WASHINGTON, DC, February 24, 2009 (ENS) – The U.S. Supreme Court Monday declined to consider a Bush-era rule that would have allowed a cap-and-trade approach to mercury, a toxic heavy metal emitted by power plants that burn coal and oil. Power plants are the largest source of mercury in the nation.

The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case invalidates the U.S. EPA’s so-called Clean Air Mercury Rule, which would have allowed dangerous levels of mercury pollution to persist under a weak cap-and-trade program that would not have taken full effect until after 2020.

The Supreme Court in effect denied an appeal, filed last year by a coalition of utilities, seeking reversal of a federal court decision vacating the mercury rule.

The original lawsuit that resulted in the February 2008 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in favor of the states and environmental groups maintained that EPA illegally removed coal and oil-fired power plants from the list of regulated source categories under a section of the Clean Air Act that requires strict regulation of hazardous air pollutants, including mercury.

Left standing is the ruling by the appeals court that upheld the lower court ruling and rebuked the Bush-era EPA for attempting to create an illegal loophole for the power generating industry, rather than applying the Clean Air Act’s “maximum achievable control technology” standard for mercury emissions.

The Supreme Court also granted the Obama administration’s request, made two weeks ago, to drop the Bush administration appeal.

“Today’s good news is due in no small part to the leadership of the Obama administration, in renouncing the harmful Bush administration actions and embracing EPA’s responsibilities to protect the American people against mercury and other toxic pollution,” said John Walke, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The James H. Miller coal-fired power plant in Alabama emits more mercury than any other generating station in the United States. (Photo credit unknown)

Newly appointed EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has pledged to move swiftly in developing tough new mercury standards for power plants.

Seventeen states and dozens of Native American tribes, public health and environmental groups, and organizations representing registered nurses and physicians, challenged EPA’s suite of rules in 2005.

The plaintiffs maintained that cap-and-trade contributed to “hot spots” for mercury, a neurotoxin linked to birth defects, learning disabilities and neurological problems.

New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said the Supreme Court’s denial of an appeal petition from the Utility Air Regulatory Group ends a long legal fight by New Jersey and other states to compel the federal government to issue tough new standards for mercury and other toxic air emissions from power plants.

“As of today, the protracted legal battle that has delayed proper regulation of mercury emissions from power plants is over, and the practice of allowing those plants to spew harmful quantities of a dangerous neurotoxin into our air in violation of federal law is at an end,” Milgram said.

“The Supreme Court has now confirmed that EPA must follow the law as it is written. We are looking forward to working on rules that reflect the most stringent controls achievable for this industry, as the Clean Air Act requires,” said Ann Weeks, attorney for Clean Air Task Force who represented U.S. Public Interest Research Group, Ohio Environmental Council, Natural Resources Council of Maine, and Conservation Law Foundation in the case.

Some 1,100 coal-fired units at more than 450 existing power plants emit 48 tons of mercury into the air each year. Yet only 1/70th of a teaspoon of mercury is needed to contaminate a 25-acre lake to the point where fish are unsafe to eat, the plaintiffs pointed out.

More than 40 states have warned their citizens to avoid consuming various fish species due to mercury contamination, with over half of those mercury advisories applying to all water bodies in the state.

“We’re relieved that the Supreme Court has put the final nail in the coffin of this ill-advised regulation, which left the Adirondacks and Catskills vulnerable to continued mercury contamination,” said Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club. “Ninety-six percent of the lakes in the Adirondack region exceed the recommended EPA action level for methyl mercury in fish.”

“In the Catskills, health officials have advised children and women of childbearing age not to eat fish from six Catskill reservoirs, reservoirs that also provide New York City with its drinking water,” said Woodworth. “With this ruling, we can now move forward with sensible mercury controls that will help reverse these trends.”

Among the groups involved in last year’s successful court challenge was Earthjustice, who argued the case before the lower court on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation and Sierra Club.

“While we applaud this ruling, mercury contamination from coal-fired utilities continues to grow as new plants are approved for construction,” said Jon Mueller, Chesapeake Bay Foundation director of litigation. “Every year in the Chesapeake Bay region additional fish consumption advisories are issued. EPA must take action quickly to curtail this threat to public health.”

The EPA rules generated controversy when they were proposed in 2004, after it was discovered that industry attorneys had drafted key language that EPA included verbatim in its rule.

