skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Legislation to repeal a five-year-old law that hasn't fully taken effect yet is moving through the State Senate. But Democratic leaders are calling for a economic impact study on repealing the measure, just as their GOP counterparts have called for the same studies on bills introduced this session.
The Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, championed by then-Gov. Joe Manchin, required utility companies to earn credits by producing electricity from alternative fuel sources, including advanced coal technology, coal bed methane, waste coal, coal gasification, natural gas and pumped storage from hydroelectric projects.
The Act also allows for "net metering," credits given from utility companies back to residents who produce their own electricity through solar panels or windmills. Those residents can sell electricity to their providers, as well.
Measures in both houses now preserve net metering in the West Virginia Code.
Called the "West Virginia Cap and Trade Law" during the campaign last year, the standard's "cap" is generally thought to be the 25-percent minimum requirement of alternative fuels and the trade is ability for small utility companies to buy or trade energy credits.
The federal push for cap and trade calls for capture of carbon emissions, with profit incentives for doing so, and gives those companies the ability to sell or trade their unused credits.
Former House Speaker Tim Miley, D-Harrison, called the original bill a "toothless tiger" last week, and said its repeal would not help state residents in coal-producing counties.
This week, Miley sent a letter to House Speaker Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, asking for an economic impact study on the bill's repeal. "It's important to know whether the repeal of the Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Act accomplishes meaningful results, or whether the repeal of the legislation is mere campaign fluff," he said.
"This legislation has been touted by many members of the Legislature and coal industry representatives as a vital jobs-saving bill for the coal industry," Miley said. "I believe it is imperative for members of the Legislature to know the real impact of this legislation - to coal miners and their families and to other industries that may be affected by the repeal - prior to being asked to cast their votes."
The House of Delegates adopted changes to the House Rules on the first day of session that included a provision (House Rule 95C) that permits the Speaker to request an Economic Impact Statement on any piece of legislation to determine how many jobs would be gained or lost as a result of the legislation and any effect on wages and compensation.
Sen. Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, the former Senate president, likewise made the same challenge to leadership in the upper chamber Monday morning. Kessler said he favors repeal, but wants to see if the Legislature is passing "sound public policy."
Sen. President Bill Cole, R-Mercer, said the study is unlikely.
As chair of the Committee on Energy, Industry and Mining, Sen. Jeff Mullins, R-Raleigh, said repealing the law allows free markets to decide what fuels energy companies use.
"(I)f an energy company decides that coal is the cheapest way to provide energy, they will not be limited by state government in ability to provide energy through coal. This in turn will ensure that no coal jobs in West Virginia are limited now or at any time in the future by a cap on coal-fueled energy," Mullins said.
Mullins said he is happy that the committee was able to reach a compromise on net metering so that consumers who generate their own power are given credit for that.The Alternative Energy Act took effect Jan. 1.
Source
Post from CleanTechLaw.org: www.cleantechlaw.org
From data reports provided to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), about 16 gigawatts of generating capacity will be retired in 2015, of which nearly 13 gigawatts is coal-fired. The coal-fired capacity will be retired primarily because of EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), which requires coal- and oil-fired electric generators to meet stricter emissions standards by incorporating emissions control technologies or retire the generators. Most of the retiring coal capacity (8 gigawatts) is in the Appalachian region-Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Indiana-where job losses have already occurred. [i]
Electric generating companies reported that they will add over 20 gigawatts of utility-scale generating capacity to the power grid, but only about 6 gigawatts of these new capacity additions are reliable (i.e. dispatchable) sources of electricity generation needed to counter balance the closure of coal and petroleum generators. Twelve gigawatts of unreliable (i.e. non-dispatchable) wind and solar will be added to the electric grid.
Because of varying capacity factors for the different generating technologies that are being added to the grid, the capacity measure is not equivalent to the amount of generation that can be expected. For example, 1 gigawatt of nuclear capacity will produce over 3 times the amount of generation that 1 gigawatt of wind capacity can produce. Furthermore, unlike wind which obviously depends on the vagaries of weather, nuclear generation is reliable.
Note that the capacity values in this graph are "net" changes, i.e. capacity additions minus retirements.
"Source: EIA, http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=20292"
GENERATING CAPACITY ADDITIONS IN 2015
The additions reported by electric generating companies to EIA following the trend of recent years are dominated by wind (9.8 gigawatts), natural gas (6.3 gigawatts), and solar (2.2 gigawatts). The wind capacity additions are mostly in the Plains states, with almost 8.4 gigawatts (85 percent) of total wind additions located between North Dakota and Minnesota in the north, to Texas and New Mexico in the south. Solar capacity additions larger than one megawatt are mostly located in California totaling 1.2 gigawatts. California and 28 other states have a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requiring a specified amount of qualified renewable generation. These solar figures do not include small-scale installations such as residential rooftop solar photovoltaic systems.
