We Energies, the Electric Power Research Institute and equipment and service provider Alstom have started a pilot project to test an ammonia-based absorption system to remove carbon dioxide from the emissions of an existing coal-fueled power plant.

The pilot uses chilled ammonia to cool flue gas. Cooling increases the volume and rate at which carbon dioxide can be isolated in a highly concentrated form. The participants in this pilot believe the technology has the potential to capture up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide from a plant's flue gas emissions, although the ability to store such releases is not yet possible.

If the plug-in hybrid's electricity can be produced utilizing Clean Coal Technology CCT and carbon sequestration, we can also greatly reduce the greenhouse gases that are currently being released into the atmosphere by every car on the highway without increasing emissions in the utilities sector.

My comment: if they can carry out the separated CO2 from the effluent of a coal plant, they have to deposit it somewhere. That is where the rub comes in. A 1000 MWe coal plant emits about 460,000,000 cubic feet of CO2 per day. It does not seem reasonable to me to economically compress that amount of CO2 and sent it some place for storage.

Moreover there needs to be a light weight battery that has a very long energy charging cycle. No such battery seems to be on the horizon.

Americans for Balanced Energy Choices Research Identifies Benefits of New Coal-Fueled Power Plant Construction

Jan 10 - U.S. Newswire Research conducted by Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC) contradicts recent claims by critics that coal-fueled power plant construction has died. In addition, the research identified substantial benefits, including economical and environmental returns, resulting from the construction of several new coal-fueled power plants nationwide.

Currently, there are more than 120 coal-fueled power plants currently under or near construction, permitted or in the early stages of development. The US EIA projects the need for an average of 6,000 megawatts (MW) per year through 2030.

My comments: It appears that new coal plans are still in the future mix despite their enormous green house gas emissions. Folks it boils down to either coal or nuclear for our new electric power plant additions.

Energy Department Slows Down Coal-Energy Project

Dec 18 - Chicago Tribune Just hours after Illinois won a national competition for a cutting-edge clean coal project, the Department of Energy on Tuesday cautioned that costs were getting out of hand and it wasn't ready to sign off on the $1.8 billion FutureGen power plant.

"Projected cost overruns require a reassessment of FutureGen's design," read a statement from Energy Department official James Slutz. He said the department would provide more details next month on plans to restructure FutureGen.

In addition to the science, another goal of FutureGen is to bring down the costs of making power in ways that don't foul the air. Gasifying coal and burying greenhouse gases adds at least 20 percent to 40 percent to the costs of making electricity, so utilities may be reluctant to adopt FutureGen-like technologies unless the costs can be reduced.

My comments: There is much riding on this project since coal is one of the largest providers of green house gas CO2 emissions. Now the project is on hold. The fact that gasifying and burying the CO2 emissions could add up to 40% increase of the coal produced electrical energy will never be acceptable. For electric energy the major fuel is either coal or nuclear. I believe it should be nuclear in order to save coal as a material that can be used for our future petrochemical needs. But the environmentalists' do not want either. They are dead wrong. They want neither and they are not and will never be realistic about our future energy needs.

News release: While it will be harder to do, more coal plants will still get built. Coal is cheap and plentiful when compared to other fuel sources. For those utilities that want to keep their generation portfolios diversified, the banks will require them to offset carbon emissions from their coal plants by investing in renewable energy systems.

My comment: When will banks learn that renewables cannot be substituted for the energy generated by coal plants? It would require a massive amount of renewables to do so. In California renewables have been touted for 30 years and there is very little results from them. PG&E is playing the game by contracting for 177 MWe of solar plants that will have a capacity factor of only 20% and produce very little amounts of energy.

PRESIDENT BUSH announced in 2004 and then continually promoted a public-private venture he hoped would usher in an era of clean coal and be a cornerstone of U.S. efforts to address global warming. The FutureGen plant would have created electricity by stripping coal of harmful carbon dioxide and pumping the gas underground. The result would be power generation with zero greenhouse gas emissions. In December, Mattoon, Ill., was selected as the site for the coal plant. And then, on Jan. 30, Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman pulled the plug.

My comment: This is probably a wise decision. Sequestering CO2 by storing it under ground does not appear to be a practicable technology. We should save coal for future generations who will need the chemicals for non energy use such as plastics, etc.

State and federal policymakers may be digging coal into a hole. In a first-ever, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment denied an air quality permit for two proposed coal generators based upon the expected level of carbon emissions. Meantime, a movement is afoot on Capitol Hill to limit heat-trapping emissions.

