My understanding is that natural gas is a really promising candidate as a bridge fuel (a cleaner energy source between the coal/oil economy and whatever comes next), for all the reasons Steve Pearlstein lays out here. But nuclear energy attracts all the political attention. Why is that? Is it just because nuclear energy has traditionally been opposed by liberals and so it’s become an article of faith among conservatives? Does nuclear energy have a more-organized or better-funded industry backing it?
I’ll look at a few factors that may play a role in this below.
Google has received federal approval to buy and sell energy on the open market, giving it more options for the way it powers its data centers and opening the door to a potential move into the energy-trading business.
Google applied for the authorization last December through a wholly owned subsidiary called Google Energy. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved its application Thursday, granting Google “market-based rate authorization,” or the authority to buy and sell energy on a wholesale basis.
“We made this filing so we can have more flexibility in procuring power for Google’s own operations, including our data centers,” Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick said via e-mail.
Here is FERC’s order granting Google the authorization:
Three power plants owned by Southern Co. top the list of U.S. coal-fired sources of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, according to rankings released today by an environmental group.
The Atlanta-based utility’s Plant Scherer in Georgia topped the list, emitting about 27 million tons of CO2 annually in 2007, according to the report (pdf) released today by Environment America. The James H. Miller Jr. Plant in Alabama was the No. 2 emitter, followed by Plant Bowen in Georgia.
27 million tons of CO2 in one year. As the chart on page 18 points out, that is the equivalent of about 4.8 million cars. What is that I keep hearing about clean coal?
The report is largely about the fact that most of the power plants in the United States are really really old, and thus, really really dirty. Consider this chart:
Sixty percent of the world’s electricity comes from plants burning fossil fuels and releasing carbon. Many of the highest-emission plants are concentrated in the United States and East Asia. Here, a look at the world’s 200 biggest carbon offenders among power plants.
Speaking at Florida Power and Light’s (FPL) DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center, President Barack Obama today announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies that will spur the nation’s transition to a smarter, stronger, more efficient and reliable electric system. The end result will promote energy-saving choices for consumers, increase efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.
Exelon, a major electricity generating and distribution company, left the Chamber of Commerce a few weeks ago. Their departure came relatively early on in an unprecedented string of departures from the Chamber.
Last night in Philadelphia Exelon’s CEO John Rowe clarified his company’s reasoning for leaving the Chamber:
“We did it because on this issue, which we think is fundamental to the ecology, the economy, and to Exelon, we were at odds with the expressed position of the chamber.”
To grasp why we have the system we do, you have to travel back to the 1920s. At the time, the U.S. electric industry was dominated by just 16 large “power trusts” that controlled 85 percent of the nation’s electricity. The trusts were infamous for charging bloated rates and providing uneven service. Consumer protections were unheard of. “Nothing like this gigantic monopoly has ever appeared in the history of the world,” fumed Gifford Pinchot, who railed against the oligarchs as governor of Pennsylvania in the 1920s and ’30s. “Nothing has been imagined before that remotely approaches it in the thoroughgoing, intimate, unceasing control it may exercise over the daily life of every human being within the web of its wires.” And maybe the only thing worse than being abused by the trusts was not being abused: Ninety percent of rural Americans had no electricity at all, since utilities scorned them as unprofitable customers. At the height of the Roaring Twenties, millions were still sweating over wood stoves and hand-scrubbing laundry.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to revise the existing standards for water discharges from coal-fired power plants to reduce pollution and better protect America’s water. Wastewater discharged from coal ash ponds, air pollution control equipment, and other equipment at power plants can contaminate drinking water sources, cause fish and other wildlife to die and create other detrimental environmental effects.
Earlier this year, EPA completed a multi-year study of power plant wastewater discharges and concluded that current regulations, which were issued in 1982, have not kept pace with changes that have occurred in the electric power industry over the last three decades. Air pollution controls installed to remove pollution from smokestacks have made great strides in cleaning the air people breathe, saving lives and reducing respiratory and other illnesses. However, some of the equipment used to clean air emissions does so by “scrubbing” the boiler exhaust with water, and when the water is not properly managed it sends the pollution to rivers and other waterbodies. Treatment technologies are available to remove these pollutants before they are discharged to waterways, but these systems have been installed at only a fraction of the power plants.
As part of the multi-year study, EPA measured the pollutants present in the wastewater and reviewed treatment technologies, focusing mostly on coal-fired power plants. Many of the toxic pollutants discharged from these power plants come from coal ash ponds and the flue gas desulfurization systems used to scrub sulfur dioxide from air emissions.
Once the new rule for electric power plants is finalized, EPA and states would incorporate the new standards into wastewater discharge permits.
More information about EPA’s study is provided in an interim report published in August 2008. A final study will be published later this year.
A strong shift toward renewable energies could create 2.7 million more jobs in power generation worldwide by 2030 than staying with dependence on fossil fuels would, a report suggested Monday.
The study, by environmental group Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), urged governments to agree a strong new United Nations pact to combat climate change in December in Copenhagen, partly to safeguard employment.
“A switch from coal to renewable electricity generation will not just avoid 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions, but will create 2.7 million more jobs by 2030 than if we continue business as usual,” the report said.
Energy efficiency provisions in the American Clean Energy Security Act (ACES — H.R. 2454) with improvements could create more than 569,000 new jobs nationwide in the next ten years and provide $283 in annual savings for every household in America, according to a new study released today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). By 2030, these benefits could increase to more than one million jobs and $832 in annual savings per household — all while reducing government-projected levels of nationwide carbon emissions by 15 percent, or 959 million metric tons.
The new report, “Energy Efficiency in the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009: Impacts of Current Provisions and Opportunities to Enhance the Legislation,” underscores the energy efficiency potential — and accompanying benefits — still available as the Senate considers energy and climate legislation. In fact, the examined improvements would result in 48 percent more jobs and 32 percent more consumer savings than the 383,800 jobs and $215 in annual household savings in 2020 than the energy efficiency provisions of ACES, the original House bill, would provide.
“Energy efficiency may not be as hot a topic as cap-and-trade, but it certainly gets the job done when it comes to saving consumers money and creating jobs,” stated Steven Nadel, ACEEE’s Executive Director and co-author of the report. “As our report shows, the Senate can boost those benefits by improving the energy efficiency provisions of the Waxman-Markey bill.”
