| In a recent New York Times article on the debate within the coal industry on whether to take the leap into next-generation clean coal technology, the writer Simon Romero puts his byline in Wright, Wyo., — a desolate town in the northeast part of the state. Wyoming doesn’t come up again in the story, but by setting it there, it places the Cowboy State at ground zero in a national debate over our energy future.
In this case, the debate centers around whether the coal industry and federal energy research programs should invest in a new technology that first turns coal into a gas before burning it to produce electricity. The process is not only more efficient in terms of how many megawatts can be squeezed from the black rock, but it’s also cleaner. It produces less emissions and the carbon dioxide produced is easier to capture, and, presumably, to do something with.
But building the plants to perform this liquid-coal process cost on average 20 percent more than traditional plants. Some in the industry have said “go for it,” and a handful of liquid coal plants are springing up around the country. But others have said “hold on.” Federal law doesn’t yet require the environmental benefits — cleaner emissions and less carbon dioxide — and the technology may not be as proven as hoped.
With climate change harder to disprove, and years of evidence that reduced mercury and sulfur emissions are healthier, the environmental argument for clean coal, and all other cleaner sources of energy for that matter, seems settled. But the economic one is in full swing. And here in the West, economic arguments are the force behind almost all of our energy policies and initiatives.
America’s energy colony
Coal is by far the largest source of electricity in this country, and has been for at least a century. But as markets have changed, it has gone in and out of fashion. Cheap oil replaced coal for a while. Then cheap natural gas replaced that. Today, natural gas, oil and a host of “alternative” energy sources are all being developed at breakneck paces. As well, the old idea of extracting usable oil from the region's vast reserves of oil shale is again attracting the interest of lawmakers and industry leaders.
But with oil and gas prices continuing to rise and showing no signs of shrinking, coal is back. And some of the largest untapped reserves in the nation are in the Rocky Mountain West.
All at once, the dynamics are in play within the industry and between the states. Western states have control of the ball, but not the game. We have much more coal, oil and gas than we as a region could consume, while the rest of the country has the energy appetite. We are in an export market.
But the infrastructure to transport it isn’t there, slowing down the economic engine. There aren’t enough rail lines to move coal from its source to power plants. There aren’t enough pipes to transport oil and gas from the wells to the refineries. And the electricity grid that covers the West is like an old, frayed spider web, unable to handle any increases.
California, perhaps the largest single state consumer of energy, is interested in what we have to offer. Earlier this spring, the governors of California and Wyoming met to discuss how best to transport the energy to the coastal state. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal pledged his and the industry’s support for the proposed Frontier Line — a series of high-voltage power lines from Wyoming to California. When and if that were to move ahead, it would allow for the generation of thousands of new megawatts of electricity from coal and other resources in the West.
Officials in Arizona are also looking at providing energy for southern California by connecting a nuclear power plant to Palm Springs.
In both cases, though, Wyoming and Arizona state officials are leery of sending cheap, locally produced power to California because they fear it will raise prices for the residents at home.
The other issue with California is that its laws dictate that a certain percentage of its energy must come from “green” sources, which often don’t include old-style coal-fired power plants. That's why Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger agreed to prod federal officials for more money to help fund a liquid-coal plant, but this brings up another issue.
The vast supplies of Powder River Basin coal in Montana and Wyoming are of a different chemical make-up than Eastern coal. Western coal can burn cleaner in traditional coal-fired power plants, but it hasn’t yet been tested in the liquid-coal process.
Proponents, such as Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, are sure the technology isn’t far off to do so, but the work is yet to be done. That lack of available technology puts the Rocky Mountain states at odds with coal consumers in the Midwest, who are using their coal and Eastern coal in liquid-coal plants, but won’t buy from the Rockies — not yet, anyhow.
The Western coal and energy industry has a few other gremlins to solve as well. The first is how public land is used to support the industry, mainly, where are the drillers and diggers going to put their holes, and where are the transporters going to lay their pipes and lines. The Bush administration’s directive to the Bureau of Land Management to crank out energy leases at a record pace is meeting with local backlash, as more communities are standing up and demanding that parcels close to towns be removed from the auction block. (When rigs end up along mountain biking routes or next to town swimming holes, the people revolt.)
The other issue, which may be a bit farther out, is mounting competition from alternative-energy sources. Right now, wind and solar may be vogue energy sources, occupying only a small percentage of the energy market. But California has set a standard for states to call their own shots in terms of energy production. Idaho, in turn, put a two-year moratorium on new, traditional coal-fired power plants. Almost every state in the region has begun subsidizing solar and wind farms. And towns like Aspen and Boulder are constantly adding “green” initiatives to the law books.
Romero, in his New York Times piece, quotes a NASA scientist as saying that many of the traditional coal plants are designed to last 50 years. Taking on a new technology now comes with a long-term risk that whatever technology is adopted today, could be either cast aside because it doesn’t work as promised or is supplanted by newer, better technology.
In 50 years, who knows what the energy market will bear.
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us what you think.
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