Whether you think CO2 is affecting the climate or not, the debate over reducing the amount of CO2 from power plants, is headed for your wallet.
The W.H. Sammis power plant's future operation could be more difficult under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's proposed rules on power plant carbon dioxide emissions. COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The battle over clean air, including air containing less carbon dioxide, is being waged here before a little-noticed special study committee that was supposed to be looking at something else.
Ohio's Energy Mandates Study Committee, created last fall, was supposed to consider whether the state should reinstate its rules requiring power companies to use more renewable energy and to again help customers use less electricity.
But that focus has been derailed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's plans to require electric utilities to slash the amount of carbon dioxide coming from their power plants by 30 percent by 2030 -- a death knell for many of Ohio's largest coal-fired plants.
Later Wednesday, Andrew Ott, a top executive at PJM Interconnection, the company that manages high-voltage power flows in Ohio and 12 other states and the District of Columbia, is scheduled to speak to the study committee. And he may have some answers.
At the written request of 14 state utility regulators, including the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, PJM did an in-depth analysis of the possible impacts of the new EPA rules -- and the least expensive strategies the states ought to consider adopting to deal with them.
The study looked at 17 possible scenarios, including the gradual replacement of old coal-fired plants with new gas-fired generators, the growth of wind farms and solar arrays and the impact of wide-scale energy efficiency programs on the demand for power.
The study was careful to point out that its analysis did not include the construction costs of all of the new power plants, either gas, wind or solar, that utilities will face if the EPA proposals become law.
Instead it focused on the eventual production costs of power once the utilities are forced to make the big switch to power generation that produces less or no carbon dioxide.
Its general conclusions, released earlier this month, included:
- Power costs will likely go up as old uncompetitive plants close and so many new cleaner plants come on line.
- The price of natural gas could become the largest single factor affecting power prices if utilities, as expected, build new-technology gas power, which would be the quickest and easiest way to replace the massive power output of the old coal plants. (Gas prices already have an impact on prices because electricity from gas-fired plants is currently less expensive.)
- Building more renewable energy power sources, developing energy efficiency programs and keeping existing nuclear power plants running would likely make it easier for power companies to keep some of their less competitive power plants operating while still meeting CO2 reductions.
- Energy efficiency measures don't require any new power plants to be built and could reduce the need for more power plants because they knock down demand. Wind and solar don't require fuel purchases.
- States that work with neighboring states to develop regional plans to meet the EPA rules would probably be able to meet the CO2 standards at less cost and without closing as many coal-fired plants.
The CO2 issue also has a direct bearing on the outcome of power company cases now pending before the PUCO.
FirstEnergy, for example, wants the commission to OK a deal requiring its distribution companies like the Illuminating Co. and Ohio Edison for the next 15 years to buy all of the power -- at whatever it cost to generate -- produced by FirstEnergy's largest Ohio coal-fired power plant and its nuclear power plant with the worst repair record.
So far, the study committee has heard from top Kasich administration representatives who have said either that complying with the proposed CO2 standards would be too expensive or that preparing to comply with them would be difficult because no one at this point knows what the rules will eventually be.
The study committee grew out of the pitched battle over energy efficiency and renewable energy that occupied lawmakers for most of last spring.
At the urging of the state's electric utilities, lead by FirstEnergy Corp., lawmakers last summer froze those rules at 2015 levels for two years. The rules will automatically come back, a proviso the Kasich administration insisted upon, unless the legislature acts again.
The committee's job is to recommend, no later than this fall, whether to permanently scrap the rules or adopt a modified plan.