EPA’s internal auditor in the Office of Inspector General later discovered that EPA’s senior political management had ordered staff to work backwards from a pre-determined political outcome, “instead of basing the standard on an unbiased determination of what the top performing [power plant] units were achieving in practice.”

The top 50 most-polluting coal-burning power plants in the United States emitted 20 tons of toxic mercury into the air in 2007, finds a November 2008 report from the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. Of the top 10 mercury emitting power plants, all but one reported an increase as compared to the previous year.

Once released into the atmosphere, mercury settles in lakes and rivers, where it moves up the food chain to humans who eat contaminated fish. The Centers for Disease Control has found that six percent of American women have mercury in their blood at levels that would put a fetus at risk of neurological damage.

Click here [www.earthjustice.org] for a guide to the mercury levels found in various species of fish and shellfish.

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WASHINGTON, DC, January 7, 2008 (ENS) – Nearly 100 coal ash dumps across the United States pose similar or even greater potential dangers than the eastern Tennessee site that spilled a billion gallons of toxic sludge and contaminated water last month, finds a report released today by environmentalists.

The study warns that the Bush administration has turned a blind eye to the risks of coal ash ponds, bowing to industry wishes and leaving the sites free from federal regulation and largely unmonitored.

The December 22, 2008 disaster at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal-fired power plant highlighted the “inexcusable lack of regulation of this kind of disposal,” said Eric Schaeffer, director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which produced the new study.

EIP analyzed industry data submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the presence of six heavy metals – arsenic, chromium, lead, nickel, selenium and thallium – in coal ash ponds similar to the one that ruptured at the Kingston site.

Heavy equipment is dwarfed by the coal ash spill from TVA’s Kingston Fossil power plant. January 4, 2009 (Photo courtesy TVA)

Analysts found nearly 100 sites, including the one in Kingston, where more than a total of 124 million pounds of coal ash containing the six metals have been disposed between 2000 and 2006.

Nearby communities are not just at risk from huge spills like the one in Tennessee, Schaeffer said, but are at perhaps even greater risk from the steady, long-term leaching of toxic metals into drinking water supplies.

The report finds that a total of 13 states have at least three coal ash dumps on the 50-worst toxic chemical lists.

Indiana tops the list with 11 sites, followed by Ohio with eight. Kentucky and Alabama have seven sites, Georgia and North Carolina have six each, while West Virginia and Tennessee have four. Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wyoming each have three sites.

It found the TVA’s Kingston site was in the top 50 for all of the heavy metals except for thallium.

“Our analysis confirms that this problem is truly national in scope and that Tennessee may end up only being a warning sign of much more trouble to come,” Schaeffer said.

EIP’s report recommends the phaseout of all wet storage of toxic coal ash, immediate inspection and monitoring of existing sites and federal regulation of all coal ash storage and disposal by the end of 2009.

“This open pit disposal of toxic waste has got to end,” said Christopher Irwin, a staff attorney with United Mountain Defense, an environmental group located in Knoxville, Tennessee

The report comes as the Tennessee community of Harriman is struggling to come to terms with the devastation left by the spill, which occurred after the retaining wall of a 40-acre coal ash pond ruptured at the Kingston site.

The spill dumped some 5.4 million cubic yards of ashy sludge and contaminated water across 400 acres at the confluence of the Emory and Clinch Rivers, burying 12 homes and other buildings in more than four feet of sludge.

Federal and private analyses have found elevated levels of an array of heavy metals, including arsenic levels of more than 149 times the maximum allowable levels.

A barge-mounted vacuum is used to remove coal ash from the Emory River (Photo courtesy TVA)

TVA officials have suggested that cold weather and heavy rains are to blame for the spill, but there is evidence they knew of structural problems for several years and failed to act.

A coalition of local residents and environmental groups sent notice to TVA on Tuesday that they intend to sue the federal government utility for negligence and will ask a federal court to oversee the cleanup and remediation of the contaminated area.

“This catastrophic spill was a colossal tragedy, and the Tennessee Valley Authority could have avoided this disaster had it taken its responsibilities seriously,” said Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club, which announced the lawsuit.

“This massive spill reminds us that coal is not clean, and coal is not cheap,” he said.

But cost is a major factor driving decisions on how to store coal ash, as utilities have been largely free to choose how they discard or store the waste. Federal regulators have been considering the issue of coal ash disposal for nearly three decades, but have failed to take serious action or impose regulations on industry.

