THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XIII, Issue # 186, July 31, 2011
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
WHAT'S REALLY KILLING CARBON CAPTURE & STORAGE?
Bloomberg's Magazine Bemoans Dying Interest in CCS,
While the Boss Hastens Its Demise
By Paul K. Driessen
ROADBLOCK TO CARBON CAPTURE & STORAGE & TO CONTINUING COAL-BASED PRODUCTION OF ENERGY: THE
ANTI-ENERGY CRUSADE CARRIED ON BY IDEOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS, OPERATING FROM POLITICAL POWER
CENTERS BOTH INSIDE & OUTSIDE OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT -- THE ENVIRONMENTALIST DRIVE TO PRICE CCS &
COAL-BASED ELECTRICITY OUT OF EXISTENCE -- THE ADVERSE ECONOMIC & HEALTH IMPACTS THAT WILL OCCUR, IF THE
DRIVE IS SUCCESSFUL -- AMERICA SEEMINGLY RULED BY PETULANT IDEOLOGUES WHO DETEST & OBSTRUCT EVERY ENERGY
SYSTEM THAT WORKS & WISH FOR THE PEOPLE A GRIM FUTURE OF RAMPANT ENERGY DEPRIVATION, UNEMPLOYMENT,
POVERTY, HEATSTROKE, MISERY, & EARLY DEATH
FULL STORY:
Carbon capture and storage could ensure abundant electricity from coal, while cutting the CO2 emissions [supposedly]
“responsible for climate change.” Yet, barely two years after “a sense of determination and common cause” inspired the
Obama Energy Department to launch CCS projects, industry is “pulling the plug.”
What could have gone wrong? Environmentalists had “heralded” the projects. “What’s killing carbon capture?”
Bloomberg Businessweek wondered.
The economy is “weak,” its reporters suggested. U.S. climate policy is “uncertain.” There is a “national retreat from the
goal of reversing climate change,” largely because of energy industry lobbying against cap-and-trade legislation. The
administration spent its political capital on Obamacare. Republicans took over the U.S. House of Representatives.
Utility regulators refuse to underwrite growing CCS costs with massive rate increases. A CCS storage site in
Saskatchewan began bubbling up carbon dioxide.
All these factors played a role. But talk about ignoring inconvenient elephants.
While his magazine staff scratched their heads, owner Michael Bloomberg was working to scuttle carbon capture and
coal-fired power plants. His foundation gave Sierra Club $50 million to finance disinformation campaigns aimed at
shutting down one-third of the nation’s coal-fired power plants by 2020.
That’s the same coal that generates 48-98% of the reliable, affordable electricity in 26 states. It enables U.S. companies
to compete internationally, keeps millions employed, produces billions in tax revenue, powers air conditioners that keep
people comfortable and alive when outside temperatures hit 90-115, and allows even poor families to enjoy the best
living standards in world history.
That’s the same billionaire Michael Bloomberg who, as Mayor of New York City, wanted to install giant wind turbines
on the city’s bridges and skyscrapers. This, he insisted, would get NYC off the blackout-prone Northeast power grid
and reduce the threat of heat waves – like the ones back in 1976, 1954, 1936 and 1924, before climate change and heat
waves stopped being natural and became “man-made,” or "human-induced."
By financing Sierra Club’s anti-energy crusade, Hizzoner is making it infinitely harder for any company to justify
investing another dime in CCS demonstration projects. The Department of Energy and Bloomberg Businessweek
reporters may still support carbon capture. But Bloomberg himself, the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense
Council, and Lisa Jackson’s Environmental Protection Agency want it and coal-based electricity priced out of existence.
Frustrated that Congress refused to enact cap-tax-and-trade, President Obama unleashed EPA to promulgate thousands
of pages of rules governing carbon dioxide (“toxic” pollutants that have already been reduced dramatically), “cross-state
transport” of emissions, and other power plant operations. All tout health claims based on virtual reality computer
models, cherry-picked research, and illusory benefits. But the adverse health and economic impacts of the new
regulations are significant, real, and ignored.
Management Information Services, Inc. (MISI), calculates that the air toxics and cross-state rules alone will cost utilities
upwards of $130 billion, to retrofit existing plants or demolish them and build replacements – plus some $30 billion a year
for operations and maintenance. National Economic Research Associates says power companies will have to pay $184
billion through 2030, including $72 billion in immediate capital costs, to comply with the two regulations. The rules will
send electricity prices skyrocketing 12-60% and cost six Midwestern manufacturing states a combined 3.5 million jobs
and $42-82 billion in annual state GDP, says MISI.
