emissions of carbon dioxide -- a major greenhouse gas. And they remind that rail remains the most efficient way of getting coal from mine to plant.

. . .

These actions have not gone unnoticed. Frank Wilner, an economist with the United Transportation Union, has accused the railroads of going a step beyond coal advocacy, to lobby against legislative proposals for a new tax or other restrictions on carbon emissions. Wilner described the utility, mining and rail industries as "arm in arm, fighting any carbon taxes or any additional costs that might be imposed to clean the coal."

Rail representatives have rejected those claims, arguing they have lobbied for policies favorable to moving coal -- not against environmental regulations that could affect their bottom line. Tom White with the railroad association said the group opposes carbon taxes but is not lobbying against specific legislation at this time.

FULL STORY at Colorado Springs Gazette

In other news, South Carolina is rushing through plans to build a billion dollar coal fired power plant in advance of its own environmental report and against the wishes of the people it will "serve."

S.C. utility pushes for coal plant
Other states choosing more environmentally friendly power sources

Coal-burning power plants have been shelved from North Carolina to Texas recently as concerns rise about pollution, high costs and global warming.

But in South Carolina, state-owned Santee Cooper is forging ahead with plans for a nearly $1 billion coal-fired plant on the Great Pee Dee River.

Conservation groups are outraged. Santee Cooper says it has no choice.

Last month, the company asked government regulators not to wait on completion of an environmental impact study before issuing a critical air permit.

Santee Cooper also held its own public meeting in May to make the case for the plant. Thursday night, company officials spoke at a state-sponsored public hearing about their plans.

The company wants to avoid an "unwarranted, indefinite delay'' that ultimately could cost customers, Santee Cooper president Lonnie Carter said in a June 15 letter to the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Company officials say a coal-fired power plant is the most realistic way to meet a growing demand for power. Last year alone, Santee Cooper added 7,400 new customers. Santee Cooper wants the plant operating by 2014.

"We have a legal obligation to provide power to our customers,'' spokeswoman Laura Varn said. "Growth is increasing at such a rapid pace.''

Critics say Santee Cooper should slow down -- and look at what's happening in other states -- before deciding to build a new plant. .

Because of the link between pollution from coal-fired plants and global warming, many utilities are seeking to develop alternative energy sources and redoubling efforts to be more efficient. Conservation groups want Santee Cooper to do the same.

"You need to squeeze every drop out of the lemon before you build a billion-dollar coal plant,'' said Blan Holman, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Dana Beach, director of the Coastal Conservation League in Charleston, said Santee Cooper has shown little interest in negotiating with environmentalists.

"They have a siege mentality right now,'' Beach said. "They feel like everybody is attacking them on the legitimacy of the plant. They are not realizing these same interests are very happy to work with them toward a collaborative analysis.''

. . .

In Santee Cooper's case, the company wants to build a 660-megawatt plant that would release more than 4 million tons a year of carbon dioxide, environmentalists say.

The company has plans for a second coal-fired plant that could increase those emissions to more than 8 million tons annually, according to the Coastal Conservation League.

That's a concern in the Palmetto State, Beach said.The state has 13 coal-fired power plants and is among the nation's leaders in increasing carbon dioxide emissions since 1990, the Associated Press recently reported. Statewide, coal-fired power plants pump about 30 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air every year, statistics show.

Varn acknowledged the new coal-fired plant will release carbon dioxide, but she said it will control 85 to 97 percent of other major pollutants when compared to older coal-fired plants.

. . .

Varn said Santee Cooper isn't any different from other utilities. It has plenty of incentives and programs to save energy.

In fact, Santee Cooper says it has one of the most successful energy-savings programs in the region.

Company programs include burning landfill gas to produce energy and offering solar water heaters. It also is studying other ways to provide solar and wind energy.

But Varn said fewer than 1 percent of Santee Cooper's customers take part in key energy efficiency programs offered by the company.

"We can't force people to conserve energy,'' Varn said. "There's a dual responsibility with that.''

