From data reports provided to the Energy Information
Administration (EIA), about 16 gigawatts of generating capacity will be retired in 2015, of
which nearly 13 gigawatts is coal-fired. The coal-fired capacity will be
retired primarily because of EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards
(MATS), which requires coal– and oil-fired electric generators to meet
stricter emissions standards by incorporating emissions control technologies
or retire the generators. Most of the retiring coal capacity (8 gigawatts)
is in the Appalachian region–Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and
Indiana—where job losses have already occurred. [ i ]
Electric generating companies reported that they will add
over 20 gigawatts of utility-scale generating capacity to the power grid,
but only about 6 gigawatts of these new capacity additions are reliable
(i.e. dispatchable) sources of electricity generation needed to counter
balance the closure of coal and petroleum generators. Twelve gigawatts of
unreliable (i.e. non-dispatchable) wind and solar will be added to the electric grid.
Because of varying capacity factors for the different
generating technologies that are being added to the grid, the capacity
measure is not equivalent to the amount of generation that can be
expected. For example, 1 gigawatt of nuclear capacity will produce over 3
times the amount of generation that 1 gigawatt of wind capacity can produce.
Furthermore, unlike wind which obviously depends on the vagaries of weather,
nuclear generation is reliable.
Electric generating companies reported that they will
add over 20 gigawatts of utility-scale generating capacity to the power grid,
but only about 6 gigawatts of these new capacity additions are reliable
(i.e. dispatchable) sources of electricity generation needed to counter
balance the closure of coal and petroleum generators. Twelve gigawatts of
unreliable (i.e. non-dispatchable) wind and solar will be added to the electric grid.
Because of varying capacity factors for the different
generating technologies that are being added to the grid, the capacity
measure is not equivalent to the amount of generation that can be
expected. For example, 1 gigawatt of nuclear capacity will produce over 3
times the amount of generation that 1 gigawatt of wind capacity can produce.
Furthermore, unlike wind which obviously depends on the vagaries of weather,
nuclear generation is reliable.
Note that the capacity values in this graph are net
changes, i.e. capacity additions minus retirements.
Generating Capacity Additions
in 2015
The additions reported by electric generating companies
to EIA following the trend of recent years are dominated by wind (9.8
gigawatts), natural gas (6.3 gigawatts), and solar (2.2 gigawatts). The wind
capacity additions are mostly in the Plains states, with almost 8.4 gigawatts
(85 percent) of total wind additions located between North Dakota and Minnesota
in the north, to Texas and New Mexico in the south. Solar capacity additions
larger than one megawatt are mostly located in California totaling 1.2
gigawatts. California and 28 other states have a renewable portfolio standard
(RPS) requiring a specified amount of qualified renewable generation.
These solar figures do not include small-scale installations such as residential
rooftop solar photovoltaic systems.
Natural gas capacity additions are located throughout
the United States, with Texas adding more than double any other state (1.7
gigawatts or 27 percent of total natural gas additions) in 2015. The Tennessee
Valley Authority’s Watts Bar 2 nuclear facility (1.1 gigawatts) in southeastern
Tennessee is expected to come on line in December 2015. It will be the first
new nuclear reactor brought online in the United States in nearly
20 years.
Coal Retirements in 2015
Nearly 16 gigawatts of generating capacity is expected
to retire in 2015 of which 12.9 gigawatts is coal-fired—10.2 gigawatts of bituminous
coal and 2.8 gigawatts of subbituminous coal. The 85 coal-fired generators retiring this year are smaller than the average
coal-fired units in the United States with an average capacity of 158
megawatts compared to 261 megawatts for the other coal-fired units. Most of
this retiring coal capacity is found in the Appalachian region where
coal-fired capacity has already been shuttered due to EPA regulations.
The capacity of the coal-fired units retiring this year is
over 3 times the amount that retired last year because EPA’s MATS requires that
they add emissions control technologies this year, although some units have
been granted extensions to operate through April 2016. EIA expects an additional
5.2 gigawatts of coal retirements in 2016.[ii] If adding emissions control
technologies is cost-prohibitive, operators of generating units will
retire their units instead. MATS
require significant reductions in emissions of mercury, acid gases, and
toxic metals.[iii] It should be noted that, according to EPA, the benefits
of reducing mercury and air toxics total $500,000 a year, but the rule costs $9.6 billion a year. [iv]
The 12.9 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity reported to be
retired by electric utility operators in 2015 is also 3 gigawatts larger
than EIA expected in July of 2012 when the agency reported 27 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity to retire between 2012 and 2016,
with 9.9 gigawatts of coal-fired retirements in 2015.[v]
Despite the 21 gigawatts of coal-fired retirements between
2009 and 2014 that EIA has recorded, coal remains the number 1 generating
source in the United States with a 39 percent share, followed by natural gas
and nuclear. (See graph below.)
Conclusion
President Obama and
his EPA are living up to the President’s proclamation in
2008, “So, if somebody wants to build a coal plant, they can – it’s just that
it will bankrupt them.”[vi] But the EPA
is not just dealing with new coal-fired power plants, but existing coal-fired
plants as well. The MATS regulation is just the beginning
with over 39 gigawatts of coal-fired plants being retired.
EPA released its proposed
rule mandating carbon dioxide emission cuts for existing power plants on
June 2, 2014. This rule is designed to comply with the president’s plan to
make electricity rates “necessarily
skyrocket”
by reducing the use of coal-fired electricity generation from existing
power plants—one of the cheapest sources of electricity generation. EPA
is mandating the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector
by 30 percent from a “2005 baseline” by 2030. The proposed rule provides
each state with a target and a set of options that EPA
has determined will allow them to reach their assigned requirements. While
the rule will result in increasing electricity rates, the rule will not have
any material climate benefit despite the fact that the climate is the justification
for the rule. EPA’s climate model calculates that
the temperature reduction from the proposed rule to be a mere 0.018
degrees
Centigrade by 2100.[vii]
EPA also issued a proposed
rule limiting carbon emissions on new power plants. The rule limits carbon
dioxide emissions from new coal plants to 1,100
pounds
per megawatt-hour, although the average current coal-fired power plant emits
close to 1,800 pounds. The EPA justifies these numbers
by suggesting that new coal-fired plants can meet the limit by installing carbon
capture and sequestration technology. However, that technology is not
commercially available, meaning no new coal-fired plants will be
built.[viii]
As we see from the EIA
data above, coal-fired power plants are the backbone of our electric generating
sector and should be encouraged to continue to provide low cost electric
generation rather than be forced to retire when the electric generation
sector has already done a yeoman’s job at reducing criteria pollutants
and carbon dioxide emissions from its power plants.
[ i ] Energy Information Administration, Scheduled 2015 capacity additions mostly wind and natural gas; retirements mostly coal, March 10, 2015,
[ i ] Energy Information Administration, Scheduled 2015 capacity additions mostly wind and natural gas; retirements mostly coal, March 10, 2015,
[ii] Daily
Caller,
EPA Rules To Force 85 Coal-Fired Generators To Close
By The End of This Year, March 10, 2015,
[v] Energy
Information Administration, 27 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity to
retire over the next 5 years, July 27, 2012,
[vii] Cato
Institute,
0.020C Temperature Rise Averted: The Vital Number Missing
from the EPA’s “By the Numbers” Fact Sheet, June
11, 2014,
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Source:http://agenda21news.com/2015/03/eia-13-gigawatts-of-coal-capacity-to-retire-in-2015-due-to-epa-regulation/#more-5048CommentsMost of us believe that the global warming hoax is a scam and that carbon capture is unnecessary. I hope we are not going to let the EPA double our electric bills.Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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