For the people of Minnesota, the giant coal-fired electricity generating facility in Sherburne County, known as Sherco, is both a blessing and a curse.
It is by far the largest producer of electric power in Minnesota, and one of the largest of its kind in the country. It produces 2,400 megawatts of electrical power from coal. That is 36 percent of all electricity generated, by any means, by Xcel Energy in the state. That's the blessing.
The curse of Sherco, located in Becker, is that it appears on the Environmental Protection Agency's lists of the top emitters of greenhouse gas and mercury emissions in the nation, according to the EPA and Environment Minnesota.
Xcel Energy
Xcel Energy's Sherco plant
At the moment, if Sherco were to go off-line, Minnesotans would have to find electricity somewhere else to make up the difference. And the future of the Sherco plants is now under review by Xcel officials and the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).
Three separate units generate the 2,400 megawatts at the Sherco facility: Sherco Units One and Two are older, built in the late 1970s. Unit Three is newer and is co-owned by Xcel and Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency.
Xcel has poured a lot of money into technology to decrease the emissions of mercury, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide at Sherco, and announced in December that it has plans to spend $438 million on further improvements over the next nine years.
These plans come against a backdrop of a slowing economy, energy conservation and efficiencies that have led a number of power companies, including Xcel, to report that demand for electricity is falling. The lower demand, among other reasons, led Great River Energy to shelve for the time being its plans to bring its brand new North Dakota Spiritwood coal-fired plant on line.
Frank Prager, Xcel vice president for Environmental Policy and Services, told me: "We are under a PUC requirement, right now, to evaluate the life cycle of the Sherco units to see if they should continue to run, or are they at the point of retirement."
All options open
Prager said that all options are on the table. If it isn't retired, Xcel must decide whether to operate it as a coal plant with ever-increasing investments in pollution-control equipment or switch the plants' fuel from coal to natural gas. "Sherco is a very important base-load facility for us, so it would be very hard to walk away from it — as it is configured — and try to go in another direction," Prager said.
Xcel has spent a lot of money to keep Sherco in compliance with the Clean Air Act. "We've got near-term plans to better control mercury emissions and we've already got advanced controls for particulate matter," Prager said.
There are no practical methods of reducing CO2 at conventional coal-fired facilities, but Prager says, despite Sherco's rankings, Xcel has reduced CO2 emissions in the state as a result of greater reliance on renewable, non-emitting electricity production. Xcel is getting about 26 percent of its electricity from non-emitting sources.
Xcel officials are not happy with finding one of its plants on an EPA list of worsts. Laura McCarten, the regional vice president of Xcel, told me that it is unfair to look at total emissions. She says that automatically puts large operations like Sherco on those lists.
"A better way to look at it would be to measure the amount of emissions per megawatt hour of electricity generated," McCarten said.
What is lost in the rankings, according to a statement sent me by Xcel, is "Sherco is significantly cleaner for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide on a megawatt hour basis, than the average coal plants in North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio and Pennsylvania." The statement goes on to say that by that standard of measure, Sherco is about average for plants in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.
But Sherco by any measure still releases tons of mercury and CO2 into the atmosphere. Last month the EPA imposed even tighter restrictions on mercury from coal-fired power plants. To meet the new requirements, utility companies operating coal-fired plants like Xcel will have to invest even more in mercury control technologies. And they have no viable options for controlling CO2 emissions from existing plants.
Taking up the slack
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that suddenly retiring the Sherco plant and its 2,400 megawatts of electricity is not an option until renewables are able to take up the slack. Xcel has had success in converting coal-fired plants to natural gas, and has been considering converting others. Natural gas is still a fossil fuel but produces up to 70 percent less CO2. It would be an expensive proposition, but a proven one.
Prager says: "Our approach to environmental issues must come with balance. Number one on our list is to make sure we are in compliance with the law. We think we can reduce emissions and we can do it in a way that benefits our customers and the community — and we must do it in a way that is cost effective."
Xcel is tasked with serving many constituencies. It must provide reliable electricity at a price customers can afford; it must meet the requirements of the law, and it must do no harm to the health of the people. That is quite a balancing act.
