Waxman-Markey on coal: Hawai'i utilities will need to find ways to geologically sequester coal-fired emissions

Much of the criticism of the Waxman-Markey climate bill surrounds its approach to coal.

Coal is hard to ignore in this country. We as a nation have a lot of it, and we produce a lot of our cheap power from it. It's also very dirty from a carbon perspective.

This is the third in RaisingIslands' series on the legislation, which is alternatively called Waxman-Markey, HR2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, or ACES.

Why do we care about coal in Hawai'i? Because it's in our mix of fuels to produce electricity. Both HECO in Honolulu and HELCO on the Big Island use coal for a portion of the generation capacity.

One approach to fossil fuels from a climate change perspective is to find a way to lock up the carbon dioxide emissions before they get into the atmosphere: carbon sequestration.

The essence of the carbon sequestration argument in the Waxman-Markey energy bill is that you can continue to make electricity with fossil fuels (mainly oil and coal) as long as you can figure a way to sequester the carbon dioxide they produce.

Subtitle B of Waxman-Market is Carbon Capture and Sequestration. It orders federal officials to develop a sequestration strategy, and it favors geologic sequestration. That means pumping the emissions underground, where they will be prevented from leaking into the atmosphere.

There would be lots of studies, and pilot projects, lots of grants and contracts. Some of this work would be paid for through assessments paid by utilities that burn fossil fuels. The ACES bills would run like this:

Fuel type Rate of assessment

per kilowatt hour

Coal ........................................................................ $0.00043

Natural Gas .......................................................... $0.00022

Oil .......................................................................... $0.00032.

Utilities bill consumers in the range of $.10 to (last year on Kauai) $.50 per kilowatt/hour. This could add a buck or two to an average family's monthly utility bill. The rates would be reduced if the federal agency generates more than than $1.1 billion annually.

Utilities will be expected to start putting geologic sequestration systems into place within a couple of years, and will get credits for doing so. The better the system works, the more credits.

In general, coal plants will be required to cut their CO2 emissions in half or better by 2020.

All in all, that doesn't seem like a very aggressive standard for the dirtiest of fuels, from a carbon perspective. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says: “Coal is the most carbon intensive of the major fossil fuels.”

And coal is a huge player. More than 92 percent of the coal in this country is used to make electricity. And half the electricity in the U.S. is made from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

For the amount of energy it produces, coal creates 1.7 times more carbon than natural gas and 1.25 more than oil. If you can cut emissions in half, then it's a little better than natural gas, which is still a carbon dioxide-producing fossil fuel.

On coal, Waxman-Markey is in that tender political middle ground. Its strongest opponents on the right say it's way too aggressive and will destroy the economy. Its staunchest opponents on the left argue it's too weak—that it doesn't do nearly enough to clean up our coal emissions dilemma.

All in all, from our view, Waxman-Markey on coal isn't a very aggressive standard. But supporters will argue that it's a step in the right direction and better than no standard at all.

© Jan TenBruggencate 2009