Chapter | 18 Coal and Nuclear Energy ❖ Can Texas create the next generation of workers for the new coal and nuclear energy industries? three years to build the Trailblazer plant. Introduction Once completed, the plant will employ 100 Coal is the most widely used source of workers. It also will boast lower emissions electric energy, with growing consumption. than standard coal plants, capture carbon ) gases and pump those gases Plentiful in the United States and Texas, dioxide (CO2 coal is relatively cheap. Industry analysts into previously tapped oil fields in an effort forecast that liquefaction and gasification to push out additional petroleum. technology will produce enough cleaner “This is huge for Texas,” said Greg burning coal in 2010 (at the equivalent Wortham, mayor of Sweetwater. “This is of $40 per barrel) to replace the 360,000 a modern plant that can really impact the barrels of petroleum used to generate energy industry.” electricity daily. Combined, coal and The Trailblazer plant is a major victory nuclear energy contribute 50% of the for the coal industry. Coal-fired electricity power that generates Texas electricity. plants in the Lone Star State use the Soon Texas will be home to America’s especially “dirty” lignite coal that comes newest coal-fueled electricity plant. In 84.9% from Texas surface mines. Just securing 2011, Omaha-based Tenaska Inc. is set state and federal approval of a coal-fired to begin construction of its $3 billion plant is problematic in this era of public Trailblazer plant in the small West Texas concern about breathable air and acid rain. city of Sweetwater. Approximately 1,500 Public outcry about air pollution blocked construction workers will work about proposed coal-fired electricity plants in Dallas, Waco and Houston in the 2000s. Still, the public and its elected leaders recognize that a growing population needs Amarillo more energy. With U.S. coal reserves OKLAHOMA ARKANSAS expected to last more than 50 years, once NEW Lubbock unpopular energy sources, such as coal and MEXICO nuclear, are getting another look thanks Ft. Worth Sweetwater, Dallas to new technology that helps the once- Nolan County Abeline LOUISIANA scorned energy forms run cleaner. l Paso E Midland Waco “Wind and solar make sense in Texas, San Angelo but we aren’t going to rely on wind and stin TEXAS Au Houston solar for all of our power capacity,” said Daniel Cohan, professor of environmental San Antonio engineering at Rice University in Houston, who studies the energy industry. “We are MEXICO starting to get our energy from a variety of sources — including established sources like coal and nuclear — and that trend of a portfolio of energy should continue.” 124 | CHAPTER 18 Coal and Nuclear Energy Photo courtesy of South Texas Project Repeated in 2009, the survey still Nuclear Plant near Bay City | What’s Happening found 70% of the Americans questioned Coal and nuclear power generation supported nuclear energy, especially job are not without detractors. Despite its creation and the U.S. energy independence enormous potential and generation of more that nuclear energy could help create. And than 50% of U.S. electricity, coal has a 90% of respondents think nuclear energy “Wind and solar serious drawback: it is the leading source of should be included with new, renewable make sense in Texas, carbon dioxide emissions, at 2.5 billion tons energy sources for helping to curb annually. Texas coal, in particular, has a greenhouse emissions. but we aren’t going relatively high sulfur content. Coal-burning These surveys encourage nuclear to rely on wind and power plants need smokestack scrubbers, industry leaders in the United States. solar for all of our carbon dioxide sequestration, coal Texas has two nuclear power facilities, liquefaction and gasification techniques to Comanche Peak in Glen Rose and the South power capacity. We meet the higher quality air standards likely Texas Project near Bay City. These nuclear are starting to get our to be enforced in the near future. The more facilities, which each have two reactors, energy from a variety rigorous emission-control requirements generate about 13% of the electricity raise the cost of building coal-fired plants, consumed in Texas and employ about of sources — including thus offsetting coal’s lower cost. 2,400 workers. And each facility recently established sources Aspects of nuclear power also raise reapplied to the federal Nuclear Regulatory like coal and nuclear public concern. Interest in nuclear energy Commission to double their operations. has been inching up, despite the negative A new nuclear reactor in Texas would — and that trend of images related to the Chernobyl disaster in have a big impact. The United States a portfolio of energy Russia in 1986 and the radiation leaks at the hasn’t authorized construction of a new should continue.” Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania nuclear plant since 1979. That year, 65 in 1979. Today, more than 100 nuclear universities offered nuclear engineering power plants generate 20% of electricity in degrees. Now only 29 universities have a — Daniel Cohan, Rice the United States. nuclear engineering program due to lack University However, a 2005 survey by the Nuclear of demand for new workers. The dearth of Energy Institute found that two thirds of qualified American workers for the nuclear respondents do not want to live within 10 industry — if that industry were to grow miles of a nuclear reactor, even though again — is a critical issue. Also, most of 70% favor nuclear energy. Most people the nuclear plants in the United States surveyed favor adding new nuclear reactors are on the East Coast, contributing to the to existing nuclear plant sites, instead of lack of nuclear worker talent west of the building new reactors. Mississippi River. CHAPTER 18 | 125 Sources of Electricity Generation in Texas Power Source ERCOT Electric Grid Sources El Paso Electricity Sources Natural gas 43% 28% Coal 37% 7% Nuclear 13% 43% Wind 5% < 1% Other energy sources 2% < 1% Table 18.1 Purchased power - 22% costs low, so other sectors of their regional | The Data economies can be price-competitive in In 2003, worldwide coal consumption the global marketplace. Coal prices nearly was 24% of the world’s energy production. tripled in 2008 from the previous year. That By 2010, coal accounted for 27% of the price spike encouraged utility companies world’s energy production, and more to look to cheap natural gas as an energy global growth is expected. As a nation, the source to fire electricity plants, but the spike United States has significant coalreserves didn’t help the image of coal in the eyes and does not need to import coal. Texas of the American public, which was already is the nation’s fifth largest producer of dealing with price hikes for oil and gasoline. coal, with ample reserves of “near surface” The economic cost of a cleaner lignite. Thus, Texas has sufficient coal environment rose in late 2009, when reserves to meet expected statewide a panel of federal appeals court judges demands of industrial users and electric ruled that states and communities can power–generating plants (see Table 18.1). sue utility companies in other states for emitting carbon dioxide that drifts over For every 418 pounds of coal used to generate state borders and pollutes air and water. This legal wrinkle comes after the U.S. electricity, Texas utilities can displace one barrel Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that the of imported foreign crude oil in the Lone Star Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority and power to regulate State’s mix of energy feeder stocks. pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Those court actions are only part of Texas employment in the surface coal the changing regulatory environment. mine industry rose almost 20% from the The U.S. House of Representatives passed first quarter of 2004 to the first quarter legislation in 2009 to cap greenhouse gas 2009, reaching 2,707 workers, and the emissions and create a financial market average salary exceeded $87,300 a year. At for trading pollution credits — so-called Texas nuclear reactors, employment has cap and trade legislation. The cap and held steady for years at about 2,400 mining trade bills essentially provide energy workers. and industrial companies with a limited number of pollution credits. These credits, which are designed to encourage energy | So What? and manufacturing companies to shift Regions with growing populations need to lower-polluting forms of production, more electricity-generating capacity. In can be traded or sold to companies that addition, they need to keep energy input cannot yet afford to lower their polluting 126 | CHAPTER 18 emissions. These carbon pollution limits due to shrinking fossil fuel reserves and laws are disconcerting for the traditional public pressure against pollution. energy companies in the oil, natural gas Cohan points out that Texas energy and nuclear sectors, but especially for coal. producers have already started making Coal emissions contribute approximately adjustments to prepare for two federal two thirds of the air pollution in Texas, regulations that affect them the most. The which has the EPA ordering coal-fired first is the renewed federal mandates for plants to install scrubbers and other automakers to improve the average fuel expensive emissions-control equipment. efficiency of their fleets from 25 miles “About 55% of our energy comes per gallon to 35.5 miles per gallon by from coal. You can’t just turn that off,” 2016, which could reduce U.S. gasoline Dennis Welch, executive vice president consumption by about 20%. Energy of environment, safety and facilities for producers also may need to prepare for the utility company American Electric Power, proposed cap and trade limits on emissions, told the Public Utilities Commission of which may be phased in over 40 years.