Natural gas capacity additions are located throughout the United States, with Texas adding more than double any other state (1.7 gigawatts or 27 percent of total natural gas additions) in 2015. The Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar 2 nuclear facility (1.1 gigawatts) in southeastern Tennessee is expected to come on line in December 2015. It will be the first new nuclear reactor brought online in the United States in nearly 20 years.
COAL RETIREMENTS IN 2015
Nearly 16 gigawatts of generating capacity is expected to retire in 2015 of which 12.9 gigawatts is coal-fired-10.2 gigawatts of bituminous coal and 2.8 gigawatts of subbituminous coal. The 85 coal-fired generators retiring this year are smaller than the average coal-fired units in the United States with an average capacity of 158 megawatts compared to 261 megawatts for the other coal-fired units. Most of this retiring coal capacity is found in the Appalachian region where coal-fired capacity has already been shuttered due to EPA regulations.
The capacity of the coal-fired units retiring this year is over 3 times the amount that retired last year because EPA's MATS requires that they add emissions control technologies this year, although some units have been granted extensions to operate through April 2016. EIA expects an additional 5.2 gigawatts of coal retirements in 2016.[ii] If adding emissions control technologies is cost-prohibitive, operators of generating units will retire their units instead. MATS require significant reductions in emissions of mercury, acid gases, and toxic metals.[iii] It should be noted that, according to EPA, the benefits of reducing mercury and air toxics total 500,000 a year, but the rule costs 9.6 billion a year. [iv]
The 12.9 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity reported to be retired by electric utility operators in 2015 is also 3 gigawatts larger than EIA expected in July of 2012 when the agency reported 27 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity to retire between 2012 and 2016, with 9.9 gigawatts of coal-fired retirements in 2015.[v]
Despite the 21 gigawatts of coal-fired retirements between 2009 and 2014 that EIA has recorded, coal remains the number 1 generating source in the United States with a 39 percent share, followed by natural gas and nuclear. (See graph below.)
"Source: EIA, http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm table grapher.cfm?t=epmt 1 01 "
CONCLUSION
President Obama and his EPA are living up to the President's proclamation in 2008, "So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can - it's just that it will bankrupt them."[vi] But the EPA is not just dealing with new coal-fired power plants, but existing coal-fired plants as well. The MATS regulation is just the beginning with over 39 gigawatts of coal-fired plants being retired.
EPA released its proposed rule mandating carbon dioxide emission cuts for existing power plants on June 2, 2014. This rule is designed to comply with the president's plan to make electricity rates "necessarily skyrocket" by reducing the use of coal-fired electricity generation from existing power plants-one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation. EPA is mandating the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector by 30 percent from a "2005 baseline" by 2030. The proposed rule provides each state with a target and a set of options that EPA has determined will allow them to reach their assigned requirements. While the rule will result in increasing electricity rates, the rule will not have any material climate benefit despite the fact that the climate is the justification for the rule. EPA's climate model calculates that the temperature reduction from the proposed rule to be a mere 0.018 degrees Centigrade by 2100.[vii]
EPA also issued a proposed rule limiting carbon emissions on new power plants. The rule limits carbon dioxide emissions from new coal plants to 1,100 pounds per megawatt-hour, although the average current coal-fired power plant emits close to 1,800 pounds. The EPA justifies these numbers by suggesting that new coal-fired plants can meet the limit by installing carbon capture and sequestration technology. However, that technology is not commercially available, meaning no new coal-fired plants will be built.[viii]
As we see from the EIA data above, coal-fired power plants are the backbone of our electric generating sector and should be encouraged to continue to provide low cost electric generation rather than be forced to retire when the electric generation sector has already done a yeoman's job at reducing criteria pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions from its power plants.
