Greenhouse gas credits for region's largest coal plant?
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff
Maybe you’ve read the headlines about the giant sludge pond of fly ash -- a byproduct of burning coal -- that swallowed a piece of the Tennessee landscape last month, raising with it a host of questions about the toxic material.
It turns out Massachusetts has its own fly ash controversy.
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Brayton Point (Globe photo) |
The Conservation Law Foundation is outraged that state environmental officials have given conditional approval for the region's largest coal-fired power plant to receive what could be millions of dollars in greenhouse gas allowances for recycling fly ash and using it in the production of cement. Dominion, the owner of the Brayton Point power plant in Somerset, says about a ton of greenhouse gas emissions are avoided for every ton of fly ash used in cement production.
There is, of course, irony that a toxic byproduct of burning coal -- which already releases enormous amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere -- would be eligible for greenhouse gas credits at all.
But CLF's argument centers more on something called additionality: whether Brayton Point was going to recycle the fly ash anyway. The environmental group argues that the nation's coal-burning industry already regularly recycles fly ash for cement -- and increasing regulation on ash is pushing even more recycling to take place. To give Brayton Point credit for it is like giving a student extra academic points for carrying a backpack to school: He is going to carry it whether or not you reward him for it.
“It’s absurd,’’ says CLF’s Seth Kaplan. “It fails the additionality test completely.” He says it’s also impossible to measure how much greenhouse gas emissions are truly displaced by using fly ash.
State environmental officials say Dominion decided to build a fly ash recycling plant voluntarily in 2006 -- when it wasn't considered regular business practice and Brayton Point wasn't required by law to build the plant. That convinced the officials to conditionally deem it as “additional” under so-called "Filthy Five" rules, regulations that were among the nation's first to limit CO2 from power plants and financially encourage them to develop cleaner technologies.
Now, those Filthy Five regulations are being eclipsed by a 10-state pact called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), and state officials say Brayton Point's fly ash credits can be converted into some RGGI allowances. Still, they note they are giving the power plant less than half the credit it wants for fly ash recycling -- and are requiring a review in 2010 to see if plant should continue getting it. State officials say they are reviewing CLF's comment letter to see if fly ash recycling has become a common business practice in recent years and if they should take it into consideration when deciding whether to give final approval.
Dominion, Brayton Point’s owner, says its recycling plant is one of only four in the country and Massachusetts regulations allows the company to get greenhouse gas credit for the fly ash plant.
What do you think? Should Brayton Point get the credit?
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Absolutely not. This plant wasn't complete before the program started this year so it's clearly not additional. Why should consumers pay (ultimately CO2 credits are worth money) to help a coal plant dispose of its waste?
No they should not get any credit...so to speak. For over 300 years, Boston Harbor subsidized the cost of sewage disposal for Boston and numerous outlying towns. The result: after 10 years and millions of dollars the mess still isn't cleaned up.
To a far larger extent our planet's air/atmosphere has subsidized the cost of energy production. From gasoline to electricity, Americans seem to regard cheap energy as some kind of God-given right. It's not. We have dragged our feet for far too long regarding our planet. Cleaning up this mess will take far longer and billions more than it did to rid one little harbor of pollution. The time is long overdue to hold all energy producers’ feet to the fire…so to speak.
Would you prefer that Brayton Point not both to recycle the ash? They don't necessarily have to. As for the "cheap energy", you must think every function of 21st century living must either bankrupt people for using it or otherwise not take place at all. The planet is were we live and it is here for us to use as necessary. The planet is not subsidizing anything. Nobody has received a check signed by the planet Earth.
Seth Kaplan would get outraged by the very existance of human beings. What else is new?
The very notion of carbon credits is absurd. If man-made CO2 is a/the cause of global warming/climate change, then CO2 emissions should be reduced, not traded. There is no rational explanation for the existence of carbon credits.
In 1998 the global warmers said that CO2 caused global warming and had 6 climate models to prove it. All models predicted that temps would increase every year. The alternative was that sunspots caused the warming. The sunspot people were condemed. It is ten years later(more or less) CO2 is rising, the models were wrong, Sunspot activity is down as are temps. Carbon credits are a scam.
Richard writes: "There is no rational explanation for the existence of carbon credits."
I would start with "fabricated basis for a shake-down". If what amounts to less than 0.04% of the earth's atmosphere, of which man is responsible for less than 3 percent of that tiny number, can cause such alleged havoc, then carbon dioxide is the miracle gas. Argon (1% of the atmosphere) is used to fill the space in high efficiency windows. CO2 is a middling, marginal "greenhouse gas" and every physicist knows that. Water vapor comprises 95% of all so-called greenhouse gasses. CO2 shows up a distant second at 3.6%. Water vapor gets a pass. It is almost entirely natural.
What do you think? Should Brayton Point get the credit?
No.
Brayton Point (Dominion) is (surprise, surprise) gaming the system.
I can't go on. Anybody who has been keeping up with James Hansen's communications on the matter of coal-fired power plants knows what I'm talking about.
Yes they should get the credit. Because no matter what the polar bear lovers
cry about its not solving anything. I hope they rode their bikes to work this AM!.
I love coal, it keeps my electricity rates down.
BTW, RGGI did not replace the so called "Filthy Five" regulations (310 CMR 7.29), only the CO2 provisions of that regulation. The SO2, NOx, and mercury provisions are still in place
BTW, the Harbor is cleaner today than ever before. I dare you to show statistics that it isnt. If you dont have the data dont make accusations you cannot back up.
No, it sounds like they were going to recycle the fly ash anyway. They are going to sell the material, aren't they? That will be reward enough.
Richard: Carbon credit trading is a mechanism that allows a market economy to identify the most inexpensive reduction method. If it would cost my plant $100 per ton to reduce emissions and your plant can do the same for $50 per ton, I will pay you to double your efforts. Expect to see this on the national scale soon.
Ben White: Your numbers are generally right, your assumption is wrong. Although CO2 only accounts for a small percentage of the atmosphere, the wavelength of radiation absorbed by this greenhouse gas is unsaturated. At a certain point, more CO2 would not make a difference, but we wont be here if that happens. It is good to be skeptical and open minded because no one really knows what will happen as CO2 increases. However the base science of climate change is indisputable.
Give them a single credit sure. Then charge them say 5 debits for burning coal. Then let them go buy the other credits needed to operate. Add it to the cost of operations.
Then open a new nuke plant that doesn't polute the air. This after solving the political problems of new nukes. Let's go with Yucca Mountain already.
Hysteria over greenhouse gases is unfounded, but will be used to enrich the ruling class.
The name "filthy five" shows the bias of the author. There are six coal and oil fired power plants in Masssahcsetts, not five. They are the cleanest six coal and oil fired plants in the state and the dirtiest. Comparing these plants to plants across the nation would be a fairer comparsion. They are not listed in what the USPirg calls the dirtiest 100 plants in the country. The "filthy five" campaign was a MassPirg/CLF staged event that the media bought into entirely without ever examing the facts.
The creation of fly ash in the first place is not required to use coal for electrical power production. Microwave coal conversion technology offers a process to convert coal to oil and gas at the same energy cost required to prepare coal for burning. The conversion to oil and gas reduces CO2 emmissions by 41% for gas and about 31% for oil. The products created by microwave conversion also include pet coke and carbon which can be activated and both have markets. The reduction of SOX,NOX and rocks( particulates) would deserve carbon credits but not the use of fly ash for cement production. It is time the power companies use this technology which would allow the use of a fuel source we have available here in a much more environmentally friendly manner. See us at tirechef.com
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