The residents of Kivalina, Alaska, are feeling mighty vulnerable these days.Photo: USCG Press

Jammed into a narrow island on the northwest coast of Alaska, the town of Kivalina is home to 400 souls, with evidence of occupation extending back over a millennium. Due to the melting of sea ice, the island now gets a regular beating from ocean storms and is rapidly disappearing. The logical solution of relocating to the mainland is estimated to cost more than the town can afford, and despite warnings in 2004 and 2009 [PDFs] by the U.S. Government Accountability Office that Kivalina, like 30 other coastal communities in Alaska, faces serious danger, there’s still no viable plan that residents can count on.

With the clock ticking, the cold Chukchi Sea seems to loom over every interaction, every conversation. Residents describe nightmares of being swept out to sea. Even more vivid are the details of actual events, such as the 2007 storm during which people struggled in pitch darkness to reassure crying children and move belongings as the sea grabbed chunks of land. Between such moments of panic, life is filled with a numbing pattern of rising hopes for relocation followed by bureaucratic dead ends. Ironically, the one agency that would seem the logical source of relief — FEMA — can only get involved after disaster strikes.

In the course of her story, Shearer takes detours off the island to explore the legal and policy context of the dilemma. The shifts from white-knuckled narrative to detached analysis are both a strength and a weakness of the book. Having engaged the reader in the emotions experienced on the island, it almost feels like a betrayal to digress into politics, law, and history. But Shearer, a post-doctoral fellow at U.C.-Santa Barbara whose interests encompass corporate PR and energy policy (including research on the coal industry for CoalSwarm, the informational website that I coordinate), has a wider agenda: identifying the deliberate decisions and decision-makers within powerful institutions that have helped bring about the destruction of Kivalina. That agenda is shared by the residents of the island, who went to court in 2008 [PDF] not merely to secure justice but for the practical objective of funding their relocation.

Kivalina’s audacious suit against 24 major oil, coal, and power companies would not have been conceivable without lawyer Luke Cole, cofounder of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment. Cole had previously spent six years working with Kivalina on a water pollution lawsuit against a nearby gold mine, ultimately winning a settlement. Looking for ways to help Kivalina solve its relocation dilemma, he noticed significant parallels to legal claims filed by victims of tobacco and asbestos. Joined by the Native American Rights Fund and citing key precedents, Cole filed suit in 2008 on behalf of Kivalina, charging the companies with a “coordinated conspiracy” to deceive the public. The suit was immediately attacked by pro-corporate legal foundations, one of which labeled it “the most dangerous litigation in America” [PDF].

Of course, no matter how strong the precedents, the odds for a village of 400 to prevail against the world’s largest industry — and biggest corporate legal firms — can only be described as long. Yet broad lawsuits based on common law “nuisance” principles have won in the past in cases where intentional corporate deception has been established. So far, despite ups and downs, the Kivalina suit remains in play, most recently buoyed by the Supreme Court’s June 2011 decision in AEP v. Connecticut, which expressly affirmed that common law tort suits at the state level were not preempted by the EPA’s federal authority under the Clean Air Act.

Even if Kivalina succeeds in financing its relocation, the future of the community is by no means assured. Shearer recounts how a contractor working on the relocation problem, URS Corporation, proposed an inland site that horrified residents — too cold, too windy, too removed from the coast — and has yet to consider their objections. A story with eerie resonance is that of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, where in 1947 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began what amounted to a cruel, involuntary experiment on one of the most prosperous Native American groups in the United States at that time, the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) inhabiting nine towns along the Missouri River. Here, ironically citing the purpose of flood control, the Corps of Engineers constructed the world’s fifth largest earth-filled dam, inundating hundreds of thousands of acres of rich bottomlands that had supported a thriving farming and ranching economy for the Three Affiliated Tribes, including the direct descendants of the villagers who befriended and sheltered the Lewis and Clark expedition during the winter of 1805.

Relocation from fertile, sheltered bottomlands to the windswept high grounds of the prairie proved devastating. Armed with jacks and sledgehammers, Corps of Engineers workers would appear without warning to transport houses. Deprived of its agricultural base, the reservation economy collapsed; decades later, survivors of the inundation still struggled with poverty and fragmentation. As vividly described in Paul VanDevelder’s classic account Coyote Warrior and in J. Carlos Peinado’s 2006 documentary Waterbuster, the trauma continues to reverberate.

What makes both Kivalina and Fort Berthold different from the typical “victims of civilization” tragedy is the creative pushback, particularly attempts to break new legal ground and the determination to pull the long thread of culpability to a definite ending point. In a world where accountability so easily disappears into large bureaucracies and corporations, finding justice requires extraordinary effort. In the Fort Berthold story, credit goes to attorney Raymond Cross, the son of tribal chief Martin Cross, who originally led the unsuccessful fight against Garrison Dam. Regarded as one of the most innovative attorneys of his generation, Raymond Cross eventually broke new ground for tribal sovereignty, successfully arguing the Wold II case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition, Cross engineered congressional legislation that finally secured compensation for the Three Affiliated Tr
ibes in 1998. By then, of course, a half century had been lost.

Tragically, the legal dynamo behind the Kivalina lawsuit, attorney Luke Cole, was killed in a car accident in 2009. Cole’s work is carried on by the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment and its allies. One can only hope that, unlike the experience of the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota, who suffered in isolation, the solidarity of the climate movement with the residents of Kivalina somehow helps produce a better outcome.

The article was coauthored by Bob Burton (CoalSwarm, Australia), Christine Shearer (CoalSwarm, U.S.), Cynthia Ong (LEAP, Malaysia), Jamie Henn (350.org, U.S.), John Hepburn (Greenpeace, Australia), Joshua Frank (CoalSwarm, U.S.), Justin Guay (Sierra Club, U.S.), Kate Hoshour (International Accountability Project, U.S.), and Mark Wakeham (Environment Victoria, Australia).

In Thailand, 10,000 people call on their government to quit coal.Photo: Athit Perawongmetha of GreenpeaceIn the United States and Europe, the triple whammy of recession, cheap alternatives, and aggressive anti-coal campaigning has helped halt the expansion of coal use. Since 2004, plans to build more than 150 coal plants in the U.S. have been abandoned. In fact, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a government agency that analyzes energy-related statistics, predicts continued stagnation or decline in coal-fired electricity generation in the U.S. and the European Union over the coming decades.

Facing resistance to its longstanding rule in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, King Coal has redoubled ambitions elsewhere. According to 2010 projections by the EIA, coal consumption in the non-OECD world will increase by 23 quadrillion BTUs between 2007 and 2020. That’s roughly the equivalent of today’s entire U.S. coal-mining and coal-power sector, or approximately a thousand coal-fired generators, each 300 megawatts (MW) in size, spewing toxic chemicals into the environments and lungs of surrounding communities, and an equal number of million-ton-per-year coal mines.

A 2,000-MW coal plant in Madhya Pradesh, India.While China struggles with the enormity of the pollution burden from its world-leading annual coal consumption, it is not the only hotbed of future coal-plant construction. Activists in India, for example, report that regulators gave the green light to at least 173 coal projects during 2010 — nearly one plant every other day. In Southeast Asia, large Chinese utilities such as China Huadian are setting up shop to finance and build a slew of new coal plants. Meanwhile, new coal mines are being proposed in Australia and Indonesia, overwhelmingly for export sales. Countries from Mozambique to Mongolia, which have had little domestic need for coal, are now being hyped as the next big players in the global coal rush.

In the fertile farming areas that support large rural populations in much of Asia, the new coal boom spells civil conflict, as fields are seized, villages are ordered to pack up and leave, and communities resist. For the U.S. coal movement, the 2,500 people who turned out to protest the Capitol Power Plant was a large number. In India or Bangladesh, marches and demonstrations of more than 10,000 people are not uncommon.

The dominant international narrative focuses on the need to build large numbers of new coal plants across the developing world to spur economic progress. However, the assertion that development can only be achieved through a massive expansion of coal use is being met with increasingly fierce resistance by those asked to bear the most toxic and destructive burdens of this expansion: the people living next to coal projects.

Local populations are resisting private and public-sector pressure to dramatically expand coal-fired power because these projects are not intended for their benefit. While local people face displacement and the destruction of their livelihoods, electricity is often exported to urban centers. Communities are calling for a more sustainable model of energy development that prioritizes access to energy services for all, environmental sustainability, and human health. Their efforts to halt coal-plant construction have placed them front and center in the struggle over energy and development in the 21st century.

