The first shoe dropped on February 9th, when NV Energy (the company formerly known as Sierra Pacific Resources) shelved plans to build a 1,500 megawatt coal-fired power plant -- the controversial Ely Energy Center. As I noted at the time:
No coal-fired power plant in America has been more closely watched or harder fought than this one, thanks to Senator Harry Reid's early opposition to the project and the millions spent by the coal industry pushing dirty coal in Nevada. Nearly two years ago, Reid said he would do "everything I can" to stop construction of three major coal-fired power plants in his home state of Nevada, and push for more alternative energy development. That prompted coal industry execs to vow to 'Daschlize' Reid, meaning they would spend as much as needed to get him out of the Senate. Stakes were also high in Nevada because the Ad/Lobbying shop hired to run the industry's fraudulent $40 million national "clean coal" campaign, R&R Partners, is based in Las Vegas.
The other dirty coal shoe dropped in Nevada on Thursday.
The LS Power news release read like this: "LS Power affiliate White Pine Energy Associates, LLC, announced today that it is indefinitely postponing construction of the White Pine Energy Station near Ely, Nevada due to current economic conditions and increasing regulatory uncertainties."
For the second time in less than a month, a major power company has scrubbed plans for a coal-fired electric plant in Nevada. As the Las Vegas Review Journal reported:
New York-based LS Power said Thursday it has indefinitely postponed construction of its 1,600-megawatt White Pine Energy Station near Ely because of poor economic conditions and 'increasing regulatory uncertainties.' However, LS Power will forge ahead with its Southwest Intertie Project, a 500-mile transmission line stretching from southern Idaho to Las Vegas. Construction on the transmission line could begin as early as the summer, and when it's complete, it'll help move renewable energy generated in rural areas to the cities that need the power. LS Power's announcement ... comes just a few weeks after Southern Nevada's electric utility, NV Energy, temporarily shelved plans for a coal-fired power plant in Ely.
Interestingly, the LS Power announcement came on the same day that an op-ed article by Frankie Sue del Papa appeared in the Nevada Appeal in which the former Nevada Secretary of State was highly cirtical of the White Pine Energy Station (WPES):
As Nevada's former attorney general I have serious concerns over the environmental impact of the WPES that the PUC should carefully consider.
The WPES is estimated to use about 5,000 of acre feet of water per year - 1.6 billion gallons - enough for a city of nearly 50,000 people. As the driest state in the U.S., Nevadans should be concerned if this is the best use of our precious water resources.
The WPES will emit over 13,000 tons of toxic air pollutants annually, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulates and more than 12 million tons of CO2.
Apart from the obvious impacts on residents and visitors, the plant also will significantly affect one of Nevada's crown jewels, Great Basin National Park, offering some of the cleanest air and darkest night skies in the lower 48 states. Having the vistas from Wheeler Peak degraded for the next 50 years and beyond because of a bad energy choice would be a real tragedy. The impact on White Pine County's air resources also could limit potential industrial and mining activity in the future.
An honest discussion of any coal-fired power plant should include coal waste. The WPES could generate 500,000 tons of coal waste annually, the majority remaining on site as a landfill - 50 million tons or more over the life of the plant. The recent tragedy in Tennessee in which the containment walls failed, dumping more than a billion gallons of toxic ash into surrounding waterways and private homes, is the latest warning.
The LS Power announcement also came on the same day that Nevada U.S. Senator Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader who is no friend dirty coal, unveiled a new bill to speed development of a green-powered electricity system, an effort he said was a big part of his vision of a nation that might someday run on renewable energy. "Reforming our energy policies to build a cleaner, greener, national transportation system -- an electric superhighway -- must be a top national priority," Reid said as he submitted the bill, called the Clean Renewable Energy and Economic Development Act.
First Ely ... and now White Pine.
Could it be that history will record the tide was finally turned on dirty coal-fired power plants in February and March 2009 in the state of Nevada. It's certainly starting to look that way.
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NV Energy (the company formerly known as Sierra Pacific Resources) has shelved plans to build a 1,500 megawatt coal-fired power plant -- the controversial Ely Energy Center.
No coal-fired power plant in America has been more closely watched or harder fought than this one, thanks to Senator Harry Reid's early opposition to the project and the millions spent by the coal industry pushing dirty coal in Nevada. Nearly two years ago, Reid said he would do "everything I can" to stop construction of three major coal-fired power plants in his home state of Nevada, and push for more alternative energy development.
