The Contrarian

Coal has become the energy source we love to hate.  None of us want to live with its global warming pollution and we can’t practically live without the electric power it generates.  

In the latest round of the love-hate match, the Obama administration’s EPA, agreed to reconsider a decision made in the waning days of the Bush administration.   The issue is whether federal officials reviewing utilities’ applications to build new coal-fired power plants can consider greenhouse gas output. 

The review and ultimate decision will impact the construction of nearly 100 coal-fired power plants.  But it is doubtful Jackson’s decision will be much more than a Solomon-like offer to cut the baby in half given the nation’s need for electricity. 

Like too many other issues in the national discourse, the energy generation discussion is locked in a box of our own construction that resembles a bad low calorie beer commercial.  One side is decidedly in favor (Tastes great!), the other fervently against (Less filling!) and neither has the creativity to look outside of the box for a solution.

The coal industry champions its cause despite the environmental cost of strip mines, land slides caused by out of control slag heaps and, of course, greenhouse gas.  The green movement points to solar and wind power as the future but provides only sketchy details about provisioning reliable electricity when the sun does not shine or the wind calms.

The question is not whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions—we should.  But focus on that issue simply delays constructive discussion about meeting increasing power demands with clean and sustainable alternatives. 

The paradigm of burning fossil fuel to generate electricity is falling apart because of environmental concerns and supply realities.  Extending the paradigm with so-called clean coal technology is a cruel hoax given the finite and rapidly exhausting supply of coal in the ground.  The central question under debate should be how to provide uninterrupted power generation in a world that is increasingly turning to electricity to meet transportation needs.  Plug-in electric cars and greater reliance on light rail are realistic future transportation modes that will demand more electric power as this century progresses. 

A 2007 report from MIT shows that enhanced geothermal power (EGS) is the way out of our box.  The study, underwritten by the U.S. Department of Energy, states that there is a sufficiently large reservoir of heat energy in the earth’s crust to drive the world’s electric generators for thousands of years.  Unlike other alternative energy sources, heat from enhanced geothermal sources can be as constant as a coal fire in a furnace—without the pollution.

The MIT report notes that geothermal electric generation has been used in other parts of the world for over a century and projects that high capacity commercial generation through enhanced techniques is achievable.  According to the report there are seven companies in Australia engaged in EGS projects and two projects under way in Europe.  The report also identifies locations in the US where geothermal energy is particularly accessible and estimates that reaching commercially viable power generation will require a relatively modest investment of $300 to $400 million over 15 years. 

Geothermal power has its potential drawbacks.  It is possible that without proper management any location used to draw heat out of the ground could cool over time making it less efficient.  And, though the report states that EGS is scalable, it has never been tried as a major component of a national energy policy.  More fundamentally, the coal industry will be eclipsed by EGS causing job loss and dislocation for the people who work in the mines and transport coal.

Still, the potential benefits far outrun the risks.  A network of EGS power plants on a modern energy grid, like the one proposed by the administration, could provide the scalability and redundancy needed to generate baseload electric power without greenhouse gasses.

We have been burning coal on an industrial scale for more than 250 years, we are running out of it and it is slowly killing us.  Time to try something else.  The discussion about reinventing power generation should not be exclusively about greenhouse gas, a topic that only extends the decaying paradigm involving fossil fuel.  We should also consider providing realistic, inexpensive and pollution free supply beyond the time when coal runs out.