In the past, most communities struggling to take on ill-conceived projects have done so largely on their own, but that’s starting to change. International coalitions are beginning to develop to bring publicity and support to front-line efforts. Here are a dozen places around the world where people are uniting to halt coal projects, increasingly with international support.

South of the proposed site of coal plant in Malaysia, coastal communities depend on fishing for their livelihoods.Photo: Helen Brunt.1. Sabah, Malaysia

In April, 1,500 people convened on a beach in Malaysia to savor a victory that had been judged impossible just two years earlier: the defeat of a 300-MW coal plant in the Malaysian state of Sabah, located on the northeast side of the island of Borneo. Celebrations were also underway 7,500 miles away, in California, among a group of activists who had helped draw international publicity to the issue — including a Time magazine article entitled “A Coal Plant in Paradise.” The Malaysian group LEAP (Land Empowerment Animals People) helped forge the coalition of Malaysian NGOs, grassroots communities, and citizen movements, and generate support from the U.S. and other parts of the world. Along with LEAP, the coalition included World Wildlife Fund for Malaysia, Malaysian Nature Society, Partners of Community Organizations Trust, and the Sabah Environmental Protection Association. Among those providing overseas support were 350.org and Mongabay, which worked to publicize the project, and Daniel Kammen of UC-Berkeley and the World Bank, who coordinated a comprehensive energy analysis proposing clean energy alternatives to coal-fired power in Sabah.

Bangladeshis march en masse against coal.Photo: Anha F. Khan2. Phulbari, Bangladesh

Bangladesh’s high population density (more than 164 million people in a country the size of Iowa) and rich agricultural land make coal mining a destructive proposition. In the township of Phulbari, as many as 220,000 people would be displaced by a proposed 15-million-ton-per-year coal mine and a 500-MW coal plant. Community opposition reached a crescendo in 2006, when paramilitary forces fired on a protest rally of as many as 70,000 people, killing three people and injuring 200. In the wake of these deaths, nationwide protests and strikes closed down the country for four days. They were brought to an end only when the government signed an agreement to ban open-pit mining and permanently expel the project’s London-based financier, Asia Energy Corporation (now Global Coal Management Resources Plc or GCM). Although demonstrators burned down the company’s project information office and its personnel were forced to flee the country, GCM has since returned, with backing from New York-based financier Christian Leone and U.S Ambassador James Moriarty. During recent demonstrations, the Bangladeshi government has deployed its Rapid Action Battalion, notorious for torture and for the deaths of persons in its custody. The repression has failed. In October 2010, tens of thousands of people joined a 250-mile march from the capital of Dhaka to the town of Phulbari. The coalition opposing the mine has grown to include groups from across the spectrum of Bangladesh’s civil society, as well as international groups. The San Francisco-based International Accountability Project is involved in coordinating overseas support and outreach.

3. Andhra Pradesh, India

This coastal state of eastern India is experiencing a coal-plant construction boom, including the 4,000-MW Krishnapatnam Ultra Mega Power Project, one of nine such massive projects in planning or under construction across the country. (By comparison, the largest coal plant in the United States, Plant Scherer in Georgia, is 3,564 MW.) Residents have resisted the siting of large plants in densely populated and ecologically sensitive agricultural districts. The 2,640-MW Sompeta plant proposed by Nagarjuna Construction Company and the 2,640-MW Bhavanapadu plant proposed by East Coast Energy have both provoked large nonviolent protests that have ended in police attacks, including four deaths of local residents. Following coverage of the police action on Indian television, investigations revealed a pattern of “crony capitalism” among the permitting agencies and corporate sponsors. As of May 2011, the Sompeta plant had been cancelled and the Bhavanapadu plant had been placed on hold by officials, with corruption investigations continuing. However, the sponsor of Sompeta, Nagarjuna Construction, is now initiating a 1,320-MW plant elsewhere in Andhra Pradesh.

4. Dawei, Burma

In Dawei, on the beautiful southern peninsula coast of Burma, Italian-Thai Development Plc signed a deal in Nov. 2010 to build a 4,000-to-6,000-MW coal plant, the largest in Southeast Asia and possibly the world. Within weeks of the signing, 19 villages had received orders to move. Dawei is 10 miles from Maungmagan, a scenic beach and rich fishing district. Burma is an authoritarian state where land displacements occur by edict and activism carries heavy risks. Yet despite the repression, grassroots action has been effective, such as in 2001 when villagers in the town of Tachilek organized protests and blocked trucks delivering construction equipment, forcing the cancellation [PDF] of Golden Triangle’s coal plant.

5. Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, Thailand

On Feb. 24, 2011, 10,000 people formed a human chain in this province in Thailand to protest a coal-fired power plant planned by Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand. This protest followed a decade of organizing and protesting by the Eastern People’s Network focusing on the coastal Thai town of Rayong. The protests delayed operations of the massive Map Ta Phut industrial park, including a 1,400-MW coal plant.

6. Konkan Coast of Maharashtra, India

Home to 112 million people, this state in western India is building a concentration of large coal plants on a tiny sliver of land south of Mumbai known as the Konkan Coast (dubbed “the California of Maharashtra”). As much as 35,000 to 50,000 MW of generating capacity is on the drawing board. Concerned by the pollution and displacement entailed by the massive proposals, farmers have targeted some of the largest projects. One of these is the 4,000-MW Girye Ultra Mega Power Project, which prompted mango farmers and others to stage marches, hunger strikes, and other nonviolent actions. They successfully forced the project to seek a new location [PDF] as protests barred the government from acquiring the needed land. Other projects facing local resistance include the 1,000-MW Mauda power station and the 1,200-to-1,800-MW Shahapur Thermal Power Project.

7. Orissa, India

In this state on the eastern coast of India, the scale of coal-plant development is staggering. As much as 58,000 MW of projects are in the works, including three 1,800-MW coal plants under development by KSK Energy Ventures and the 4,000-MW Sundargarh Ultra Mega Power Project being planned by National Thermal Power Corporation. Ranjan Panda of Water Initiatives Odisha says that this level of coal development would require a minimum of 2,297 million cubic meters of water per year, enough to meet the domestic water requirement of close to 210 million people. In March, activists from across India converged on Orissa for a national conclave to plan a response to the coal boom, as well as the related issues of energy use and climate change. The mobilization includes the National Alliance for People’s Movements, Focus Odisha, and numerous other groups.

This man says his friend attempted to protest the Sasan coal plant; his house was bulldozed and he hasn’t been seen since.Photo: Sierra Club8. Madhya Pradesh, India

Since 1977, when the World Bank financed the first coal-fired plant in the region, the Singrauli district of this state in central India has been notorious for roughshod development and population displacement. Now more massive coal plants are being built or planned. They include the 3,960-MW Chitrangi Power Project, the 3,960-MW Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project (which is getting nearly $1 billion in financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank), the 1,200-MW Mahan Super Thermal Power Project, the 750-MW Hindalco Captive Power Project, the 1,320-MW Nigrie Thermal Power Project, the 2,690-MW DB Power (M.P.) Limited Project, and the Vindhyachal Stage-4 Project, which will add an additional 1,000 MW to an existing 3,260-MW power station. The concentration of power generation in an agricultural area has left local communities reeling. The Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project, for example, has displaced 6,000 people. One man is benefiting: Mukesh Ambani, the controlling owner of India-based Reliance Power, whose reported net worth of $27 billion makes him one of the world’s five richest individuals.

9. Queensland and New South Wales, Australia

On a tonnage basis, Australia already leads the world in coal exports, and that lead may widen significantly if several massive mines are allowed to move forward in the eastern coal-mining states of Queensland and New South Wales. Australia is undergoing a “coal rush” with more than 100 new projects or expansions in planning, including a number of mega-projects such as the 60-million-ton-per-year Carmichael mine by India-based Adani Group and the 30-million-ton-per-year China First mine proposed by billionaire Clive Palmer. Farmers and ranchers are fighting back with a concerted effort to protect rich agricultural lands and precious water resources from mining operations. Environmentalists are challenging numerous projects in the courts and have staged colorful direct action, such as a creative blockade of the port of Newcastle.

