And estimated potential reserves for Uranium permit Nuclear Power for ~1500 years own energy.
Posted on 12/16/2007 6:59:45 AM PST by rwh
PacifiCorp's recent decision to pull coal from its bag of future electrical generation fuels does not herald the end of Wyoming's coal industry, according to energy officials.
But it does signal change.
"The challenge (for the coal industry) is successfully moving forward on ways to use coal without a carbon footprint. If it cannot, coal will decline over time," said John Nielsen, energy program manger at Western Resource Advocates.
PacifiCorp, which operates as Rocky Mountain Power in Wyoming, scrapped a planned 527-megawatt, "super-critical," pulverized-coal unit at the Jim Bridger power plant in Sweetwater County.
The utility also scrapped a coal-gasification, carbon capture and sequestration demonstration project in partnership with the state of Wyoming at Jim Bridger, according to Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Dave Eskelsen.
Eskelsen said that until the federal government defines how carbon emissions will be regulated, it cannot accurately calculate the cost of building and operating a new coal-based power plant.
Wyo's frustrated role
The world's top scientists say human-caused CO2 is almost certainly a key factor in global warming. It's a major concern for Wyoming's stalwart coal industry, which contributed more than $734 million to the state's economy in 2005.
PacifiCorp's action has virtually no effect on Wyoming's coal export industry. But it is a serious blow to the state's ambition to pull more valued-added processes into Wyoming.
Gov. Dave Freudenthal recently described PacifiCorp's filing that details why it pulled coal from its current planning "amazing."
"It spells an interesting set of problems for the country," Freudenthal said in a meeting with the Star-Tribune's editorial board.
On the national front, it appears most regulated utilities will remain cool on coal until two things happen. First, the federal government must set the guidelines for how carbon emissions will be controlled. Second, coal-gasification technologies must make the several-years-long transition from demonstration scale to commercial deployment.
That leaves Wyoming in the frustrating position of not being able to move beyond its coal export industry.
Freudenthal said Wyoming can help foster small-scale research and development of advanced coal technologies through private partnerships, but it cannot underwrite the size and scope of commercial demonstration that the financial markets require.
In that regard, Freudenthal said, the recent formation of the School of Energy Resources at the University of Wyoming is about 25 years late. He said that although the federal government has given lip-service to demonstrating coal gasification, it hasn't put forth nearly enough funding.
"We're stuck right now because everyone's running for president," Freudenthal said.
Wyoming generation
Factoring in to PacifiCorp's snuffed coal plans is the fact that it operates as a regulated utility in six different states. Although Wyoming hasn't applied much pressure to curb CO2 from planned coal plants, other states have.
California, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and others in the West have set "renewable portfolio standards," which mandate that a certain percentage of electrical generation come from renewable resources.
"That helps you a lot in planning, knowing how much of your fleet has to be devoted to renewables, when, and how it is going to be measured," said Steve Oxley, deputy chairman of the Wyoming Public Service Commission.
Freudenthal has said it should be the federal government's role to set such guidelines. Otherwise, utilities are left trying to meet a different set of rules in each state.
With mounting international competition for steel, rubber and other building materials, the utility industry is dealing with hyper-inflation. That makes it extremely important to choose the right engineering blueprint, because a new power plant will operate under new carbon regulations for the next 40 years.
"Once they get to a point of knowing what variables are, they can put together a rational and supportable long-range plan," Oxley said. "Until then, there's an element of speculation, and that makes it difficult to achieve a reasonable level of certainty."
Although Wyoming is still permitting coal-fired power plants, many other Western states are enacting climate change policies that cause regulated utilities to consider the added cost of doing business with coal.
Room for speculation
While PacifiCorp and other retail utilities are beholden to the pressures of climate change policies at the state level, third-party wholesale electric generators are not.
That's why Basin Electric Power Cooperative is moving forward with its planned 385-megawatt Dry Fork Station power plant north of Gillette. Similarly, Two-Elk Generation Partners is moving forward on its 320-megawatt power plant near Wright.
Neither one includes carbon capture or sequestration.
Steve Waddington, executive director of the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority, said plans to string new high-voltage transmission lines into Wyoming are still full speed ahead. That includes TransWest Express, which PacifiCorp says it is still helping to push forward.
Of PacifiCorp pulling coal out of its current planning, Waddington said, "I don't think it reduces at all the opportunity for Wyoming to move power by wire to reach regional markets."
Both TransWest and Gateway South would originate in Wyoming and pump up to 3,000 megawatts each into Utah, Nevada, Arizona and possibly other rapid-load-demand areas in the West. That opens the door to a lot of new Wyoming-based coal, wind and geothermal electrical generation.
