SCIENCE
We Must Go Beyond Coal Now
by David Roberts
Coal is by far the most carbon-intensive & polluting form of electricity
generation. Drax coal-fired power plant, the UK's largest CO2 emitter,
produces >22 million tonnes a year. It also has the highest emissions
of nitrogen oxide in the EU. In 2009, Drax Group lost investment-grade
status and was downgraded to "junk" status by ratings agencies.
I: The key question is not “how can we best reduce carbon dioxide emissions?” Rather, we need to confront a more fundamental question of human needs vs. desires. If the earth is to sustain us all, prioritizing resources is vital. Rather than rely on coal (costly, less abundant than believed, and dirty to produce—even in so-called “clean” processes), we should be investing in sustainable sources of energy now.
I have a basic premise that may seem like a philosophical point, but I think a great deal flows out of it. It has to do with how we view climate change. The view that it is mostly an energy problem is quite common. This view suggests what I’d call engineering solutions: if CO2 from energy is the problem, let’s just figure out ways of tweaking the energy system so it emits less CO2. Voila!
Another way of viewing climate change, however, is in the context of a whole suite of biophysical limitations against which humanity is colliding. A recent paper in one of the premier scientific journals, Nature, identifies 10 such systems and provides evidence we have passed the danger threshold on three of them and are rapidly approaching it on several others.
Viewed in this light, climate change is less an energy problem than a symptom of a larger problem, which could be characterized as existential. The question before us is not simply how to make energy less CO2-intensive. It is, how many of us can Earth comfortably accommodate? How and where should we live? How can we change our manufacturing, transportation, energy, political, and cultural systems to bring ourselves into a sustainable relationship with the only planet we’ve got? Heady stuff, to be sure, but an honest assessment of our situation.
What’s all that got to do with “clean coal”? Just this: when we evaluate a possible solution to climate change, we should judge it not just narrowly on its ability to prevent CO2 emissions, but more broadly—does it constitute a step toward a more sustainable relationship between human beings and the planet? If a solution is simply a patch that papers over broader problems, I’m afraid we don’t have much time left for those. Here are a few key points:
1. We do not have the oft-cited “250-year supply” of coal. Coal reserve estimates are notoriously sketchy, but several credible recent analyses have found that global coal supply will likely “peak” in the next 10-20 years—not long after a similar peak in oil supplies. That doesn’t mean that coal will “run out,” just that remaining reserves will become ever more distant, more difficult to mine, lower quality, and more expensive. For more, see here.
These findings put the lie to the “abundant” claim often used in support of “clean coal.” It turns out coal is just another finite fossil fuel, and we’re heading toward depletion within our children’s lifetimes. Creating a massive, sprawling, multi-trillion dollar carbon sequestration infrastructure to take advantage of those dwindling reserves is an inapt way to direct resources, to say the least. We don’t have much cheap energy left at our disposal; we’d be better off directing it toward creating a truly sustainable post-fossil fuel culture.
2. Coal is not cheap. Coal’s oft-cited cheapness is an illusion. It looks cheap because its market price does not reflect the full costs it imposes on society. A recent report from the National Research Council found that coal’s “hidden” costs—mainly in terms of public health—are actually larger than its market costs, on the order of $62 billion a year in the U.S. And the NRC’s assessment was quite limited. It did not account for mercury emissions, environmental remediation, opportunity costs in rail transport (our rail infrastructure is dominated by coal), and most importantly, climate change. Incorporating the full measure of coal’s “external” costs would probably double or triple NRC’s number. A similar study a few years ago found that coal imposes a whopping $248 billion a year in hidden costs on China. These external costs are not reflected in coal’s market price, but they are paid nonetheless, in sickness, blight, and reduced economic productivity. We can’t make a rational decision among energy sources until we have a full and fair accounting of their total costs.
3. “Clean coal” is, in almost every respect, dirtier than dirty coal. “Clean coal” generally means capturing the CO2 released by coal combustion and burying it. That makes it clean in one respect: it emits less CO2. There’s a twist, though: the energy required to capture and bury the CO2 is a considerable “parasitic load.” The result is that “clean coal” power plants have to burn up to 25% more coal to get the same amount of usable energy. That means more mining, transport, solid waste (toxic coal slurry), mercury contamination, particulate air pollution, smog ... every dirty aspect of coal except CO2 will be exacerbated. To boot, we’ll run through our remaining coal reserves much faster. That might be a better deal for climate change, but it’s a far worse deal for the (generally poor and marginalized) communities ravaged by coal today, not to mention the mountains of Appalachia.
No energy source is “necessary.” It’s not true that we “have to” make use of all the options. To the contrary, the size and urgency of the problem mean that smart prioritization is vital. Coal with sequestration may surprise us—I’m not opposed to research, and you never know what it will turn up—but from what we know now, it appears a wasteful, dirty, and expensive solution relative to its competitors. We’d be better off pursuing cheaper and more sustainable alternatives.
