Green Scales

Update on Michigan House decisions on Coal, December 17

Below is the text of an email I received about legislation going through this evening. This is copied content--I have not edited. Looks like things are happening pretty quickly, though if you read this blog you may already know this. What do you think of this?  I will add my commentary here shortly...

Some Michigan politicians seem DETERMINED to make it to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show as topping the “stupid” chart.  Newest trick – Senators today voted 21-15 to try to PROHIBIT our DEQ from turning down air permits for coal plants even if it was determined they were not needed for the electricity, or that there were in fact BETTER and cheaper alternatives to meet the need.  YES!  Let us wrap that anchor around the state of Michigan’s economy a few more times for good measure before dropping us as a whole into the deepest part of Lake Superior!

 
An amended version of House Bill 5220 which would do this also tie-bars two outrageous bills that would make certain that Michigan would never be allowed to protect anything in our environment any better than the worst federal standards, was passed fast by the Senate this morning.  As the legislature moves to close down this lackluster year, the Senate is looking to undo Governor Granholm’s bold Executive Director 2009-2 regarding feasible and prudent alternative consideration before coal plants can be considered for air permits.  At the same time, they seem determined to send us back to the dark ages –  Stop enforcing groundwater laws! Gut the CAFO regulations!  The heck with mercury emissions!  New Senate Motto for Michigan: We Strive to Be # 50 When it comes to Clean Air, Clean Water and Public Health!
 
Mainly, this Senate bill seems bound and determined to assure that Michigan electric ratepayers will get left holding the bag on dinosaur coal plants as the rest of the US and the world moves forward with clean energy!  In fact, an article about WE Energies, which services the western half of the UP, points out again that they are looking for 33% increase in electric rates to pay for coal plants in Wisconsin.  If the Consumers Energy and Wolverine plant proposals currently before the DEQ were to be built, best guesses are rates could run from 25% increases to tripling the electric rates for Michigan’s residential customers.
 
Good article by Michigan Liberal provides additional insight.
 
http://michiganliberal.com/diary/15921/state-senate-tries-to-gut-governors-coal-eo
 
Please contact you State Representative TONIGHT to urge him/her to BLOCK HB 5220 if it comes up in House at the very last minute! The House is expected to be in session for many hours to come -- Go to http://www.house.mi.gov/find_a_rep.asp for your representatives email and phone number! 

 

Here is the wording in amended version of House Bill 5220. Taken from the article in Michigan Liberal that Anne Woiwode of Sierra Club cited (URL is posted below to article) :

Snip:

15) IN MAKING A DETERMINATION ON AN APPLICATION FOR A PERMIT

19 TO INSTALL AN ELECTRIC GENERATING FACILITY, THE DEPARTMENT SHALL

20 NOT REVIEW OR CONSIDER ANY OF THE FOLLOWING: 21 (A) THIS STATE'S NEEDS FOR ELECTRICITY.

22 (B) ALTERNATIVE METHODS FOR ELECTRIC GENERATION.

23 (C) ALTERNATIVES TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF ELECTRIC GENERATING

24 FACILITIES.

Snip: Passed the Senate, 21-15. I hear that someone is saying that the environmental community has gotten behind this ... the  permitting of coal plants to be built in this state wihtout consideration of alternatives or even the associated proections for ratepayers. That would be a most interesting thing for the environmental community to do ... to reverse itself wholesale on its most basic position taken these last two years.

Meanwhile, I hear that this is tie-barred to two other pieces of legislation, one that would essentially privatize the permitting process, and one that would forbid the state from setting tougher environmental standards than the federal government....

http://michiganliberal.com/diary/15921/state-senate-tries-to-gut-governors-coal-eo

Anne Woiwode, State Director
Sierra Club Michigan Chapter
109 E. Grand River Ave, Lansing, MI 48906
517-484-2372     anne.woiwode@sierraclub.org

Coal Power and The Future of Energy in Michigan

I had the opportunity last week to sit down with Tremaine Phillips of the Michigan Environmental Council  to talk about power and energy in Michigan. He explained more extensively the present situation and future of energy that MEC sees for the state. But first, a question on the minds of many consumers: if it works, why fix it?

