Tag: carbon dioxide emissions
Coal Industry Fuels Republican In N.C. Senate Race

Coal Industry Fuels Republican In N.C. Senate Race

By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Money from coal companies has been fueling North Carolina Republican Senate candidate Thom Tillis’ race to unseat Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) including $21,100 from the nation’s largest privately owned coal company.

The contributions came from the Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp. The owner and founder, Robert E. Murray, is a major backer of Republican candidates and a fierce opponent of President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency, especially over a proposal that would limit heat-trapping emissions from coal-fired power plants.

Murray Energy is Tillis’ fifth largest contributor, having received money from the owner, company officers, employees, and family members, and the company’s political action committee, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog group.

The coal industry has not been a major political donor of Hagan’s, who is seeking a second term. But Duke Energy, the Charlotte-based power company that relies on coal as source of fuel, has been among her top 20 financial contributors.

The company’s employees, lobbyists, and political action committee have given her $20,400 between 2007 and 2014, the Center for Responsive Politics reported.

Tillis received the $21,100 from Murray and related individuals in the first quarter of this year. In all, company employees have given $522,093 to political candidates across the country in 2013 and so far in 2014.

All of the contributions from Murray Energy this campaign cycle have been to Republicans, except for $2,500 to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), who’s running for re-election this year. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who’s also running in November, has received $21,850.

Some Murray executives listed their occupation on the Federal Election Commission forms as “coal miner.” One of them, Ronald D. Koontz, is general manager of the Ohio Valley Coal Co., a Murray subsidiary, according to a 2012 company news release. He donated $1,000 to the Tillis campaign, part of more than $13,000 he has given to Republican candidates since 2013, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Koontz did not answer calls for comment.

Wayne E. Conaway Jr., of Farmington, W.Va., who works in Murray Energy’s safety department, said he gave $375 to Tillis because Tillis supports coal. He said the company emphasized to employees that “we’ve got to get out and protect our livelihood.”

“We have no comment,” said Gary Broadbent, Murray Energy’s media director and assistant general counsel, in response to questions about the company’s support for Tillis.

But in a message on the company’s website, Robert Murray, who founded the company in 1988 with the purchase of a single mine, said his industry is “embattled from excessive federal government regulations and, to a lesser extent, by the increased use of natural gas for the generation of electricity.”

He added: “In my fifty-seven years of coal mining experience, I have never before seen the destruction of an industry that we are witnessing today, with reliable, low-cost electric power also being eliminated.”

In June, Murray Energy filed the first lawsuit against the EPA to try to block the rule on power plant emissions limits. The suit asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to prevent the EPA from implementing what the company said in a news release was “this illegal and disastrous rule on electric power generation.”

Twelve states filed a separate lawsuit against the administration on Aug. 1 in another attempt to stop the proposed rule: West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming.

Murray also has disagreed with the scientific view that the burning of coal and other fossil fuels is the main reason for warming of the planet. In an interview with West Virginia Executive Magazine for a story published in May, he was quoted as saying the Obama administration was lying about global warming. Murray contended that the Earth was cooling.

The company has 12 coal mines in Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Utah and employs more than 7,300 people.

In 2007, a collapse at the company’s Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah killed six miners. Three more people died 10 days later in a rescue attempt. Murray subsidiaries agreed in 2012 that violations contributed to the accident, including improper mine design. The subsidiaries paid $1.15 million, which covered penalties for the collapse and the settlement of other violations at other Utah mines.

Besides Murray Energy, other coal company and mining industry political action committees have contributed to Tillis. Alliance Coal’s LLC PAC gave him $5,000 in June. Federal Election Commission records also show $10,000 from two PACS of the National Mining Association; $1,500 from the PAC of Arch Coal, Inc.; $2,000 from the Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. PAC; and $2,000 from Patriot Coal’s PAC.

Other coal company executives and employees also made individual contributions.

North Carolina in 2013 got 38 percent of its electricity from coal, according to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Photo via WikiCommons

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Analysis: EPA Greenhouse Gas Rule May Lay New Bet On Future Natural Gas Supplies

Analysis: EPA Greenhouse Gas Rule May Lay New Bet On Future Natural Gas Supplies

By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times

The Obama administration’s ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. power plants 30 percent by 2030 is laying another big bet on future U.S. natural gas supplies.

The boom in U.S. production, the result of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling into shale formations, has sharply boosted the availability of gas since 2009, but the abundance has prompted multiple new claims to the resource.

The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing two new rules that will weigh heavily on U.S. coal-fired generating plants. The rule on reducing greenhouse gases will be difficult for many, if not all, of the U.S. coal plants to satisfy. And already a massive wave of retirements of coal-fired plants is occurring as the EPA’s rule on mercury and acid gases is implemented over the next year.

The U.S. will grow increasingly dependent on natural gas to make up the difference, even with the most ambitious efforts to control the growth of demand and promote more costly renewable power.

Throughout history, natural gas has been among the most volatile fuels available, owing to changes in demand but also to the difficulty of storing large amounts of it. If natural gas prices spike, as many U.S. experts worry, the growing dependence of the U.S. on the fuel for power plants will take electricity along on the ride.