In fall 2008, Vatenfall inaugurated the world's first pilot CCS plant in Germany.
This 30MW plant is still in its initial 3-year test phase; a landmark MIT study
puts commercial, industrial scale CCS plants no less than 10-15 years away.
II: Time is of the essence. We must be agile and find solutions that can be rapidly implemented, learned from, and refined—rather than depend on approaches that consume capital and resources and waste valuable years. Solutions must be innovative and forward-looking—not “end-phase add-ons” that only mask pollution and make it expensive to do the right thing.
Energy is a core part of the climate challenge and deserves immediate, sustained, intense attention. One of the most gratifying trends of the last 5 years has been the influx of ambitious young people working on energy solutions. (See J. Green’s great story on the new wave of cleantech entrepreneurs.) I suspect in 10 years we’ll be farther along than we dare predict from today’s vantage point.
I set energy in the wider context of multiple overlapping ecological problems, not to suggest that we should wait until 2030 for some Whole Earth silver bullet solution—but to suggest that we need to learn how to address multiple challenges simultaneously. We need to take a more holistic view of costs and benefits; we need to put a premium on speed and resilience. We need solutions that are highly iterative, so that we can deploy, learn, refine, and redeploy quickly. It is precisely because we have so little time that we can ill afford to place our bets on centralized, capital-intensive industrial mega-projects.
Some claim that coal-fired power with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a short-term solution, ready to be implemented immediately to “buy time” as we figure out more enduring solutions. It is perhaps true that the technical skills to burn coal with CCS exist, but the implication that CCS is ready to be deployed at scale today flies in the face of expert opinion. MIT’s landmark study on the future of coal estimated that it will be 10-15 years before CCS is ready for commercial deployment. Some coal executives aren’t even that optimistic. A Duke Energy representative testified to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, “I don’t see major extraction sequestration in the foreseeable future, for the next 20 years or so...because it’s so expensive relative to the other control options, and because of its technical difficulty.” No large coal plant in America has ever captured and stored a high percentage of its CO2 emissions. The legal liability framework is not in place; the regulations are not in place; there is no plan to address the enormous NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) pushback that will greet any attempt at high-volume CO2 storage. And to make a dent in the coal problem, large-scale sequestration would have to be implemented at virtually every coal plant in the country; every year we’d be handling a higher volume of gas than the entire global oil industry, by a wide margin--all that massive new infrastructure, just to dispose of coal's CO2 waste-stream!
The challenges for CCS are not primarily technological, but economic and social. The reason coal power seems so cheap is that the U.S. has been running into the ground a fleet of old, dirty power plants that were "grandfathered" (exempted) under the 1976 Clean Air Act. But those plants are pumping out as much as they can and utilities now face the need to invest in new generation capacity. The fact is that new coal plants—plants compliant with today’s environmental regulations, much less tomorrow’s climate laws—are extraordinarily expensive. Construction costs for new power plants have more than doubled since 2000. There have been very few coal plants built in the U.S. in 30 years because they just aren’t an attractive investment. Most utilities that have sought permits for coal plants have foundered on cost overruns or public opposition.
Coal is already being outcompeted by natural gas, renewables, micro-generation (small-scale onsite low-carbon technologies, co-generation (the simultaneous production of electricity and heat using a single fuel such as natural gas), and above all energy efficiency. And these facts on the ground exist without expensive new CO2 controls. Making “clean coal” commercially viable in the U.S. would mean taking a declining industry and reviving it with a huge infusion of taxpayer money. It is large-scale corporate welfare, rather than savvy environmental policy.
We should not try to solve climate change the way we solved previous environmental problems. The way we did that was by requiring the addition of end-of-pipe waste-control widgets. It made manufacturing and power generation cleaner but more expensive—the economy/environment trade-off that has always vexed green politics and progress. “Clean coal” is exactly that kind of old-fashioned solution. It’s another waste-control widget, tacked onto power plants; raising costs while reducing some pollution. It’s damage-mitigation. For climate change, we have an alternative: instead of sinking more money into handling the waste from last century’s fuels, we can invest in a new system based on intelligent use of waste-free energy from the sun, wind, earth, and plants, managed by a smart, responsive, robust power grid. We can revitalize our crumbling infrastructure and build a much-needed foundation for 21st century innovation, jobs, and economic growth. We can embrace the future. Doesn’t that sound like a better idea than sticking another scrubber on the past?
III: The price of energy should reflect its “true” cost. Non-renewable dirty sources like coal should be priced to take into account their real impact on public health, the environment, and our future food-supply. Eliminating market distortions (subsidies and taxes) that favour unsustainable resources will influence the market to adopt sustainable energy practices. At the same time, we should support innovative clean energy solutions. Full-cost accounting will enable promising energy alternatives that lack political clout and capital infrastructure to be more viable than a 19th-century technology like like coal power.