Although some of the residues of coal ash are used to make industrial products such as cement and wallboard, most of it is disposed of in landfills or mixed with water and stored in ponds or surface impoundments.

Wet storage of coal ash is attractive to industry as it is relatively cheap and often eliminates the need to transport the waste off-site. But the method is far from secure and many of these sites are not lined to protect toxic metals from leaching into water supplies.

“These sites leak all the time,” Schaeffer told reporters on a telephone press briefing.

There is also “no effort to go out and inspect” these sites, said Linda Evans, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law firm.

Driven by such concerns, environmentalists and public health advocates have pressed for the federal government to require coal ash be treated as hazardous waste and deposited into properly lined landfills.

In 2000, the EPA indicated it was ready to follow that advice and warned that many wet storage sites posed serious risks to public health and the environment.

But industry protested loudly, raising concerns about cost and suggesting that defining coal ash as hazardous waste could undermine efforts to recycle more of the material for industrial uses.

The EPA subsequently abandoned the effort and left regulation to the states.

“Most states have fallen down miserably on the job,” Evans told reporters.

After touring the TVA spill site last week, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen said state inspectors would visit all coal-fired facilities in the state.

Environmentalists say the costs of safer storage pale in comparison to costs of cleanup and see the argument that stricter regulation would impede reuse of the material as a red herring.

Schaeffer said, “We can no longer afford to ignore this problem and we certainly can’t be content to just sit around and wait for the next Tennessee-style disaster to happen.”

The EIP report can be found here [www.environmentalintegrity.org].

By J.R. Pegg

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WASHINGTON, DC, December 11, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration has dropped plans to adopt two Clean Air Act rules that would have allowed power plants and other polluters to increase smog and soot pollution.

The first rule concerned the Clean Air Act’s New Source Review program. It would have allowed coal-fired power plants to increase their power output by installing new equipment without adopting pollution controls.

The second abandoned rule would have weakened special air quality protections that Congress adopted for national parks and wilderness areas. If the rule had been adopted, it would have been easier to build a coal-fired power plant, refinery or factory near a national park.

Both rules had faced opposition from public health and environmental groups, state and local air quality regulators, and prominent members of Congress.

EPA officials had been trying to finalize both proposals before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in January 20. The have both been in the works for years.

South Carolina’s coal burning Cross power
plant is operated by Santee Cooper. (Photo
courtesy Santee Cooper)

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, was pleased with the agency’s decision.

“Our children and families can breathe easier now that the EPA has abandoned two controversial plans to undermine clean air protections through midnight regulations,” she said. “EPA has many other damaging and dangerous rules under consideration that deserve the same fate.”

“EPA’s decision to reconsider issuing a severely deficient air pollution rule that would have exempted almost every power plant in this country from installing modern pollution control technology is the correct one,” said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.

The proposal would have allowed electric generating units to use the “hourly test” to comply with New Source Review rules. The practical effect of this proposal would have been devastating to public health and welfare, explained Becker.

“Utilities would have been able to expand their operations and increase air pollution significantly without installing modern pollution control technology, conducting air quality analyses to determine impacts on nearby jurisdictions and offsetting their emissions in certain circumstances,” he said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council first urged EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to abandon the New Source Review rule in August, following a July court decision that overturned EPA’s Clean Air Interstate Rule, which EPA had relied upon as its primary justification for pursuing the weaker NSR rule.

In its announcement Wednesday, the EPA pointed to the fate of its Clean Air Interstate Rule as the primary reason for dropping the New Source Review rule.

“I am heartened that both of these destructive and unlawful air pollution rules will not be forced upon the American people, said the NRDC’s John Walke. “With the barbarians at the gate having pulled up their tents and headed for the hills, we can look forward as a civilized society to tackling the critical problems of global warming, smog and soot pollution that continues to damage our health, and toxic mercury that contaminates our waters.”

“NRDC looks forward to working with the incoming administration to protect our air quality and the health of all Americans,” he said.

However, the EPA Wednesday finalized a rule that exempts “fugitive emissions” from being counted for some major industries in determining whether emissions sources making modifications to their facilities trigger New Source Review requirements.

Fugitive emissions are pollutants released to the air other than those from stacks or vents. They are often due to equipment leaks, evaporative processes, and windblown disturbances.

“Fugitive emissions would be included in determining whether a physical or operational change is a major modification only for industries designated through previous Clean Air Act rulemakings,” the EPA states.