Florida, a state that has fought hard to preserve the ban on oil production off its shores, has effectively closed the door on another traditional source of energy. Coal, the black rock used to generate half of the nation's electricity, is getting the heave-ho in Florida for its hefty output of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that scientists have linked to global warming.

We need to bring in nuclear power to fill the energy gap as soon as possible.

Coal Plant Plans Fade Across U.S.

Jan 07 - Las Vegas Review - Journal Regulators and developers are stopping development of coal-fired power plants around the country as plans for three separate billion- dollar projects are being pursued in Nevada.

The National Resource Defense Council counts 26 projects "scrapped" since March 2006.

Charles Benjamin, director of the Nevada office of Western Resource Advocates, argued that other utilities around the country are dropping coal plants because of uncertainty over how much it will cost to comply with expected federal regulations on carbon emissions, which scientists say leads to global warming. Coal plants throw off twice the carbon dioxide coming from gas-fired plants for each unit of electricity.

Again, we will need new electric generation plants. What will fill the gap? Gas fired plants will raise the cost of electric energy.

By Gretchen Randall

Date: October 19, 2007

Issue: The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (DHE) yesterday rejected a bid from a power company to build a new coal-fired electric plant because of CO2 emissions, becoming the first government agency to do so for that reason. The plant would have supplied power to western Kansas and eastern Colorado.

Governor Kathleen Sebelius (D) favors renewable energy such as windmills and the DHE worked with environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, to stop the plant. Sebelius said in her state of the state address earlier this year, "The question of where we get our energy is no longer just an economic issue, nor solely an issue of national security. Quite simply, we have a moral obligation to be good stewards of this state."

The Governor is going to replace the coal plants with wind power? Does she know know that due to the low capacity of wind power the State of Kansas would have to install 4,000 MWe of wind power machines to equal the output on one 1,000 MWe coal plant? It will not happen. They will have to resort to natural gas plants to replace coal plants, and that will be expensive energy.

In view of the recent mine accidents, Circa August. 2007, Congress will grapple with whether to enact tougher mining safety laws as well as whether to implement stricter clean air provisions. The coal industry's image and fate, however, are to some extent in its own hands. If the industry meets the challenges and continues to innovate, it will remain viable. If it does not, it will lose ground to other, cleaner fuel sources.

Coal is now coming under constant attack from critics who point out that coal facilities account for a third of carbon dioxide emissions that are tied to climate change. It is also responsible for most of the pollutants that are regulated under the Clean Air Act that involve sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter. And, it is blamed for mercury emissions that harm reproductive abilities and mental development in children.

There may be hope due to the Clean Coal Development Program in the US (IGCC)

Enter the DOE program called FutureGen. The term "Clean Coal Technology" (CCT) describes a new generation of processes for the production of electricity and fuels from coal. CCTs are designed to increase the energy efficiency and to reduce the environmental effects of coal use. CCTs reduce air emissions, waste products and other pollutants compared to older coal-based systems.

Clean coal is a crucial element in our overall policy. President Bush has committed the United States to a 10-year, $2 billion clean coal research initiative. Earlier this year, he announced eight projects under the clean coal initiative totaling $1.3 billion – over $1 billion of which will come from the private sector. Clean coal is a cornerstone of our current energy portfolio, particularly for power generation, and it will continue to be for the long-term future.

The clean coal process completely gasifies the coal. And it is a firm programmatic requirement of that all resulting carbon dioxide gas CO₂ be sequestered.

Since coal is 96% carbon, an enormous mass of the green house gas carbon dioxide (CO₂) is an undesirable byproduct of the process. Sequestering CO₂, which certainly is a throw back the environmentalists, is in my opinion a stickler that could very well render the process a failure. It requires that all CO₂ be recovered, compressed, transported, and injected to deep caverns in the ground never to leak out. Based on the huge volume of byproduct CO₂, it is a ridiculous undertaking as well as an expensive one. Moreover, due to sequestering, the product hydrogen and synthesis gases will in all probability be too expensive to compete with natural gas as a fuel.

As for other performance results, I have not seen a heat balance profile or the quantity of hydrogen or synthesis gases that results. It may be that half of the energy of the coal is lost in the process. The program has one performance advantage over lumps of coal. Coal fired steam-electric plants using the Rankine cycle are only about 30% efficient. With a gaseous fuel the combined cycle gas-turbine steam-turbine system can be employed. The efficiency of the latter is about 50%.