Let me try to get to the root of the issue. Most energy analysts like myself prefer that free, open markets rather than politicians (or think tanks) ultimately determine which clean energy solutions are viable. For markets to work properly, however, they need transparent costs and pricing, low barriers to entry and exit, protection against monopolies, and full-cost accounting—and these are not descriptors one typically attaches to energy markets. Wherever you go in the world, energy markets are distorted by a snarl of subsidies, tax breaks, sunk infrastructure costs, regulatory barriers, and entrenched political influence. We now need an energy policy with dual goals: 1) make energy markets more honest by removing distortions and 2) assist promising new clean energy solutions disadvantaged by the existing distortions.
Full-cost accounting is at once the most difficult and the most important step. Ideally, each energy solution should have a market price that reflects its full social costs—pollution, health effects, climate change effects, land-use value, etc.—so that markets can make rational determinations. In the words of (former Exxon Vice President!) Dahle, “Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.”
How would coal fare if the market told the ecological truth? Not well. Truth means accounting for the horrific costs of mountaintop removal mining, which is destroying some of the world’s oldest mountains and the nation’s oldest communities in Appalachia. It means adding up the health care costs from respiratory ailments caused by mining and burning coal (the National Research Council puts these alone at more than $60 billion a year). It means sizing up coal’s full impact on the nation’s waterways, where over half the fish contain dangerous levels of mercury, causing lifelong damage to the nervous systems of fetuses and small children. It means counting the costs and risks of storing billions of tons of toxic coal ash (solid combustion waste) in enormous, unregulated pools across the country, which periodically flood nearby communities. It means acknowledging that America’s rail infrastructure is dominated by coal transport, pushing other freight to more polluting heavy trucks. It means tallying up a century of taxpayer subsidies, which have been and continue to be overwhelmingly directed to fossil fuels. Above all, it means accounting for the economic and ecological impacts of climate change.
Sequestering the CO2 emissions from coal plants would avoid some of that climate damage, but if taxpayers pick up the tab, it’s just another distorting subsidy atop the others. Even with this panoply of explicit and implicit subsidies, the U.S. coal power industry is moribund. For the past 30 years, utilities have opted to run existing plants harder, switch to natural gas, increase efficiency, or build out renewables like wind. Private investors have proven allergic to new coal plants—indeed, allergic to most huge, capital-intensive power projects—but positively enamored of renewables and efficiency, which risk less, build out faster, iterate faster, and reduce costs faster. Money spent cleaning up coal makes it more expensive, whereas money spent on renewables makes them less expensive since clean electricity sources are all on declining cost curves. This is a function of the common-sense and engineering fact that it makes more sense to avoid waste than to ameliorate its effects. So, despite all its implicit and explicit subsidies, coal is already being outcompeted, and every market signal points toward acceleration of that trend—unless one relies upon economic models that ignore external costs and/or underestimate technological innovation, i.e. overestimate the cost and underestimate the benefits of environmental regulation.
The closer we get to full-cost accounting, the worse coal will look, especially with the added expense of a mind-bogglingly large carbon sequestration infrastructure. It’s manifesting first and most obviously in U.S. power markets, but it will ultimately prove true in China too. I do not believe the Chinese will blindly follow a falsely “cheap” path to their own collective suicide. The economic growth that keeps the Communist Party in power is being threatened by air pollution, water pollution, desertification, melting glaciers, and declining agricultural output. According to the World Bank, 750,000 people a year in China die prematurely from air and water pollution, and one study found that coal imposes $248 billion in hidden costs a year on the country. Coal plants exacerbate every one of those problems. China appears to be taking some first hesitant steps toward full-cost accounting while (partially) shifting investment to renewables, efficiency, and clean transportation infrastructure. That shift should accelerate as renewables fall in price and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) proves to be more expensive than anticipated—just as that other silver-bullet hope, nuclear power, did in the 1970s.
The strongest argument CCS proponents have is merely political. Coal-related interests (labour and industry) have a great deal of influence in the U.S. Congress. Clean energy legislation is unlikely to pass if they are threatened by it. Offering CCS as a positive vision of a future for coal may be a necessary step in building a political coalition that can overcome the threat of a Senate filibuster. For that reason alone, those pushing for energy reform will have to reconcile themselves to substantial resources being devoted to research, pilot plants, and loan guarantees for the coal industry. Despite popular rhetoric about “not picking winners,” the fact is that passing legislation in a political system like ours always involves picking winners; this is otherwise known as getting the votes.
Despite political necessities, though, support for CCS must strictly limit taxpayer liability. There should be a clear pathway for subsidies to decline over time, and for the industry to begin paying its own way. Above all, we must avoid locking in permanent or uncapped taxpayer support for CCS. Let us give it no more or less than a fair shot at competing with other clean energy solutions.
As we build out a new energy system, we will find shifting to a green, clean economy is cheaper and faster than any of our models anticipated. Innovation will explode, new industries will boom, and ultimately “clean coal” will lose out to solutions for which the descriptor “clean” doesn’t require scare quotes.
The above article was extracted from a discussion on the future use of coal, first posted in the Energy & Environment section of the U.S. government website.