“It is no coincidence,” said Becker, “that the agency has finalized another rule today on fugitive emissions that allows other major industrial facilities such as mining operations and ethanol production plants, to escape these important requirements.”

Affected industries include electric services, petroleum refining, industrial chemical products, and pulp and paper mills.

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TRENTON, New Jersey, July 17, 2008 (ENS) – A newly proposed cap-and-trade program to reduce emissions of the heat-trapping greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, CO2, in New Jersey may do little to combat global warming, charges Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, a nonprofit association of government workers.

The trading program proposed by the administration of Governor Jon Corzine sets emissions caps above current emissions levels and contains numerous complex offsets and loopholes that undercut its effectiveness.

“While we are pleased that New Jersey is finally moving, this is a very timid and tentative step,” said New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe, noting that the proposed rule is now open for public comment until September 5, 2008.

“How can we cut carbon emissions with caps that are higher than current emissions?” he asked. “This plan says fighting global warming is worth less than 50 cents a month – not even enough for a cup of coffee.”

The B.L. England coal-fired power
plant in New Jersey (Photo by Curt Bergesen)

On drawback of the measure is that, “The initial regional cap is 188 million short tons of CO2 per year, which is approximately four percent above annual average regional emissions during the period 2000 through 2004 for electric generating units that will be subject to the program,” the bill states.

The program was designed to minimize economic impacts and “to provide market signals and regulatory certainty,” PEER says.

As a result, the plan places a $2 per ton price cap in order to hold any increase in current electric rates to less than one percent – about $5.96 per year or 50 cents per month for a typical Garden State household.

PEER says the 200 page proposed rule is littered with industry-specific escape hatches.

Even the proposing agency, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, concedes that its trading program will have more rhetorical than practical effect, when it states in the proposal itself:

“By accelerating national action to address climate change, the Department believes that the proposed rules and amendments will result in broader future environmental benefits beyond the direct emissions reduction benefits achieved through the CO2 Budget Trading Program,” the agency said in a statement.

The DEP said the proposed cap-and-trade program “will result in a more timely adoption of required Federal measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which will reduce environmental impacts to the State and its residents.”

This rule is the state’s contribution to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, RGGI, which includes nine other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States.

RGGI is an ongoing effort, commenced in September 2003, among Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States to develop and implement a regional CO2 cap-and-trade program aimed at stabilizing and then reducing emissions from large fossil fuel-fired electricity generating units in the region.

RGGI only applies to the electricity sector and power generators, which account for about 30 percent of New Jersey’s greenhouse gas emissions.

New Jersey imports about 30 percent of its power, mostly generated by burning coal, but these emissions are not counted by RGGI.

As for addressing the majority of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, New Jersey is already behind schedule, missing a June 30 deadline for its overall plan for the ambitious goals of the Global Warming Response Act signed by Governor Corzine last year.

A public hearing concerning this rule proposal will be held on:
Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 10:00 am at:
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
Hearing Room, 1st Floor
401 East State Street
Trenton, New Jersey 08625

Written comments may be submitted at the public hearing, they can be mailed to the New Jersey DEP.

Submit written comments by September 5, 2008 to:
Alice A. Previte, Esq.
Attention: DEP Docket No. 07-08-06/662
Office of Legal Affairs
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
401 East State Street
PO Box 402
Trenton, NJ 08625-0402

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ATLANTA, Georgia, June 30, 2008 (ENS) – A Fulton County Superior Court judge today issued a decision that blocks construction of the first coal-burning power plant proposed in Georgia in more than 20 years. The judge ruled that the new plant must limit its emissions of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide.

This is the first time any court has applied to an industrial source an April 2007 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court recognizing that carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming, is a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act.

Judge Thelma Wyatt Cummings Moore overturned the ruling of an administrative court approving the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s decision to issue an air pollution permit for Dynegy’s planned Longleaf power plant south of Columbus, Georgia.

In a challenge to the air permit brought by two environmental groups, Judge Moore held that the state environmental agency must limit the amount of carbon dioxide, CO2, emissions from the Dynegy power plant.

In June 2007, Friends of the Chattahoochee and the Sierra Club filed suit challenging the Dynegy Longleaf permit allowing a 1200 megawatt coal-fired power plant to be built in Early County on the banks of the Chattahoochee River.

The groups challenged the permit because it failed to include any limitations for carbon dioxide.

