Coal

Jan. 27 2012: Coal does more harm than good in Kentucky. Kentucky, the third-largest coal producer in the U.S., generates about 94% of its electricity from the resource and has some of the lowest electricity prices in the country. But according to a health impact study by the Kentucky Environmental Foundation that examines research on the impact of coal in Kentucky, the health costs came in at more than $62 million in 2007, and that’s just for asthma, which inflicts 1 in 10 Kentuckians and kills about 50 people in the state per year. Asthma rates for African Americans of high school age in Kentucky are at 22%. The report examines costs along the coal value chain, including mining, transportation and electricity generation. KEF cites a study from Public Health Reports that finds 2,347 to 2,889 yearly excess deaths from coal mining in Appalachia, costing the region an estimated $10 billion each year. link

_____________________________________

World coal consumption by region, 1980-2010 (click to animate)

March 2011: The Union of Concerned Scientists have issued a report titled, “A Risky Proposition” which concludes that in the 1970s there was a massive over-investment in coal and nuclear plants without proper heed to the associated financial risks. This blind over-investment led to cancellation of 100 nuclear plants and 80 coal plants. But the money was already spent: hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars were wasted and electricity prices skyrocketed, municipal bonds defaulted and legal battles arose. Many people continue to think that coal is the cheapest and most plentiful electric fuel. “A Risky Proposition” expertly debunks these lingering misconceptions. link
__________________________________________________________

Coal is so abundant that it is the obvious fuel of choice, yet it is also a growing contributor of CO2 pollution. Coal plants generate almost half of the electricity in the USA and 80% of the nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide released annually into the atmosphere comes from power production. West Virginia sits on more than 30 billion tons of coal and produced 158 million tons in 2008, second only to Wyoming at 468 million. Producing it causes devastating results to the landscape, especially in the Appalachians where mountains are removed 24 hours every day. Environmentally, coal is unacceptable, therefore much effort is being put into clean coal technology (liquid coal and gasified coal) and carbon sequestration. These methods are prohibitively expensive and presently non-viable. In selecting coal over alternatives it's also important to factor in taxpayer subsidies as well as serious health consequences. Nationwide, more than 90 coal plants have been cancelled or put on hold in the past three years, due to projected greenhouse gas emissions, mushrooming costs and public opposition.

October 2011: Coal is doing more harm to the US economy than good. A new economic analysis has made a damming assessment of the costs of pollution from fossil fuel industries, and concludes that coal is doing more harm to the US economy than good – and that doesn't take into account its climate impact. The most damning assessment is of coal, which is fingered for about $53 billion in damages a year. This estimate does not include climate change and uses a conservative estimate of health risks.. The paper, published in the highly prestigious American Economic Review, by respected economists Nicholas Muller, Robert Mendelsohn (Yale) and William Nordhaus (Yale), models the physical and economic consequences of emissions of six major pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, ammonia, fine particulate matter, and coarse particulate matter) from the country's 10,000 pollution sources. It is an update of a previous study concluded in 2009. link

January 2011: Banks, climate & the Carbon Principles. In February 2008, three leading banks, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, announced common coal power

financing policies, known as the Carbon Principles. Heralded as a new path for the banking industry, the Carbon Principles were supposed to make it “tougher to finance conventional coal-fired plants in the U.S.” Today Rainforest Action Network examines the implementation and impact of these Principles, and the role that banks play in financing new coal plants – and the news is not good. Our research reveals that, while the broader economy has been shifting away from new coal power plants, the banks that have signed onto the Carbon Principles are continuing with business as usual in regards to financing coal. Burning coal is the nation's top source of air pollution and toxic mercury, and it is responsible for one third of the country's greenhouse gas emission, nearly 2 billion tons per year. link (Click here to see report)

September 2010: Europe weaning itself off coal - ending subsidies. The European Commission in May announced that bailouts and favors, subsidies, for mining and coal plants would end after 2010. Though the European Union generally prohibits national subsidies, coal has long been an exception.The goal is not to eliminate coal power but to replace it, where it is not economical, with cleaner forms of power. link

August 2010: Old style coal plants expanding across US. Records show that more than 30 traditional coal plants (i.e. without carbon capture) have been built since 2008 or are under construction. Much lower than the previous 151 a few years ago, but still enough to provide 17,900MW of energy which would emit 25 million tons of greenhouse gases annually. It suggests the industry believes carbon regulation may not be a serious threat. Construction costs are, however, on the rise and could deliver increases in energy bills up to 30%. link
January 2010: In 2009, plans for 26 new coal-fired power plants were shelved nationwide according to the Sierra Club. A few utilities also considered closing operational coal plants, but most are "very old coal plants" that do not operate frequently. Also Oregon's only coal-fired plant is being closed early because of costs and environmental reasons. link