That prompted coal industry execs to vow to "Daschlize" Reid, meaning they would spend as much as needed to get him out of the Senate. Stakes were also high in Nevada because the Ad/Lobbying shop hired to run the industry's fraudulent $40 million national "clean coal" campaign, R&R Partners, is based in Las Vegas. Nevada was also a hotly-contested Presidential election state, and the combined size of the three plants -- 4,000 megawatts -- was unmatched by proposals in any other state.
But like other developers who have canceled or delayed projects in recent months, NV Energy has realized that global warming pollution will soon be federally regulated, and new, dirty coal plants are a bad deal for the bottom line, not to mention utility bills or public health.
NV Energy CEO Michael Yackira acknowledged as much after making the announcement.
"It's about the economic realities of building a coal plant. ... We looked at it and said, 'Now is not the time to take an economic risk for either our rate payers or our shareholders.'"
Of course these risks were obvious to anyone you looked at the proposal. Back in early April 2008, in a report commissioned by NRDC, the Wall Street firm Innovest calculated that "the first phase of Sierra Pacific's planned $5 billion coal-fired Ely facility will increase Sierra's coal capacity by 180 percent and its annual C02 emissions by an estimated 93 percent compared to 2004 emissions levels."
The Wall Street research firm went on to note:
"'In light of impending carbon regulation, Sierra Pacific's continuing focus on new coal capacity is in direct contrast to leading U.S. utilities that are reducing their carbon risk exposure and capitalizing on the opportunities associated with renewable energy and energy efficiency... The proposed facility presents significant environmental and financial risks that will likely translate into negative financial implications for both shareholders and ratepayers.'
Industry experts support Innovest's findings. Former Nevada Public Utility Commission (PUC) Commissioner and Nevada State Consumer Advocate Tim Hay said: 'It is no coincidence that electrical rates in Nevada have gone from among the lowest in the nation to some of the very highest today. Time and time again, Sierra Pacific has relied on shifting risk onto the backs of investors and ratepayers rather than putting in place a sound business strategy.'"
The demise of the Nevada coal-fired power plant is not exactly being mourned. In an insightful editorial titled "Good Riddance to Coal," The Las Vegas Sun editorial board writes:
"NV Energy's announcement Monday that it was postponing for at least 10 years its plans to build a coal-fired power plant near Ely was as welcome as it was inevitable. We have opposed the plant, known as the Ely Energy Center, since plans for it were announced in 2006. Nevada should be moving forward with renewable energy, not moving backward with coal, whose ceaseless, voluminous emissions are unhealthy to all forms of life.
'The company will not move forward with construction of the coal plant until the technologies that will capture and store greenhouse gasses are commercially feasible,' a statement on NV Energy's Web site said.
That statement confirms that so-called 'clean coal' does not exist, despite promotions of the concept in national advertising. Although new coal plants emit fewer pollutants than ones built two or three decades ago, they are still dirty. Proof of that is contained in the Ely Energy Center's draft environmental impact statement, which says emissions of greenhouse gases and various unhealthy chemicals and particulates would amount to millions of tons per year."
The Reno Gazette-Journal editorial writers took a somewhat more charitable route to reach the same conclusion:
"Utility executives deserve credit for understanding that their industry is changing and that building a conventional power plant far from the state's urban areas doesn't make good sense for its investors or its customers.
But opponents of the coal-fired plant, who put a different kind of pressure on the utility, deserve a lot of credit for the decision, too. When U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced his opposition to any new coal-fired power plants in mid-2007, it became politically difficult for the utility to move ahead with its plans. (Two other coal-fired plants have been proposed for rural Nevada by other, non-Nevada companies.) Reid warned that he would do 'everything I can' to prevent the plants from being constructed.
The fight against the plant continued last week at a hearing in Reno hosted by the Bureau of Land Management, which would have to approve the project. The opponents rightly welcomed NV Energy's announcement of the cancellation on Monday."
The bottom line is this: One of the biggest coal-fired power plants proposed for the United States is now dead -- at least for the foreseeable future. It's one of the biggest signs yet that the future of dirty coal and the future of the United States are now on two increasingly diverging paths.
]]>If President-elect Obama and the new Congress want to see firsthand why dirty coal is not the energy solution for America, they need look no further than the coal-fired power plant proposed for Virginia's nearby Wise County.