My comments about the process: it appears possible to convert coal to hydrogen gas. A by product is CO2 which is very large in quantity and I question that it can be sequestered. Also the overall process uses about 25% of the coal's energy.

In conventional plants, coal is burned with excess air (to give complete combustion), resulting in very dilute carbon monoxide.

Gasification converts the coal to burnable gas with the maximum amount of potential energy from the coal being in the gas.

The first gasification step is pyrolysis, from 400°C up, where the coal in the absence of oxygen rapidly gives carbon-rich char and hydrogen-rich volatiles.

In the second step the char is gasified from 700°C up to yield gas, leaving ash. With oxygen feed, the gas is not diluted with nitrogen.

The key reactions today are C + O₂ to CO, and the water gas reaction: C + H₂O to CO & H₂, which is endothermic.

In gasification, including that using oxygen, the O₂ supply is much less than required for full combustion, so as to yield CO and H₂. The hydrogen has a heat value of 121 MJ/kg - about five times that of the coal, so it is a very energy-dense fuel. However, the air separation plant to produce oxygen consumes up to 20% of the gross power of the whole IGCC plant system.

In future, the water-shift reaction will become a key part of the process so that: C + O₂ gives CO, and C + H₂O gives CO & H₂, then the
CO + H₂O gives CO₂ & H₂ (the water-shift reaction).
The products are then concentrated CO₂ which can be captured, and hydrogen* which is the final fuel for the gas turbine.

Overall thermal efficiency for oxygen-blown coal gasification, including carbon dioxide capture and sequestration, is about 73%. Using the hydrogen in a gas turbine for electricity generation is efficient, so the overall system has long-term potential to achieve an efficiency of up to 60%.

The clean coal technology field is moving very rapidly in the direction of coal gasification with a second stage so as to produce a concentrated and pressurized carbon dioxide stream followed by its separation and geological storage. This technology has the potential to provide what may be called "zero emissions" - in reality, extremely low emissions of the conventional coal pollutants, and as low-as-engineered carbon dioxide emissions.

This has come about as a result of the realization that efficiency improvements, together with the use of natural gas and renewables such as wind will not provide the deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions necessary to meet future national targets.

The US DOE sees "zero emissions" coal technology as a core element of its future energy supply in a carbon-constrained world. It has in place an ambitious program to develop and demonstrate the technology and have commercial designs for plants with an electricity cost of only 10% greater than conventional coal plants available by 2012.

This is an exchange between Excelsior and the Minnesota PUC about a plant that will be required to sequester 90% of its CO2. Sequestering CO2 looks like a very big ticket item indeed.

The power purchase agreement between Excelsior and Xcel should include the costs of sequestering 90 percent of the greenhouse gases created by burning coal and the cost of transmission lines. Both are big-ticket expenses. Jorgensen said the price certainly would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The cost of diverting CO2 created in burning coal -- a process that could involve building more than 600 miles of pipelines to ship the gases for underground storage in Canada or North Dakota -- could run as high as $891 million and reduce the operating efficiency of the plant by as much as 40 percent, Xcel said in one filing before the PUC.

Coal doesn't have to be a dirty word, CEOs say: Technology brings new life to energy source

Feb 15 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Kristen Hays Houston Chronicle Coal is no longer an ugly, dirty stepchild in the shadow of oil and natural gas now that the world faces unrelenting electricity demand growth in emerging nations including China and India, which are gobbling up the abundant fuel.

But coal's environmental issues often overshadow perceptions of its value at home, where it is the one fossil fuel America has more of than anyone else.

Cleaned up with technology that shrinks carbon dioxide emissions or stores the gas underground, "we believe black is the new green," the CEO of the nation's largest private-sector coal company told energy executives Thursday at the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference in Houston.

Here is one man's estimate of the coal gasification. I think it is a true picture of the economic situation.

The more recent and complete evaluations are not favorable for IGCC. Integrated gasification- combined cycle power (IGCC) is at least 25% MORE costly at the 'BUS-BAR' and, if CO2 removal is required, that penalty goes to 40-50% and requires 20% MORE coal than the plants proposed. IGCC is commercially proven, but CO2 removal is not yet perfected for coal derived 'gas.'

Low-cost Options for CO2 Mitigation in Electricity, Oil, and Cement Production

NEW YORK, May 31 (Reuters) - Chief executives of some major U.S. power companies warned on Thursday of massive costs that could come from cutting carbon emissions blamed for contributing to global warming.