After the fracking boom began producing large volumes of new gas, an over-abundance of the fuel drove down prices from $11.78 per thousand cubic feet in July 2008 to $2.04 in April 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. Those are average monthly prices, and the daily spot market price swings were even higher.

Where did it go from 2012? That’s the worrisome news. The price has since rebounded to $4.61 in trading Monday. Even at the current price, the effect on electricity prices is noteworthy.

Last month, PJM, the operator of the grid from the East Coast all the way to Chicago, warned that in auctions for power supply contracts prices in some areas were doubling. And the California Independent System Operator, which operates the grid for all of the investor-owned utilities in the state, reported that last year spot market prices in the state shot up 31 percent.

The surge has caught savvy investor’s attention. The prices of utility shares and funds are rising, as investors sense the potential for profit spikes as the price of electricity increases.

Electricity and natural gas have become joined at the hip. Stanford University energy expert James Sweeny notes that a 33 percent increase in natural gas yields a 16 percent increase in the retail price of electricity.

“When those natural gas prices start going up again, we will feel it in the way of higher electricity prices,” Sweeny said.

Just how high power prices will go is difficult to say. Malcolm Johnson, a former Shell Oil gas executive who now teaches at the Oxford Princeton Program, a private energy training company, said prices could move toward European price levels of $10. Such a move would still make the U.S. a bargain against Asian prices of more than $20.

Is there room for concern? A number of U.S. experts say the government and industry are making multiple claims on the resource, potentially outstripping future growth. The Energy Department projects that U.S. natural gas supplies will double in coming decades, but that has triggered a lot of ambitious plans for its use.
U.S. companies have submitted plans to build more than 20 liquefied natural gas facilities along the coasts, a massive amount of export capacity. Meanwhile, the trucking industry is slowly converting its fleet to burn cheaper natural gas and is counting on U.S. heavy engine manufacturers to continue improving the efficiency of natural gas engines over traditional diesel.

But the big wild card may be electricity.

Natural gas will be needed not only to replace coal-fired generating plants but also to make up for almost every other type of fuel. The U.S. has retired five nuclear reactors since 2013, and the industry is considering even more shutdowns. The prolonged drought is reducing hydropower in much of the West. And even renewable power needs natural gas-fired plants as a backup resource.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

EPA Unveils Far-Reaching Climate Plan Targeting Power Plants

EPA Unveils Far-Reaching Climate Plan Targeting Power Plants

By Evan Halper, Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration Monday morning unveiled its far-reaching proposal to curb climate change by substantially restricting emissions at power plants, a plan that promises to set off intense debate across the country amid the president’s boldest action yet to reshape the energy landscape.

Under the proposal, the administration is seeking to reduce greenhouse gases by 30 percent from their 2005 level by the year 2030. The plan gives local officials wide leeway in how to go about meeting that goal, but it represents a major challenge for many of the states that remain heavily dependent on coal; some are already girding to fight the president on the proposed new rules.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s rollout of the 645-page plan launches a yearlong period of comment and review. The 2005 baseline year chosen by the administration reflects a time when emissions of greenhouse gases were at a peak. They have been reduced by about 10 percent since then, largely because many power companies have shifted toward cleaner-burning natural gas amid its recent boom. Meeting the EPA goal would require a further 17 percent reduction nationwide.

“This goal is achievable because innovations in the production, distribution and use of electricity are already making the power sector more efficient and sustainable while maintaining an affordable, reliable and diverse energy mix,” the preamble to the EPA plan states.

Still, many lawmakers and major business groups warn such a mandate would cause irreparable damage to the economy. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a staunch opponent of many initiatives to curb climate change, projects that the rule would cost the economy $50 billion annually, but the EPA concluded differently.

“The EPA projects that, in 2030, the significant reductions in the harmful carbon pollution and in other air pollution, to which this rule would lead, would result in net climate and health benefits of $48 billion to $82 billion,” the agency proposal says. “At the same time, coal and natural gas would remain the two leading sources of electricity generation in the U.S., with each providing more than 30 percent of the projected generation.”

Under the plan, states would be given a menu of options for meeting their specific targets, which will vary based on their current fuel mix. States that burn a lot of coal would begin their reductions from a higher emissions level than those that burn natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide.

One way a state might go about meeting the target is by building higher-tech plants that capture greenhouse gases and divert them from the atmosphere, a costly endeavor that opponents of the president’s plan say is financially untenable on the scale the EPA is seeking. They could also choose to run fossil-fuel-fired plants less often, shift more operations to renewable energy sources or impose energy-efficiency programs that reduce the amount of power used, and thus emissions.

“Each state will have the flexibility to take steps to design a program to meet its goal in a manner that reflects its particular circumstances and energy and environmental policy objectives,” the proposal says. “Each state can do so alone or can collaborate with other states on multi-state plans that may provide additional opportunities for cost savings and flexibility.”

Power plants account for about a third of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. Though there are multiple rules geared toward limiting the pollutants the plants release into the environment, according to the EPA, there are currently no federal caps on the carbon dioxide they emit.

Photo: Haglundc via Flickr