10. Victoria, Australia

While the low-quality coal in this state in southeastern Australia is not suitable for export, it provides 91 percent of the fuel used for power generation in Victoria itself. Last year, Environment Victoria and other groups came close to shutting down the aging Hazelwood Power Station, the second largest source of carbon pollution in the country, after commitments by Victoria Premier John Brumby to begin a staged retirement of the plant. The narrow victory of the Liberal-National party in Nov. 2010 dashed hopes for near-term action on the plant from the state government, though the federal government is now exploring linking closure of the plant to the price on carbon. Activist attention has also shifted toward preventing the construction of the proposed Dual Gas Power Station, which would burn a combination of brown coal and natural gas.

11. Colombia

One of the oldest examples of citizens working across national boundaries on coal issues is the coalition of human rights and labor organizations that has brought attention to the massive mines in Colombia, such as the 35-by-5-mile Cerrejón coal mine, operated by Cerrejón Coal Company, and the mines operated by Drummond. The expansion of these mines has been marked by paramilitary violence, high numbers of deaths in mining accidents, and displacement of entire communities, including Tabaco, a 700-person Afro-Colombian village that was razed in 2001. Witness for Peace has brought members of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth to visit the mines, as well as people who live near the Salem Power Station in Massachusetts, which uses coal from Colombia.

Eight-hundred people spell out their message.Photo: Greenpeace12. Sarangani Province, the Philippines

In the Philippines, grassroots protests against new coal plants and open-pit coal mining have taken place across the country. In the coastal town of Maasim on the southern island of Mindanao, local fishermen organized a flotilla of outrigger boats in Nov. 2010 to protest the proposed 200-MW Kamanga power station, while 800 people formed a human banner spelling out “No to Coal” on the grounds of a local elementary school. Supporters of the efforts included the local Catholic church, leaders of indigenous groups, foreign divers, and Greenpeace. At a separate demonstration, students at Mindanao State University dressed as Na’vi from the film Avatar marched on the fenced property of the proposed plant site. In April 2011, South Cotabato province, also on Mindanao, adopted an ordinance that would ban open pit mining in the region.

As grassroots resistance grows in countries around the globe, a nascent, interconnected, worldwide anti-coal movement is emerging. In an increasingly globalized world, local campaigns can quickly reach a global audience and tap into previously unimagined support networks. While the participants in this new movement are diverse, some of the patterns are becoming clear: sustained and passionate grassroots activism is challenging the idea that fossil fuels are the only option. Many governments have backtracked or shelved plans in response to political pressure or legal actions. Some banks, investors, and even energy companies are growing increasingly wary of further supporting coal.

But it’s still too early to write the obituary for King Coal. The industry is now attempting to wrap itself in the cloak of “development,” justifying dirty energy projects in the name of providing energy access for some of the world’s most economically poor countries. While many coal projects have encountered strong opposition, too many others are proceeding without challenge.

Yet those who are pushing coal projects are increasingly being seen in much the same light as tobacco-industry executives. Like tobacco, coal insinuated its way into our lives delivering a cheap, short-term energy high, but leaving a bitter long-term aftertaste — in the case of coal, ruined rivers and lands, lives wrecked and cut short, abandoned communities, and an increasingly polluted and potentially unlivable atmosphere.

We need clean energy alternatives, not the continuation of dirty energy that destroys people’s health, livelihoods, and resources. Will you join the growing global movement to move away from coal?

Which kind of energy takes up more space? Coal.

Sounds like common sense, right? After all, a lump of coal surely packs more energy than a dancing sunbeam or a fickle breeze.

Here’s blogger Richard W. Fulmer explaining the point:

The reason that solar power, wind power, and ethanol are so expensive is that they are derived from very diffuse energy sources. It takes a lot of energy collectors such as solar cells, wind turbines, or corn stalks covering many square miles of land to produce the same amount of power that traditional coal, natural gas, or nuclear plants can on just a few acres.

Fulmer is a pro-fossil ideologue, but it’s not just bloggers of that ilk who talk this way. So do some green capitalists such as Matthew Nordan of venture-capital firm Venrock. Here is Nordan’s recent reply to a question about when he expects solar thermal to become a very large part of the electricity mix: “My bet would be never.” Like Fuller, Nordan bases his pessimism about solar thermal on what he sees as the technology’s insatiable appetite for land. Building a solar thermal plant, he notes, requires “about ten times the amount of land required to build a comparable coal facility …”

Nordan’s answer makes sense if you’re just comparing the land footprint of a coal plant to the land footprint of a solar thermal plant. California’s proposed Blythe plant will require a whopping 7,000 acres of Mohave Desert in order to deliver 2,100 GWh per year. The area of a coal plant producing the same output will typically be one square mile (640 acres) or less.

But is that really a fair comparison? What about the land required to mine the coal? Shouldn’t that be part in the equation?

Unlike sunlight, coal does not fall from the sky. It has to be dug out of the ground, at the expense of substantial areas of forests, mountains, and prairies. (To get an idea of just how much land a single mine can occupy, see CoalDiver’s comparison of the size of a mountaintop-removal mine to the size of various cities.) Unfortunately, pinpointing the exact number of acres disturbed by mining is impossible, because the same federal government that each month tracks national production of coal down to the ton, and national production of electricity from that coal down to the kilowatt-hour, fails to accurately monitor how many acres of land are ruined in the process. The lax reporting of this massive sacrifice of land is rather like an army that brags about its victories but fails to count its fallen soldiers. It’s a reflection of national priorities, and not a flattering one. Under the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, each state is required to report the number of acres disturbed by coal mining to the Office of Surface Mining. Most states do report this critical number, but a handful with the most destructive mining practices, most notably West Virginia and Kentucky, refuse to do so.

Nevertheless, by examining mine permits, it is possible to fill in the data gaps, and on that basis one can calculate the acreage disturbed by mining. Using that approach, a reasonable estimate of the annual extent of surface mining, which accounts for 70 percent of U.S. coal production, is 104,000 acres. An additional 15 percent of U.S. coal is produced by an underground technique known as longwall mining, which causes land subsidence. Longwall affects 13,000 acres each year in ways that range from minor annoyance (cracked roads) to major damage (disappearance of streams and ponds). For anyone interested in seeing the full extent of longwall’s effects on farms in southwestern Pennsylvania, Terri Taylor’s documentary film Subsided Ground / Fallen Futures is an eye-opener.

Overall, based on figures compiled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the years prior to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, and by the Office of Surface Mining for the subsequent years, approximately 8.4 million acres of land have been surface mined in the United States. Continuing the current rate of surface mining for the next 60 years would require about 7 million more acres to be surface mined or longwall mined — and that’s based on the optimistic assumption that the quality of coal and the thickness of seams does not decline over time. In fact, such a decline is inevitable, based on the tendency to mine the best and most accessible coal first. So 7 million acres is a conservative estimate.

What about reclamation? Under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, mined lands are supposed to be fully restored. In fact, according to this analysis of reclamation in six Western states [PDF] by the Western Organization of Resource Councils and NRDC, and this analysis of reclamation in Central Appalachia by Appalachian Voices, there’s a giant gap between the intent of the law and the reality on the ground. In the West, during the decade 1996 to 2005, only one acre out of every 17 acres disturbed by mining emerged successfully from the regulatory bonding process, which ends with successful recontouring, establishment of vegetation, and restoration of aquifers. In some states, the record was even worse. In Wyoming, only one acre out of every 555 mined was reclaimed; in Montana, only one acre out of every 735. In Central Appalachia, the results are similarly dismal: According to the Appalachian Voices study, after decades of mountaintop-removal mining, 89.3 percent of MTR mining sites still show no post-mining economic development.

As for whether using the sun or using coal to generate a kilowatt-hour disturbs more land, the answer is: coal. Based on the current mix of mining techniques, a solar thermal plant like Blythe will produce 18 GWh per acre of land over a 60-year period. In contrast, a coal-fired power plant will produce 15 GWh per acre of mined land. In other words, the land footprint of coal is about 20 percent bigger than the land footprint of solar thermal.

When I emailed venture capitalist Nordan to question why he thought that solar thermal’s land appetite was any worse than coal’
s, Nordan responded that what he was really talking about was the difficulty of finding suitable Blythe-sized parcels of land meeting all the necessary parameters, such as gradient, insolation, proximity to transmission, etc.

Fair enough. Finding 7,000-acre plots like the one needed for the Blythe project may not be easy. But solar thermal plants don’t actually need to be that large. In Spain, the median size of solar thermal plants under construction isn’t the 1,000-MW size of Blythe, but only 50 MW. And in the United States, the median size of announced projects is only 250 MW. In other words, around the world, the vast majority of solar thermal projects are in the 350-acre to 1,750-acre range. Screening for flat sites of 1,978 acres or smaller, one study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory [PDF] found a potential of 6,500 gigawatts of solar thermal potential in six Southwest states, more than enough to power the entire country.