Last week, the coalition Wise Energy for Wise County released a major new study showing that: "... investing in energy efficiency instead of building the Wise County coal plant to meet the same electricity demand would yield hundreds of millions of dollars more annually for the state and create at least 2,600 more jobs than the controversial 585-megawatt coal-fired power plant. The benefits would be even greater if, as anticipated, the federal government enacts controls on global warming emissions."
In bottom-line terms for consumers, that boils down to this: "... avoiding construction of the coal plant by investing in efficiency would save the average household in Dominion's service territory between $52 and $91 per year in 2012."
As Alan Gregory's Conservation News noted after reading the report: "... (you have to) wonder out loud why our society is even thinking of launching another coal-fired power plant."
The mainstream media may not be paying much attention to this study, but it's getting out far and wide among bloggers - even attracting the attention of the likes of Ted Williams Fly, Rod + Reel Online.
Over at the Gristmill, David Roberts writes under the headline "Meddling Environmentalists Try to Save People Money": "The report goes on to find that efficiency investments would also add far more revenue to the state economy and create thousands more jobs. Got that? Better for the state economy, for ratepayers, and for jobs ... [Remind] me again about how coal is cheap? About how environmental measures hurt the economy? About how utilities are just trying to do what's best for ratepayers?"
Those are exactly the right questions we need to be asking about the Wise County plant and other white elephants like it.
]]>In the last few days, we've seen "Exposing the Myth of Clean Coal Power," a major article in Time magazine, and "Pool of Trouble: A toxic sludge spill in Tennessee could have been avoided," a hard-hitting editorial in the Washington Post calling for more federal oversight of toxic waste from dirty power plants.
Given all the nails being driven into the coffin of the "clean coal" myth, it may seem hard to believe that the developments in Tennessee and Alabama have actually overshadowed a considerable amount of additional bad news for "clean coal" boosters. But that is exactly what has happened!
In reverse chronological order going back to the dawn of the New Year, here are some the lesser-known "lowlights" for the coal industry:
Hard to believe that New Year is less than two weeks old and already the coal industry is buried under this much bad news!
]]>Last Tuesday, Bank of America unveiled a new coal policy that includes phasing out its investments in companies that do mountaintop removal mining. You can read what NRDC's Rob Perks has to say about the BofA decision here.
As the Alliance for Appalachia noted of the decision: "Thanks to Bank of America for touring mountaintop removal with members of The Alliance for Appalachia, RAN and NRDC this past summer. It's exciting to see Bank of America take this big step, and we're wondering what's next..."
In a similar vein, Coal is Dirty wrote: "I am pretty excited that Bank of America has seen the light and listened to all of your voices for the past couple of years about ending their support of this horrible practice."
But AlterDestiny summed it up best: "The Natural Resources Defense Council may have struck upon one of the best ways to fight mountaintop removal coal mining: make it socially unacceptable. After taking Bank of American executives on a helicopter tour of mountaintop removal sites, the NRDC convinced the bank to stop funding such projects. In an atmosphere where Bush is implementing all sorts of new rules allowing for mountaintop removal to expand and dump its soils into rivers and creeks around southern Appalachia, new, aggressive strategies are necessary. This is such a reprehensible practice and the only way it survives is because nobody sees the incredible damage to the landscape it causes. If you can take away the funding for these projects by exposing people in power to these hellish operations, you can go a long ways toward putting a stop to it. Kudos to both the NRDC and Bank of America on this one."
Kudos to RAN and all the local and regional activists that have been working on this as well. It's been a team effort. And let's not forget why this is so important.
Appalachian Voices sums up the stakes this way: "One of the greatest environmental and human rights catastrophes in American history is underway just southwest of our nation's capital. In the coalfields of Appalachia, individuals, families and entire communities are being driven off their land by flooding, landslides and blasting resulting from mountaintop removal coal mining ... Mountaintop removal involves clear cutting native hardwood forests, using dynamite to blast away as much as 800-1000 feet of mountaintop, and then dumping the waste into nearby valleys, often burying streams. While the environmental devastation caused by this practice is obvious, families and communities near these mining sites are forced to contend with continual blasting from mining operations that can take place up to 300 feet from their homes and operate 24 hours a day. Families and communities near mining sites also suffer from airborne dust and debris, floods that have left hundreds dead and thousands homeless, and contamination of their drinking water supplies."