In order to make up for the electricity generated at Sherco, Xcel and other utility companies would have to invest heavily in new renewable energy systems, and it should. It knows better than any utility how it is done. Xcel is already the nation's leader in wind-powered electricity generation and fourth in solar.
A conversion to natural gas for Sherco, in the near term, seems the prudent step, unless Xcel can find 2,400 megawatts of renewable energy to take up the slack."If we did switch over, we would make sure that the new system would supply the same amount of electricity as the original plant," McCarten says
Laws regulating pollution are not going away. The federal government reports that coal-fired power plants are the chief contributors of greenhouse gases and mercury of all sources in the United States. Conventional coal-fired electricity generation is fading, and rightly so. Coal plants don't only release CO2 and mercury, but arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium and cyanide. The EPA estimates that new safeguards will prevent up to 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year.
Ratepayers will bark at any increased electrical costs if Xcel chooses to invest in natural gas conversion or heavy investments in renewable forms of energy. But the evidence is clear: Conventional coal-fired power plants kill people.
That should take one option off the table: business as usual.
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"Conventional coal-fired power plants kill people."
According to the National Safety council, 327 people suffocated in the covers on their beds in the year 2000.
http://danger.mongabay.com/injury_death.htm
Maybe the government should mandate everyone sleep standing up, eh? For our own good, of course.
Converting all of our power plants to Natural Gas is not the answer. Eventually these supplies will also be exhausted. We should be saving our Natural Gas resources as an alternative transportation fuel to replace imported oil.
@#1. I notice you don't refute the assertion that "Conventional coal-fired power plants kill people." You only try to diminish it. Big swing and a miss.
Overall, this is a good summary of the tough situation Excel Energy faces with Sherco. A few points:
The statement that Sherco releases tons of mercury and CO2 is misleading as regards mercury. Sherco releases about 410 pounds of mercury annually, not tons. It ranks about 40th for mercury among the nation's large power plants.
It is very difficult to just replace coal with natural gas. More likely, the coal plant goes away and a new combined cycle gas plant gets built in its place, or across the street as Excel did with its High Bridge coal plant in St Paul.
Using renewables like wind and solar to replace Sherco is not possible. Intermittent renewables don't work for base load. They have not replaced a single coal plant anywhere on earth. The only way to replace 2400 megawatts of base load would be with NG or nuclear.
Excel does get about 26% from non emitting sources, but most of that is because of its 3 nuclear reactors at Prairie Island and Monticello. Nuclear has a 90%+ capacity factor versus about 25% for wind and solar. And the nuclear downtime is primarily the scheduled every 2 year fuel replacement cycle. Wind and solar turn themselves on and off.
There is no short term substitute for Sherco; continuing to reduce sulfur and other emissions there is important. There is also no effective way to sequester the 15 million or so tons of CO2 that Sherco emits annually.
As long as you brought it up Rachel, the deaths that were attributed to covers smothering could be accurately validated and documented...that's not the case with power plant ancillary deaths.
'Course that won't stop some from assuring us that there is "consensus".
Rachel, coal plant emissions are indeed a major health hazard. But those estimates of people killed are wild guesses. No one really knows the total, serious though it is.
We have a similar situation with radon gas, where govt agencies are estimating tens of thousands of cases of lung cancer, also a wild guess. The average American receives about 300 millirems of natural radiation each year, the largest component is from radon. It doesn't hurt us or the planet would not have humans. There are health spas in Europe which advertise the high level of radon in their caves.
Areas like the Rocky Mountain states which have higher levels of background radiation have lower cancer rates than sea level areas with less radiation.
The radon fear is part of the exaggerated fear of radiation which prevails.
I'm going to drop the incredulity and snark for a moment to thank rolf for his contributions to Don's pieces.
I wonder if his consistently precise information makes a dent in MinnPost's resident AGW believer’s blind faith in warmer doctrine, but whether it does or not, I do know thoughtful readers appreciate his factual refutations and corrections.
I wish that repeated experience with rolf would spur Don to greater efforts to be more careful in his data collection....hope springs eternal; I'm a glass half full kind of guy.