In reality, whether enough suitable sites will be developed to make solar thermal a major slice of the U.S. energy requirements seems mainly a matter of national priorities rather than actual availability. In the case of coal, Uncle Sam has bent over backwards to provide massive chunks of land for coal mining — in particular by leasing large federal tracts of coal on the cheap in the Powder River Basin region in southeast Montana and northeast Wyoming. A quick scan of existing surface and longwall mines shows a number in the monster range of 5,000-60,000 acres. (By comparison, the area of Manhattan Island is 14,500 acres.)

Yes, making electricity from solar energy rather than from coal will require plenty of land: as much as 6 million acres to replace all coal. But that amount compares favorably to other land uses including continuing to use coal (7 million acres over the next 60 years), Department of Defense installations (13 million acres [PDF]), rural roads (22 million acres [PDF]), and lawns (31 million acres). Substituting solar thermal for coal would actually reduce the amount of land disturbed in the process of generating electricity, and the intensity of disturbance would certainly be more benign.

Of all the arguments that might be made against solar energy, the argument that “solar uses too much land” is among the least convincing.

A Cash for Coal Clunkers program is worth exploring.

Such a perverse game is currently playing out in the push to retrofit old coal plants with scrubbers for “criteria pollutants” such as sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, and mercury. Although it is estimated that tightened regulation of these emissions will push about a sixth of the aging coal fleet into retirement, those plants that survive the gauntlet will be harder than ever to close after receiving expensive retrofits. Although the shiny new scrubbers will make the air cleaner, these plants will now spew entirely new waste streams such as scrubber sludge, and the additional power to run the scrubbers will require additional mining. Worst of all, equipping a plant with an expensive new scrubber will give that plant a new lease on life, enabling it to keep spewing out carbon dioxide and spelling disaster for the 2030 deadline that climate scientists have named as the key to preventing dangerous climate change.

Scrubber retrofits are a devil’s bargain, as we can see at power plants like the Merrimack Station in New Hampshire and the Boardman Plant in Oregon. In both instances, the Sierra Club and others came out against $500 million scrubber retrofits, arguing that the plants should instead be retired. Naturally, the owners of the plants have resisted closing the highly profitable facilities. They’ll make more money scrubbing them up and running them until 2040 or later.

Maybe it’s time to consider a new way to deal with all this, based on the adage, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” What about creating a positive financial incentive to induce power companies to shut down old coal plants? This Cash for Coal Clunkers idea has been floated by such people as Ted Turner, T. Boone Pickens, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, and science writer Bill Sweet.

“Nifty notion!” you say (having overcome the gag reflex induced by the thought of the federal government writing huge checks to gentlepowerpeople like Jim Rogers). “But won’t the scheme cost billions of dollars? What about fiscal austerity? Haven’t you heard about the global financial crisis? Where in hell will the money come from?”

The answer to the financing riddle can be found in the work of tobacco policy analysts, who have developed the crucial insight that smoking (like coal plant emissions) not only inflames arteries and darkens lungs, but also plays pickpocket with Uncle Sam. That’s because smoking kills income earners, and income earners pay taxes. In addition, people who are disabled by smoking (or coal plant emissions) create fiscal burdens on federal programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration.

Notice that we’re not talking here about the full range of coal’s infamous “externalities,” i.e. the numerous sorts of damages that mining and burning coal inflict on human health and the natural environment. We’re only interested, for purposes of this analysis, in estimating those impacts that are specifically fiscal. The idea is to show that a Cash for Clunkers program would be revenue neutral or even revenue positive, paying for itself through increased federal taxes and reduced federal expenditures.

Even a quick survey shows that there are at least 20 major types of externalities caused by coal mining and combustion, including climate change, heavy metals, flooding, fine particulates, acid deposition, thermal pollution, smog, ozone, radioactive releases, methane, land subsidence, stream destruction, acid runoff, and the zombie stares of coal barons, among others. Unfortunately, for most of these the specific information we need on fiscal impact is hard to nail down. Global warming, for example, is surely the worst of the coal-related externalities, and the general magnitude of the problem is suggested by a 2008 NRDC study estimating that climate-related losses to the U.S. economy could be running at $271 billion annually by 2025. Still, it’s not easy to translate that looming disaster into current fiscal impact. Another serious externality is mercury, with one 2005 study estimating 316,588 to 637,233 babies born each year with umbilical cord blood mercury levels greater than 5.8 micrograms per liter, an amount associated with loss of IQ. Power plants are the leading cause of the problem, but again, how do you measure the fiscal impact of small amounts of brain damage spread across an entire generation of children?

Of all the externalities associated with coal, the most carefully studied and monetized is the elevated mortality and morbidity caused by ultra-fine particulates. According to a 2009 study of deaths due to coal emissions, led by Jonathan Levy of Harvard’s School of Public Health, the ultra-fine particulates from 414 of the highest-emitting coal plants cause about 30,000 deaths each year. While the Harvard study did not specify the reduced lifespan associated with each death, that number has been estimated elsewhere to be 14 years.

Remember, for purposes of justifying the expense of a Cash for Clunkers program, we’re not actually interested in the full value of those deaths (a 2009 National Research Council study suggested $58 billion), but rather in the more limited question of impact to the federal treasury. Such a figure can be derived using a methodology developed by groups such as the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids [PDF], the Centers for Disease Control, and the American Academy of Actuaries. To arrive at the lost federal tax revenue attributable to coal’s health effects, we multiply the following: deaths (30,000), reduced life per death (14 years), U.S. per capita GDP ($46,400), the average all-inclusive federal tax rate (30 percent), and the estimated remaining life of each coal plant (30 years). This yields $175 billion in lost federal revenues.

In addition to increased mortality, particulate emissions also result in increased morbidity. According to a 2009 National Research Council study, that increased morbidity produces $3.72 billion annually in health costs. Assuming (in keeping with tobacco studies) that two-thirds of those costs are ultimately borne by federal programs, the impac
t of this morbidity on the federal budget is $74 billion over the same 30-year period.

So even though the science and economics needed to estimate the price tag for all 20 or more coal-related externalities remains incomplete, the federal fiscal impacts of fine particulates alone ($175 billion plus $74 billion, or $249 billion) provide a sufficient basis for a substantial federal financial incentive aimed at accelerating the retirement of aging plants. Of course, as more sophisticated data on the fiscal impacts of other externalities arrive, the size of the credit that can be justified from a revenue-neutral standpoint can be increased, no doubt substantially.

How do we do it?

How might a Cash for Clunkers incentive be structured? In terms of dovetailing an incentive into the mix of policy vehicles, it is perhaps easier to use tax credits than outright payments. By using a tax credit, we can match coal plant retirement credits on a dollar-for-dollar basis to the production tax credits provided for renewable facilities under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. That will ensure that credits from retiring old coal plants aren’t simply used to finance new coal plants, but instead are used to finance a clean energy transition.

In terms of the amount of money that would make a difference, a 2010 study [PDF] of the economics of retiring the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona provides some hints. According to the study, the gap between the cost of providing power from a mixture of conservation and renewable sources was 2.3 cents per kWh more than the cost of continuing to operate the plant. Of course, that differential will narrow considerably when a plant like Navajo faces a $500 million scrubber mandate. This makes a Credits for Clunkers program a good complement to a scrubber-oriented program like the proposed Clean Air Transport Rule. Together, the two can deal a one-two punch to a plant like Navajo, and the resulting revenues from the clunker credit will help solve the workforce transition issues involved in closing any large coal plant.

If we apply the economics of the Navajo Generating Station to the coal fleet as a whole, the basic conclusion is that a fiscally affordable Credits for Coal Clunkers program will dramatically increase the current estimate that about a sixth of the coal fleet will be retired within the next five to 10 years. That makes the program a win-win that will aid the climate while addressing the full spectrum of coal-related externalities. Since the program would be designed to be revenue neutral, there would be no need either to raise taxes or to increase federal indebtedness. From a political perspective, eliminating the need for tax increases defuses the ideological resistance that has bedeviled both cap-and-trade and carbon tax proposals. And since a Credits for Clunkers program would specifically aid the regions, power companies, and industries most heavily attached to coal, both regional and sectoral objections would be nullified.

