Smoking-blowing on Texas Power Plants

There is no issue that is more mis-stated and demagogued than energy. Sometimes it is due to the economic illiteracy of advocates of a particular utopian claim. Sometimes it is simply a hidden agenda, such as this case of anti-coal ads funded by gas power plant builders:

Natural gas companies, calling themselves the Texas Clean Sky Coalition, have been fighting coal plant proposals with full-page advertisements in the state's major daily newspapers. ... A Web site, www.cleanskycoalition .com, includes these rhetorical questions: "Would you bathe your child in coal? Sprinkle arsenic, mercury and lead on your husband's cereal? Treat your friends to a big dose of radiation?" ...

The coal plant proposals jeopardize some natural gas plans, said Greg Platt, an executive at Cobisa, a small Houston company that develops natural gas plants.

"From our perspective, it's difficult to justify a gas plant if all of these coal plants get built," Platt said. "It's difficult for (financiers) to take the leap to open spigots on the money if they see these coal plants hanging out there."

With natural gas prices high, the operator of the state's electrical grid will run cheaper fuels such as nuclear and coal power before gas, Platt said.

The Clean Sky Coalition Web site includes newspaper stories about coal-fired power plants, informs readers about a rally against the coal plants on Sunday at the Capitol and points readers in the direction of Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club.
Neither group said it receives money from the Clean Sky Coalition or even knew what it is.

"Whether the money is coming from environmentalists, businessmen or competitors, we're glad they're fighting," said Tom "Smitty" Smith of the watchdog group Public Citizen. "Without help from everyone in the state, we won't be able to stop the coal plants."

The ad campaign is a travesty. It lies about the real impact of the coal technology to be used (no arsenic flakes for breakfast) and it hides the real agenda of these opposing companies. Coal is cheaper than gas, and the builders of more expensive alternatives are afraid to see successful new coal plants. The reality is that
these new plants by TXU will reduce coal power plant emissions as a whole:

For TXU, the key emissions cap will be 20 percent lower than 2005 levels, despite adding needed generating capacity to meet consumer needs. TXU says its new plants will add no new key emissions since they will be more than offset by the company’s reductions. TXU’s coal fleet emission rates per MW/hr would fall nearly 70 percent.

Quite a contrast to the rhetoric.

Skaggs and Zimmerman were right to ask for more facts and less hyperventilating on coal plant impact on air quality, and to suggest that TCEQ might not be falling on the job:

It appears to us the much criticized Texas Commission on Environmental Quality may be simply doing its job — evaluating the total, integrated implications of the additional energy Central Texas needs to maintain and improve its economic competitiveness and provide citizens an improving quality of life.

If we want to have power generation technology that is cost-effective, safe, environmentally-friendy, and emissions-free (including CO2), there is one answer: Nuclear power.
TXU is planning nuclear power plants, and rightly so. Nuclear power in the U.S. has had a very safe track record, and each year it's operational performance improves and shows more consistency on safety and cost. The answer sure isn't solar - solar and other non-nuclear renewables are too expensive to be practical, with costs running 2 times to 30 times coal or nuclear. And it's not gas, which is more expensive than coal or nuclear and not emissions-free.

Nuclear power is the elephant in the room for the anti-fossil fuel environmentalists; their irrationally anti-nuclear policies lock us into coal and other fossil fuels for power generation. A sensible counterpoint is found here. One can be both pro-environment and pro-energy - by being pro-nuclear power. It's time to recognize nuclear power as a renewable power source that can drastically reduce our CO2 emissions.

Unless and until we decide to build more nuclear power plants in Texas, the proposed coal plants are the next best answer for meeting Texas' power needs.