Well, it doesn't really work, or at least not efficiently. There are a number of problems with the way power is currently produced and sold here in Michigan and nationally. Though the pollution generated by coal-fired generators may be the most obvious, it's not the only problem. Here are three more to think about.

New Plants=Profits.

Many coal plant projects across the state, including the Lansing Board of Water and Light's recent proposal, are losing steam due to dropping electricity demand, lack of financing, incoming carbon dioxide regulations and public pressure (such as the Lansing Can Do Better Campaign). Phillips, however, believes that Michigan utilities will continue to push for the construction of large baseload coal generation in the future. Utility companies make money when they build new plants, as they can request increased consumer rates in order to recover the costs of new projects. It would seem that increasing rates, and thus profits, would be quite an incentive to company executives to build a new plant.

Power sales need decoupling.

That's not the only way that the profit structure is faulty. Now, says, Phillips when a company like DTE encounters less demand-- say, from the combination of the foreclosure crisis and a cooler-than-usual summer, and a declining stock market-- the utility companies then may ask for a rate increase from the Michigan Public Service Commission to recover lost revenue.  In other words, when less power is bought, the price of power goes up. "Decoupling" price, and more importantly, utility companies' profits, from amount of power used, would encourage them to be what Phillips called "Energy Service Companies." They would potentially then have more interest in energy efficiency and conservation.

Current Forecasts for MI Energy Future May Be Inaccurate

Whichever way you look at Michigan's population figures, it seems that the state is losing people-- both in pure numbers and in the percentage of United States citizens that live here. But when it comes to power demands, individual households are only part of energy demand. Large companies like General Motors make up a large portion of, for example, Lansing's power demand. (In 1992, GM represented about 25% of the BWL’s annual sales. Today, GM represents about 12%). As you may have noticed, GM is cutting back production these days.

The reports currently being used to predict energy usage in the next few years were published in 2007. The document being used most frequently by Michigan utility companies to predict future demand is called the 21st Century Energy Plan.

Phillips writes:

The Energy Plan’s assumption of 1.2% annual load growth in Michigan looks increasingly out of date (many utilities across the country are seeing a decrease in demand) and many energy experts see a need to update the 21 Century Energy Plan and other energy forecast reports. 

What does all this mean? Well, for a start, it wouldn't hurt to learn more about the way decisions are made by the state's biggest energy suppliers. It wouldn't hurt to consider the questions asked by, then answered by, BWL on their webpage, about the proposed new plant. Are there more questions that need asking? What about the jobs argument--that a new plant will bring construction jobs and support the economy?  I'd like to hear from readers on this one.

Coming in the next post on this topic: Just how big is demand for power here, and what might both demand and production look like in the future?  What's next?

Can Lansing Do Better?

 The Lansing Board of Water and Light has proposed a new coal fired power plant right here in Lansing.

If another coal plant were built here, how would it affect the people living closest to the plant?

This is an issue too large to cover in one post, but here is a sampling of the different types of health and regulatory problems that are discussed in the context of coal-fired power plants.

• The Sierra Club The Sierra Club looks at the health effects of coal fired power plants.
  
• Science Daily on Children's Brain Development and Coal Fired Power Cognitive development in children improves when coal fired plants are closed.
  
• Coal Combustion Waste from High Country News  Coal plants produce not only air pollution, but also solid waste, called CCWs. Folks in New Mexico don't like CCWs.
• MSNBC on health risks associated with coal plant emissions.  The article opens by claiming that "Health problems linked to aging coal-fired power plants shorten nearly 24,000 lives a year."
• City Pulse on DEQ and EPA regulations about coal plants.  Lansing City Pulse's Lawrence Consentino looks at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality regulations may prevent approval of the plant.
• Observer: Coal Fired Power Plants are Death Factories. Close them. James Hansen, noted climate expert, says coal plants are death factories, and that there is no such thing as "clean coal. He also says that the fight against coal in the US will require "a political will yet to be demonstrated."