If this all sounds too easy, maybe we should wonder whether we’ve been looking at the problem of coal through the wrong lens. Rather than focusing on how difficult it is to retire hundreds of entrenched coal plants, perhaps we should be looking at the transition away from coal from a historical perspective — as nothing more than the sort of infrastructure modernization that industrial countries experience on a regular basis. In that sense, retiring old coal plants over a 20-year period is not much different in nature than the decisions to build a transcontinental railway system, an interstate highway system, a space program, a network of federally subsidized hydroelectric projects, or an archipelago of jet-capable airports. In all those cases, the public as a whole stood to benefit from better infrastructure, and the broad gain in public welfare provided the basis for the fiscal involvement of the federal government. Looking at the problem in this way, we can see that a federal subsidy in the form of tax credits to retire old coal plants is well justified economically and is an appropriate federal role. 

Perhaps most importantly, a Credits for Clunkers approach cuts the Gordian knots that have stymied the clean energy transition: first, the differential impacts of the transition on regions, power companies, and industrial sectors; second, the anti-tax ideologies that have made the politics of both cap-and-trade and carbon fees seemingly intractable at the federal level.

For all these reasons, a Credits for Coal Clunkers program is well worth exploring.

By 2030, we have to stop emitting greenhouse gases from coal. That conclusion is most famously associated with NASA’s climate chief James Hansen, but Hansen is not alone. In a recent paper, nine other climate scientists — David Beerling, Robert Berner, Pushker Kharecha, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Mark Paganini, Maureen Raymo, Dana Royer, Makiko Sato, and James Zachos — joined Hansen in identifying a 2030 phase-out as the “sine qua non” for avoiding dangerous climate change. The scientists concluded:

Decision-makers do not appreciate the gravity of the situation … Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions, for just another decade, practically eliminates the possibility of near-term return of atmospheric composition beneath the tipping level for catastrophic effects. The most difficult task, phase-out over the next 20-25 years of coal use that does not capture CO2, is Herculean, yet feasible when compared with the efforts that went into World War II. The stakes, for all life on the planet, surpass those of any previous crisis.

So what’s the best way to accomplish the phase-out of coal? That question, with its use of the singular “way,” may be wrongly phrased. One mistake that activists tend to make is “marrying” a particular solution to a problem. Not only does this result in unnecessary infighting, as factions line up behind their favorite options, it also ignores the reality that changing the world is always a messy endeavor, and tactics often work better in combination than in isolation.

In researching my book Climate Hope: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal, I investigated why investor Warren Buffett decided to cancel six new coal plants that his company PacifiCorp was planning to build as recently as 2007. The answer turned out to be surprisingly complicated, involving no less than 10 different causal factors working in combination, including direct action protests, petition drives, renewable portfolio standards, rising construction costs, competition from wind power, lawsuits, the prospect of climate legislation, and more.

Across the country, the Buffett story has been repeated again and again, as underdog grassroots activists in state after state have taken on and defeated Big Coal and King Kilowatt. As of late February, activists had derailed 97 of the 151 new plants that were in the pipeline in May 2007. Since 2001, according to the Sierra Club, 126 coal plants have been stopped. In 2009, not a single new coal plant broke ground. All this was accomplished even though the U.S. still lacks any sort of comprehensive climate policy. Rather than one overarching tactic or policy, the rush to build new coal plants was stopped by a broad, feisty movement that inflicted a “death of a thousand cuts.”

Taking on the existing coal fleet

Now the movement against coal is shifting its focus from blocking new plants to the second and harder part of the task: phasing out the fleet of existing coal plants. In the Pacific Northwest, the Sierra Club and others have targeted TransAlta’s Centralia plant. In the Southwest, Natural Capitalism Solutions this week released a major economic study showing the economic benefits of shutting down the Navajo Generating Station. Across the country, utilities including Xcel, Portland General Electric, Red Hawk Energy, Georgia Power, Progress Energy, Public Service Company of New Hampshire, DTE Energy, FirstEnergy, NRG Energy, and Exelon have recently announced coal plant retirements or conversions, and TVA may soon join the list. The 2030 deadline is a daunting challenge but not an unrealistic one, since the coal fleet is the most antiquated part of America’s energy infrastructure and alternatives abound. The median plant was built in 1966, making it older than most activists. Scores of plants pre-date the Korean War. Almost 90 percent of existing coal-fired generating capacity dates from before 1985, which means that if we simply instituted a policy of retiring coal plants at age 40, we’d be 90 percent of the way to the zero-coal goal by 2025.

On the CoalSwarm wiki, traffic stats shows that climate change activists are becoming more and more familiar with the details of the coal fleet. Of the 3,200 pages on the site, the most frequently visited is “Existing U.S. Coal Plants,” which receives hundreds of page views every day and links to individual pages on 679 separate coal plants (1,445 coal-fired generators), including plants located on at least 65 college campuses. Each wiki page contains basic data, links to mines and waste sites, and Google satellite imagery of a plant and its surrounding area. At least 126 coal plants are located in the midst of residential areas (i.e. with more than 10,000 people in a 3-mile radius), directly contradicting the image of coal plants operating in isolated rural locations. These plants tend to be of older vintage, and only 32 of them have sulfur scrubbers. The per capita income in these high-impact communities is 14 percent below the national average; 44 percent of the residents are persons of color. Apart from the climate benefits, phasing out these plants will have major health benefits for 6.1 million people who live within three miles of one of the plants, as well as the tens of millions of other people affected by coal emissions.

In a groundbreaking 2004 study, the Clean Air Task Force put the annual health toll from power plant particulates at 23,600 premature deaths (14 years lost per fatality), 38,200 nonfatal heart attacks, and 554,000 asthma attacks. That’s nearly 35 premature deaths for each plant, a heavy price to pay for the 54 jobs provided by the typical facility. It’s no wonder that studies of the “external costs” of coal-fired power (i.e. the burden borne by society) invariably produce startling results. An October report released by the Natural Research Council placed the annual costs due to three types of pollutants from coal (not including mercury emissions or climate change impacts) at $62 billion annually, or about 3.2 cents per kilowatt hour generated by coal.

Throughout the 1990s, the size of the coal fleet remained fairly stagnant at about 330 GW of capacity (nameplate), with few plants built and few retired. During the past decade, that stagnation continued, with retirements roughly equaling new plant construction. From 2000 through 2009, about 8 GW of new coal plant capacity came online. Meanwhile, from 2000 through 2007, 132 coal-fired generating units were retired or converted to other fuels. Most of these were small, aging plants. The total amount of capacity retired or converted to other fuels from 2000 to 2007 was about 7 GW of capacity.

In its most recent survey, the Energy Information Agency lists 54 generating units totaling about 4 GW of capacity as scheduled for retirement or conversion in the period 2008 to 2014. News sources report an additional 27 units totaling about 6 GW as scheduled or under study for retirement or conversion to other fuels, mainly biomass and natural gas. New additions are expected to exceed retirements and conversions, with about 17 GW of new coal-fired generation capacity under construction, near construction, or permitted, according to the latest NETL report.

To summarize: during the entire period from 2000 to 2014, about 17 GW of capacity is expected to be removed from the coal fleet and 25 GW of capacity is expected to be added, for a net increase of 8 GW. While that may sound sizeable, it amounts to only a 2 to 3 percent increase in coal capacity during the entire 15-year period. Overall, the fleet continues to age, and by 2016 over half the coal plants in the U.S. will be more than 50 years old.

Coal’s share of the overall electricity mix has been on the decline since 1987, when it hit an all-time high of 57 percent. In 2004, coal’s share dropped below 50 percent for the first time in four decades. In the most recently reported 12-month period (December 2008 – November 2009), coal’s share in U.S. electricity generation dropped to 45 percent. The decline in coal is mostly due to an increase in the share of electricity generated by natural gas, especially in the Southeast, where coal prices are relatively high and natural gas prices are relatively low. Going forward the 35 GW in new wind power capacity that has come online since 2000 (including over 18 GW in 2008 and 2009 alone) will further cut into coal’s share of the electricity mix.

Scenarios such as Google’s Clean Energy 2030 plan, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate 2030 study, and Scientific American’s Solar Grand Plan show that it is feasible to replace coal with cleaner alternatives by 2030. What’s missing from such studies is the specific policies to drive the transition. Merely having sufficient alternatives isn’t enough. The reason is simple: amortized coal plants are cheap to run, and generally they can stay in operation almost indefinitely. It’s a fantasy to think that power companies will shut down existing coal plants and replace them with alternatives, unless they are compelled to do so or unless the current economic advantages of legacy plants change radically. (Note: For an example of innovative thinking on making the economics work, see the newly released report “Coal Plants in Transition: An Economic Case Study” [PDF].)

