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Who killed clean coal idea?
By Rob Golub
OAK CREEK — History may say it was bureaucracy that
killed clean coal.
We are hungry for more electricity, so We Energies wants to
build new electric generators at the Oak Creek-Caledonia border. But what should the generators burn, coal or natural gas? It's a tough decision.
Energies is afraid of fluctuating natural gas prices. The utility has
proposed building coal plants.
this choice is really no choice at all.
There is, however, a potential compromise, called gasified coal.
With gasified coal, the coal is turned into a gas and the pollution content falls, roughly speaking, somewhere between that of natural gas and traditional coal.
So gasified coal was looking good. We Energies proposed building a gasified plant after two traditional coal plants in Oak Creek, to give gasified coal a try.
Environmentalists were open to gasified coal. They liked it because you can switch a plant between natural gas and gasified coal, so if natural gas prices are high you're not stuck.
Gasified coal was starting to seem like a potential meeting place for a truce between We Energies and environmentalists. Maybe it could have been.
But it probably will never be. The gasified coal idea seems just about dead. You might say the state bureaucracy has killed it.
Gasified coal was labeled "not cost effective" by the state Public Service Commission in a report issued last month that the commission will use to make a decision on the proposed power plants by November.
State law requires that new power plants be "cost effective," so the label seems to be very bad news for the gasified idea.
Gasified coal is considered "not cost effective" compared to a traditional coal plant — called supercritical pulverized coal — because gasified coal plants cost more to build. But construction costs are just one item on the balance sheet.
What about public health costs? Environmentalists believe public
health costs could soar higher with supercritical pulverized coal, which has been linked to premature deaths.
What about saving money by selling the byproduct from
gasified coal? It's what a gasified coal plant in Terre Haute, Ind., does.
And what if we assume the plant will run in good working order more often the PSC predicts, up to 95 percent of the time? It's what John Thompson predicts. He's the advocacy coordinator for the Clean Air Task Force.
Thompson said it's hard to trust the Public Service Commission report, called the Environmental Impact Statement, on gasified coal. That's because the PSC says in the report that "the analysis of the proposed (gasified coal) unit
could not be completed."
"The way I read this, they didn't have time to look at
this carefully," Thompson says.
In an interview with The Journal Times, a PSC official said
possible savings from the sale of byproducts of gasified coal were not included in the PSC analysis. It's not clear why.
The official also said health costs were not included because they're related to air emissions and the PSC does not regulate air emissions. In fact, the PSC is barred from even considering the impact of air pollution, under a law that some say was a 1980s gift to utilities from Madison.
So it's up to the DNR to regulate air emissions. But the DNR is not expected to issue its own report on the potential health costs associated with air emissions. The DNR only ensures permitting requirements are met.
The result is a logic circle, leading nowhere: Health costs are irrelevant because a government agency doesn't consider them. The agency doesn't consider them because it's up to another agency. The other agency doesn't consider them either.
The result? Gasified coal has been labeled "not cost effective" by state researchers, possibly after inadequate consideration. Maybe gasified coal could be considered cost-effective if health costs or profit from the sale of byproducts were considered, or if officials weren't relying on their own admittedly incomplete analysis. It's what Thompson believes.
Gasified coal, according to the PSC official, who asked not to be named, is up against "a strong headwind" due to the "not cost effective" conclusion in the report.
The three commissioners of the PSC are expected to rely on the
report to make a decision by November.
We Energies spokesman Thad Nation said the utility's experts will soon
testify at PSC hearings that gasified coal should still be an important part of the plan.
"We're still hopeful," Nation said. "The technology holds great
promise for the future."
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