A group called Lansing Can Do Better claims that yes, we can do better than building another coal plant here.  The group is responding to a 2008 Board of Water and Light proposal for a new coal-fired power plant to be built in Lansing.

Lansing Can Do Better has three plans that they say would each be better than immediately building a new plant. Their three suggestions are:

1. Wait 24 months before making a decision on new base-load generation

No one can predict exactly what the future population of a city like Lansing will be. LCBD explains further:

Energy demand is decreasing throughout the state. The BWL's IRP suggest in its IRP that energy demand from its costumers will increase at a rate of 1.4% a year (1.6% for peak load). This is, however, contrary to the decrease in energy demand that utilities are experiencing throughout the state. Michigan's two largest utilities, "DTE and CMS reported electricity sales down about 4 percent from the same quarter a year ago." The current economic climate in the state has subsequently lead to Michigan "using less electricity than we were in 2000, when our needs were being met adequately."

2. Pursue aggressive weatherization and energy efficiency programs

Along similar lines, if the city first looks at increasing energy efficiency, we may find that energy demands change for the better, in that citizens have lower energy bills. I live in a nice brick home that has been around for a number of years, but the amount of heated and cooled air that escapes through cracks and thin windows shocks me. There is little incentive for weatherizing or making more efficient rental properties, but there are models out there that demonstrate that with incentive programs, we can make rentals as well as homeowner-occupied homes more efficient. I know I'd support it!

3. Deploying renewable and distributed energy resources

Michigan has great potential for wind power. Nationally, we're seeing exploration of a number of alternative ways of producing energy.

I want to hear from you: What do you think? Is coal the only way to go? Are you worried that if we don't have coal power we're more at risk? Would it be ok with yo if the plant was built within walking distance of your house? Post questions to the comment section, and the next post about this issue will attempt to address some reader questions.

Fly Ash Spill In Tennessee

When I attended the Environmental Journalism Boot Camp through Michigan State University's Knight Center for Environmental Journalism this past October, one of our day trips took us to a small community with a big problem. A group of people who lived in a small trailer park by a river were upset that fly ash was going to be stored right next to their river-- and right next to their homes.

I learned a lot about fly ash that day. I've included a photo gallery on the right hand side of the blog of some community members who work there to educate the public about their fears and fury about the storage of the fly ash.

So yesterday, a huge fly ash storage dam broke in Kingston, TN. I covered the story over at Green Daily:
Green Daily: Ash and Sludge Cover Tennessee Town

In poking around to write the Green Daily post, I found out that the EPA actually has a partnership with several energy industry folks to promote the beneficial use of coal byproducts. In other words, the EPA (that stands for Environmental Protection Agency) is spending time and money to advocate for the use of fly ash, a waste product that contains arsenic, tends to be radioactive, and is now covering a part of a fairly important city in Tennessee.

Ann Pancake's novel Strange as this Weather Has Been imagined a scenario where a dam holding strip-mine wastewater broke, covering a section of the Appalachian West Virginia in sludge. What Ann Pancake describes that is yet to be determined in Tennessee is the long term physical and psychological effects such a spill can have on a community. In her novel, children have nightmares about sludge coming down and taking their houses, and mothers worry about what they could have done differently to protect their children. Of course, the sludge avalanche in Pancake's novel is larger and more fatal, but it does seem to me that the more we promote and produce coal-- whether it is "clean coal" or not-- the more we'll have to face the problem of storing coal waste. Common sense says there will also be more spills.

I'll be writing more on this in the coming days, including more details on the community near Roanoke, VA, that first illustrated to me the effects fly ash disposal can have on human populations. In the meantime...  I'd be interested in hearing what you think it will take to get toxic chemicals and substances first recognized, then regulated in this country. I just don't know.