Frontal assault or death of a thousand cuts?

So how do you get rid of a bunch of old coal plants? For that matter, how do you get rid of any chunk of old infrastructure that is standing in the way of progress? If it weren’t for the vested interests at stake, the answer would be simple: a scheduled phase-out administered by federal regulators. Legislatively, this could probably be accomplished with a simple five-page bill that authorized the EPA to create and implement a phase-out schedule for the legacy coal fleet. The phase-out of CFCs and related compounds provides an analog. After scientists discovered the Antarctic ozone hole in 1985, 24 countries agreed on the Montreal Protocol in 1987 to phase out their use of CFCs. When subsequent research showed the situation to be worse than previously thought, the pace of the phase-out was accelerated. In the United States, production of CFCs and most other ozone-harming compounds was ended on Jan. 1, 1996.

Note what wasn’t done. Though some excise taxes were imposed on ozone-depleting compounds, market signals were not relied on. With the planet itself at stake, policy makers saw the need for a more decisive approach: a scheduled phase-out.

Outside the world of environmental policy, an example of a staged phase-out of key infrastructure can be found in the Base Realignment and Closure Program (BRAC), which successfully shuttered over 350 military installations between 1989 and 1995.  BRAC created mechanisms for depoliticizing the process, for aiding the economies of impacted communities, and for managing workforce transitions.

Recently, T. Boone Pickens and Ted Turner proposed a “cash for clunkers” plan that would pay utilities, plant by plant, for shutting down old coal facilities, starting with the “oldest, least efficient and most polluting.” The beauty of the plan is that it would aim directly at the legacy fleet and, if the “cash” side of the proposition were attractive enough, might elicit the willing participation of utilities. Moreover, given that the existing coal fleet is responsible for over 34 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, a “cash for clunkers” program could provide a straightforward way for the U.S. to meet the promises made at Copenhagen.

Is such a sensible solution likely? Realistically, a coordinated phase-out of coal is not in the cards, at least within the next few years. Instead, what’s likely to happen is a “death of a thousand cuts” attack on the coal fleet via a swarm of activist pressure points and institutional policy measures. It’s a messy solution, but what makes it promising is the fact that most of the coal fleet is already well into middle age. Like the rusting car that falls apart one fender, one muffler, one tail light at a time, the idea is to make each coal clunker more trouble than it’s worth, so that the operator eventually throws in the towel.

Nine “knives” that could pare down the coal fleet

Here, then, is a list of measures — some existing, some proposed — that could play a role in whittling down the coal fleet. None of these measures, considered in isolation, will have an overwhelming impact; what’s important is their ability to work in concert together.

Knife #1: Efficiency measures. The numbers are staggering: about 40 percent of U.S. electricity consumption is pure waste that could be eliminated via tighter building and appliance standards, sensible retrofits, etc. Since 45 percent of electricity generation comes from coal, efficiency alone could largely do the job of displacing the coal fleet. In reality, it won’t be that simple, because the complicated logic of utility “dispatch order” may favor displacing natural gas instead. Nevertheless, weakening demand is the necessary condition that makes other efforts to diminish the coal fleet possible, and it’s far and away the cheapest.

Knife #2: Direct actions and other protests. Protest makes people uncomfortable. Mainstream environmentalists often fret that it alienates “regular people.” But the fact of the matter, as documented by sociologist Jon Agnone, is that protest produces results, though nobody knows exactly how or why. Think of it as “movement caffeine”: a way of defining a moral edge, of underlining the urgency of what’s at stake. Taken in isolation, protests against power plants will not cause those power plants to be shut down. But urgent, repeated, dramatic protest aimed at utilities, mines, railroads, ports, banks, regulators, elected officials, and the media are indeed essential within the overall mix of tactics. Note too that a mere two dozen executives control 70 percent of the coal-fired generating capacity in the U.S. So far, these “old white guys” haven’t been the direct target of much campaigning or pressure. That could change in the future.

Knife #3: Renewable portfolio standards. At least 33 states accounting for 73 percent of U.S. electrical generating capacity have renewable portfolio standards, with goals ranging from 8 percent by 2020 in Pennsylvania to 40 percent by 2017 in Maine. Including the states that have no standards, the weighted average of all these programs amounts to a requirement that 13 percent of all generating capacity be from renewable sources at by around 2020. Assuming that efficiency improvements keep overall demand growth to a minimum, renewable portfolio standards currently in effect will result in as much as 72 GW of renewable capacity and will undoubtedly serve to inhibit the building of new coal capacity. In fact, some companies (e.g. PacifiCorp, Tampa Electric, Sunflower Electric) have already cited the effect of renewable portfolio standards in canceling new coal plants. As with efficiency improvements, the effect on the existing coal fleet depends to some extent on the relative fuel costs of natural gas versus coal, which have experienced rapid shifts in both directions over the past two years. Significantly, renewable portfolio standards are backed by increasingly effective lobbying groups like the RES Alliance for Jobs, which includes wind, biofuels, and geothermal companies. A recent study for the RES Alliance by Navigant Consulting looked at the effect of a nationwide renewable portfolio standard of 25 percent in the year 2025. According to the study, a 25 percent RPS would displace 2,000 GWh of electricity, a figure equal to the entire yearly output of the current coal fleet. There are serious problems with renewable portfolio standards: biofuels plants, for example, are often worse polluters than coal plants. Nevertheless, state and federal renewable portfolio standards may be the most effective single item in the toolkit for phasing out coal.

Knife #4: Criteria pollutant regulation. As regulation under the Clean Air Act of “criteria pollutants” such as sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, ozone, mercury, and particulates continues to tighten, utility planners and state regulators have to choose between authorizing hundreds of millions of dollars in pollution control retrofits, or shutting down aging plants and investing in clean technologies. For example, in 2008 the EPA released a list of scrubber retrofits expected at 56 coal-fired generating units in 2010 and 20 coal-fired generating units in 2011. Since scrubbers actually increase carbon dioxide emissions, many climate activists are regrouping around a position of “don’t retrofit: shut it down.” So far, that position has not been able to slow the momentum of retrofits. Last year’s showdown in New Hampshire over the future of the 459 MW Merrimack Station highlighted the charged politics of the issue. When the price tag for a scrubber retrofit for the plant jumped from $250 million to $457 million, the ad hoc business coalition 21st Century New Hampshire, along with groups such as the Sierra Club, pressed the state to consider shutting the station down rather than undertaking the retrofit. That effort was defeated by a combination of power company and union lobbying; consequently, Merrimack Station, which consists of a 42-year-old unit and a 50-year-old unit, is now likely to run for several more decades. Meanwhile, in a similar fight in Oregon, a plan to retrofit the 601 MW Boardman Plant was defeated in favor of a smaller retrofit and a shut-down by 2020, though activists continue to push for an earlier date. Look for the retrofits-versus-shutdown issue to be a major preoccupation for groups like the Sierra Club during the coming decade. Since less than a third of coal-fired generating capacity (101 GW out of 329 GW in 2005) currently is equipped with sulfur scrubbers, even a partial victory for the “don’t retrofit: shut it down” side of the issue could carve a big chunk out of the existing coal fleet.

Knife #5: Coal waste regulation. The problem of unregulated coal waste at over 1,300 surface impoundments entered the national consciousness in the the wake of the Tennessee mega-spill of December 2008. In January 2009, an AP study found that 156 coal-fired power plants store ash in surface ponds similar to one that ruptured at Kingston Fossil Plant. Currently, groups like Earthjustice are pushing hard for coal waste to be designated a hazardous pollutant. On Dec. 10, 2009, Ken Ladwig of the Electric Power Research Institute told Congress that tighter regulation of coal combustion by-products could result in the closure of 190 to 411 older coal-fired generating units totaling 40 GW to 97 GW. Even if Ladwig is grandstanding, there’s no question that fixing defective waste disposal systems at aging coal plants will be expensive. When added to other costs such as scrubber retrofits (see above) and rising coal costs (see below), the waste issue — and the liability risks that go along with it — may be one headache too many for a lot of harried utility executives.