And that wasn't the only bad news for the Coal Crowd last week.
In a major case brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Southern Environmental Law Center, a federal court in Asheville, N.C. ruled that Duke Energy must meet stringent Clean Air Act requirements for control of hazardous air pollution from the 800-megawatt addition to its Cliffside coal-fired power plant. As NRDC explained in a news release: "The decision is particularly important as it closes what had been perceived as a loophole that allowed similar plants to skirt pollution requirements."
How big a deal is this court decision?
The legal eagles at Warming Law put it this way: "The ruling is the most recent instance of a court or other reviewing body effectively informing the Bush EPA that its assorted efforts to circumnavigate, gut, or simply ignore provisions of the Clean Air Act are patently unlawful. Two weeks ago, the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board remanded a permit issued for the "Bonanza" power plant in Utah because the EPA had failed to demonstrate why it should not, pursuant to the Clean Air Act, establish BACT requirements for CO2 for new coal-fired power plants. The Cliffside ruling stands as yet another reminder of how the Bush EPA has targeted a wide range of well-established environmental regulations, such as those seeking to limit long-recognized toxic air pollutants, in addition to its efforts to thwart meaningful regulation of greenhouse gas emissions."
In other words, the "score" last week for Big Coal wasn't really 1-2, with the "win" being the mountain top removal rule change. That controversial last-minute rule rewrite may very well end up being reversed by the Obama Administration in a few months, whereas the Bank of America and Cliffside court ruling will be reverberating for many years to come.
]]>In fact, Obama energy advisor Jason Grumet told Bloomberg in mid-October that "Barack Obama will classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant that can be regulated should he win the presidential election on Nov. 4, opening the way for new rules on greenhouse gas emissions." According to the article, Obama "may use the 1990 Clean Air Act to set emissions limits on power plants and manufacturers ... President George W. Bush declined to curb CO2 emissions under the law even after the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the government may do so."
That's why it was amusing on Election Day to hear of the latest PR stunt from our friends at the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE).
ACCCE Honcho Joe Lucas put out a November 4th news release that reads as follows: "Today is Election Day and whichever candidate is elected, he will have a mandate to adopt policies that secure America's energy future using our most abundant energy resource - coal. 'If 'support for the use of coal for generating electricity' were on the ballot today, it would win by a landslide' ..." (emphasis in the original)
Other than the obvious reason for slicing and dicing of respondents until ACCCE found a group that would agree with them, we're not clear on why the "national" survey is limited to just 600 "elites" - are they back in favor now? -- defined as "adults with $80,000 or more in household income and a four-year college degree or more and a professional or managerial job title or a business owner and a high degree of involvement in politics and policy matters."
Didn't we just have an election that made a pretty good case for a more inclusive approach to decision making?
And since no one has suggested that coal is going away next week, we're not sure what Lucas thinks this means when he writes in the ACCCE release: "The poll shows that Americans are very optimistic about the future for coal. When asked the question 'do you believe coal is a fuel for America's future?' -- 69% of Americans agreed (compared to only 26% who disagreed)."
No doubt coal will still be around in 2009. But just look at what happens when you ask Americans what they really think about dirty coal power plants. Consider these findings of a September 2008 survey by the Civil Society Institute/Opinion Research Corporation of 1,000 U.S. adults - including all of us no-account non-elites!:
If that all rings true to you, there's a good reason: It's a picture of reality. It's not some survey cooked up with loaded questions and a hand-picked audience guaranteed to deliver the results sought by the industry that paid for the ACCCE poll.
I'm not alone in thinking that the Joe Lucas survey results are suspect. As ThinkProgress pointed out this week:
"... all the PR spin in the world can't affect scientific reality. America's coal plants produce about 49 percent of U.S. electricity but account for 83 percent of power-sector emissions. And we need to reduce net emissions to zero as fast as humanly possible to preserve our civilization from catastrophic global warming ... No matter what actions Washington D.C. takes, the 80,000 people in the coal mining industry - 0.02% of the U.S. population - should be taken care of. These workers deserve better than they are getting today, as the union-busting coal barons ignore safety regulations and cut benefits. But make no mistake - the burning of coal is burning up the planet ... The saddest thing about the ACCCE campaign is not its facile dishonesty, but that we continue to have a political discourse that places more weight on perception than reality."
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