"It could cost trillions of dollars," Dominion Resources Inc. (D.N: Quote, Profile , Research) Chief Executive Tom Farrell told the Standard and Poor's utility conference in New York.

"It's not all going to be easy," Farrell added, saying he was dubious of American's willingness to bear the cost of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide.

A proposals to build so-called "clean coal" plants have been met with skepticism. This new technology, which primarily involves converting coal into a combustible gas for electricity generation, has been touted as a solution to coal's global-warming problems.

A hearing judge at the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is urging commissioners to reject a plan for Northern States Power Co., a unit of Xcel Energy Inc., Minneapolis, to buy about 8% of its electricity from a coal-gasification power plant that was proposed by Excelsior Energy Inc., Minnetonka, Minn. The judge concluded the 600-megawatt Excelsior plant wouldn't be a good deal for consumers.

The judge concluded it would cost an extra $472.3 million, in 2011 dollars, to make the power plant capable of capturing about 30% of its carbon dioxide emissions, and another $635.4 million to build a pipeline to move the greenhouse gas to the nearest deep geologic storage in Alberta, Canada. Thus, $1.1 billion in pollution controls had the potential to inflate the cost of power coming from the plant by $50 a megawatt hour, making electricity from Excelsior twice as costly as power from many older coal-fired plants that simply vent their carbon dioxide.

California's new law forbids utilities from investing in coal plants unless their carbon-dioxide emissions are cut in half.

My Comment: This new law does not really do a whole lot in reducing CO2 emissions considering the enormous amount of CO2 emitted. For example a 1000 MWe coal fired plant emits 640,000,000 standard cubic feet of CO2 per day ( 39,000 tons) Yes per day.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration estimates that by 2030 worldwide energy demand will increase by more than 57 percent. This is fueling significant investments in power industry construction. In fact, many of the 151 proposed, new coal-fired power plants—representing 90 GW of power and a $145 billion dollar investment—are expected to be built by 2020.

Amazing isn't it? Coal plants the most polluting and green house gas emitters will be the major electrical energy provides over the next 20 years.

Where are the environmentalists? They should get on the nuclear power bandwagon.

California is toying with the following requirements. I do not know where it stands today May 25, 2007.

California utilities would be prohibited from buying electricity from most coal-burning power plants in neighboring states under far-reaching regulations proposed by state energy regulators Wednesday.

Under the rules, the state's investor-owned utilities would not be allowed to buy power from any source that spews more carbon dioxide than does a modern natural gas power plant. Specifically, the source could not emit more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide for every megawatt hour of electricity produced. That's enough energy to light 750 homes for one hour.

"This is really aimed at encouraging new investment, new generation and new power contracts to be clean," said Julie Fitch, director of strategic planning for the utilities commission.

They are thinking about letting current coal plant contracts stand, but any new contracts would have to meet the 1,000 pound CO2 emission for one megawatt-hour energy duration. This means that no new coal plant contracts would ever be permitted because no coal plant will ever meet the 1,000 pound CO2 emission rule. Coal plant emissions for a one megawatt-hour energy duration are about 3,000 pounds of CO2. Coal plant thermal efficiencies max out at about 38%. At his efficiency the emissions per each 1 MWh energy output is about 2,300 pounds of CO2.

The picture is EIA's estimated of the future installations of coal, natural gas, and renewables. It looks like coal is the largest growth system and renewables are nil.

This does not bode well for global warming. But it is a real situation based on the coal reserves and the lack of natural gas. In my opinion we will go with coal or nuclear power systems in the long run. California resists both and will pay dearly for electrical energy derived mostly from natural gas.

Coal is one of the most impure of fuels. Its impurities range from trace quantities of many metals, including uranium and thorium, to much larger quantities of aluminum and iron to still larger quantities of impurities such as sulfur. Products of coal combustion include the oxides of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur; carcinogenic and mutagenic substances; and recoverable minerals of commercial value, including nuclear fuels naturally occurring in coal.

Coal ash is composed primarily of oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, magnesium, titanium, sodium, potassium, arsenic, mercury, and sulfur plus small quantities of uranium and thorium. Fly ash is primarily composed of non-combustible silicon compounds (glass) melted during combustion. Tiny glass spheres form the bulk of the fly ash.

