by jboullion | Jun 28, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Nick Paulson in the Stevens Point Journal:
Stevens Point in 2009 spent more than $1.5 million on energy, used more than 73,000 million BTUs and emitted more than 21 million pounds of carbon dioxide, according to an inventory taken by the city.
As the city develops and implements a plan to cut its energy use, that inventory will be used as a benchmark with which to compare future use.
Where the biggest problems are depends on what the city’s goal ultimately is: decreasing energy use, energy cost or carbon emissions.
Sustainability coordinator Joe Kottwitz said the Stevens Point Energy Team, which is creating the plan, hasn’t decided specifically which to focus on yet. However, decreasing one likely will have positive effects on the others.
“If we use less energy and less electricity, odds are the taxpayers and ratepayers will receive those benefits,” said Mayor Andrew Halverson, who also is a member of the team.
Regardless of which avenue the city chooses, the primary focus likely will be electricity, which has the highest consumption (41 percent), cost (64 percent) and carbon dioxide emissions (71 percent) in the city.
That is because the electricity comes from coal-fueled power plants, Kottwitz said, which kick out a lot of emissions. Lighting is the most expensive use of energy for the city, costing almost $1 million, partially because it is powered by electricity, and partially because about half the streetlights are owned by Wisconsin Public Service, which charges a maintenance fee in addition to electricity fees.
by jboullion | May 24, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an editorial in the Wausau Daily Herald:
The group of citizens who are working to stop a proposed biomass plant near the Domtar paper mill in Rothschild have been working to cast doubt on virtually all of the claims made about the project — environmental claims, economic claims and so on.
Of their concerns, the questions around the plant’s environmental impact are the most serious, because the air emissions have the potential to do the most harm.
Domtar and We Energies have answered them in some detail, and we have no reason to doubt their analysis of the plant’s impact. Still, there’s no getting around the fact that those companies have an economic incentive to spin the facts in a way that is most beneficial to their project.
That’s why we all would benefit from an environmental impact statement on the project by the state and federal governments. It would provide a solid and independent expert analysis of the project.
The regulations governing these projects are arcane, but the essence of the argument is easy to understand: The state Public Service Commission, sometimes in conjunction with the Department of Natural Resources and federal agencies, has the capacity to prepare an independent assessment of the real environmental effects of the proposed project. This includes the impact of emissions, noise and other factors.
By statute, that analysis is automatically triggered for any power plant generating 100 megawatts or more. The proposed biomass plant will generate 50 megawatts, so an environmental impact statement is not required.
That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be completed. Fifty megawatts of electricity still is a major power plant. An environmental impact statement would add an important expert perspective to the local discussion about the plant. This is a big project, and a relatively new technology. It bears scrutiny.
by jboullion | May 21, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Judy Newman in the Wisconsin State Journal:
Alliant Energy is giving up on the idea of building more coal-fired power plants “for the time being,” Alliant chairman, president and chief executive Bill Harvey said Thursday.
In an interview after the Madison utility holding company’s annual shareholders meeting, Harvey said Alliant subsidiary Wisconsin Power & Light will not ask for a new coal-fueled power plant to replace one proposed for Cassville that state regulators rejected in late 2008.
“I think it’s politically … too risky to think about building coal plants until climate legislation gets in place,” Harvey said. “There’s got to be substantial technological improvements before the country returns to building coal plants. That’s certainly true for us,” he said.
Thanks to adequate power available to buy on the electric transmission grid, Harvey said it will likely be two or three years before Alliant proposes building another natural-gas-fired power plant. That could happen sooner, though, if the economy recovers quickly or if climate change rules force the company to abandon its older coal-fired power plants sooner than expected.
As for nuclear power, Harvey said Alliant is not big enough to consider spending up to $10 billion to build a nuclear plant but it might buy part of a new one, if one is built. “We have to consider that. We have to consider all possibilities,” he said.
by jboullion | May 20, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article by Larry Bivins in the Stevens Point Journal:
WASHINGTON — Wisconsin is the nation’s fifth most coal-dependent state for generating electricity, according to a report released this week.
Because the state has no coal supplies of its own, it spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year to import the fuel for power generation. Coal imports accounted for 68 percent of all power used in the state in 2008, research by the Union of Concerned Scientists found.
Wisconsin spent $853 million in 2008, or $152 per person, to import 25 million tons of coal from nine states, according to the report released Tuesday.
The state ranked 12th in the amount spent and in the amount of coal imported. Wyoming, which provided 40 percent of all U.S. coal in 2008, received $702 million of Wisconsin’s money.
Coal-fired plants are the nation’s biggest source of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas that leading scientists say is causing global warming. Carbon dioxide emissions pose a danger to public health as well as the environment.
The Union of Concerned Scientists report, “Burning Coal, Burning Cash: Ranking the States that Import the Most Coal,” covers 38 states that are net importers of domestic and foreign coal. Those states spent $27.7 billion on domestic and foreign coal imports in 2008, the latest year for which figures were available from the U.S. Energy Department.
Wyoming, West Virginia and Kentucky produce most of the domestic coal burned in U.S. plants.
The report’s authors conclude that all states would be better served if the money spent on coal were diverted to the development of renewable energy and energy-efficiency programs.
by jboullion | May 13, 2010 | Uncategorized
From an article in the Wausau Daily Herald:
ROTHSCHILD — The massive coal-fired power plant Weston 4 must limit the visibility of pollutants leaving its main smokestack but does not need tighter controls for other emissions, an appeals court ruled today.
A three-judge panel of the District 4 Court of Appeals agreed with the Sierra Club that the state Department of Natural Resources erred when it did not require the smokestack for the plant’s main boiler to follow a federal visibility standard for pollutants on its air pollution permit.
Limiting the visibility of emissions effectively limits the amount of harmful particulate matter that becomes airborne. The DNR and the plant’s operator, Wisconsin Public Service Corp. of Green Bay, argued the visibility standard was unnecessary because emissions of particulate matter and sulfuric acid from the boiler were controlled in other ways.
The appeals court sided with the environmental group, which argued that the visibility standard was clearly required under the Clean Air Act. The rule will require continuous monitoring to ensure the pollution leaving the smokestack meets an opacity standard — that it is much closer to invisible than a thick black cloud of dust.
The court rejected the Sierra Club’s argument that the plant needs to install different technology to further reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. The court found the limits set by the DNR were appropriate.
The $774 million plant near Wausau opened in 2008. It is owned by WPS and Dairyland Power Cooperative of La Crosse, and they say it is one of the cleanest coal plants in the nation.
The Sierra Club says it is nonetheless one of the largest pollution sources in central Wisconsin and has fought for years to strengthen the air permit.