Now, Dynegy cannot begin construction of the 120 megawatt plant unless it obtains a permit from the Environmental Protection Division, EPD, that complies with the Judge Moore’s ruling.

“In a case that is being watched across the country, Judge Moore has sent a message that it is not acceptable for the state to put profits over public health,” said Justine Thompson, executive director of GreenLaw, the Atlanta public interest law firm that represented the environmental groups.

“This ruling goes a long way toward protecting the right of Georgians to breathe clean air and sends a message to EPD that it must tighten the standards it uses to approve air pollution permits for companies seeking to build any more coal-fired power plants in this state,” Thompson said.

Healthcare providers and patient advocacy groups around the state spoke out against the proposed plant and submitted supporting briefs in the case. The Medical Association of Georgia issued a resolution opposing any new coal-fired plants in the state.

The permit also was challenged because the plaintiff groups say it failed to set safe emission limits for sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, particulate matter and sulfuric acid mist – pollutants that contribute to smog and acid rain.

Fine particulate matter has been known to cause sudden death, premature birth, lung cancer, lung disease, asthma, bronchitis, heart disease, heart attacks and chronic respiratory diseases.

“I am thrilled that the judge understands our concerns about public health and global warming here in Early County. Coal plants are a bad idea all around, they hurt our lungs, they hurt our land, and they hurt our livelihood,” said Bobby McClendon, a leader of Friends of the Chattahoochee.

This plant would produce nine million tons of carbon dioxide pollution annually, an amount the plaintiff groups say is equal to adding 1.3 million cars on Georgia’s roads every year. A typical plant produces 3.7 million tons annually according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

In addition, the Longleaf plant would violate the U.S. EPA’s air quality standards for fine particulate matter where the plant is located, the groups alleged.

“The Clean Air Act was enacted by Congress to protect public health and with Judge Moore’s decision that is what is finally going to happen here in Georgia, said Patty Durand, Georgia Chapter director of the Sierra Club.

“Our state can find other ways to produce cleaner, more economically beneficial energy,” said Durand. “Other states are doing it. Why can’t we?”

Dynegy provides wholesale power, capacity and related services to utilities, cooperatives, municipalities and other energy companies in 14 states in the Midwest, the Northeast and on the West Coast. The S&P 500 company’s power generation portfolio consists of more than 19,000 megawatts of baseload, intermediate and peaking power plants fueled by a mix of coal, fuel oil and natural gas.

Dynegy has the most proposed coal-fired power plants of any company in the United States. An appeal of Judge Moore’s ruling is expected, but for the moment, the plaintiff groups are celebrating.

“Coal-fired power plants emit more than 30 percent of our nation’s global warming pollution,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign. “Thanks to this decision, coal plants across the country will be forced to live up to their clean coal rhetoric.”

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TOPEKA, Kansas, March 21, 2008 (ENS) – Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius today vetoed legislation that would have overturned a decision of her administration to deny an permit application to build two new coal-fired power plants because of the greenhouse gases they would have produced. The measure passed without a veto-proof majority of state legislators.

Last October Secretary of Kansas Department of Health and Environment Rob Bremby denied a permit to regional wholesale power supplier Sunflower Electric Power Corporation to build two new power plants at its Holcomb Station in western Kansas.

Kansas Governor Kathleen
Sebelius (Photo
courtesy Office of
the Governor)

The bill Sebelius vetoed today would have permitted the power plants and stripped the state agency of the power to deny such permits in the future if they held utilities to standards stricter than those in the federal Clean Air Act.

“We know that greenhouse gases contribute to climate change,” Sebelius said. “As an agricultural state, Kansas is particularly vulnerable. Therefore, reducing pollutants benefits our state not only in the short term – but also for generations of Kansans to come.”

“Of all the duties and responsibilities entrusted to me as governor, none is greater than my obligation to protect the health and well-being of the people of Kansas,” Sebelius said. “And that is why I supported the decision of the Secretary of Kansas Department of Health and Environment regarding Kansas’ energy future. For that reason, I must veto House Substitute for SB 327.”

“Instead of building two new coal plants, which would produce 11 million new tons of carbon dioxide each year, I support pursuing other, more promising energy and economic development alternatives,” the governor said.

“With the increasing pressure for the federal government to develop national standards for carbon emissions, there is a high probability coal will become a lot more expensive in the next several years,” she said. “Countries throughout Europe and South America already have standards in place and states are following suit.”