Since the 1960s particulate precipitators have been used by U.S. coal-fired power plants to retain significant amounts of fly ash rather than letting it escape to the atmosphere. When functioning properly, these precipitators are approximately 99.5% efficient. Utilities also collect furnace ash, cinders, and slag, which are kept in cinder piles or deposited in ash ponds on coal-plant sites along with the captured fly ash.

Trace quantities of uranium in coal range from less than 1 part per million (ppm) in some samples to around 10 ppm in others. Generally, the amount of thorium contained in coal is about 2.5 times greater than the amount of uranium. For a large number of coal samples, according to Environmental Protection Agency figures released in 1984, average values of uranium and thorium content have been determined to be 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively. Using these values along with reported consumption and projected consumption of coal by utilities provides a means of calculating the amounts of potentially recoverable breedable and fissionable elements (see sidebar). The concentration of fissionable uranium-235 (the current fuel for nuclear power plants) has been established to be 0.71% of uranium content.

An excerpt from the latest energy reports shows that coal is the answer even if California intends to prevent electric energy from coal plants either instate of out of state suppliers. Cal is bucking the trend and will pay dearly for electric energy. Global warming is their largest concern.

Department of Energy Releases Updated Report Tracking Resurgence of Coal-Fired Power Plants

Fossil Energy 5/01/07 A newly released Department of Energy report shows that many power producers are turning to coal as the most economic and abundant national resource for electricity generation. The report, titled Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants, was developed by the Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to provide a snapshot of coal's resurgence in the generation of electric power.

One hundred forty-five (145) gigawatts of new coal-capacity are projected to be needed by 2030 according to the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration.

Coal is vital to the nation's energy security. Providing more than 50 percent of U.S. electricity, coal is an abundant, domestic energy source with more than a 250-year supply at current use rates. America's coal reserves, estimated at 272 billion tons, contain more energy potential than all of the oil in the Middle East.

This finding exploits the obvious: to sequester CO2 from coal is ridiculous. The same would be true for clean coal gasification. Carbon is always there in coal.

The US Energy Department studied CO2 sequestering from coal and estimated an annual cost of $4 billion to do so.

It would cost $4 billion annually to eliminate the carbon dioxide generated by power plants in North and South Carolina.

DOE Signing Paves Way for Funding, Construction of Innovative Clean Coal Plant

The projects are Excelsior Energy Inc. and ConocoPhillips' 531-megawatt Mesaba Energy Project at Hoyt Lakes, MN and the Pegasus Technology Project, which combines Pegasus Technologies Inc. with Texas Genco in a joint effort to demonstrate technology advancements supporting the President's Clean Skies Initiative calling for dramatic reductions in power plant emissions, particularly mercury, by 2018.

Integrated gasification combined-cycle technology will be at the heart of FutureGen, a $1 billion prototype power plant that will integrate a suite of technologies to slash emissions while producing both electricity and hydrogen from coal. Emissions from the plant will be reduced almost to zero, solid wastes will be converted to useful commercial products, and as much as 90 percent of the CO2 produced by the plant is expected to be captured initially. The FutureGen plant will also serve as the proving ground for even more advanced technologies, including devices that may eventually capture up to 100 percent of CO2 emissions.

My comment: This sounds good, but they did not say how they get rid of the CO2. It seems that sequestering CO2 is the key to clean coal plants, but none say how they are going to dispose of the CO2. It is the key to clean coal, but no one has addressed the problem.

Coal projected to be bigger source of electricity

Jan 7 - McClatchy-Tribune Business News Formerly Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Kathy Still Bristol Herald Courier, Va. The federal Energy Information Administration's annual energy projection for 2007 and beyond predicts coal will be used even more to generate electricity.

Coal, natural gas and oil will continue to provide the same level of energy supply for the United States, even though growth occurs in biofuels and other renewable energy sources, according to the report.

"EIA's 2007 projection is both welcome and cautionary." Kraig Naasz, president and chief executive officer of the National Mining Association, said in a news release.

"The forecast that coal will increase its share of the U.S. electricity generation market to 57 percent, and thus increase its share among major fuels, should be welcome news in a country blessed with the world's largest coal reserves."

The EIA expects rapid growth in coal use for both electricity generation and for coal liquefaction, which by 2025 is projected to be the second largest use of coal production after electric power generation.

Coal plants exhaust mercury. Mercury is particularly insidious because it can be spread globally. The EPA estimates that about 50 percent of the mercury deposits in the United States emanate from local sources while another 40 percent comes from outside the country's borders, mostly Asia. But, new studies suggest that nearby coal plants can create hotspots, which would mostly affect poorer communities that don't have political muscle.

The Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency issued a statement that essentially says it is constantly evaluating its own policy, with the underlying implication being that it would be open to change under the right circumstances. The administration and its supporters have long argued that the technologies do not currently exist to make more drastic cuts in mercury emissions. Therefore, a properly implemented cap-and-trade is currently the best way to achieve such reductions.

To me, cap and trade is ridiculous. It just moves the Mercury to a different location. Nuclear power has no mercury and should be employed.

OG&E Announces 6-Year Construction Initiative

OG&E Electric Services today filed with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission the first part of a six- year construction initiative that is estimated to include up to $3.3 billion in major projects designed to expand capacity, enhance reliability and improve environmental performance.

OG&E's proposal begins with construction of the Red Rock power plant, a 950-megawatt generating unit planned in partnership with AEP-Public Service of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority to meet growing consumer demand for electric power.

Planned adjacent to OG&E's Sooner Power Plant facilities in northern Oklahoma, Red Rock will use the most efficient proven technology for coal- fired electric generation. OG&E's share will be about $759 million of the projected $1.8 billion construction cost for the plant.

My Comment: Here is a coal plant that will put about 800,000,000 cubic feet of CO2 in the atmosphere per day. Unlike California, Oklahoma does not worry about global warming. It is either nuclear or coal and coal is winning. Global warming is losing.

Though Europeans are united in their concern about global warming, they have a patchwork of energy policies. Some countries, like Germany and Poland, remain heavily dependent on coal, while others, like France and Finland, are redoubling their investment in nuclear power. Italy and Spain use a lot of oil and gas, though Italy is converting some oil-fired plants to coal.

My comment: Typical response. The Germans are going all out for green energy, but really cannot do so because their main indigenous fuel supply is coal.

Delivering coal from the source to the plant site is a logistical nightmare: To feed a big electric plant, BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad) carries two trainloads of coal a day from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming to Georgia. Each train consists of 133 cars carrying about 50 tons each; that's about 65 000 tons per train. Every day of the year.

This is precisely why China is going nuclear. They cannot deliver anymore coal to the plants sites because the railroad passages are over extended now.

Rising coal prices, resulting from rising global demand, has one municipal utility in West Michigan charging more for electricity and another may very well follow suit in 2005. Municipal power companies in Holland and Grand Haven say fuel costs for coal-fired power plants are considerably higher now than last year and that corresponding rate adjustments are the result. The Holland Board of Public Works now pays 30 percent more than it paid a year ago for coal shipments for which it contracted for next spring and summer. The cost increase forced the municipal utility to recently forego part of a seasonal rate decrease.

Mirant, the Dickerson power plant in Maryland burns coal. (Photo courtesy Potomac Electric Power)

Wisconsin intends to construct one of the largest coal fired electric generation plants in the US.

The battle over whether to allow construction of the largest power plant project in state history is in a hearing before the state's highest court. Six members of the state Supreme Court will decide the fate of the two coal plants that Wisconsin Energy wants to build in Oak Creek. Justices will hear arguments for and against the $2.15 billion plan the most controversial power generation debate since nuclear power plants were built in the 1970s.

More than a thousand pages of legal briefs have been submitted by supporters and opponents of the plan. Among the supporters are Wisconsin Energy and the Public Service Commission. Opponents are led by S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. of Racine and environmental group Clean Wisconsin, along with Calpine Corp., a builder of natural gas- fired power plants. The arguments before the court this week will be technical and detailed, but at its very essence the debate centers on two characteristics of coal-fired power: It's cheap and it's dirty. But much more is on the line, those on both sides of the project say. Wisconsin Energy Co. sees the decision as pivotal to the state's ability to supply electric energy.

My comments: When push comes to shove over electric energy, we will either build coal fired or nuclear plants. Renewables and conservation will not suffice. Natural gas is in short supply. Which do you all prefer?

Nearby coal plants said to harm Lake Michigan

Sep 19 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Michael Hawthorne Chicago Tribune Contradicting a key part of the Bush administration's environmental policy, a new federal study estimates most of the mercury falling into Lake Michigan comes from smokestacks close to the shoreline.

Sixteen of the top 25 sources of mercury dropped into the lake are coal-fired power plants, according to the study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Some of the toxic metal comes from as far away as Nevada and Texas, the study found, but most blows toward the lake from coal plants and factories in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana.

