We all know that coal, as currently used in the US to pump electrons, is a really dirty energy source. But just how dirty is it, and how bad are various coal-fired power plants? The Environmental Integrity Project has a new report out that addresses precisely those issues.
See the home page for the report, 50 Dirtiest U.S. Power Plants: CO2 Pollution Linked to Global Warming on Track to Rise by a Third, Mixed Picture on Other Key Pollutants (2007), or grab the report (65-page, 1.6MB PDF) directly.
The EIP also has a dedicated web site, DirtyKilowatts, where you can do searches on the data and download information in Excel spreadsheets.
I remain convinced that the Coal Conundrum–what the hell do we do with the installed base of coal power plants–is the toughest single e+e public policy issue the US faces.
And that leads me to something else I wanted to hoist to the front page from the comments. Yesterday, Hal, one of the most ratinal people talking about this stuff online, in my experience, said (quoted in its entirety):
This is where IMO a carbon tax makes more sense than other proposals. We should set the carbon tax at our best estimate of the cost of future harm from CO2. An often cited figure is $100/ton of carbon. Then make the plant operators pay the tax based on how much they pollute. This will increase the cost of coal fired electricity, but if energy shortages get bad enough it will still make sense to run coal plants under this policy.
The point is, it might turn out that the most rational economic policy is to go ahead and pollute now and take the hit from the carbon later. If the alternative is an economic meltdown as our whole global economy fails, or some of the doomsday scenarios trotted out by Peak Oilers, then surely making this long term pollution problem somewhat worse is better than people starving today all over the world.
If we do get into a situation where we have to make the best of bad choices like this, is there any doubt that decisions will be made to avoid near-term catastrophe even at the cost of long-term harm? Nobody knows for sure what conditions will be like 50 or 100 years from now - technology may have advanced by then to the point where carbon can be removed from the atmosphere economically, or other remediations may be possible. We can’t let people die today out of fear that we may make the world two degrees warmer 50 years from now! That would be a highly immoral action IMO.
A carbon tax allows these kinds of decisions to be made gracefully and with a degree of rationality. As oil runs out and electricity gets far more valuable, the extra value of coal based electricity will more than make up for the carbon tax. Since the carbon tax is set at a level based on future harm, this provides the bottom-line economic justification for dealing with the immediate problem now while postponing the long-term issue for later.
I have mixed feelings about what Hal said, and I think it’s worth going into a little detail and asking others here (or Hal, for that matter) to chime in.
I agree completely that we have to make careful decisions about present and future costs and benefits, and I certainly agree that technology can produce some nearly miraculous things in 50 or 100 years. (Consider, for example, how radically motorized transportation and the use of oil changed the US from 1900 to 1950.) And I can’t argue when Hal says, “is there any doubt that decisions will be made to avoid near-term catastrophe even at the cost of long-term harm?”.
But (and there’s always a but) the problem, as always, comes down to the underlying assumptions about the various costs of using energy as we have and still do, and how change will unfold.
My reading of the situation is that we can’t afford to pollute now and take the hit later; now is later, and we’re already paying a huge and growing human price for our history of CO2 emissions, with much more global warming and climate change locked in. Over the last few years we’ve seen anywhere from a few thousand to tens of thousands of people die of heat in Europe. We’re seeing island nations in the South Pacific and coastal farming areas in South Asia overrun by rising sea levels. Drought conditions have reached extreme levels in vast portions of the US and Australia, with the summer water supply for many population centers around the world newly threatened as glaciers and snow packs decline. In short, we’re already feeling the tip of global warming’s blade, and we can’t stop additional pain in the coming years, even if we could somehow reduce our worldwide CO2 emissions to zero.
I’m not at all convinced that we can impose a carbon tax that’s high enough to significantly reduce CO2 emissions and not cause a lot of economic pain. The key point here, of course, is the underlying assumption of how quickly we must reduce CO2 emissions. If you assume that we have some breathing room and can do the public policy equivalent of delaying action and then pulling an all nighter, then you reach a very different conclusion than if you assume that we’re in trouble already and will pay an extremely high price for any delay.
A complicating factor is the issue of nearly all the climate discoveries in recent years being bad news. Are we confident that we’ve reached the end of the bad news and know with a high degree of certainty just how large the threat is? I’m no climate scientist, but given the recent trends, I think it’s exceedingly likely that we have not, in fact, hit the bottom of the bad news well. How much more justifiable urgency is lurking just beneath the surface of what we know today? My guess: Some. Maybe we’re lucky and it’s just a little. But what if the people who are constantly warning us about the ability of the climate to undergo rapid flips from one state to another are right? A policy of fixing something else first and then addressing CO2 emissions could be signing up for the biggest catastrophe in human history. We just don’t know the truth, and we’re placing one hell of a bet, one way or the other, simply because we have no choice; once the issue is on the table, ignoring it or addressing it in any of the continuum of ways we could do so are all bets.
(Once again, let me plug Fred Pearce’s book, “With Speed and Violence”, which I reviewed here.)