Re #7 -
Correction regarding this bit: "blind faith in warmer doctrine". I'm afraid you're confused here, perhaps you were looking in a mirror when you wrote it? AGW has nothing to do with faith or doctrine - weren't you going to drop the snark for a moment? A nanosecond only, I guess - old habits die hard, eh? AGW is based on climate *science*, and scientific consensus is not properly described as "doctrine". Beliefs have to do with positions that are not supported by fact, and doctrine, as defined by dictionary.com, means: "a particular principle, position, or policy taught or advocated, as of a religion..." Belief and doctrine describe the denialist point of view, which is held in contravention of and despite the science, not AGW. Best to avoid those mirrors when writing comments...
But as to your larger question - whether Rolf's posts make a dent in Don's (or anyone's) acceptance of AGW science (more properly phrased), why should it? Serious question. Rolf mostly advocates for nuke power. There is no conflict here. Nuke plants are, as mentioned in the article, non-emitting, both of nasties such as sulfur and mercury, as well as CO2. As one you would call a "warmer" (silly term, sounds like someone who wishes for global warming - I'm a nordic and assure you I think it's already too warm on this planet...), I think we should be building as many nuke plants as possible - because there is no other way to provide the energy we need without adding to greenhouse gas emissions, and this benefit, IMO, outweighs the problems associated with nuke plants, which are technical and solvable. This is a rather old position among those of us concerned about AGW, actually - James Lovelock has advocated for nuke plant construction for many years. Some environmentalists are slow to come to this realization, but it is a natural reaction for people to resist crossing the cognitive dissonance threshold. Which may partially explain denialist stubbornness in the face of facts, come to think of it.
So - I'm genuinely curious - why the assumption that Rolf's posts somehow undercut climate science?
I do agree that Rolf's posts are generally factually precise and well considered, though perhaps a little too breezily dismissive of renewable power sources (example: it may be true that renewables have not explicitly replaced any coal plants, but a better question might be how many new plants have we (globally) avoided constructing because of renewables?)
I must also comment on this sentence from the article:
"Conventional coal-fired electricity generation is fading, and rightly so."
That may be true in the U.S., but not in China. They are bringing new coal plants online at a frightening pace - an M.I.T. study in 2008 estimated their power sector was expanding at a rate equivalent to 3 or 4 new coal-fired 500MW plants coming online every week, while also burning especially dirty coal. The rate is probably tapering off some with the weak economy. And they do use the latest technology and anti-pollution equipment. Still, China, S.E. Asia, India, are swamping any gains we make. I'm sure we've all seen photos of Chinese cities with air so dirty you can barely see across the street.
Lance, nice summary of the case for nukes.
Wind and solar combined are a little over 1% of our current energy supply and a little less than 3% of electric. So they haven't much influence on either adding or dropping power plants. They are adding to consumption at gas plants, as gas is the main backup for the intermittent output of wind and solar.
In the Pacific northwest, hydro is the backup for the rapidly growing forests of wind turbines. It's a big problem for the Bonneville Power Administration which has to curtail low cost hydro when wind soars. This apparently causes big problems for the fish. BPA has curtailed wind which causes howls of protest from the wind owners who get those subsidies on a per kwh basis.
It is easy to criticize erratic, expensive and low power density wind and solar. The come back is what do we do when the fossil fuels run out. As you note, my answer is nukes. Wind and solar need more research like nano tech solar which the U is working on. Multi billion boondoggles like Cape Wind and Ivanpah Solar are a silly waste of taxpayer and ratepayer money. Rolf
Lance, like alchemy, AGW is based upon pseudo-science. The proof of that claim is no harder to understand than knowing that the scientific method relies four steps:
"1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
If the experiments bear out the hypothesis it may come to be regarded as a theory or law of nature (more on the concepts of hypothesis, model, theory and law below). If the experiments do not bear out the hypothesis, it must be rejected or modified."
Global warming pseudo-scientists completed the first two steps, manipulated data to simulate the third, completely ignored the fourth and then shouted "CONSENSUS".