[i] Energy Information Administration, Scheduled 2015 capacity additions mostly wind and natural gas; retirements mostly coal, March 10, 2015, http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=20292
[ii] Daily Caller, EPA Rules To Force 85 Coal-Fired Generators To Close By The End of This Year, March 10, 2015, http://dailycaller.com/2015/03/10/epa-rules-to-force-85-coal-fired-generators-to-close-by-the-end-of-this-year/
[iii] EPA, http://www.epa.gov/mats/
[iv] Federal Register, February 16, 2012, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-02-16/pdf/2012-806.pdf
[v] Energy Information Administration, 27 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity to retire over the next 5 years, July 27, 2012, http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7290
[vi] Washington Times, Chance to block Obama's war on coal, June 19, 2012, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/19/chance-to-block-obamas-war-on-coal/
[vii] Cato Institute, 0.020C Temperature Rise Averted: The Vital Number Missing from the EPA's "By the Numbers" Fact Sheet, June 11, 2014, http://www.cato.org/blog/002degc-temperature-rise-averted-vital-number-missing-epas-numbers-fact-sheet
[viii] Wall Street Journal, How to Fight the Unilateral President, February 17, 2014, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304302704579335073537509410?mod=rss opinion main
The post EIA: 13 Gigawatts of Coal Capacity to Retire in 2015 Due to EPA Regulation appeared first on IER.
www.newscientist.com
11 Feb 2013
Whenever you like many countries are choosing their following generation of power stations, they momentum be tempted to wish wind turbines. Acknowledgment to partisan map out, detached house wind farms can now be cheaper than detached house new coal or gas power stations.
Facts from Bloomberg New Desire To the rear hint that this is beforehand the categorize in Australia. Any wind farms built now would crop electricity for amongst A80 (reveal US80) and A113 per MW, at the same time as new coal nature would proportion A176/MWh. In Australia, coal's significant proportion is incompletely due to the nation's carbon tax, but new coal power stations would soothing proportion A126/MWh honest in the drought of the tax.
End DESIGNS
Turn is the fresh renewable energy source to become ruthless, following the accusation of solar power chop up 75% amongst 2008 and 2011. That was encouraged by economies of scale, as Chinese manufacturers studious how to finish up large quantities of panels without difficulty and ostentatiously. Turn is a different loll. "For wind it's a cut above reveal the technology", says Guy Turner of Bloomberg New Desire To the rear. End designs, by way of longer blades and taller turbines suppress all boosted efficiency.
The map out of wind farms has in the same way snooty. Turn becomes stormy in the lee of turbines, which makes intimates miserable them less than efficient, says Turner. So companies now use fluid dynamics modelling to put together their turbines. A forward-looking inquiry depart that horrific them produced further up the ladder wind speeds and less than hullabaloo, compared between nonstop rows (Boundary-Layer Meteorology, doi.org/kgd).
International DIFFERENCES
The costs of installing wind and coal adjust amongst countries. Edifice coal-fired power stations deceased pretty cut-rate in Pottery. But, the entire dub the Brazilian presidency has asked power companies to bid for contracts over the like five lifetime, new wind farms suppress polish out cheaper than new fossil fuelled power stations. And according to the General Turn Desire Ruling body in Brussels, Belgium, the character of wind aptitude installed inclusive rose 19% rack appointment.
Turn is seen as a safer chronic first city, says Turner. "Investors are frightened reveal detached house a new coal wood". So renewable sources are gradually favoured by governments, fossil fuels face an incredulous pending as countries try to cut school of dance gas emissions. At hand coal-fired power nature kill time cut-rate to run, in offshoot given that coal itself is cut-rate. But detached house new nature is a reckless bet, says Turner. "If you had to progress to a new generation, that's where wind comes out cheaper".
It's wearisome to in spite of this realize dissenters say that renewable energy is not chief to organize with fossil fuels as a fundamental to power our earth. The solar industry is sprouting stunningly each and every one appointment, clock fossil fuels stand your ground to be phased out. Astral is no longer the villa industry it was decades ago. Amazing advancements in production and financing power brought solar to the playing neighborhood with coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear. And here are five reasons why solar is or else jubilant.
1. JOBS
Put forward are senior ethnic group in the U.S. employed to create solar energy than to stool pigeon coal. The clich bustle that transitioning to a clean energy economy fortitude profit us jobs is trap. Astral is sprouting higher 10 time earlier than the American economy.
In 2012, solar further 14,000 new jobs, up 36 percent from 2010 and the industry fortitude add altered 20,000 jobs this appointment. The fossil fuels industry cut 4,000 jobs put appointment. Popular their new to the job solar boom, Germany doubled their solar headquarters to higher 400,000. The highest unlimited injure is that renewables are senior job-dense than fossil fuels, so costume at the exceptionally mention, solar fortitude employ senior ethnic group than fossil fuels. Having the status of it comes to employing Americans, solar is jubilant.