Knife #6: Holding industry to its “clean coal” promises. Rather than getting rid of coal plants, let’s simply retrofit plants for carbon capture and storage (CCS) — that’s the message that groups like American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity have spent tens of millions of dollars selling. So why not force utilities to live up to the rhetoric? One approach to turning clean coal rhetoric into reality has been proposed by soon-to-depart Sierra Club chief Carl Pope, who proposes that new plants meet strict carbon emissions standards and that existing coal plants be required to meet the same emissions standards once they reach the age of 50 — or else be retired. Do regulators have the nerve to require such a standard? In three states, Washington, Maine, and California, the standard already exists, prohibiting utilities from entering into electricity contracts for power from coal plants whose emissions exceed 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour, a level that cannot be met by coal plants that lack carbon capture. Note that California’s carbon standards apply to existing plants when they receive capital upgrades, and Washington’s standard applies to both new and renewed contracts for electricity. Under the Bush administration, the EPA in July 2008 outlined an approach that would require merely marginal improvements at existing plants, such as enhancements to boiler efficiency. But what if the EPA developed a more serious standard? For example, if EPA were to apply the 1,100-pounds-of-CO2-per-megawatt-hour standard to existing plants, what would the effect be on the coal fleet? The answer is that most plants would have to be phased out. Although researchers continue to investigate the CCS retrofit option, there are some practical obstacles that stand in the way of retrofitting most existing coal plants. First, because carbon capture requires large amounts of energy, it imposes a heavy parasitic power burden on an existing plant. To be able to shoulder this burden and still have a reasonable amount of power left over, eligible plants need to be those that employ the more efficient supercritical technology rather than the less efficient subcritical technology. Currently, about 80 GW of the coal fleet employs supercritical technology. A second criterion is that candidate plants be no older than 20 or 25 years, so that enough lifetime remains for expensive CCS retrofits to be worthwhile. That’s a serious obstacle, since most supercritical plants in the United States were built between 1965 and 1980 and therefore are already 30 to 45 years old. Only a handful of existing plants meet both criteria: supercritical technology and recent vintage. As if those two obstacles weren’t enough, there are others, including availability of water, sufficient vacant space to build the CCS facilities, and proximity to geological formations suitable for carbon sequestration. The upshot is that any CCS retrofits that may be mandated (e.g. by greenhouse gas regulations) could not be economically undertaken by utilities. In effect, holding utilities to the promise of “clean coal” amounts to a de facto shutdown requirement, at least for the vast majority of existing plants.

Knife #7: Squeezing coal supplies. In 2007, the National Research Council released a report challenging the common assertion that the United States has a 250-year supply of coal. The NRC study suggested that 100 years was a more reasonable estimate. Despite the downgrade, supplies of coal appear to be adequate on a general basis. Nevertheless, in some regions, especially the Southeast, coal supplies may become a factor. Also, close examination of Wyoming’s Power River Basin by the U.S. Geological Survey suggests that future coal supplies from that key region, which accounts for about 40 percent of U.S. production, are more constrained than commonly assumed. Meanwhile, the EIA reports that production in both the Interior and Appalachian regions is declining. As resistance to mountaintop-removal mining practices continues to intensify, that decline will only steepen. By themselves, coal supply issues are unlikely to shutter any existing plants; however, higher coal prices will augment the effectiveness of other shut-down measures, especially if they alter the “dispatch order” such that gas-fired generation moves ahead of coal-fired generation. In fact, a recent report by the EIA concludes that rising coal prices and falling natural gas prices have already caused a shift in generation patterns in the South and to a lesser extent along the South Atlantic states.

Knife #8: Carbon taxes. Carbon taxes are likely to be a much more effective measure for stopping new coal plants than for phasing out existing ones. Since new coal plants are expensive, even a modest tax on carbon dioxide would serve to tip the balance toward competing generation options such as wind. But for existing plants, a study for the American Public Power Association shows that carbon taxes of less than about $50 per ton of carbon dioxide won’t do the trick. Under $50 per ton, it will still be more economical for utilities to simply pay the tax and continue running existing coal plants than to dispatch sequestering-coal or natural-gas units. It’s not until the tax reaches $80 per ton that production from existing coal plants finally takes a nose dive, falling by 85 percent in 2030. Still, that doesn’t mean carbon taxes are meaningless in tackling the legacy coal fleet. Applying the principle that combinations of measures may work where individual measures fail, a smaller carbon tax could combine with other factors like expensive scrubber retrofits and expensive coal waste reengineering to drive more plants into the “not worth the hassle” column.

Knife #9: Cap-and-trade, cap-and-dividend. Even before the legislation was weakened in the summer of 2009, an EPA analysis of the Waxman-Markey climate bill (ACES) showed that the legislation would have only a minimal effect on the legacy coal fleet. According to the analysis, passage of Waxman-Markey would cause 22 GW of the existing coal fleet to be retired by 2015 (in addition to 5 GW predicted to be retired in the absence of the legislation). From 2015 through 2025, Waxman-Markey would force no further retirements. Waxman-Markey would also block EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, removing a potentially useful tool for closing coal plants. Another federal cap-and-trade bill, the Cantwell/Collins CLEAR Act, has been analyzed by World Resources Institute, but the analysis failed to provide any specific conclusions about the effect of the bill on the existing coal fleet. As for the three regional cap-and-trade programs currently under development (the Northeast’s RGGI, the Midwest’s MGGA, and the West’s WCI), only the RGGI has a track record of fees for carbon dioxide. At the current level of about $2 per ton, those fees are not sizeable enough to result in the closure of legacy coal plants. As with carbon taxes, cap-and-trade laws could tip the economics away from coal and might prove useful in combination with other measures. But that principle only applies if the cap-and-trade regulation does not preempt other measures — e.g. the preemption of EPA greenhouse gas regulation by ACES.

Conclusion

When added together, are the measures outlined above sufficient to phase out coal? Not yet. But the process is just beginning. As Bill Gates once observed, “We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.” The anti-coal movement is still gaining strength, and it has an important ally in the renewables industry. Increasingly these companies, along with the tens of thousands of people they employ, will recognize that 40- and 50-year-old coal plants are blocking their growth, and they’ll add their weight to the pressure to retire more plants. 

Assemble any group of anti-coal activists, and you’ll soon hear more and more ideas for ways to shut down dirty old coal plants. An important principle to guide this discussion is that in a messy war of attrition, a host of small measures can add up to victory. As Gandhi said, “Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it’s very important that you do it.”

Hansen’s focus on coal proved invaluable as a yardstick for grassroots climate activists. Across the country, hundreds of small groups mobilized to block the wave of construction. While many national groups assisted the grassroots groups, two deserve particular kudos for zeroing in specifically on stopping coal plants: Sierra Club and Rainforest Action Network.

In my account of the anti-coal movement, Climate Hope: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Coal, I document 100 coal plant cancellations between mid-2007 and mid-2009. That number continues to grow, with the Sierra Club tracking list now showing 123 coal projects derailed as Feb. 12. Of the 151 coal plants listed by the Energy Department in 2007, the CoalSwarm wiki lists 95 plants cancelled or abandoned.

That’s a .629 batting average–incredible!

For the first time in six years, not a single new coal plant broke ground in 2009, a radical turnaround from projections of three years ago.

But the success of the anti-coal movement hasn’t been limited to stopping new coal plants. The vast infrastructure of existing plants — call it the Carbon Archipelago — is beginning to crumble as well. And overseas, the Chinese coal plant boom is also fading. I’ll make those two closely related developments the subject of upcoming posts.

The plan, developed by Denver-based BBC Research and Consulting, looks at the effects of building 38, 122, or 188 new coal plants, each with 90 percent CCS.

Since “jobs” and “stimulus” are the watchwords these days in Washington, ACCCE decided to emphasize the “6.9 million total job-years of labor” that would be created by building, fueling, and operating these new coal plants.

Well, maybe. But there’s a problem with the time frame. The “stimulus” jobs being trumpeted by the ACCCE would not begin to appear until around 2020, according to what the utility industry’s own research institute, EPRI, told Congress in May [PDF].

In short, this is vapor employment, jobs that won’t start to materialize for several presidential administrations down the road — maybe during the second term of Huckabee/Palin.

What’s depressing is that ACCCE actually talked leaders of four major unions into being its sock puppets at the press conference. One was Abraham Breeley of the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, who said, “This study demonstrates that [coal with carbon capture and storage] has the potential to create literally millions of jobs for workers across the country, in every region — and I think it’s very important to point out that these are jobs that can sustain families.”