Although it appears coal has been temporarily benched for large regulated utilities while the feds work out carbon regulation -- and the financial market gets more comfortable with coal gasification -- independent wholesale generators can still add coal to anchor the new wires.
"The need for coal has not changed," Waddington said. "There's a huge opportunity for coal, natural gas and wind development in Wyoming, and I think thermal generation as well. But we really need to find a way to get the coal technology to emerge on a commercial basis."
As proof that Wyoming's power export ambitions are still alive, Waddington said both TransWest and Gateway South filed for rights-of-way easements just weeks ago.
Another major transmission project, the 345-kilovolt Wyoming-Colorado Intertie, will likely tie its first strands to wind development, with the anticipation that coal will become a major anchor afterward. And that opens the door to a total 900 megawatts of coal, wind and other sources in the Powder River Basin area.
"It's full speed ahead," Waddington said.
Still optimistic
Nielsen, energy program manager at Western Resource Advocates, said PacifiCorp's decision to pull coal from its current planning is a recognition that carbon emissions will no longer be free.
Nielsen said that's a realistic view of the political atmosphere today, whereas Basin Electric Power Cooperative's decision to go forward with Dry Fork Station is a gamble for its customers.
"As we see carbon policy put in place, the people who are going to be paying for that are Basin's customers," Nielsen said.
Laurie Milford, executive director of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, praised PacifiCorp for shelving coal and confirming that there will be costs associated with carbon-based fuels.
Although those extra costs will be passed along to consumers, Milford said the Wyoming Outdoor Council believes making the transition to cleaner coal technology sooner rather than later will ultimately save consumers money.
As for Wyoming coal producers, the outlook is still strong.
"We're still very optimistic about coal. It's our most abundant energy source in the U.S.," said Greg Schaefer, spokesman for Arch Coal, which owns and operates two major coal mines in Wyoming.
Schaefer said the coal industry does feel an urgency to both set the regulatory rules for carbon control and spur the deployment of carbon capture and sequestration technologies.
In the meantime, Wyoming's mines still have plenty of customers among some 1,100 existing coal-fired power plants across the nation.
Wyoming alone has enough coal to supply this country for the next 500 years. However, the great Global Warming farce will ensure that this country has not domestic role in creating its own energy.
This pretty much sums it up. A lot of people are going to be financially destroyed by this folly and the families of many wage earners will be made hungry.
I’m doing a long-term job assignment in Madison, WI, home of every enviro crazy in the midwest. We’ve got a local lawyer who was featured in the local newspaper as he claims to have stopped over 50 coal-fired plants.
It’s one thing to say we’re not gonna build coal-fired plants. It’s another thing to come up with an alternative. I’m sorry, but you can’t install enough solar panels and windmills (at least with current technology) to offset a good coal plant.
In addition, electricity consumption will go up if petroleum products get more expensive. Electric cars take a ton of power to recharge, and electric water heaters and electric heat are pretty energy-intensive too.
And watch those same nutjobs scream bloody murder when (as seems quite likely) their utility bill goes sky high. These people have profound mental defects. Then, the rallying cry will be for government to “do something” aka raping your wallet.
What this country needs is a good old fashioned enema.
And in the meantime, here's China, diligently bringing a new coal plant on-line every week to 10 days. Plus, they plan to expand their current 9-plant nuclear generator fleet to 45 by 2020!!! That’s right, 36 plants in 12 years. They are throwing unlimited money and human recourses at it, and we'll help them do it.
All the while, we fight over who gets to start up 1 new plant. Right now my colleagues and I are feverishly working on licensing packages for 1 new nuclear plant, and 2 new coal-gasification plants. We’re cautiously optimistic that maybe one of them will eventually be approved and built. pretty soon we'll having that fight in the dark. But hey look at the bright side. At least Al Gore and a bunch of lawyers will make more money.
Ok then.
PROVE IT.
There is no CO2 crisis and the greenhouse effects of CO2 on the Earth's atmosphere are largely irrelevant. Humankind is having an infintestimal effect on the Earth's global climate. You may as well argue how many angels can sit on the head of a pin.
So this is how a nation commits suicide.
If this argument provided a way to "soak the rich" and redistribute the world's wealth, you can bet your @ss that the Greens would be pushing it hard and the Media would be giving it credibility.
They already did that with gas prices a year or so ago.
Now they control Congress and the Senate, are looking to control the WH,and they are saying they want to create a carbon tax. So I guess it is OK for the government to make $ on energy, but if a company does it is EVIL.
I'm all in favor of new coal plants. We need a lot more of them.
“What this country needs is a good old fashioned enema.”
I’m in total agreement and may I suggest the place to insert the apparatus......the capitol building in Washington, D.C.
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