US Power Plant CO2 Takes Biggest Jump in Decade

U.S. power plant CO2 emissions jumped 2.9 percent in 2007, the biggest single-year increase since 1998 according to a new analysis by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

According to the report, the electric power industry's carbon dioxide emissions have risen 5.9 percent since 2002 and 11.7 percent since 1997, making power plants the single largest factor in climate change pollution in the U.S.

The new EIP report shows that the 10 states with the biggest one-year increases in CO2 pollution are: Texas, Georgia, Arizona, California, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Virginia and North Carolina. Data from 2006 show that the 10 states that emitted the most CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity produced (meaning the least efficient power production relative to resulting climate-related pollution) are: North Dakota, Wyoming, Kentucky, Indiana, Utah, West Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, Missouri, and Iowa.

If there was any good news in the report, it was that Wyoming was not among the 10 states that emitted the most CO2, or the 10 states with the largest increases on CO2 over the last 1, 5 or 10 years.

The EIP report provides context for the ongoing battles over proposed new coal plants. According to an article in the March 20 issue of the New York Times, the power industry is the most capital-intensive of any industry. Therefore, investors and lenders hold considerable power over CO2 emissions that they have only recently decided to wield.

Decisions by J.P Morgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley announced in the New York Times last month applied "carbon principles" that take into account the negative effects of CO2 when making investment decisions about the privately held power industry, making it tougher for investor-owned utilities to build coal-fired plants. The March 20 article explained that bankers are now discussing applying the same principles to municipal power companies.

The EIP report notes: "The data make clear why national environmental groups have expended so much effort trying to stop the construction of a new batch of conventional coal-fired power plants, which would make a bad situation worse ... But some of the rise in CO2 emissions comes from existing coal fired power plants, either because these plants are operating at increasingly higher capacities, or because these aging plants require more heat to generate electricity ... Many coal-fired power plants are churning out more CO2 than they did in years past ... Some coal-fired plants date back 50 years or more, and carbon reduction strategies will need to include ways to permanently retire these plants."

Commenting on the report, Eric Schaeffer, director, Environmental Integrity Project, Washington, D.C. said: "The current debate over global warming policy tends to focus on long-term goals, like how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent over the next fifty years. But while we debate, CO2 emissions from power plants keep rising, making an already dire situation worse. Because CO2 has an atmospheric lifetime of between 50 and 200 years, today's emissions could cause global warming for up to two centuries to come."

According to the EIP report, the consumption of electricity accounted for more than 2.3 billion tons of CO2 in 2006, or more than 39.5 percent of total emissions from manmade sources, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Coal-fired power plants alone released more than 1.9 billion tons, or nearly one third of the U.S. total.

The Department of Energy projects that carbon dioxide emissions from power generation will increase 19 percent between 2007 and 2030, due to new or expanded coal plants. An additional 4,115 megawatts of new coal-fired generating capacity was added between 2000 and 2007, with up to another 15,000 megawatts expected to come online in the 2008 through 2012 timeframe.

*Article from Wyoming Business Report