So, yes, it would indeed be immoral to pay a high and unnecessary human price. But it would be far worse to do less than is needed and pay a vastly greater price. Which scenario anyone thinks we’re in comes down to an interpretation of evolving science and accumulating facts. It’s one hell of a mess we’ve put ourselves in.
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July 27th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Thanks Lou for highlighting my comment. Just a couple of points. Here’s a link to a table (Table 1) showing the CO2 emissions for various power generation options. It’s a little older, circa 2000, but probably still accurate: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html#electric
We see that CO2 emissions in pounds per kWh of electricity are: Coal, 2.1; Petroleum, 2.0; Natural Gas, 1.3. We also see that the U.S. gets 70% of its electricity from fossil fuels and 30% from non-fossil sources; and that of the fossil generation, about 70% is coal, 25% is Natural Gas, and only about 5% is Petroleum.
So basically as far as fossil fuel sources, which account for 70% of U.S. electricity, it is mostly a choice between Coal and Natural Gas. Coal produces about 1/1000 ton CO2 per kWh and Natgas about 1/3 less.
The carbon tax proposals are a little confusing because sometimes people talk about tons of CO2 and sometimes about tons of carbon (C). A tax of $100 per ton CO2 is actually about $370 per ton C. Given Coal’s 1/1000 ton CO2 per kWh means that a $100/tCO2 tax would come down to 10 cents per kWh; a $100/tC would be about 3 cents per kWh. Natgas would be 1/3 less or about 7 cents or 2 cents respectively.
These are significant tax levels. Retail electricity goes for not much more than 10 cents/kWh in most of the U.S. The higher tax level would at least double the cost of coal-fired production and would give Natural Gas a 3 cent per kWh advantage (however Natgas production has leveled out in North America for several years, and import terminals are finding approval difficult). Even the $100/tC tax would increase production costs very noticeably. So I do think a tax of this magnitude would have an impact both in terms of giving a cost edge to non-fossil sources and in terms of moderating electricity use by consumers.
If the scientific consensus changes and estimates of future costs of CO2 increase, we should increase the tax accordingly. But we can’t get ahead of the science with anecdotal reports. There is too much media filtering going on, reporting extreme climate events all over the world that might not have gotten mentioned in the past. People have short memories and they tend to forget about floods and droughts in past decades. We need to let the scientists work and give us reliable, objective data that can be used to make decisions rationally and calmly.
July 27th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Hal wrote:
> We should set the carbon tax at our best estimate
> of the cost of future harm from CO2. An often
> cited figure is $100/ton of carbon
In my opinion, this begs the question. Our best estimates of the cost of future harm are, frankly, abysmal.
Maybe we’re 5 or 10 years away from figuring out a cheap, clean way to expel carbon from the atmosphere (like this guy thinks: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9253976 ).
In that case, the harm don from carbon may well only be $5 or $10 a ton.
Or maybe Lovelock is right, and the greenhouse effect is already unstoppable, and will ultimately kill 80% of humanity. In that case, making it worse would do immeasurable harm. We should stop emitting carbon now. Perhaps $1000/ton is way too cheap.
It is difficult to effectively use price signals to set policy when the price could well be off by an order of magnitude. Garbage in, garbage out.
July 27th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Lou is getting a bit theoretical up there.
FWIW I live in Illinois where after a ten year rate freeze, our utilities are pushing a 30% price hike up our collective colins. 2-3 cents absolute. Does it hurt? yes. Are people complaining about it? yes… (although not as much as I would have expected) [especially considering the record profits said utilities are pulling down] will it stick?…I’m amazed to think it might. Will anyone I know go out of business because their electric rate went up 2 cents? NO (and if they are that close to the edge they have bigger problems from the minimum wage hikes coming down the pike).
Sorry for the mini-diatribe. My point is simply that 2-3 cents in one year (from a 7-8 cent base) is a BIG change…and life goes on. Any carbon tax like Hal suggests should be phased in over 5-10 years. So 2-3 cents more for electricity in 10 years time? We will be paying that much more just from utility profit maximization procedures anyway. We might as well give some people the incentive to use power more efficiently today (in the form of a carbon tax). BTW the higher rate (10cent) that Hal mentions would make renewables competitive in all major markets in the US. I expect that would represent a carbon tax ceiling–and yes doubling rates overnight does count as hardship in my book (hence my call for phasing in).
Oh and just FYI a carbon tax that raises electric rates by 2 cents kwh from coal (half that for nat gas) would bring in ~$350 billion in revenue which could offset ~1/2 the nations payroll tax take. The other half could be covered by a carbon equivalent tax of $1/gallon of gas.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
This discussion so far confirms my basic point: Anyone’s conclusion about the “right” policy is highly dependent on that person’s view of the urgency of the global warming threat.
Hal makes a good point about media coverage jumping on the bandwagon, but even if you ignore that noise factor and just listen to the experts and undeniable cases (like the salt water encroachment in some coastal rice fields in South Asia), you’re left with a very unnerving and uncertain picture. Maybe we can afford to do relatively little on CO2 reduction for the next 5 or 10 years as we phase-in carbon taxes (e.g. the patient has high cholesterol and is overweight), and maybe not (the patient is having a heart attack right now). (Speaking as someone with a heart stent who avoided a heart attack by paying attention to early warning signs and going to a cardiologist ASAP (which result in an angio and the insertion of said stent), I find this imagery quite compelling.)
