Getting Ready for CO2 Legislation
CO2 is not only an issue for new plants. There are more than a dozen bills before the US Congress entailing either CO2 “cap and trade” markets or a broader-based “carbon tax,” both of which could double or triple the costs of generating electricity from existing coal-fired power plants.
In anticipation of these mandatory federal regulations, many power generators have joined the voluntary
Chicago Climate Exchange, where efficiency gains can be monetized in a liquid market. In part, such participation is intended to provide participants with experience in dealing with CO2 allowance markets. Current participants include Allegheny, Alliant,
AEP, AMP-Ohio, Associated Electric, DTE, Hoosier, NRG, Reliant, and TECO.
Managing CO2 with Optimization
Proactively managing CO2 can also be seen as a vehicle for demonstrating to regulators and politicians the commitment to dealing with this big emerging issue.
As I’ve blogged in the past, there are both immediate financial gains and political bragging rights associated with applying one of the few proven avenues to reducing CO2: optimization. With just some quick back-of-the envelope calculations, NeuCo’s installed base of optimization systems
have already avoided 4.34 million tons of CO2 in the more then ten years that these systems have been in place.
http://www.westernroundtable.com/Home/Detail/tabid...
I would imagine this is definitely the shape of things to come, as folks come to grips with the internal contradictions of their policies.
The permit denial for the Kansas coal plants and its adverse impact on the feasibility of wind power development in that state not only reflects contradictory policy objectives, but is also an example of what can be called the "Iron Law of Unintended Consequences."
Coming from a company dedicated to optimization solutions for fossil power generation, I am pleased that we are able to provide the most affordable available means of reducing CO2 from our existing fossil generation assets. This being said, optimization itself is not nearly enough to address the scope of the problems at hand; and there will indeed be difficult choices ahead.
First is the fact that there is (understandably) widespread misunderstanding of the scale of energy used and what the "equivalence" is between fuel sources. For instance, the knee-jerk response to the Kansas controversy is simply to build the T-lines for the windfarms only. The problem, of course, is that a megawatt of wind energy isn't the equivalent of a megawatt produced by a coal-fired steam turbine, and this is implicit in the statement that "it's not economically practical for transmission lines to be erected for wind alone because of the erratic nature of that power source and the expense of the lines." The issue is further compounded because the turbines themselves aren't equivalent either; the best illustration of this point is an illustration from IEEE normalizing various energy sources to a cubic mile of oil:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4820/ncmo01
Disclaimer: I'm a T&D engineer, not a power gen engineer, so I can't vouch for the quantitative accuracy of the illustration. But the qualitative point is still valid: it takes a heck a lot of wind turbines to produce the equivalent of a steam turbine.
Second point: one significant mentality that needs to be confronted is what some call energy nihilism. NIMBY has morphed into BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) and NOPE (Not On Planet Earth). I can at least understand the opposition to fossil fueled power generation (even if I don't agree with that opposition), but to oppose nuclear power as well is absurd given the energy demands of the 21st century. I can only draw the conclusion that for certain individuals the "Iron Law of Unintended Consequences" is irrelevant; instead, reality must conform to the Idea.