“Federal legislation has been introduced that would have the net impact of taxing carbon,” Sebelius said. “If any of the proposals are adopted, utility companies and their customers will pay far more for energy which produces carbon. It will also require spending billions on equipment to clean the atmosphere as thoroughly as possible. Building additional coal plants now is likely to create a significant economic liability for Kansas in the future.”

The utility contends that by not allowing the coal-fired plants to be built, the governor will make Kansans pay more for electricity.

“I am certainly disappointed by the governor’s veto,” said Earl Watkins, Sunflower’s president and chief executive. “This compromise bill was the result of many months of hard work by Democrats and Republicans in both the House and the Senate. The legislation protects our environment, supports renewable energy and energy efficiency programs, and restores confidence in government.”

If not resolved, this veto will unnecessarily raise electric rates for Kansas families and punish our Kansas workers and industries,” Watkins said. “We are experiencing significant growth on the Sunflower system, and we must add new coal generation to support our existing natural gas and wind generation assets.”

Sunflower’s existing coal-fired power
plant at Holcomb, Kansas
(Photo courtesy Ohio
Citizen Action)

Plans for the new Holcomb power plants included burning low-sulfur coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, state-of-the-art air emissions control technology, powdered activated carbon injection for mercury control, and no wastewater discharge.

But Sebelius said the bill she vetoed fails to promote wind power and “sends the wrong signal to potential investors for transmission lines and additional wind power.”

“The renewable standard and timetable in this bill slows down the progress we have already made, and dilutes the voluntary agreement now in place with utility companies in Kansas,” said the governor.

Earnie Lehman, president and chief executive of the utility Midwest Energy, said the veto will have a negative effect throughout the state.

“The governor’s veto fails to meet our customers’ need for reliable, efficient, and cost-effective around-the-clock energy,” said Lehman. “Midwest Energy’s leadership in securing wind energy and expanding energy efficiency and conservation programs is simply not enough to meet our consumers’ energy needs.”

Sunflower’s only coal-fired power plant is at Holcomb Station. Watkins said, “This station serves about 50 percent of our peak load and already has the lowest emissions rate of carbon dioxide and all regulated emissions of any coal-fired plant in Kansas.”

As a compromise, Governor Sebelius offered approval of a permit for one smaller coal-fired power plant, combined with mitigation strategies and additional wind power as long as the power it generates serves Kansas customers first.

“We believe that any proposal to generate significant amounts of new carbon needs to have an accompanying offset plan, recognizing that we are at least a decade away from clean coal technology,” Sebelius said.

The smaller project provides the base load power needed in western Kansas so that economic growth can continue, while allowing time for Kansas to engage in a process underway or completed in 36 other states that would allow our state to develop real and meaningful carbon regulations.

Once those state regulations have been adopted and implemented, applications for additional power plants could be fully considered, the governor said.

Today she issued an Executive Order creating the Kansas Energy and Environmental Policy Advisory Group to engage in “a comprehensive discussion on energy policy, including but not limited to electric generation.”

Sebelius named Jack Pelton, chairman, president and chief executive of Cessna Aircraft Company, to lead this group, which will develop recommendations to the governor involving opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a recommended timetable for implementation.

The process will be facilitated by the Center for Climate Strategie, which has developed climate action plans in: Arizona, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Washington, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Vermont. State plans are underway in South Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, Michigan, Maryland, and Alaska.

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WASHINGTON, DC, March 12, 2008 (ENS) – Two powerful House Democrats Tuesday introduced legislation that would require new coal-fired electric generating plants to use state-of-the-art control technology to capture and sequester emissions of carbon dioxide, CO2, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change.

Congressman Henry Waxman of California, who chairs the House Government Oversight Committee and Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who chairs the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, introduced the bill known as the Moratorium on Uncontrolled Power Plants Act of 2008.

The lawmakers said in a joint statement that “comprehensive economy-wide regulation to address global warming” will soon be introduced, but new coal-fired power plants are being built today, without controls on CO2 emissions.

The moratorium proposed in the bill would extend until a comprehensive federal regulatory program for global warming pollution is in place.[img=/UPLOADS/blog/.ecommunity_news/blogpost_data/08_03_10/20080312_091_powerohio.jpg]Cinergy’s Zimmer coal-fired power plant in
Ohio was built in 1991. (Photo by
Stefan Schlöhmer)[/url]

“The alternative is senseless,” said Waxman, “locking in decades of additional global warming emissions and requiring greater emissions reductions across the U.S. economy to compensate.”