FULL STORY at The State (of South Carolina)

Sounds to me like South Carolina's government could do more good by forcing people to start conserving energy by beefing up the building code and requiring performance based inspections when houses are sold or built, as California is now doing, rather than throwing up it hands and claiming it must force a dirty coal plant on the people for their own good, even if it kills them.

Just a couple of observations.  The reason the rail industry shills for coal is that they are big transporters of it.  One power plant I know of in Texas gets a train of 100 cars of coal every other day, and it comes from Montana.

Also, in practically every area of the country, Amtrak does not own the tracks they run on (the exception is in the NE), but the freight rail companies own them, so their own trains have priority.  Also, safety and maintenance standards for freight rails is not as high as for dedicated passenger rails.  

The passenger train system is a great way to travel, but the corporations and the government have reduced it to near nothing.  If we were smart we would restore and rebuild the system.

David
Sustainability For Life

Messages done with sustainable energy, with Wind and Sun!

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/E85ResptoComm ...

-David Ahlport

http://greyfalcon.net/lcarough7.png

(^^ And no, I don't think this factors in deforrestation)

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However theres a misconception that Palm Oil is the only offender when it comes to rainforrest destruction.

When in reality, Soy and Corn play a pretty big role too.

http://greyfalcon.net/soy
http://greyfalcon.net/soy2

-David Ahlport

Over the last 10 years, many coal-fired power stations switched to a low-sulfur coal available from a vast mine and reserve known as the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming. This is an energy source that is relatively cheap to mine but expensive to transport. In fact, more than two-third of the cost of a typical trainload of PRB coal goes to the railroad company, not the coal supplier.

In many ways, this switch has proven to be a Faustian bargain. Plants managed to postpone the cost of expensive pollution controls, but usually this coal has less energy content than the coal it replaced, and more pollutants that were not as tightly regulated at the time. In fact, the reason why the coal has less energy is because it contains more water--roughly 3 percent of the material is water. So, put two and two together. We're paying to transport huge quantities of water that eventually end up as water vapor (also a global warming gas, by the way) discharged through the power plant smokestacks.

...Each year, more than 40,000 unit trains carrying PRB coal move around the country. The diesel fuel to power those trains also represents a significant energy impact. Look at it this way: One third of that diesel fuel is moving water because one third of the load is moisture in the coal.

PRB coal supply has not only greatly extended the supply lines for U.S. power stations, it has reduced the efficiency of the plants that burn it and causes them to run in a derated condition, meaning that the plant cannot achieve the electricity output it was designed for....Coal shipments now account for more than 40 percent of the nation's railroad freight by tonnage; 58 percent of the coal-fired power stations in the United States are fed only by rail lines...

By the way, Lester Lave, Professor of Economics and the Co-Director of the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center reviewed  Lights Out and said, "Jason Makansi gives us a succinct, insightful view of recent electricity problems. His lively, provocative writing explains the mysteries of the technology, the politics, the regulation, and the market manipulation. Parts of the book may make you mad, but you won't be able to put it down and you will always be learning something."

That's my shameless book plug for the day...


Pearl Street::Jason and Kristina Makansi Read Lights Out reviews

Water vapor in the tropsosphere (i.e. Greenhouse layer) is dependant on the temperature of the troposphere.

Only if it's a daytime high cloud, or a nighttime low cloud would it cause warming.

And on average, thats not an issue.

-David Ahlport

But, this is not the point here. The point is simply that there is an awful lot of low-sulfur coal from the PRB that contains a lot of water, and that is being transported increasingly long distances by diesel-powered trains to generate electricity in plants that can't run at their highest efficiencies because they're not designed to run low-sulfur coal that contains a lot of water.  This whole process just adds layers of waste, cost, and additional pollution.

I know coal bashing is popular, but we've got lots of it in this country. It currently generates 50% of this nation's electricity. Until we're all ready to go cold turkey and cut our electricity consumption in half, we ought to--at the very least--use it as wisely as is technologically possible. Transporting an inefficient fuel half-way across the continent doesn't seem to fit that bill.