Mercury has long been considered a problem in the Great Lakes. All of the states ringing the lakes advise anglers to limit eating fish, the chief source of exposure to a metal that can cause brain damage and learning difficulties in children and increase the risk of heart disease in adults.

While there is no question on health risks of mercury, there has been considerable debate about limiting emissions from power plants, the largest man-made source of the pollutant.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced the first-ever regulations on coal-plant emissions in March, but the plan delayed steep cuts in mercury pollution for more than a decade. Bush administration officials said one of the reasons they did not order faster and deeper cuts is that mercury from the U.S. is only a small fraction of a global problem.

Illinois ranks fifth in the nation in mercury emissions. Power plants and factories in Chicago and two collar counties, Lake and Will, were responsible for about a quarter of the 7,022 pounds of mercury released statewide in 2003, the latest year for which figures are available.

Port Hope Families Against Radiation Exposure (FARE) and those who watched the usual Suzuki agenda on CBC on Wednesday evening, sorely need a dose of perspective.

One of the many misleading issues, that of radioactive emissions, was placed in perspective by Lord Marshall of Goring in 1988, in his statement before the British House of Lords:

"Earlier this year, British Nuclear Fuels released into the Irish Sea some 400 kilograms of uranium, with the full knowledge of the regulators. This attracted considerable media attention and, I believe, some 14 parliamentary questions. I have to inform you that yesterday the CEGB released about 300 kilograms of radioactive uranium, together with all of its radioactive decay products, into the environment. Furthermore, we released some 300 kilograms of uranium the day before that. We shall be releasing the same amount of uranium today, and we plan to do the same tomorrow. In fact we do it every day of every year so long as we burn coal in our power stations. And we do not call that `radioactive waste'. We call it coal ash."

Environmentalists and other critics shudder at the very mention of "clean" coal, arguing that it can never be made acceptable from an environmental standpoint. Extracting coal from the ground is a messy, polluting process. And burning it, in no matter what form, always releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. " "The term 'clean coal' is a myth, a very cynical term," says Lexi Schultz, a lawyer at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The advocates' goal, she says, "is to increase the use of coal, period."

My comment to the above is the environmentalists never state what the alternatives are. Some times they say use renewables. Well that is hardly feasible since they only contribute about 3% to our national energy mix at the present time and are not likely to go much further.

GE Energy, Bechtel Get Approval From AEP to Proceed With Plans for IGCC Project; A Milestone for Cleaner Coal Technology in the United States

Bechtel Power and American Electric Power (AEP) took a critical step today toward construction of what would be the first Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC), or cleaner coal, power plant in the United States in nearly 10 years.

GE Energy and Bechtel signed an agreement today with AEP to proceed with the front-end engineering design (FEED) phase for a proposed commercial, 629-megawatt IGCC plant. The FEED process is expected to take 10 to 12 months. Procurement and construction would begin after certain milestones are achieved over the next year. Target for commercial startup of the new IGCC plant is 2010.

AEP, the nation's largest electricity generator, would own and operate the plant, to be built at a site in Meigs County, Ohio, if AEP receives regulatory recovery from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.

The new AEP facility would be the first commercial-scale, IGCC plant built in the United States since Tampa Electric's Polk Power Station came online in 1996. "Since then, advances such as higher efficiency gas turbines have moved IGCC technology forward," said John Krenicki, Jr., president and CEO of GE Energy. "Today's announcement is a clear sign that the energy industry is ready to enter a new era of cleaner coal power plants."

Providing GE Energy is awarded the contract for the next phase, it would supply the IGCC technology for the new AEP plant while Bechtel would perform engineering, procurement and construction for the plant. As announced last year, GE and Bechtel have developed a standard commercial offering for IGCC projects in the United States, offering a single point of contact for project developers.

"The focus of the IGCC alliance between GE and Bechtel is to establish successful IGCC ventures for power generation customers in the United States, establish a leadership position in the production of cleaner power from coal and petroleum coke and bring value to a wide range of customers," said Scott Ogilvie, president of Bechtel Power.

GE's IGCC technology converts coal into a cleaner burning fuel, which is then used in a gas turbine combined-cycle system to generate electricity. IGCC is a product of ecomagination(SM), a GE corporate-wide initiative to bring to the marketplace new technologies that will help customers meet pressing environmental challenges.

GE's IGCC "cleaner coal" process generates lower sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and particulate matter emissions than a traditional pulverized coal plant, making the use of coal for power significantly cleaner. The process also uses less water than a traditional plant and can be more economically retrofitted for carbon capture, further strengthening its environmental benefits.