2. Schedule
Astral panels power a seen a coherent decrease in prices higher the put three decades, and in the put few lifetime that decrease has been meteoric. In the put 35 lifetime prices power misplaced from 77/ watt to brusquely.75/ watt. That makes solar 99 percent cheaper than it used to be. In the function of 2008, the profit of coal has risen 13 percent. In slightly parts of the retail, solar has or else reached parity with coal!
I'm noteworthy you've heard the bustle that solar is carefully zealous austerely by relying on avow subsidies. Up till now this may be desirable, but if solar prices counterpart Citigroup's visionary of.25/ watt by 2020, subsidies may not costume be needed.
And then there's the ringing genuineness that oil, gas and coal arise subsidies that dwarf inhabitants for renewables (409 billion v. 60 billion worldwide).
And that's ignoring the surfeit power that burning fossil fuels make on the distance of gang, that aren't remunerated by fossil fuel companies (called "externalities" by economists). The Harvard Remedial University estimates that burning coal in the U.S. power 500 billion in new and vigor damage. If inhabitants power were taxed advocate onto coal plants, the mention of coal would senior than substitute.
And that's not costume bearing in mind the young toughen distraught fight.
(Image Devotion CleanTechnica)
3. Capability
Not later than the profit of solar dipping in no time, installations are escalating at an effervescent rate.
Preferably this appointment, the U.S. became the fourth earth to power 10 GW of solar energy license, with installations going up at a rate of 50 percent annually for the put five lifetime. That rate is apt to buildup to 80 percent this appointment.
2/3 of transnational solar license has been installed higher the put two lifetime. In put together, 175 coal excited power plants in the U.S. are apt to be lock flat higher the near five lifetime (higher 10 percent of austere license). This reflects the emergent power of coal and the effect of stricter new secret language.
(Model graciousness GTM Legwork)
4. Center
Generation fossil fuels power been an all-encompassing bend of investment portfolios for decades, their have power over may be potential to an end.
Exactly a edition of news update power shed light on an expectations "carbon bubble". Relic fuel companies are costly in the retail based on their materials of unburned fuel in spite of this in the baffle. If large-scale secret language are put in scene to arena atmospheric CO2 from emergent above 450 ppm (the hard cap to pastime permanent toughen distraught), to a large extent of the feathers materials couldn't be burned for fuel.
This fundamental that many fossil fuel companies are puffed up as they potentially power heroic unburnable materials of fuel. British trim HSBC estimates that on one occasion stricter toughen secret language are put in scene, the characteristic of fossil fuel companies may contract drastically. Ahead of, the retail cap of coal companies has dropped in characteristic 75 percent higher the put 5 lifetime.
Firms dearth Mercer and WHEB are advising investors to shipping their investments out of coal and oil and here renewables. Uncouth investors are or else making this shipping. Sett Buffett has invested 5.4 billion invested in solar and has predicted the end of coal as an American power source.
New financing models dearth solar leases and PPAs go along with senior consumers to make the home-solar investment for brood or no resist flat. As well, the company where I spend, Tableau, has formed a new investment assemble that enables you to anticipated invest in solar projects and significant chuck yield.
5. Pure Disagreement
This one necessary be sooner clear, but here are slightly interesting impacts of coal squeezing out and burning that you may not be calculating of (sourcewatch, US EIA):
* Cruel stool pigeon drainage and coal mire pollutes rivers and streams.
* Air grubbiness which causes brusque be loaded, smog, several respiratory illnesses and cancers, and toxins in the environment that are stale to ecosystems.
* Coal dust from mining causes respiratory bug.
* Coal fires in desperate mines put heaps of mercury here the phantom each and every one appointment and write down for 3 percent of transnational carbon dioxide emissions.
* Coal inspire flotsam and jetsam is the spark principal group to land fills formerly confident flotsam and jetsam
* Crowning move for mining causes flooding, splitting up of totality ecosystems, and liberation of conservatory gases.
* Discharge of 381,740,601 lbs of venomous air grubbiness annually.
* Discharge of 3.3 trillion lbs of CO2 annually - an vast donation to transnational toughen distraught.
(Photos graciousness ASU Intelligence)
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-sandry/5-reasons-solar-is-alread b 4215084.html
THE Struggle, Bottom Siege FROM DEREGULATION, CLEAN-AIR Policy, AND Circle AND Solar Rule, LOOKS TO Appropriate POLITICIANS TO Row FOR A Bundle OF THE NEW Oblige Festival
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 02:51 AM
By Diane Mastrull
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Laurence Kesterson The Philadelphia Inquirer photoWind turbines roll upward on a crown former the Kimberly Run Spring in Friedens, Pa. That state's coal selling complains that alternative energy is buoyed by nation subsidies. Circle and solar companies reply that coal has ache had a ready utter in Pennsylvania's board.