Message to Breeley and comrades: Stop hanging out with the coal boys. Instead, go down the street to the American Wind Power Association, which just reported that 83,000 people were building and operating wind farms in 2008. Or check out the Solar Energy Industries Association, which just reported that the newly signed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will create 110,000 jobs in the solar industry in the next two years.

Compare those 193,000 solar and wind power jobs to the 174,000 jobs currently provided by coal mining (83,000) + coal transportation (31,000) + coal-fired power generation (60,000).

Not only is combined solar/wind employment beginning to move past total coal-related employment, but the gap is expected to widen.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the number of O&M jobs in the typical 300 MW coal plant dropped from about 75 in 1981 to about 50 in 1997. In coal mining, the decline is even steeper. Productivity per miner is expected to increase by a third between now and 2025, which means that overall employment will decline unless the volume of coal produces grows at a faster rate, an unlikely possibility given Eastern production declines and limitations on Western mines.

(To be cynical, it should be pointed out that coal’s “externalities” do produce a lot of indirect employment in one growing sector: health care. According to the 2004 study “Dirty Air, Dirty Power,” [PDF] particulates from power generation result annually in 26,000 emergency room visits for asthma, 38,200 heart attacks, 16,200 cases of chronic bronchitis, and 23,600 fatalities. Among the fatalities, the average reduction in life span was 14 years. That’s a lot of work for nurses, doctors, EMTs, ambulance drivers, health insurance employees, and morticians.)

Coal backers like to think of themselves as hard-headed realists. Yet anyone who reads the energy trades these days will see that the predicted boom in coal has largely fizzled, and instead we’re seeing a very real boom in wind power, with a boom in solar power coming close behind. Fact: In the past 17 years, net coal capacity in the United States has increased by a mere 7,617 MW. But in 2008 alone, wind power capacity increased by 8,300 MW.

Another flaw in the newly released ACCCE study is its optimistic projections of the cost of coal plants equipped with CCS. The study placed those costs at $3,972 per kW for a supercritical coal plant with CCS, and at $3,906 per kW for an IGCC coal plant with CCS.

Both of those numbers are unrealistically low. According to two studies released in 2008, one for the California Energy Commission and Public Utilities Commission, the other for the Lazard investment banking company, the projected capital costs for an IGCC plant with CCS are $5,050 per kW (Lazard) or $5,127 per kW (California).

Even now, some coal plants that don’t have CCS are pushing past $3,500 per kW. According to an inventory of capital costs conducted by EPRI [PDF], Duke Energy’s Edwardsport plant will cost $3,730 per kW, and AEP’s Mountaineer plant will cost $3,545 per kW.

Because it uses artificially optimistic estimates for capital costs, the ACCCE study results in outlandishly high estimates of the bang (numbers of jobs) that can be expected for the coal investment buck.

In fact, studies consistently show that wind and solar power both create more jobs than coal. For example, a study [PDF] by Virinder Singh of BBC Research (the same firm that performed the jobs study for ACCCE) and Jeffrey Fehrs found that $1 million invested in coal would produce 3.96 job-years of employment, compared to 5.70 job-years if invested in wind power and 5.65 job-years if invested in photovoltaics.

According to Green for All, a partial list of fields with the potential to grow from solar, wind, and efficiency investments includes electricians, truck drivers, welders, machinists, roofers, accountants, cashiers, software engineers, civil engineers, energy efficient construction, and energy audit specialists.

The message is, if you want to stimulate the economy, invest in jobs that are available now, not in 2020. That means greasing the skids for wind power, solar, and energy conservation, not carbon capture and storage.

On the other hand, if you think carbon capture and storage is important, go ahead and make the case. But please don’t use jobs as the basis for the argument.

– writer and activist Bill McKibben

On Feb. 9, 2007, you and Al Gore announced the Virgin Earth Challenge at a London press conference:

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25 million for whoever can demonstrate to the judges’ satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.

It was announced that the panel of judges would consist of Richard Branson, Al Gore, Crispin Tickell, James Hansen, James Lovelock, and Tim Flannery.

I’m sure that when you dreamed up the prize, you were probably thinking about how to motivate the proverbial garage inventor or moonlighting chemist to come up with a new planet-rescuing technology in the narrow sense of the term — perhaps some sort of chemical reagent, gene-tweaked algae, or super-absorbent biochar that could suck carbon dioxide molecules out of the atmosphere.

But it’s time to do some out-of-the-box thinking on climate change, starting with what sort of technological solutions we’re willing to take seriously. Let’s start with the idea of technology itself.

Wikipedia’s definition is as good as any:

A strict definition is elusive; "technology" can refer to material objects of use to humanity, such as machines, hardware or utensils, but can also encompass broader themes, including systems, methods of organization, and techniques.

Let me propose a technology that I take very seriously, even if people like Rudolph Giuliani don’t: grassroots community organizing.

The “community organizer” that Giuliani and Sarah Palin mocked at the Republican Convention in September is now about to be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. Indeed, even seasoned politicos admitted to being fairly dazzled by the ground game displayed by Obama in winning the election against far more experienced politicians.

That was community organizing on display. And yes, it really is a technology. In fact, in solving climate change, it may be the only technology that really matters.

Two years ago, at about the time you were announcing your Virgin Earth Challenge, a bureaucrat named Eric Schuster at the U.S. Department of Energy was releasing the latest of his “Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants” spreadsheets. The document showed 151 coal plants under development [PDF] across the country.

Any one of those coal plants, if built, would have emitted millions of tons of carbon dioxide each year. According to one calculation, a 500 megawatt coal plant operating for half a century would cancel out the gains of getting 10 million drivers to switch from an SUV to a Prius.

At this point, 31 of the coal plants on Schuster’s list are either built or under construction. But, according to a listed published in November on the CoalSwarm wiki, 82 of the proposed plants from Schuster’s 151-plant list have now been canceled, abandoned, or placed on hold. And that’s not taking into account a bevy of additional proposals that are were subsequently thrown into legal uncertainty by an EPA appeals panel ruling in the Deseret Power case.

The dynamics of plant cancellations are complex, typically amounting to a combination of factors that may include rising construction costs, legal challenges, public and political opposition, and regulatory delays. Grassroots organizing employs a wide variety of techniques — from sit-ins to press releases to legal briefs — to bring all the stars into alignment. There’s a bit of alchemy involved, a bit of “fake it till you make it,” and lots of sheer scrambling. Each situation is unique. For an account of how one set of six plants came to be nixed, read “The education of Warren Buffett.”

Let’s look at the 82 canceled, abandoned, or sidetracked proposals. Collectively, they amount to 51,016 MW of generating capacity [PDF] that can now be replaced with climate friendly technologies such as conservation retrofits, solar thermal plants, or wind generators. Assuming an average lifespan of 50 years, an average capacity factor of 80 percent, and an average output of 906 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour of electricity (averaging the MIT “Future of Coal” study’s estimates for the various technologies proposed: circulating fluidized bed, subcritical, supercritical, and integrated gasification combined cycle), those 82 plants would have emitted 16 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

That’s 60 percent more than the 10 billion metric ton goal set by the Virgin Earth Challenge.

On behalf of the No New Coal Plants movement, I hereby demand that you write a check for $25,000,000.

Payable to …

Well, since there actually is no organization called “No New Coal Plants Movement,” better make that 269 separate checks, each for $92,937, to the groups that make up that loosely linked but highly effective movement. You can find them here.

Be assured, there’s no better way your money could be spent. If you invest it in grassroots organizing, you’ll see more climate change averted for $25,000,000 than could possibly be accomplished through any other means. New carbon removal technologies are always welcome. But what humanity really needs most of all in the climate struggle is simply a way to overcome the special interests that are preventing us from deploying the climate-friendly energy technologies we’ve already got.

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s Juliette Jowit of the Manchester Guardian:

In a few years, the backlash against coal power in America has become the country’s biggest-ever environmental campaign, transforming the nation’s awareness of climate change and inspiring political leaders to take firmer action after years of doubt and delay. Plants have been defeated in at least 30 of the 50 states, uniting those with already strong environmental records, such as California, with more conservative areas, such as the southern and central states.

By the way, please don’t say that we’ve disqualified ourselves from the stipulations of the Virgin Earth Challenge because we prevented carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere rather than removed carbon dioxide that was already in the atmosphere.

After all, isn’t an ounce of prevention equal to a pound of cure?