Few companies can justify those costs for older power plants. No wonder they’ve lost interest in CCS experiments.
Utilities will simply close dozens of generating units, representing tens of thousands of megawatts. Illinois alone will
lose nearly 3,500 MW of reliable, affordable baseload electricity by 2014. The cross-state rule alone will prematurely shut
down nearly 25% of America’s coal-based electricity generating capacity, says Texas Environmental Quality
Commissioner Bryan Shaw. The United States could lose as much as 60,000 MW by 2017 – enough to power 60,000,000
homes and small businesses.
And all this is before considering the cost of removing plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide from power plant exhaust streams,
under EPA “endangerment” rules. Once EPA implements those plans, utilities will have to spend billions more to design,
build, install, and operate CCS equipment, pipeline, and storage facilities.
These “parasitic” systems produce no electricity. In the process of pulling CO2 out of the exhaust stream and sending it
to underground reservoirs, they consume one-third or more of a power plant’s electricity output – at $60-85 per ton of
CO2 captured – adding yet another 30-80% to family and business electricity rates. We will need far more power plants
to generate the same net electricity.
If Americans need still more reasons for “retreating” on “climate change prevention,” consider this. There has been no
measureable increase in average global temperatures since 1995. The Climategate emails proved that unscrupulous
scientists were colluding with each other, vying to publish the most alarmist “findings,” and pressuring scientific
journals not to publish articles by climate realists. IPCC headline-grabbing “climate disasters” turned out to be rank
speculation, computer model hogwash, or fraud.
Moreover, China, India, and other countries are constantly building coal-fired power plants. Thus, even slashing U.S.
carbon dioxide emissions to zero will merely destroy American jobs, companies, and living standards – making our
current unemployment, debt, and family misery indexes seem like paradise.
Businessweek barely touched on this. Nor did it ask Mr. Bloomberg, Sierra Club, Lisa Jackson, or President
Obama just how they intend to replace all this lost electricity. Their glib sound-bite answer is always “renewable
energy,” especially wind. Just once, it would be nice if they offered some specifics.
* Replacing just one 600-MW coal-fired power plant with wind turbines would require a 50,000-acre wind farm, like the
one at Fowler Ridge, Indiana, assuming it operates 24 hours a day, every day – which of course no wind farm ever will.
And these guys are talking about replacing a lot of power plants.
* Providing “green” electricity to meet New York City’s needs would require blanketing the State of Connecticut with
wind turbines, says Rochester University Environmental Science Professor Jesse Ausubel.
* Replacing the third of U.S. coal-fired generation that Bloomberg wants shut down would require over 50,000
monstrous offshore turbines, one every half-mile, in a five-mile-wide obstacle course along the entire Atlantic coastline,
according to calculations by Power magazine Editor-in-Chief Robert Peltier.
All these wind turbines would need to be backed up 90-100% by (mostly) gas-fired generators that can surge almost
instantaneously from “spinning reserve” to full power, whenever the turbines stop working – which they tend to do on
the hottest days, when electricity demand is at its peak. That means we will need vast natural gas resources.
Fortunately, America has them, especially now that we know how to use horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to
unlock our abundant conventional and shale gas deposits. Unfortunately, Bloomberg, Obama, & Comrades oppose
onshore and offshore drilling and “fracking.” And few really suppose these energy “purists” will ever support all these
land-hungry, scenery-scarring, raw material-intensive, bat and raptor-killing wind turbine installations.
Talk about cognitive dissonance. These guys need some serious psychological counseling.
We seem to be governed by petulant ideologues who detest and obstruct every energy system that works – and
support large-scale systems that don’t work only until someone actually proposes to install one. The problem is
pervasive, growing, and seemingly intractable. But the bottom line is simple.
If Bloomberg, Obama, & Comrades have their way, America faces a grim future: of rampant energy deprivation,
unemployment, poverty, heatstroke, misery, and death – at the hands of these ruling elites.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Political Environmentalism Versus Human Progress & Prosperity:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Political Economy -- Philosophies, Systems, & Public Policies:
Government, the Economy, & Economic Prosperity
Science, Ethics, & Human Health:
Human Health & Public Policy
Paul K. Driessen is Senior Policy Advisor for the Congress of Racial Equality, the Committee for A Constructive Tomorrow, and the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. Driessen is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death (2004).
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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