Energy & Entrepreneurs

Environmental Left vs. Clean Coal and Small Business

by Raymond J. Keating

What does the Sierra Club have against small business? I'm sure these environmental activists would say that they have nothing against small businesses; perhaps adding that "small is beautiful."

Unfortunately, though, by targeting coal-fired power plants for elimination, the Sierra Club and other green groups are, in reality, targeting small businesses for increased energy costs, thereby making these entrepreneurial ventures less competitive, less able to grow, and less capable of creating jobs.

It's important to keep in mind that coal-fired electricity facilities have never burned more efficiently and cleanly as they do now. Last year, the Institute for Energy Research noted the following about coal-fired power plants:

• "Today's coal-fired electricity generating plants produce more power, with less emission of criteria pollutants, than ever before. According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), a new pulverized coal plant (operating at lower, ‘subcritical' temperatures and pressures) reduces the emission of NO_x by 86 percent, SO₂ by 98 percent, and particulate matter (PM) by 99.8 percent, as compared with a similar plant having no pollution controls."

• "Between 1970 and 2006, SO₂ emissions in lbs per million Btu were reduced by almost 80 percent and NO_x emissions in lbs per million Btu were reduced by over 70 percent. Between 1970 and 2006, total SO₂ emissions were reduced by about 40 percent. Between 1980 and 2006, NO_x emissions were reduced by almost 50 percent."

These changes have contributed to the dramatic improvement in air quality experienced in the U.S. in recent decades. Yet, this is not enough for the radical environmental movement. They want to remove coal altogether from the energy portfolio of the U.S. and the rest of the world.

In the November 2010 edition of the Capital Research Center's "Green Watch" report, Christopher Horner has an excellent piece explaining the Sierra Club's war on coal. Horner notes that this crusade will come with heavy economic costs. Some key points are worth highlighting here:

• "Thanks to the Sierra Club and its allies, during the last three years the U.S. has constructed fewer facilities that expand the capacity of proven energy sources-coal, natural gas, and nuclear power-than we have facilities for unreliable ‘renewable' energy sources like wind and solar that require coal, gas or nuclear plants to back them up."

• "In the meantime major U.S. competitors like China are busy installing coal, gas, oil and nuclear power plants to produce the energy resources they need."

• "If the Sierra Club-led campaign against coal succeeds there will be dire consequences for America's economic well-being and its national security. The lights will indeed go out, if only through regional rolling brownouts."

• "If the U.S. does not expand its coal capacity there will be big hikes in energy prices as utilities attempt to shift their production of electricity from coal to natural gas... Natural gas has many uses: It is necessary for the production of plastics, chemicals and fertilizers for industry and agriculture. But if gas is diverted to produce electricity for homes and businesses then its price, and the cost of making those products here, will go up -- along with the cost of consumer, farm and manufactured goods. For these reasons, only a few decades ago natural gas was considered far too valuable to burn just to produce electricity. But the environmentalist war on coal has turned energy economics on its head."

• "The trade-press outlet ClimateWire notes that, although some long-planned coal capacity finally came on-line last year: ‘The end of 2009 marks another year in which utilities abandoned new coal-fired power plants at a breathtaking pace. Environmentalists say it signals a trend, and they smell victory in their ongoing war on coal. . . .The coal slowdown came as the Sierra Club, along with many other green groups, battled new plants vociferously at protests and in courtrooms.'"

• "The Sierra Club boasts that since 2001 it has killed 100 of 150 coal-fired power plants slated for development. Sierra Club attorney Bruce Nilles told National Journal that Sierra's litigation strategy is not only to stop new coal-based generation, but to retire ‘the existing coal fleet.'"

The entire article warrants reading.

The message is clear: If groups like the Sierra Club win their war on coal, the U.S. will pay dearly in terms of increased energy costs, a less reliable energy supply, lost competitiveness, reduced economic output, and fewer jobs.

Our elected officials have to stop listening to these extreme groups, and get back to policy based on sound science and sound economics. Topping that agenda should be stopping the attempt by the EPA to circumvent Congress by regulating greenhouse gas emissions, including CO2. Such regulation would be a big win for the likes of the Sierra Club, and a big loss for consumers and small businesses. Congress needs to make clear that the EPA lacks the authority to inflict still more damage on the U.S. economy.

_______

Raymond J. Keating is chief economist for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.