The RoanokeSlant

This file is a US personal journal of commentary of examples of the Roanoke Times and Liberal Media Slant...... lbhagen@aol.com

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Perspective On Carbon Restrictions

Roanoke Times, 7-17-2014, Pg 15: Perspective On Carbon Restrictions

Brian Lindholm: is a mechanical engineer who lives in Roanoke.
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Last month, the EPA proposed major new regulations to restrict carbon emissions from power plants. The aim of these rules is to reduce the harmful effects of anthropic global warming. Some people claim that it will outlaw coal and make electricity more expensive, while others claim that the program will work smoothly while lowering people’s power bills.

After all, the cap-and-trade program of 1990 that regulated sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions worked well. Plants continued to operate while pollution was controlled. The subject of acid rain gradually dropped out of the news. Cannot carbon restrictions work the same way?

Unfortunately, no. SO2 is a “trace” pollutant emitted from a coal-fired plant, typically measured at 1500 parts per million (ppm). A modern scrubber can reduce this value by more than 90 percent. Unfortunately, the “scrubbed” sulfur doesn’t simply disappear. By conservation of mass, we know that it must go somewhere, and that somewhere is the ash-retention ponds that we know and loathe. Once dried, the sulfur-bearing ash is sold for cement or reburied in empty mines.

In addition to ash-retention ponds, it must be noted that scrubbers are expensive to install and power-intensive to run. Enough to reduce power plant output by a full percentage point. This was the source of resistance to the sulfur cap-and-trade program. Ultimately, though, if a coal-fired station had to operate to meet electricity demand, there was a way to make it happen: Add scrubbers.

It’s fundamentally different with carbon dioxide. CO2 is a primary combustion product and is typically measured in the exhaust stream at 150,000 ppm. Conventional scrubbers won’t touch it; new carbon capture and sequestration, or CCS, technology is required. Unfortunately, proposed technologies are power-intensive enough to reduce power plant output by 20-plus percentage points. And again, the captured CO2 doesn’t simply disappear. It must go somewhere. And in this case, massive volumes of CO2 would be moved via high-pressure pipeline to sequestration sites, to be injected deep underground into geologic formations suitable for long-term retention.

Could we ever build such pipelines? If the Keystone XL pipeline is any indication, the answer is no. Many people fear the possibility of pipeline accidents spreading crude oil over the land, and we’ve gone five years without a decision. Imagine the uproar when people learn that proposed pipelines in their area would be filled with an invisible, ground-hugging asphyxiant.

Given the extreme costs of extracting CO2 from the exhaust stream of a coal-fired station and the near-certain political impossibility of piping it for sequestration, CCS won’t happen. As a result, if a coal-fired station is needed to meet electricity demand but would push CO2 emissions over the limit, it would not be permitted to run. A partial shutdown of our coal-fired fleet seems inevitable.

How do we keep the lights on, then? The decommissioned coal-fired stations would have to be replaced with alternatives, such as gas-fired stations, nuclear, or renewables (hydro, wind and solar). Replacing 60 percent of our coal-fired fleet with gas-fired stations (which generate half as much CO2 per kWh) would meet the 2030 goal of a 30 percent reduction from a 2005 baseline. Or alternatively, if the replacements were done with nuclear and/or renewables, only 30 percent of the coal-fired fleet would require replacement. Or we might do a mix.

Fortunately, “fracking” has driven natural gas prices down substantially in recent years (getting us halfway to the 30 percent reduction goal even without carbon regulations), but early field depletion or an environmentalist-led legal crackdown may send prices soaring again.

Regardless of the final mix, though, these carbon rules would constitute a major disruption to the power generation business. In 2012, coal-fired stations generated 1.23 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity worth more than $150 billion. That’s a full percentage point of GDP, produced using equipment costing many times that amount. Replacing it won’t be cheap. And if we push too hard on renewables, we risk making the same errors that Germany and Denmark have made, where electricity prices have been driven to 36 cents and 40 cents per kWh, respectively. In comparison, AEP charges less than 13 cents per kWh.

Is such cost and disruption really necessary? Well, that depends on how bad AGW will actually be. Frustratingly, the climate simulations used by the IPCC and other climate researchers continue to yield wildly varying results. If the pessimistic simulations are true, then this effort is too little, too late. If the optimistic are true, then it’s pain without purpose. Only if the middle band is correct will the expense be worth it.

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End of Lindholm Article
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11:15am EST today 7-16-2014: The Australian Senate passes the CARBON TAX REPEAL BILL.
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Australia

has become the first country in the world to abolish a price on carbon, with the Senate passing the Abbott government’s repeal bills 39 votes to 32.
The Australian Senate passes the CARBON REPEAL bill.
http://joannenova.com.au/2014/07/carbon-tax-gone-australia-first-country-to-get-rid-of-a-price-on-carbon/
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Heartland Institute conference shows the growing power of climate realism
http://washingtonexaminer.com/heartland-institute-conference-shows-the-growing-power-of-climate-realism/article/2550882
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Click for RoanokeSlant PowerPoint realistic view of Global Warming and Climate Change
http://www.roanokeslant.org/AGW-Skeptic2D/
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2014/01/global-warming-meets-mother-nature.html
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2013/03/abusing-science-with-executive-power.html
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posted by Lars Hagen # 1:40 PM

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