Your belief rests upon a manipulation of a leftist pre-conceived assumption. "Man is involved, money is being exchanged, and ergo it's wrong."
In advocating for nuc power, rolf regularly puts Don's facts and figures to the torch ie: "410 pounds of mercury annually, not tons".
A guy that is supposed to be knowledgeable about the subject he's advocating doesn't continually make those sorts of errors of basic, verifiable fact accidently; a guy that is advocating a subject based upon truth doesn't have to make them purposefully.
@#9
While I like that you approach these topics generally rationally, I dislike that I have to take your word on the numbers. Please cite sources.
Regarding your numbers for wind and solar, I would assume that the numbers you are using are grid numbers. I have increasingly seen solar as a supplement for individual homes, and I've met several people who have had the opportunity to replace most of their energy consumption with regard to heating and cooling with geothermal. Perhaps this doesn't make a dent in the overall energy consumption NOW, but these solutions are becoming more readily affordable for personal use.
While we don't have the technology to make the more variable energy sources (e.g., wind and solar) viable for full time energy production, that doesn't mean that it's impossible. Even if it is, it is preferable to be able to use these in the long term to at least supplement our energy supply. Other than the equipment and occasional maintenance, the energy is free and abundant, with no need to import (or transport at all!).
I, too, am not a nuclear antagonist. The technology has become safer and has always been fairly clean. The difficulty is storing and disposing of the waste (that's where it's not "clean"). But as long as we continue to foster ignorance in this country, the general public will not view any solution with any sort of rationality.
In the meanwhile, solar and wind are viewed as safe by the general public. They generally are. And the projects built up on those technologies are not all boondoggles (if any are--I'd need cold, hard facts on the examples you list).
@#10
It's hard to take you seriously when you make such a bald statement up front without any evidence.
Then, you describe the scientific method which MAY lead to a basis for scientific theory (or law, if sufficiently tested). Then you equate "consensus" with scientific theory (it's not). Consensus does not equate to scientific theory, nor are scientists suggesting it.
In addition, you throw out the falsehood that climate scientists manipulated data to provide support for the hypothesis that global warming has a human component. There is NO evidence of this, only spin.
Regarding the 410 pounds of Hg put into the air:
#1. A source is lacking from both Don's and Rolf's statements. I've verified that Sherco doesn't emit tons of Hg per year, but it exceeds Rolf's number by about 25%. According to the numbers reported by Xcel, Sherco emitted about 645 pounds in 2008/2009. Xcel submitted a plan in 2010 to reduce those emissions overall by about 80% by the end of 2014 (though is now asking for a delay). This likely won't be a gradual reduction, but rather, an abrupt reduction when the necessary modifications are completed. Between now and then, more than a ton of Hg will have likely been emitted, and Hg accumulates rather than disippates. That means that most of those molecules will be found in our water, soil, and air, still, being concentrated in fish and other top predators, rather than being trapped in coal under ground where we can't ingest it.
#2. Don said tons of Hg AND CO2. This would be accurate for the combined emissions, if somewhat misleading on the Hg output. That being said, Hg is toxic in very low doses, so a little goes a long way.
Rachel, 410 is the current number for mercury at Sherco. The rest of my numbers are primarily form the EIA. In preparation for teaching classes I amass a lot of statistical information.
From Rachel: "Other than the equipment and occasional maintenance, the energy is free and abundant, with no need to import (or transport at all!)."
HIgh initial cost(Cape Wind & Ivanpah Solar are both $2 billion+), low power density, and lots of maintenance mean that both wind and solar require big subsidies. Doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying.
As to verified data, google my unique name. You will get many published articles with facts and figures. I'm not perfect, but I have yet to be caught in an error. Regards, Rolf
Rachel, the pseudo-science of AGW hasn't even managed to come up with a scientifically proven hypothesis, much less a theory...but they most certainly are, and have been, beating down any and all dissent with "CONSENSUS".
To deny that painfully obvious fact really doesn't give warrant to any of your arguments, or further your credibility, IMO.
One of Sherco's three units has been shut down since November, due to a fire. It will be months before it is back online Xcel says.
