Calpine is an active player in the renewable power industry in California. The company owns and operates the Geysers in Sonoma and Lake counties in Northern California, which is the largest complex of geothermal power plants in the world.
Precedent?
Environmentalists hailed the development as a signal that steep reductions in utilities' greenhouse gas emissions can be made under existing federal air laws, while some opponents insist that the Clean Air Act is an inappropriate tool for tackling global warming emissions.
"It's an example of what is possible," Sierra Club chief climate counsel David Bookbinder said. "Calpine is leading the way and showing how it's possible to generate all the electricity that America needs with half the greenhouse gases."
U.S. EPA is expected to soon begin regulating greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources under the Clean Air Act. The agency is planning to finalize standards next month to limit automobile emissions of the heat-trapping gases, which would automatically trigger permitting requirements for industrial sources. EPA is planning to require only the largest stationary sources to install greenhouse gas controls but has not yet issued guidance about what pollution controls will be required for those facilities.
"This could become an important precedent," Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell said of the Calpine permit. "It shows that the current Clean Air Act can be used to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants."
But Scott Segal, an industry attorney and director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, said existing clean air permitting laws are inappropriate for regulating greenhouse gases.
"As a general proposition, we believe that the use of permitting conditions to advance a CO2 regulatory agenda is an inflexible mechanism that is likely to have a number of unintended consequences," Segal said.
By limiting greenhouse gases through air permits, Segal said, facilities located in other regions of the country -- including coal-rich areas -- would be at a disadvantage. "There is no mechanism to either contain cost or allow for trading if you use permit conditions as a basis for regulating CO2," he said.
Reprinted from Greenwire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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Add CommentNatural gas power plants produce about half the CO2 per kw-hr than coal-fired plants because coal is almost pure carbon, while natural gas is largely methane, CH4. The US could achieve significant and immediate reductions in CO2 emissions by better utilizing the currently installed natural gas-fired generating plants. The capacity factor for coal-fired electrical plants is often around 80-85%. Natural gas has traditionally been used for peaking power, as natural gas plants can more easily adapt to rapidly shifting power demands (like augmenting wind power). Currently, many existing natural gas generating facilities have very low capacity factors, 20-30%, suggesting substantial unused capacity. The recent large increase in US natural gas supplies from 'shale gas' has lowered and stabilized natural gas prices and increased availability. Combined cycle natural gas plants use the waste heat from the combustion turbines to generate more electricity, resulting in thermodynamic efficiencies significantly higher than even new coal-fired base load plants. Finally, natural gas facilities can be online in a few years and can be installed in modules as projected demand requires.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNg cogen plants can be 33% of coal plants CO2/ghg's as they are 55% eff vs coal at best 40% eff.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd why do not all NG, coal and nuke use geothermal low temp generators between the steam turbines and the condensers. This would up eff by 20% with no more fuel used. Plus it would cut the size, water use of condensers, a good size part of generating expenses plus power users.
cool article...great to see California leading the way again....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"while natural gas is largely methane, CH4"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNatural gas is mostly propane and butane, CH3-CH3 and CH3-CH2-CH3.
Yep. California is sure ahead alright. Wind farms are approved right in the path of the endangered California condor in Kern County. The planned solar plant will require more burros and the endangered Mojave desert tortoises to be removed from their habitat. It gets worse. In the same areas where these plants are being built, the County rezoned eastern Kern for industrial, residential, commercial and WE. Taxpayer money has paid for massive freeway improvements. I feel deceived that in such poor economic times money is being diverted for infrastructure so developers can continue building. The very fragile Mojave Desert, one of 4 contiguous deserts in CA and the United States.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFt Irwin is moving tortoises for the 3rd time for expansion. The first 2 moves were disasters.
The climate is changing. Out here in farm country, the 2009 growing season wasn't great. The weather didn't get hot enough for long enough. Many people up and down the coast complained their crops and garden plantings like tomatoes ripened about a month late (Oct/Nov) and the produce was dried out. The San Joaquin valley grows much of the country's produce and could experience crop losses that will affect us all.
This is my personal perspective based on living in sight of at least 125 turbines. They're very loud and clobber lots of birds. Clean energy to me means that equipment is built from recycled metals and has 0 impact on the very forests and virgin lands that is man's life line. Please join me in helping to stop big business (person) from ignoring the impacts to our survival, possibly in our lifetime. Hunger and inadequate water security will happen without diligence from us all. Peace.
sandcanyon- Are you againest any form of electricity production, or only those that effect the environment near you? People want/need large amounts of electricity, so it is simply unreasonably to believe that zero harm to anything is possible if electricity is to be produced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would be interested in how you believe it should be produced??
