Pollution control needs a closer look

The Nov. 7 commentary by Philip E. Clapp, titled, “Getting back to normal,” laments our failure to move on certain environmental issues. Clapp lays out the issue as one of “… corporate interests or the concerns of citizens.”

This stuff isn’t easy. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has several items on their docket, including a scheme to control the following emissions from electric power plants: 1) summer season cap on oxides of nitrogen; 2) fine particles (less than 2.5 microns); 3) mercury; 4) oxides of sulfur; etc. Congress is also in the act. About a dozen legislative proposals are in the works. Some of the bills carry the label “Clean smokestacks Act”; another “Clean Power Plant Act.” With all these balls in the air the Congress turned to the Energy Information Agency (EIA), a non-policy arm of the U.S. Department of Energy.

What is the economic and resource impact of various pollution control plans? The EIA has no role in the analysis of health effects. Their report focuses the on the cost of the various fuels and the cost of electricity under a wide variety of emission control regulatory regimes. Projections are made to the years 2010 and 2020. Congress has complicated the analysis by proposing a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). This would mandate various levels of renewable energy in the generation mix.

The EIA report was published in July of this year. It should help the Congress and the EPA in decision making. At the moment U.S. coal-burning power plants are dumping into the atmosphere each year 6,000 tons of oxides on nitrogen, 13,000 tons of oxides of sulfur, 533 million tons of carbon equivalent in carbon dioxide and 46 tons of mercury. Each of the legislative and regulatory proposals has a different control scenario. The EIA examined all possible control mixes in their final report. One problem. The report is more than 300 pages long with 100,000 words of text and one hundred pages of spreadsheets listing the implications of each option.

The EIA admits that many of the numbers are fuzzy. No mature technology exists for mercury removal; hence costs are very speculative. The energy arena is like a great mound of Jell-O – touch it in one place and it will jiggle all over. An ambitious reduction target for carbon dioxide, for example, would require a great increase in natural gas production and imply natural gas imports. More liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facilities like the one in Baja, Calif., would be required. The people near such a facility may feel that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a smaller threat than an LNG unloading facility.

The Renewable Portfolio Standard, for the year 2020, calls for the generation of 500 billion kwh from “biomass.” We have had much experience in Maine with these plants. About four pounds of wood (biomass) are required to generate one kWh. The big wood-chip vans we see carrying chips to Bucksport can haul about 60,000 pounds. Thirty million vanloads rolling around the U.S. roads each year would be required to supply electric generation plants capable of producing 500 billion kwh. That is 10 percent of the total generation called for in the year 2020; a large commitment to wood chip hauling for a small contribution to the electric grid.

The EIA is not optimistic about the future of wind energy. Wind energy is very dependent on average wind velocity. If Area A has twice the average wind velocity of area B; then area A will have eight times the wind energy of area B. The best wind sites are in places of low population density like the Great Plains. Can you imagine the political problem of convincing every small town and village between North Dakota and Chicago that multiple high-voltage transmission lines should pass through their territory? It would be easier to site a nuclear plant! The EIA report states (in the non-RPS case) that wind energy will supply one-quarter of 1 percent of the nation’s electric energy in 2020.

My heart goes out to our members of Congress and their staff. After they plow through these 300 pages of scary mush, what do they have: ambiguous improvements in national health at the expense of high (but also ambiguous) increases in the cost of electric power. I wish them good luck.

Clapp’s notion that this whole business hinges on controlling “corporate greed” is an irresponsible simplification.

You can find the full EIA report on the Web at:

www.eia.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/

epp/pdf/sroiaf(2001)03.pdf

Richard C. Hill lives in Old Town.