President Obama spoke of his "all of the above" energy strategy during the recent State of the Union address, but his actions tell a very different story.
Coal, America's most abundant fuel and the workhorse of our
electricity supply, is being kicked aside. The president is pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to make it virtually impossible to build new coal plants in the United States. The EPA has proposed very stringent rules limiting the amount of
carbon dioxide that a new coal plant can release. These rules would
force new plants to be equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS)
technology that, for all intents and purposes, doesn't yet exist.
By law, the EPA can only
require the implementation of technology that is viable and commercially
available. To justify its new rules, the EPA is pointing to four coal
projects that will use CCS. But none of these projects are of commercial
scale and only one is actually under construction. That plant, in
Kemper County, Miss., plans to sell captured carbon dioxide for enhanced
oil recovery. This is a promising concept, but is not replicable in
most parts of the country.
The EPA knows very well that what
it has asked for is unattainable, and frankly, that's the point. The
president's "all of the above" energy approach is actually just a
natural gas and renewables strategy. Currently, these two resources
provide much less than half of the nation's electricity.
Obama's embrace of the shale gas revolution is certainly correct. We
have become the world's largest producer of natural gas, and "fracking"
development is providing big economic benefits and good jobs in many
states, particularly in Pennsylvania. But putting all of our eggs in one
basket, natural gas, is not prudent and does nothing to improve
competition among major energy sources.
And, for those who think renewables can pick up coal's slack, think
again. Despite some progress, a lot of rhetoric and huge taxpayer
funding, solar and wind energy still generate less than 4 percent of the
nation's electricity. A balanced energy mix should be our target, and
we're going to need renewables, gas, coal, oil and nuclear energy to
achieve it. In other words: "all of the above."
Anti-coal ideology is driven by an obsession to reduce carbon
emissions, whatever the cost. The president and his environmental allies
seem to believe that if we stop building new coal plants and then
regulate existing coal plants out of operation, perhaps the rest of the
world will follow our lead. This is not going to happen — coal is
actually the fastest-growing energy resource in the world.
China is now burning more coal than the rest of the world combined
and is building new coal plants at a breakneck pace. Europe, despite its
large subsidies for renewable power, is also using more coal. Providing
energy security and affordable power remain the primary focus for
governments around the world. The same should hold true for America.
Instead of regulating our coal industry into oblivion, it's time to
implement a pragmatic and balanced energy policy that reflects global
energy trends and the value of our vast coal and other resources.
The same intensity the president is using to promote renewable energy
should also be used to ensure that we become global leaders in advanced
clean-coal technology. The bottom line is that addressing climate
change must recognize the reality that coal is here to stay, and we need
to keep improving it.
J. Winston Porter is an energy and environment consultant in
Savannah, Ga. Earlier, he served as an assistant administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency.
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