“If we lose control of coal, we will have lost control of the climate,” said Markey. “This bill will make companies prepare for the future and prevent them from building low-tech coal-fired power plants before a global warming bill is passed that will necessitate the use of the newest, most climate-friendly technology.”

Without emissions controls, a new coal-fired power plant will emit hundreds of millions of tons of global warming pollution over its 50 year lifetime, the lawmakers said. Over 100 new plants have been proposed, and even if just a portion of these are built, they will emit over a 100 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.

One of these plants alone could offset the reductions that will be achieved through the Northeastern states’ Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, said the legislators, referring to a cooperative effort by nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states to design a regional cap-and-trade program covering carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the region. Groups of states in other regions are engaged in similar initiatives.

The bill places a moratorium on either the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or states issuing permits to new coal-fired power plants without state-of-the-art control technology to capture and permanently sequester the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions.

The bill also bars a new coal-fired power plant without state-of-the-art control technology from receiving any free or reduced cost emissions allowances under a future federal program to address global warming.

“It’s important for ratepayers and regulators to understand the financial risks if their power company wants to build a new uncontrolled coal-fired power plant,” said Waxman. “Those plants will be a lot more expensive to operate when global warming pollution is regulated. Ratepayers need to make sure they won’t be stuck with the bill.”

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BEIJING, China, March 8, 2008 (ENS) – Two coal producing nations – Australia and China – signed a formal agreement for research and testing of clean coal technology Thursday in Beijing.

The agreement, between the Australian government research organization CSIRO and China’s Thermal Power Research Institute, TPRI, will see TPRI install, commission and operate a post-combustion capture pilot plant at the Huaneng Beijing Co-Generation Power Plant as part of CSIRO’s research program.

Post combustion capture, PCC, is a process that uses a liquid to capture the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from power station flue gases. The technology can potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing and future coal-fired power stations by more than 85 percent, CSIRO said in a statement.

The pilot plant is designed to capture 3,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from the power station and begins the process of adapting this technology to evaluate its effectiveness in Chinese conditions.

CSIRO’s involvement in the project is made possible through $A4 million in funding from the government of Australia.

Dr. John Wright, director of CSIRO’s Energy Transformed National Research Flagship, said low emission energy generation is a key research area for the Flagship and he welcomes the support of the Australian government.

Carbon capture and storage plant
in Australia (Photo courtesy CSIRO)

“Climate change is a critical issue for Australia and internationally, and we’re delighted to be working with TPRI to help find solutions to this global challenge. This project is part of a major research program to identify ways to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector,” he said.

“The project will focus on assessing the performance of an amine-based PCC pilot plant under Chinese conditions. It will allow PCC technology to be progressed in the Chinese energy sector which will have a much greater impact than operating in Australia alone,” Wright said.

The TPRI is aiming for the Beijing pilot plant to be up and running before August.

The installation of the post combustion capture pilot plant in Beijing forms part of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate initiative. This program also includes a pilot plant installation at Delta Electricity’s Munmorah power station on the New South Wales Central Coast, with an additional Australian site currently under negotiation.

The Energy Transformed National Research Flagship is also undertaking post combustion capture research with a $A5.6 million project in the Latrobe Valley, which focuses on brown coal.

Coal accounts for about 70 percent of China’s total energy consumption. In addition to producing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, coal burning in China is producing acid rain in other Asian nations, such as Japan, Taiwan, North and South Korea, and the Philippines.

Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter, and black coal is Australia’s largest export, worth around $A24.5 billion in 2005-06, according to the Australian Coal Association.

In addition to providing Australian consumers with affordable electricity, coal underpins the international competitiveness of the entire Australian economy, the association says on its website.

After a November 2007 meeting to prepare for the early global deployment of carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies, Australian Coal Association Executive Director Ralph Hillman said, “Australian coal producers were leading the way on developing a portfolio of demonstration clean coal projects through the world’s first industry-levied $1 billion COAL21 Fund.”

COAL21 is a partnership between the coal and electricity industries, unions, federal and state governments and the research community. It started in March 2003 when the Australian Coal Association issued invitations to participate in a process aimed at first identifying and then realizing the potential for reducing or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from coal-based electricity generation in Australia.

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