February 2010: Coal-fired power on the way out? Analysis by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute. The past two years have witnessed the emergence of a powerful movement opposing the construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States. Initially led by environmental groups, both national and local, it has since been joined by prominent national political leaders and many state governors. The principal reason for opposing coal plants is that they are changing the earth’s climate. There is also the effect of mercury emissions on health and the 23,600 U.S. deaths each year from power plant air pollution. Coal’s future is also suffering as Wall Street turns its back on the industry. more

There are unseen problems with coal we know little or nothing about. According to ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations. link Also, with South Carolina as one example, 2.3 billion pounds of ash are dumped there annually in landfills and ponds and at some of these ponds, arsenic and other heavy metals in the ash leached into groundwater. link Revealing is the TVA disclosure that in just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications. more According to the American Lung Association, pollution from coal-fired power plants causes 23,600 premature deaths, 21,850 hospital admissions, 554,000 asthma attacks, and 38,200 heart attacks every year. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that 12,000 coal miners died from black lung disease between 1992 and 2002.

May 2010: UCS - Three dozen states are collectively hemorrhaging tens of billions of dollars annually on imported coal to generate electricity, according to a report released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Residents in those states would be better served, the report concludes, if more money were spent in-state on local renewable energy technology and energy efficiency programs. The first-of-its-kind report, which ranks the 38 states that are net importers of domestic and foreign coal based on the most recent available data, found that 11 of them each spent more than $1 billion annually on imported coal in 2008. 63% of domestic coal comes from just three states: Wyoming, West Virginia and Kentucky. Foreign coal burned in U.S. coal plants mainly comes from Colombia. "Importing coal to produce electricity is a drain on state economies," said Jeff Deyette, the assistant director of energy research and analysis in UCS's Climate & Energy Program and a report co-author. "Ratepayer dollars are diverted out of state instead of spent locally on renewable energy projects and energy efficiency measures that would benefit residents directly." (More than 80% of the foreign coal imports in 2008 came from Colombia. The balance came from Venezuela and Indonesia and the United States still exports more coal than it imports.) link

November 2009: Tennessee authorizing new discharges of toxic heavy metals - one million gallons a day - into the same river devastated by the Kingston coal ash spill. - there are no federal laws prohibiting this pollution. "Coal-fired power plants around the country are installing scrubbers without proper controls to limit water pollution because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has failed to set national standards governing wastewater discharges from scrubber systems," environment groups said in a joint statement. This is simply transferring the toxic emissions from the air to the water supply. link (see more below under "Scrubbers)

Is there such a thing as "Clean Coal"? A new coalition under the umbrella - 'this is reality' argues there is not link

Scrubbers clean coal - but move pollutants from air to the water instead.
June 2008: 'Scrubbers' provide a method of removing up to a tonne of CO2 each day from the air - roughly the equivalent amount produced by a transatlantic flight. Each device would cost around £100,000. (February 2009 conversion = $ 145,000) Scientists have stressed their invention does not provide a magic solution to the problem of CO2 emissions. Millions of the devices would need to be produced to capture all global emissions, and the problem of disposing of the CO2 once it has been trapped still remains. Scientists have previously been skeptical about the feasibility of air-capture devices, due to the large amounts of energy required to run them. Link

October 2009: In 2006 Allegheny Energy in Pennsylvania decided to install scrubbers to clean the plant’s air emissions, environmentalists were overjoyed. The technology would spray water and chemicals through the plant’s chimneys, trapping more than 150,000 tons of pollutants each year before they escaped into the sky. But the cleaner air has come at a cost. Each day since the equipment was switched on in June 2009, the company has dumped tens of thousands of gallons of wastewater containing chemicals from the scrubbing process into the Monongahela River, which provides drinking water to 350,000 people and flows into Pittsburgh, 40 miles to the north. link

