Photo by OZinOH, courtesty of Flickr.
Today’s Wall Street Journal has a front page story about the challenges of curbing CO2 output facing some of the big coal burning electric plants.
It mentions the American Electric Power Company as the largest single CO2 emitter in the United States.
Each year the U.S. electricity industry collectively emits 2.5 billion tons of CO2, which plays a starring role in climate change. That’s about a third of the U.S. total.
Like most other utilities, AEP wasn’t spending much on carbon-dioxide reduction until recently. Utilities were too busy dealing with federal restrictions on nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and mercury. AEP, which produces three-quarters of its electricity from coal-fired plants, has earmarked $4.2 billion between 2004 and 2009 to control these other pollutants.
Congress has yet to mandate any reductions in CO2, although it’s mulling global-warming legislation. Some proposals seek to reduce emissions by 50% to 80% compared with 1990 levels by 2050. State regulators, awaiting federal action, have generally left it vague whether spending on CO2 cuts could be recouped via rate increases. Rather than focus on the science, Mr. Morris, the CEO, says executives like him now focus on the “political science” of what Congress intends to do.
In a recent study, the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif., found that even if the U.S. power industry boosted nuclear-power production by 60%, doubled wind and solar power, and developed viable carbon-capturing technology, it would still take until 2025 or 2030 to get the industry back to the 1990 emissions level. Although some congressional proposals call for reducing emissions by half or more over the next few decades, the institute concluded “much of the technology needed isn’t available yet.” The institute is independent but receives some funds from the power industry.
“You have to throw up your hands a little bit because there’s so much that needs to be done,” laments Bruce Braine, vice president of strategic policy analysis at AEP. Curbing emissions requires “completely remaking the electric industry,” says Jim Dooley, senior staff scientist at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.
