Tag Archives: Clean Coal

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How Obama’s opposition to clean coal raises energy prices

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From the Washington Times.

Excerpt:

GenOn Energy said it would shutter seven coal plants and one oil-fired plant in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois with a total generating capacity of 3,140 megawatts. Midwest Generation followed suit with an advisory that it would close two coal plants serving Chicago.

The shutdowns represent a victory for President Obama, who in a 2008 interview as a candidate signaled his intention to run the coal industry into the ground: “So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s emitted.”

The president has made good on his promise. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has squeezed coal producers in its campaign to halt carbon dioxide, the same “greenhouse gas” all animals produce when exhaling. In December, the agency announced new regulations limiting mercury emissions that will force many power plants out of business within four years.

The EPA estimates utilities across the country will need to shell out at least $9.4 billion in 2015 to meet its new mandate, but House Republicans put the true cost at $84 billion. Companies that stay in business will have to install expensive equipment that will drive up consumers’ monthly electric bills. The average retail price of electricity in America already has climbed 46 percent since 1997, says the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Cleaner-burning natural gas is touted as a viable substitute for coal but the transition can’t be completed overnight. In the meantime, the nation’s net electricity generation is falling, down 7.1 percent from 2010 to 2011, says the EIA. Demand for electricity is projected to rise by 35 percent by 2035.

Green-energy enthusiasts look to windmills, solar panels and vegetable oil to save the day, but these trendy energy sources combined generate less than 5 percent of the nation’s energy – despite billions in subsidies. The net result of this policy could be electricity shortfalls when usage peaks in the summer. The energy brain trust has a remedy: Millions of homes across the country have been equipped with “smart meters” that can be instructed to hold back the juice. Brownouts might dim the future as Americans in the Age of Obama learn to get by with less.

The troublesome thing is that it is always the poorest families that have to pay the price for Obama’s Peter Pan energy policy. The rich Hollywood celebrities and wealthy Wall Street bankers who backed Obama in 2008 don’t mind paying a few more dollars.

News

Government report: US has world’s largest supply of oil, natural gas and coal

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Here’s the press release. (H/T Canada Free Press)

Abstract:

Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, today released an updated government report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) showing America’s combined recoverable oil, natural gas, and coal endowment is the largest on Earth. America’s recoverable resources are far larger than those of Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th), and Canada (6th) combined.  And that’s not including America’s immense oil shale and methane hydrates deposits.

Details:

Oil

CRS offers a more accurate reflection of America’s substantial oil resources.  While America is often depicted as possessing just 2 or 3 percent of the world’s oil – a figure which narrowly relies on America’s proven reserves of just 28 billion barrels – CRS has compiled US government estimates which show that America, the world’s third-largest oil producer, is endowed with 163 billion barrels of recoverable oil. That’s enough oil to maintain America’s current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years.

Natural Gas

Further, CRS notes the 2009 assessment from the Potential Gas Committee, which estimates America’s future supply of natural gas is 2,047 trillion cubic feet (TCF) – an increase of more than 25 percent just since the Committee’s 2006 estimate.  At today’s rate of use, this is enough natural gas to meet American demand for 90 years.

Coal

The report also shows that America is number one in coal resources, accounting for more than 28 percent of the world’s coal. Russia, China, and India are in a distant 2nd, 3rd, and 5th, respectively. In fact, CRS cites America’s recoverable coal reserves to be 262 billion short tons. For perspective, the US consumes just 1.2 billion short tons of coal per year.  And though portions of this resource may not be accessible or economically recoverable today, these estimates could ultimately prove to be conservative.  As CRS states: “…U.S. coal resource estimates do not include some potentially massive deposits of coal that exist in northwestern Alaska.  These currently inaccessible coal deposits have been estimated to be more than 3,200 billion short tons of coal.”

Oil Shale

While several pilot projects are underway to prove oil shale’s future commercial viability, the Green River Formation located within Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah contains the equivalent of 6 trillion barrels of oil.  The Department of Energy estimates that, of this 6 trillion, approximately 1.38 trillion barrels are potentially recoverable.  That’s equivalent to more than five times the conventional oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Methane Hydrates

Although not yet commercially feasible, methane hydrates, according to the Department of Energy, possess energy content that is “immense … possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels.” While estimates vary significantly, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) recently testified that: “the mean in-place gas hydrate resource for the entire United States is estimated to be 320,000 TCF of gas.” For perspective, if just 3% of this resource can be commercialized in the years ahead, at current rates of consumption, that level of supply would be enough to provide America’s natural gas for more than 400 years.

The press release has lots of informative graphs.

The PDF of the full report is here.

Obama keeps blocking energy production at home, and sending taxpayer money (and jobs) to countries in the Middle East, some of who don’t like us very much. What would possess a president to undermine the national security and economy of his own country that way? Why does he want to raise the cost of living for his fellow citizens and send jobs overseas to the Middle East?