Given what’s at stake, the economic costs almost don’t matter. If we think the situation isn’t urgent, then we can ease into action even if the costs are very low (politicians being politicians, and all that). If we’re convinced we’re in the heart attack scenario, then even a very high economic cost is acceptable.
My position is that while I think the jury is still out, the evidence continues to accumulate that the global warming situation is much closer to the heart attack scenario than the cholesterol scenario. And that scares me spitless.
July 27th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
We must not be at heart-attack stage, because we cannot be at heart attack stage, because it will take us decades to change course even if we knew (and agreed) how to (and could) eliminate all non essential energy and economic related activity.
I have met some environmentalists/people that have burned out/given up hope/decided that the world is screwed and there is nothing that can be done. That way lies madness. And what good does despair do in the long run anyway? Will things get worse (perhaps MUCH worse?) before they get better? absolutely. Things are not all that bad at the moment (or they are absolutely awful because of all that happened during the past 200 years–but we cannot change the past…it is hard enough to change the future!) But we will change because we have to. Oil will run out very soon (a couple years or 20 count as very soon in my book) forcing us to make many of the changes we’d rather not make.
July 27th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
@ disdaniel: IL PUC is making Ameren and ComEd pay about a billion dollars back to the consumers in the form of rebates. Also, they are throwing out the entire market system they used to come up with those prices in favor of some mess that is supposed to clamp rates down.
In response to Hal’s first post (on this thread). Unfortunately profit estimating in the power industry is not that straightforward. Because of restructuring, most major wholesale markets (outside the southeast) are bid into by a cadre of generators that all get paid the ‘marginal bid.’ This marginal bid is the most expensive capacity that has to be generated to meet the expected demand. The marginal bid is normally set by gas peakers (low capital, low efficiency, high operating cost) plants. If you tax carbon, gas generation becomes more expensive which pushes up the marginal bid, and the profits come in to every generator. So if the price goes up $25/MWh wholesale, that blunts the tax on coal plants to 2/3 its intended amount, and gives everyone else a huge windfall.
Regardless of whatever else happens over the next 15 years, gas peakers will continue to heavily dominate the margin. So, if you impose a carbon tax and it raises the price of generating power for the peakers, ALL OF THE POWER IN THE MARKET gets more expensive. And there is no other peak technology even conceived of that can replace natural gas - other than oil.
Not that I disagree with a carbon tax. I am just trying to point out that it will be less effective and more painful than most people expect it will. Which means we need to set it higher and legislate it so that it cannot be revoked or weakened.
July 30th, 2007 at 8:42 am
chapter1 said :
“Maybe we’re 5 or 10 years away from figuring out a cheap, clean way to expel carbon from the atmosphere”.
Technology advance, that’s correct, but we would have the greater difficulties to fight against the laws of thermodynamics :
If 1 ton of Carbon (ie coal) gives a certain amount of heat says 1000 kw/h (for example).
This is transformed to electricity with a 80 % ratio, so 800 kw/h of eclectricity, and heat losses and 3.7 tons of CO2.
To retransform this CO2 back to inert carbon (say to bury it in the fiels as fertilizer “agrichar”) would cost at an absolute minimum MORE than 800 kw/h of electricity, given the laws of thermodynamics.
So we need more energy to capture CO2 that have come from it, always, this is the laws of the Universe.
The “cheap way” is like anti-gravity, water engine, free energy or any other charlatanist dream of a brilliant future. At best it is bad quality science fiction, at worse a good argument for Petroleum industry.
Others “storage” solutions for the CO2 seems flawed and magic powder at best.
July 30th, 2007 at 8:54 am
litteuldav: Just to clarify one point, the actual conversion losses in thew US for electricity generation from all sources (which is heavily dominated by the combination of coal and natural gas) is 65%. I know you were just providing an example with your 80% number, but it’s much close to 35% in the real world.
When I do my electricity presentation to middle school kids, this is one of the facts that floors them. I show them Diagram 5 (Electricity Flow) from the Annual Energy Review, where they can see the huge conversion losses (distinct from transmission and distribution losses), and they look at me as if I and my entire generation are totally freaking insane for doing things that way.
July 30th, 2007 at 9:07 am
disdaniel: Please don’t think I’m being flip about this, but your comment made me think of that moment in the movie Apollo 13 when the one astronaut and an engineer are struggling to figure out a power-up sequence for the Command Module. At one point the exasperated engineer says to the astronaut, “You’re telling me what you need, I’m telling you what you have.”
The more I study our e+e messes, the more clear it is to me that we’re not doing enough of the right things, or taking a far too leisurely approach that will only come back to impose a high cost in the future. This was a major contributor to my deciding to write a book–it’s my attempt to pull all this together into one package for a mainstream audience, combined with an activism primer.