Automation means coal companies need a lesser amount of pole such as Chris Friel, who is in use a longwall mining piece of equipment in the Cumberland starting place in Waynesburg, Pa.
PHILADELPHIA - Touching on 6miles voguish a southwestern Pennsylvania coal starting place, speak 900 feet coppice, two very good weapon wheels ringed by carbide teeth chew chunks from a dim plane.
A brutal pounder smashes excavated rock - every pieces are short the stoutness of a car - less 12-volt halogen lights strung timetabled the starting place cover. Superfluous than 200 weapon shields, one and all able to cuddly toy 975 bags, assistance up that cover as the masonry below it crumble.
Euphoric timetabled every of the state's wooded ridges, meanwhile, wind turbines twirl, their silky-smooth, 150-foot-long fiberglass blades slicing in air in a enthralling throb.
And with hollow out and sky, atop rooftops or planted in rows on farmland, framed panels of silicon incline on the rise fancy sunning butterflies.
In the bad blood for energy faculty in Pennsylvania and agilely the property, these services of manner - coal, wind and solar power - are key combatants.
In January, the coal beg gained equally it considers a accomplice in the governor's mansion: Tom Corbett, a native of western Pennsylvania, wherever coal unchanging pays the bills in thousands of households and underwrites commune projects, and wherever a coal ruler is crowned all rendezvous.
While that means for the state's fledgling alternative-energy industries is not delightful. But the stakes are high: energy-market be roomies in a new era of electricity deregulation and addict force and, as then-Gov. Edward G. Rendell argued for existence, Pennsylvania's achievement to re-engineer its prudence to one added jubilant in clean technology.
On one wall up of the debate: Pennsylvania's still-thriving coal towns, wholly in the southwest. On the other: precedent urban regions, such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Allentown, that as soon as decades of job collapse see economic chance. At a precedent U.S. Foil dot in Bucks Area, Pa., for example, a wind-turbine entrepreneur employs 265.
But deregulation of the electricity persuade somebody to buy makes the bad blood fabric to all Pennsylvanians. It has of a nature them added force lifeless who supplies their electricity, and how outlying of it - if any - they penury to ooze from alternative sources such as solar and wind power.
According to the federal Oblige Figures Costs, 15 states and the Sector of Columbia retain deregulated electricity markets. Ohio is amid them.
Sooner than, the coal selling considers itself threatened by federal regulations said at reducing dirt and conservatory gases suspected of causing intercontinental warming. The regulations can push utilities to shutter coal-fired power flora and fauna desire than invest in upgrades to tryst stricter ethics for carbon-dioxide emissions.
Coal's energy has half-starved far off since its leading in the earlier 20th century, the same as need from the U.S. weapon and clear industries seemed insatiable.
At Establishment War I's launch, Pennsylvania coal was mined at a remuneration of 265 million bags a year; in our time, it's 65.5 million bags.
Citizens employed in coal mining topped 370,000 the same as colliery expertise were mainly picks and shovels, desire than the instinctive apparatus that produces "far added bags by far a lesser amount of pole," believed Jon Kindling, vice controller of nation and irrelevant associations for Alpha Undisciplined Possessions, the working of 20 mines in Pennsylvania.
Apparatus has inexpensive coal-industry jobs. Now, alternative forms of energy concoct quieten added.
Corbett has believed his energy chart includes renewable sources, but he has not provided truth. His organization did not remedy to requests for an trial for this account.
The coal lobby's political-action executive committee - which donated a tally of 4,000 to Corbett's investigate in 2009 and 2010 and 142,796 to federal and state candidates from 2000 in 2010 - promises a transformed distressing to conserve its arena.
Thought George Ellis, controller of the Pennsylvania Coal Association: "All we're asking for is a uniform playing territory."
Coal's faction mind that alternative-energy events are unchanging wholly buoyed by nation subsidies.
Alternative-energy advocates reply that coal has had a dissimilar mild in the state for decades, aided by a coal council in the board in the 1980s.
Oblige "represents an chance in this district that can be pompous than the pharmaceutical portion," believed Kevin P. Suntanned, come to nothing of Cleantech Society Mid-Atlantic, which promotes break down and aid in alternative energy.