The result? No rate increase for customers. No brownouts. No interuption in service. No problem.
Perhaps the coal-eating giant is not as indespensible as some defenders (ahem) of the status quo suggest.
Rolf - thanks for the additional info. Certainly, wind and solar cannot provide our base energy supply today (wind probably never). I do think it's good to diversify energy sources as much as possible, particularly if they are non-polluting, not least because the technology will continue to be developed and improved. I also think we should look to localization of energy production as much as possible, to reduce reliance on the central grid.
Hydro, while non-polluting, is still destructive, both of river ecosystems and by flooding vast areas (Three Gorges springs to mind). I'm not a fan.
Fossil fuels will become very expensive long before they run out, without even counting the environmental damage they do. The problem is already upon us, and we are in a bit of a pickle.
Thomas - it's simply not credible to condemn an entire branch of science - climatology, world-wide - as a pseudo-science populated by corrupt, money-grubbing snake oil salesmen. Where is the evidence for this? If you mean the email thing, don't even go there. There was nothing in the emails except some grumpy scientists who were disgruntled at how they're being abused in right-wing political and media circles. No manipulation of data. No conspiracy. You postulate a conspiracy theory many times larger than Hillary Clinton's "vast, right-wing conspiracy", without evidence. I wouldn't buy the corruption of 98% of the world's climatologists as a movie plot, let alone reality. Turn Limbaugh off once in a while - he lies.
You also conveniently ignore the simple fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and we have increased the atmospheric concentration of C02 by 36% since pre-industrial times. That's a lot of heat-trapping gas. How then do we avoid a warm-up? Are the corrupt pseudo-scientists monkeying with the Earth's heat exchange processes on the sly? The ice is melting, that's no illusion. Further, we see evidence now of dangerous feedback mechanisms coming into play with the release of methane from melting tundra. Red alert, man, the crisis begins.
My "belief" rests on the knowledge of how greenhouse gases trap heat in an atmosphere (and a good thing too, or Earth would be an iceball - but you know what they say about too much of a good thing, just take a look at Venus and Mars for examples of what happens when you have too much, or too little.) It also rests on the vanishing glaciers, the dwindling north polar ice cap, and the rapid melting underway in Greenland and Antarctica. These are not illusions, and no one bribed the ice to melt. It rests as well on the agreement of 98% of the climatological community that global warming is happening, and it's mostly our fault. And finally, I am old enough to remember the climate as it was 50 years ago, and it is changing, and the trend-line is not good.
I'm glad to see that you acknowledge that your comment about Rolf's figures undermining the case for AGW was a wild swing, and it's just that you want to make an issue of correcting some of Don's numbers. The case is rather weak there, and I would take "tons of mercury and CO2" as somewhat sloppy diction, not an attempt to deceive (lumped together, it is factually true, after all). I'm sure Don appreciates whatever precision Rolf can bring to the numbers.
It's clear what you're doing - the Rovian strategy of trying to turn your enemy's strength into a weakness by attacking it directly. Unfortunately, you're on the side of an industry that profits enormously from fossil fuels, and clearly does not want to see their use reduced, and that, in its p.r. efforts, even employs some of the same people who worked for the tobacco companies while they were fighting the whole cancer link thing. The thing about the Web is that it's rather easy these days to trace the linkages and the money, and when one follows the money, it's all on the side of the oil industry. If you want to talk money and corruption, take a look around you. The Denialist machine is floating in it.
Good discussion, overall.
@#14
I could Google your name, but how does that get me an independent source? Call me lazy, but considering that you presumably have the information at your fingertips while I have to hunt it down, it seems reasonable to request your sources.
Regarding the 410 lb Hg number, you are right--the 2010 reported Hg emissions via stack air is 411 lbs. The total release of Hg is 822 lbs., with about 187 of those being considered "contained." "Release" is defined as "any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing [on-site or off-site] into the environment (including abandonment of containers, barrels, and other closed receptacles)." Contained release includes injection into Class I underground wells and dumping into landfills. Other releases (635 lbs, in this case) includes "fugitive air emissions" (e.g., non-stack), stack emissions, discharges into streams/water bodies, injection into non-Class I underground wells, incorporation into soil (land treatment/application farming), surface impoundments (ponds for Sherco), and spills/leaks/other.