July 11 2011: Scrubbers are key weapons in the fight to reduce pollution at coal-fired power plants. However their life-span of 25 years is suspect. The Electric Power Research Institute, which is funded by utility companies, is investigating reports of "aggressive" corrosion in scrubbers across the nation. "Our findings, so far, show it's fairly widespread through the industry," said John Shingledecker, senior project manager in the research institute's fossil materials and repair program. Without a fix, corrosion threatens plant shutdowns and costly repairs, both of which could affect power bills. They were installed to help meet a federal mandate that coal-fired power plants cut 71% of their sulfur-dioxide emissions by 2014. link

To read more on Carbon Capture and Storage - link
For an exhaustive study of "How to Clean Coal" refer to the Natural Resources Defense Council's essay: link

According to the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) relying on coal-derived liquid as an alternative to oil-based fuels could nearly double global warming pollution for every gallon of transportation fuel that is produced and used. The total emissions rate for oil and gas fuels is about 27 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon, counting both production and use, while the estimated total emissions from coal-derived fuel is more like 50 pounds of carbon dioxide per gallon. link

Liquefied coal – CTL – an alternative to oil? The liquefaction of coal is one concept that is being given new life due to higher petroleum prices. Currently it is cost-prohibitive and environmentally unfriendly. But according to a new study from the MIT, as early as 2015 and without a solid climate policy, coal-to-liquid (CTL) fuel may be economically viable in the US and China. CTL fuels have been in existence since the 1920s, and were used extensively by Germany in the 1940s. At the time, it produced about 90% of their national fuel needs. Then Middle Eastern oil became dirt cheap and CTL technology was largely abandoned. The only country that still uses it in a significant way is South Africa where it covers about 30% of their fuel needs.
The production of liquefied coal has a large carbon footprint, much larger than that of petroleum fuel production. One method of production is carbonization where the coal is coked at temperatures up to 1,380 F to produce coal tars rich in hydrocarbons. The coal tar is then further refined into fuels. The process produces a large amount of carbon dioxide emissions. If done without CCS technology, the life-cycle carbon footprint is about double that of crude oil. The study notes that the viability of CTL will by vary greatly on whether or not certain regions adopt prohibitive climate policies. If lower-carbon fuels are available, CTL would not be considered as an option. Liquefied coal may only be available in developing nations with lax environmental rules, and where low-carbon alternatives are not available. One of the study's authors, John Reilly, stated, "Various climate proposals have very different impacts on the allowances of regional CO2 emissions, which in turn have quite distinct implications on the prospects for CTL conversion. If climate policies are enforced, world demand for petroleum products would decrease, the price of crude oil would fall, and coal-to-liquid fuels would be much less competitive." link

December 2009: Major spill in Tennessee. Initial reports that 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall at the Kingston Fossil Plant in Tennessee gave way was revised to 5.4 million cubic yards, more than the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) said was in the pond. Environmentalists have long argued that coal ash, which can contaminate ground water and poison aquatic environments, should be stored in lined landfills. link

For decades, the dangers of coal ash have largely been hidden from public view. Today, there are 194 landfills and 161 ponds containing coal ash from 500 power plants in 47 states nationwide according to 2005 data from the Department of Energy, the latest available. Each year power companies generate approximately 130 million tons of coal ash - enough to fill a million railroad cars. Industry representatives estimate 43 percent of coal ash now gets recycled in such items as concrete or wallboard - two "beneficial uses" that use one type of coal ash. But that still leaves more than 70 million tons of ash annually for companies to dump in lagoons, landfills, and, more recently, mine pits. The ash amounts to dirty stuff, replete with toxic constituents - arsenic, chromium, lead, mercury, and many others - that can wreak havoc on the environment and human health. Exposure to its toxins can lead to cancer, birth defects, gastro-intestinal illnesses, and reproductive problems. There is no meaningful federal regulation of coal ash on the books; indeed, oversight of ash disposal - much of it stunningly casual - is largely left to the states. more

March 2011: The EPA must act on coal ash within 90 days. Internal EPA research shows the agency promoted the use of coal ash products, on farm fields, as structural fill for roadway embankments or bound into products such as wallboard, concrete, roofing materials and bricks, with incomplete information about potential risks to people's health and the environment, and has given the EPA 90 days to respond. The not-so-gentle reminder stems from a policy put in place during George W. Bush's presidency. The amount of coal ash generated by the nation's coal-fired electricity plants has grown from 118 million tons in 2001 to 136 million tons in 2008, according to the EPA's latest figures. Ash contains a range of dangerous metals such as arsenic, selenium, cadmium, lead, and mercury that can leach into groundwater and migrate to drinking water sources. link