One dumb idea (spending resources on limiting CO2 emissions) on top of another (using natural gas to make electricity) makes a good idea? Leave it to California to lead the way in expensive "solutions" to non-problems. Anyone else remember the electric car mandate of the 90s?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo serious progress will be made in our energy policy until nuclear becomes a key feature of electricity generation.
Gburneske wrote: "One dumb idea (spending resources on limiting CO2 emissions)..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf reducing pollution is a dumb idea what exactly do you think is a good idea?
"Anyone else remember the electric car mandate of the 90s?"
Yes, I remember California taking bold steps to reduce automobile pollution only to end up in court with Bush's big oil sponsored White House administration.
"No serious progress will be made in our energy policy until nuclear becomes a key feature of electricity generation."
I hate you burst your bubble but Nuclear will never be back on the table and here's why. Nuclear reactors require Uranium-235 but 99.3% of the Uranium we mine is U-238.
World supplies of Uranium-235 are already running low so putting new reactors online hardly makes sense.
Of course we could always mine for more Uranium which generally involves massive open pit mining operations.
Natedog, One tonne of depleted uranium, will fuel a 1 GW, GenIV nuclear reactor for 1 yr.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“…Did you know that our uranium waste is our nation’s #1 energy resource? In fact, just in the depleted uranium (DU) waste alone (the stuff left over after natural uranium has been enriched), we have more than 10 times the extractable energy than we have from coal in the ground!…”
“…the energy content contained in LWR spent fuel and depleted uranium resulting from weapons production and enriched LWR new fuel production exceeds all the known oil reserves in the world….”
551,000 tonnes of DU would supply all the current USA electricity production for 1160 yrs.
The Traveling Wave Reactor – Burner of Depleted Uranium:
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/files/TerraPowerGilleland.pdf
A Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LIFTR) will produce as much energy from one tonne of natural Thorium as 2.9 million tonnes of Coal and 13 million barrels of Oil. With current (largely unexplored) reserves of Thorium at 4.4 million tonnes, that would supply the entire World's energy needs for 825 years.
The Thorium Molten Salt Reactor would fuel a 1000 MWe power plant for 1 year with 1000 kg of Natural Thorium and generate 1000 kg of waste, 83% of which is valuable for industrial instrumentation, agricultural irradiation and medical cancer treatment and diagnostic imaging. The remaining 170 kg of radioactive waste only needs containment for 300 yrs. The equal sized Coal Power Plant Thorium waste would run the equivalent Thorium Nuclear Power Plant for 11 years.
See Kirk Sorenson video on LIFTR:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8
and PowerPoint presentation here:
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/ppt/LFTRGoogleTalk_Bonometti.ppt
Some Facts about Nuclear Fuel Supply:
“…There has been no major new uranium exploration for 20 years, but at current consumption levels, known uranium reserves are predicted to last for 85 years. Geological estimates from the IAEA & the OECD show that at least six times more uranium is extractable – enough for 500 years’ supply at current demand (3). Modern reactors can use thorium as a fuel .. “
And the one that blew up this week in Connecticut killed FIVE humans! More dead than the entire U.S. Nuclear industry!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course, not counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So, Ban! Natural Gas.
Problem of clean energy it is a problem of correct extraction her from a fuel. At A?>;L7>20=88 fuels, always energy comes from only from one making element. Therefore, before extraction of energy, a natural fuel needs to be specially prepared by the new method of division of matter. Only so, through a new cluster fuel maximal, clean energy and extrass is extracted will zero
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://rubix.co.in
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://rubix.co.in
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMost CCS reviews only consider capturing carbon in the form of CO2 AFTER combustion. But there is a second route open. This is to seperate carbon from hydocarbons or natural gas BEFORE combustion. This leads to the production of hot water vapour and hydrogen, both of which are ideal for electricity generation. In this way, we transform our fossil fuel carbon-based Society into an all hydrogen one. The carbon is safe to put into landfill. Lookup 'PYROLYSIS' .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, I remember California taking bold steps to reduce automobile pollution only to end up in court with Bush's big oil sponsored White House administration.
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