Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
2/14/2014
The reliability of the electric grid could be threatened by an Environmental Protection Agency draft rule that sets greenhouse gas emission standards for new coal-fired power plants—and which some have argued will prevent new plants from being built—some Senators said this week. In remarks at a meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners held in Washington, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said a provision of the rule, which forces new-build coal-fired power plants to deploy carbon capture and storage technology, is not attainable because the technology is not commercially available. He also said the rule has been rolled out at a time when more coal-fired electricity plants are being taken off baseload. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Maybe Washington needs a couple brownouts or blackouts. Maybe it would get their attention. It’s going to take something; it’s going to be something we can’t avoid. And it’s going to be a real catastrophe when it happens.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also said that the EPA rule for new plants could have drastic effects on the electric grid. “As state regulators you are all too aware that to maintain grid reliability there must be a level of certainty in the power supply,” she said. “For example, if baseload coal and the ancillary services that it provides account for almost 40 percent of our power, and EPA then sets greenhouse gas emission limits without sufficiently considering whether the technology is commercially available to meet the required standards, the impact on grid reliability could be severe.” She also said she was troubled that the EPA had not sought from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission or the North American Electric Reliability Corporation an analysis of the rule’s cumulative impact on grid reliability. “And to me this is so key, this is so important to understand,” she said. “And the fact that we don’t have this very thorough, thought-out analysis, I find quite concerning.”
Paths Forward for CCS
Although the legislators said they were concerned about the EPA rule, Manchin and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) did say they were supportive of making advancements in CCS technology. “To burn coal in a completely clean way we have to find a way to deal with carbon emissions from coal plants,” Alexander said. “Now the best way to solve that problem I believe is not a cap and trade system that drives up the cost of energy, but instead research and development, which could lower the cost of energy. Finding a way to capture carbon from coal plants and turn it into something that can be commercially used is the ‘holy grail’ of energy research.” He said the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy is working alongside private companies to take captured carbon and feed it to microbes that would be able to produce liquid transportation fuels. “Sort of like recycling,” he said. “If you could turn that carbon from coal plants into something you could actually sell, think what that might mean. It would mean the use of coal could be cheaper and more widespread than it is today.”
Manchin said that he has met with Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and acting Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy Chris Smith and he is “hopeful” they will move the most promising clean coal research projects forward. “I’m heartened by the $8 billion loan guarantee for fossil energy that the Administration reproposed last fall,” he said, but cautioned: “That money just can’t sit there. We must accelerate the program. Since 2008 there’s been $8 billion for clean coal technology, none of it has been put out. None of it’s been put into the field.”
He also said it was important to find private entrepreneurs, developers, utilities and others that will partner with the government to advance CCS projects, and called on the commissioners to come forward if they knew of people in their state that are looking for financing for such projects. “We can work with them,” he said. “I talked to Dr. Moniz and he said he would be more than happy to entertain anything that was of promise.”