June 2009: The EPA disclose the location of 44 coal ash disposal sites across the country that are classed as "high hazard." North Carolina has the most - twelve - sited at Belmont, Walnut Cove, Spencer, Eden, Mount Holy, Terrell and Arden. Two electric utilities - Columbus, Ohio-based America Electric Power and Charlotte-based Duke Energy Corp. operate nearly half of the coal ash sites on the list. link

China now uses more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined. China’s frenetic construction of coal-fired of power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. making it the world’s largest emitter of gases that are warming the planet. But largely missing in the hand-wringing is this: China has emerged in the past two years as the world’s leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology and driving down the cost. After relying until recently on older technology, “China has since become the major world market for advanced coal-fired power plants with high-specification emission control systems,” the International Energy Agency said in a report a on April 20 2009. link

March 2010: UK plan to burn coal underground and cut out mining. Coal gasification is an old idea. What is new is cutting out the coal mining stage and doing the gasification underground. Instead of mining coal the idea is to burn entire coal seams in situ underground, then tap the gases that the fires give off to put in gas turbines and generate electricity. In principle it is simple. You sink a borehole to the coal seam and insert a firelighter and oxygen to keep the fire going. The fire generates carbon dioxide, methane and hydrogen. You sink another borehole to extract the gases. The problem is that methane is not the only gas to emerge from underground. While the engineering trick is to manage the fires to maximise methane production, there will inevitably be a lot of CO2 produced by the fires as well. So is this clean coal or greenwash? link

See also the Cliffside page for a closer look at how one proposed plant in NC is under threat.

COAL GASIFICATION
Gasification is very energy-intensive, requiring high-temperature air, steam or oxygen to react with the organic material. Gasification breaks down coal into its basic chemical constituents using high temperature and pressure which leads to the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide. In addition, gasification is often inefficient, leaving behind significant amounts of solid waste. In theory coal gasification offers a versatile and clean way to convert coal into electricity. Because of this, carbon dioxide can be captured from a gas stream far more easily than from the smokestacks of a conventional coal plant. One significant challenge is the historically short lifespan of refractories, which are used to line and protect the inside of a gasifier. Currently, refractories have a lifespan of 12 to 16 months. The relining of a gasifier costs approximately $1 million and requires three to six weeks of downtime. link A clean burning plant would cost 20% more than a conventional coal-fired facility with the same capacity and almost four times as much as a similar-size generator fueled by natural gas. Environmentalists see the advantage that instead of emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, where it traps heat, the new design could one day extract the gas from the chemical reactor and then "sequester" it deep underground. link If gasified coal plants are a solution, we need to calculate the costs of sequestration and contrast all costs with solar, wind and wave advances as well as continuing environmental damage.

US Subsidies to energy: According to The National Academy of Sciences the federal government invested $644 billion (in 2003 dollars) between 1950 and 2003 in efforts to promote and support energy development. Of this, only $60.6 billion or 18.7% went for R&D. It was dwarfed by tax incentives (43.7%) Also tax incentives comprised 87% of subsidies for natural gas. Federal market activities made up 75% of the subsidies for hydroelectric power. Tax incentives and R&D support each provided about one-third of the subsidies for coal.

September 2009: During the fiscal years 2002-2008 the United States handed out subsidies to fossil fuel industries to a tune of $72 billion. Of that, $2.3 billion went to carbon capture and storage; the rest went to oil and coal. link

Germany: After spending more than $200 billion in subsidies since the 1960s, the federal government decided in 2008 that they would be phased out by 2018 being too unaffordable. Economists and free-market lawmakers have long decried the subsidies as handouts to the politically influential coal industry and powerful trade unions. This year, for instance, Deutsche Steinkohle AG, the owner of the remaining eight mines, will receive more in government subsidies ($3.3 billion) than it will from selling coal ($2.9 billion).

$427 million. That's what the oil and coal industries spent during the first half of 2008 on lobbying and advertising. According to USA Today (April 27, 2009) "Fifty of the nation's largest electric utilities amped up spending on lobbyists by 30% late last year to influence the debate in Congress just underway on one of the biggest issues facing lawmakers: climate change."

Industry opposes clean energy. The Guardian recently ran an investigative piece finding that America's oil, gas and coal industry "has increased its lobbying budget by 50%, with key players spending $44.5m in the first three months of this year (2009) in an intense effort to cut off support for Barack Obama's plan to build a clean energy economy." link

Recent news:

_____________________________________

World coal consumption by region, 1980-2010 (click to animate)