"We're thrilled to be moving forward with our goal of building the next generation of coal-fired power plants that offer enhanced environmental performance. We need additional generation, and we believe an IGCC plant, over its expected lifespan, offers the right, environmentally-responsible, cost-effective option for our customers," said Michael G. Morris, AEP's chairman, president and chief executive officer.

GE Energy has been a leading supplier of gas turbines for IGCC applications since the Cool Water Power Plant, the United States' first IGCC demonstration project, came online in 1984, as well as a leading supplier of gasification technology, which has been in commercial use for more than 50 years.

Bechtel Corporation is one of the world's leading engineering, procurement and construction companies, with significant experience in the design and construction of all forms of power generation facilities, including IGCC plants. GE Energy has worked with Bechtel on a number of IGCC projects, including the Cool Water and Polk plants.

In addition to being the largest electricity generator in the United States, owning more than 36,000 megawatts of generating capacity, AEP is one of the country's largest utilities, with more than five million customers linked to an 11-state electricity transmission and distribution grid. The company is based in Columbus, Ohio.

About GE Energy

GE Energy (www.gepower.com) is one of the world's leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technology, with 2004 revenues of $17.3 billion. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, GE Energy provides equipment, service and management solutions across the power generation, oil and gas, transmission and distribution, distributed power and energy rental industries.

Below is an interesting exchange about pollution and income for the Hopi Indian tribe, and also concern about the recent increase in the price of natural gas. It appears that when push come to shove the economics and concern over energy supply will dominate regardless of the consequences. And where are the renewables? And global warming CO2 will not be reduced with this coal plant.

Mohave Plant Deal May Be Coming

Nov 10 - Las Vegas Review-Journal The Mohave Generating Station, a coal-fired plant at Laughlin that provides Southern Nevada with low-cost power but is a major source of air pollution, may get a new lease on life.

The Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Southern California Edison and a coal company are near an agreement that could keep the plant open -- if three environmental groups back off a Dec. 31 deadline requiring the installation of pollution-reduction equipment, Hopi Chairman Wayne Taylor said Tuesday.

"Then, the parties hope to persuade the Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust and National Parks Conservation Association to permit the Mohave power plant to keep operating while plant owners install pollution-control equipment.

The environmental groups otherwise support a 1999 court order that will require the plant to close at least temporarily on Dec. 31 if pollution reduction equipment has not been installed by then.

"We're still obviously very hopeful (the environmental groups) will be able to work with us so that we don't see an economic disaster occur," he said.

If the plant and the Peabody Energy Corp. coal mine that supplies the plant are shut down, the tribes will lose millions of dollars in royalties from Peabody and coal mining jobs for tribe members.

California officials are concerned about having adequate amounts of power "in coming years, making Mohave's 1,580 megawatts more important to our customers than ever," Edison explained. "And the skyrocketing cost of natural gas, the fuel used to generate approximately half of California's power, make fuel diversity a valuable electricity price stabilizer."

Nevada Power Co. executives and state regulators also worry about relying only on natural gas for electricity generation.

If the environmentalists do not want the problems with coal they should embrace nuclear power. It is one or the other. See below some of what we get with coal mines.

Coal-waste elimination plan causes controversy: Environmentalists say turning material into liquid fuel greater threat

POTTSVILLE -- Jan 15 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Adam Wilson Reading Eagle, Pa. Despite a long decline in Schuylkill County coal mining, the side effects of the industry's approximately 150 years of operations are clearly visible in a scarred landscape dotted with mini mountains of coal waste. But a plan to eliminate millions of tons of that waste, known as culm, is drawing the ire of environmentalists. They claim the byproducts of turning the waste into sulfur free liquid fuel would be more environmentally harmful than what already exists. "They'd be trading large waste-coal piles for smaller ash or slag piles that are a far greater threat to the groundwater," said Mike Ewall, director of Action PA, a Philadelphia based environmental-activist group.

Even though coal is our largest fossil fuel resource, it is a pittance compared to nuclear power. And its price stability follows the fossil increasing trends in price. As with all fossil fuels, it is my opinion that we should used nuclear power for electric energy generation and reserve the fossils for other chemical preprocesses. In the future it comes down to a choice of two fuels for electric energy generation. Either coal or Nuclear. What do you choose?

Carbon capture won't work until 2030, says energy boss

CCS readiness 'essential' for new power plants

US EPA To Propose Carbon-Sequestration Rules On Tuesday