Pearl Street::Jason and Kristina Makansi Read Lights Out reviews

I agree with many of the points being made here about coal synfuel's drawbacks, but I think we should be very cautious about taking energy solutions off the table at this juncture. Also, environmental impacts are in the eye of the beholders. For a sense of why China sees coal synfuels as an environmental advance, see "Coal Synfuel's Green Edge for China" on my webjournal, Carbon-Nation.

While it may be Clean, that doesn't neccisarily make it Green.

For instance, CTL Diesel is actually quite Clean.
Despite the fact that it has nearly double the GHG emmisions.

-David Ahlport

Of course power and politics matter, and they may make liquid coal one of the only available paths in China. But that doesn't mean we should endorse it. We should be trying to show China's gov't, just as we try to show our gov't, that cheaper, faster, cleaner means are available, given the political will.

grist.org

Your comments are fair enough. China's coal lobby certainly has plenty of clout (although there are signs of a pushback against coal liquefaction, primarily from concern over its outsized water consumption).

I wonder if you could push your argument a little further. Are there "cheaper, faster, cleaner means" available to eliminate the open burning of coal and biomass in homes across China? What alternatives do you propose?

My overall point stands: Different societies are facing different challenges and that they may not agree that greener must equal more climate friendly in every case.

Peter Fairley -- Independent Journalist, Author and Editor of Carbon-Nation

I wonder if you could push your argument a little further. Are there "cheaper, faster, cleaner means" available to eliminate the open burning of coal and biomass in homes across China? What alternatives do you propose?

Sure,
1. Household Methane Digesters.
http://www.cityfarmer.org/biogasPaul.html
2. Grass powered stoves
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March07/Barn.pellet.s ...

3. CNG, Propane, Butane, Diesel for transport.
   
5. For the longer term, I'd say that Coal as electricity would be more ideal than turning it into a liquid or gas.
   

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Also it's a bit idealist, however given the command and control style of China, and the lack of present infrastructure, perhaps this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo

-David Ahlport

The tricky part is how to make it happen given the constraints of Chinese gov't, economics, and social dynamics. I'm guessing the Chinese will be better at figuring that out than I will (hell, I can't even figure it out for the U.S.). We can, however, make information about alternatives available to them.

To loop back to the original topic: I wouldn't wish coal on my worst enemy, no matter their circumstances.

grist.org

What's more apt for this discussion is that we're not using it ourselves. Until North Americans begin shifting to more sustainable but likely more labor/time-intensive alternatives like methane digesters and bicycles, isn't it a bit much for us to ask the Chinese to make do with them?

RE CNG, Propane, Butane, Diesel for transport: China has limited natural gas and petroleum reserves with which to make these products, hence their increasing reliance on coal.

Don't get me wrong. I agree that there are more desirable options, including solar thermal and wind power. My point is simply that all options need to be considered.

Peter Fairley -- Independent Journalist, Author and Editor of Carbon-Nation

So the only best way to solve that problem is to at very least use it as effeciently as possible.

Heh, dreamworld, I guess that could mean direct carbon fuel cells, operating at 70-80% effeciency.
http://www.llnl.gov/str/June01/Cooper.html

Plus using it as 85% delivered to the motor, and 90% to the wheels.
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen.png
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen4.png

Which theoretically would be 53% of the coal energy delivered to the wheels.

____

Rather than only 36% with a fischer tropsch process, 12% loss in transport, with 40% delivered to the wheels (diesel).
For only about %12.672
Half that if it's a gasoline engine.

_____

As much accolades there is about Carbon Capture and Storage, even if we could get it to work, it would be so cost prohibitive that the Chinese wouldn't do it.

As is, they don't even want to install scrubbers donated by the Japanese. (Since it's their air too)  Since that would drop down the effeciency of the plants.

So it looks like the only real answer is either:

1. Coal Gas/Liquid
   
2. Coal Electric
   
3. Renewable Electric