Take the 635 lbs uncontained Hg release as you will. 411 lbs or 635 lbs--it's a lot of mercury. It only takes 42 micrograms or less per cubic meter of air to show signs of toxicity (tremors, impaired cognitive ability, sleeplessness). That is, even if you only count 411 lbs, that's enough to contaminate 3.5 billion cubic meters of air with enough mercury to cause measurable mercury poisoning symptoms. I know it's oversimplifying since some of it will fall out of the air with rain and some of it will continue to circulate in the upper atmosphere. But the point is that Sherco is one of the "better" coal-fired plants as far as emissions go. About 40% of Hg emissions produced in the US stay in the US, while the remaining 60% circulates around the world, affecting other countries. Similarly, some of the emissions produced in other countries end up here.
If we don't get serious about finding other energy sources, we'll find more and more effects on our population due to Hg and other emissions from dirtier sources. I am open to some nuclear energy, but we should certainly be looking at ways to make other energy sources viable. In the meantime, the "boondoggles" you list shouldn't keep individuals from using those power sources either personally or cooperatively. While there may not be room in every back yard for a wind mill generator, there is room on every roof for a solar panel and under every house for geothermal wells.
Rachel, I am not arguing for serving mercury for breakfast. I just try to get the numbers straight and question all the wild general statements that are made on this whole energy issue. Burning coal is a very serious threat to the environment, but the world has limited substitute choices. In the short and medium term it's natural gas which is much less polluting. Longer term it's nuclear energy with that marvelous formula - E=MC2. That means you get several million times the energy released when you convert an ounce of something to pure energy versus conventional burning of that ounce.
Wind and solar today are essentially a taxpayer and ratepayer funded scam. Solar does have long term potential, probably with nanotechnology.
As to the so called nuclear waste, it is spent fuel. It can be stored at Yucca unless politics interferes. Better to reprocess it as the French do. Only the 5% fission products and actinides need to be stored. The other 95% can be recycled into the new fuel process. That's a quick summary of two classes on the spent fuel subject.
#18 - Rachel, sadly not every roof is suitable for solar. I have solar on my roof, and I know what it takes - and most homes in my neighborhood are not great fits, due to trees or roof orientation.
Perhaps room for a single panel somewhere, yes - but that gets into seriously diminishing economy.
And for geothermal - in a climate like ours which requires primarily heating energy, I think it actually is possible to extract heat from the ground quickly enough to freeze it, if entire city blocks rely on that for their primary heat source for extended periods.
Don't get me wrong, I wish for more of all these renewable sources, but it is nontrivial...
@#19
Interestingly, it would probably be better if we ate it for breakfast. We absorb Hg more readily through our respiratory tracts than through our digestive tracts.
@#20
You're probably right about the solar. I have some significant doubts about freezing the ground if the geothermal system is set up properly.
Lance, I am always very precise of what, and whom I am casting doubt about in this and other discussions. In fact, I've admitted more than once that I think there is enough credible evidence to conclude that the planet's mean temp has gone up a couple of degrees in the past 100 years or so.
But that isn't the issue, the issue is Anthropomorphic Global Warming, and the people that have twisted the search for knowledge into pseudo-scientific money making scheme and others that see an opening to use unfounded fear to assert control over vast numbers of people's daily lives.
@#21 - I base this on a fairly careful back-of-the-napkin sketch of how much energy you can suck out of the ground, starting at http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cE/page_302.shtml - it concludes:
"So again we come to the conclusion that in a typical suburban area composed of poorly insulated houses like mine, not everyone can use ground-source heat pumps, unless they are careful to actively dump heat back into the ground during the summer. And in cities with higher population density, ground-source heat pumps are unlikely to be viable.
I therefore suggest air-source heat pumps are the best heating choice for most people."
I could Google your name, but how does that get me an independent source?
Because I cite them. Rolf