Peering into Montanaâs energy future By WILBUR WOOD For The Outpost http://www.billingsnews.com/story?storyid=18357&issue=289
Coal filled the headlines of Montana newspapers last week during the Governorâs Energy Summit ö officially called ãThe Montana Symposium: Energy Future of the Westä ö but the real news was how much brighter our future will be when we turn our attention away from coal toward energy conservation and renewable energy. The symposium went on for two days, Oct. 18-19, on the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman ö 740 registered participants (not counting the press), 27 ãbreakout sessionsä punctuated by panels and speeches ö but the coal headlines around the state during those two days did not emerge solely from the Energy Symposium. One coal story turned out to be a new chapter in the ongoing saga of the beleaguered coal mine in the Bull Mountains south of Roundup. The state Department of Environmental Quality was upset that operators of this mine, while scraping away a ridgetop meadow, ostensibly to level a site for a proposed generating plant ö a plant whose air quality permit, DEQ says, is no longer valid because it expired in June ö encountered an eight-foot-thick vein of sub-bituminous coal and dug through it. They needed, they said, to get to solid ground. DEQ looked at the resultant pile of coal and called this strip mining. The mine is an underground mine and has no permit for strip mining. The mine was upset that DEQ was upset, and claims it never intended to sell the coal from the site for the power plant, whose air quality permit should still be valid. A second coal story came out of Great Falls, where the City Council voted 4-1 to spend $2 million of that cityâs funds on ãpreparationsä for the proposed 250 megawatt Highwood coal-burning power plant east of the city. Five rural electric cooperatives forming the Southern Montana Electric Generation and Transmission Cooperative are partnering with Great Falls on this project because they need the cityâs rights to water from the Missouri River. Running a coal-fired generating plant takes a lot of water. Water is a dominant issue with coal development in our semi-arid region. One reason that a 780-megawatt coal-fired generating complex seems unlikely ever to poke its smokestacks into the sky between Roundup and Billings is a lack of sufficient water, either in the Bull Mountains or in the Musselshell River 15 miles north. Nor do the developers have the right to pipe any water out of the Yellowstone River 35 miles to the south. So they are proposing to drill down 8,000 feet into the Madison Aquifer and pump up water that is very hot (about 180 degrees Fahrenheit) and full of salts that would have to be removed. Water is also a huge issue with the kinds of coal development that were trumpeted at the Energy Symposium. Extracting methane gas from coal seams means pumping out the water that holds it there - in other words, dewatering the aquifer. Do you then dump this untreated, often very salty water down the nearest stream, potentially ruining pastures and irrigated croplands? Do you dig reservoirs (a bit more expensive) and stash this pumped out water there, waiting for some of this water to seep back into the ground, some to be consumed by livestock and wildlife, and the rest to evaporate and fall ö elsewhere ö as rain? You could, of course, treat the water, remove the salts, before dumping it down a stream, but this is expensive and does not address the dewatered aquifer and drying up wells and springs. You could re-inject the water back into the coal seam, but this is even more expensive ö although not so expensive that gas producers would not reap enormous profits anyway. Coal bed methane is a crucial issue for Montana, but other coal technologies ö either gasifying or liquefying coal ö are what Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer lately has been promoting. Prodigious amounts of water are used (or abused) in both of these, also. The chief push to create liquid fuel from coal seems to be coming from the Department of Defense - one of the major consumers of oil on the planet - and indeed, Ted Barna, an assistant under secretary of the DOD was there to endorse that concept. Another federal agency official was there to push for building new pipelines and new electrical transmission lines. Suedeen Kelly of FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency, told the audience that energy-producing states like Montana owe it to energy-consuming states to send them their energy, and if states lagged in upgrading its transmission infrastructure, FERCâs job under the new federal energy bill was to step in and make this happen. This led Brady Wiseman, a Democratic state representative from Bozeman ö during a ãwhat have we learnedä session at the end of the symposium ö to complain about ãthis top-down, high-voltage approach, mandated by the Pentagon.ä He said that electricity deregulation in Montana ãwas like that. And it did not work.ä Some very specific doubts about whether coal liquefaction will work were set forth by Northern Plains Resource Council in the week leading up to the Energy Symposium. In a meticulously researched position paper, Northern Plains disagreed with Schweitzerâs assertion that coal liquefaction would be ãclean,ä pointing out that oxides of sulfur, nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen, along with other pollutants, are emitted by this World War II-era German technology, called the Fischer-Tropsch Process. Northern Plains also questioned whether enough water exists in all of Eastern Montana to run coal to fuel facilities on the scale that the governor has been proposing. The governorâs office replied that NPRCâs data was based on out-of-date technologies and suggested that newer, cleaner technologies are in the works. (Schweitzer, a soil science graduate of Montana State University, makes no secret of his desire that MSU be a leading researcher in these ãclean coalä technologies.) Northern Plains, however, had drawn its data from Sasol, the South African company that operates the only existing commercial scale coal-to-liquid fuel plants on the planet. This thrust by Northern Plains may briefly have muted Schweitzerâs enthusiasm for coal liquefaction. In his opening speech, Schweitzer spoke first of conserving energy, the only solution in the short term to the sudden crisis of rising energy prices. Then he celebrated the Judith Gap Wind Farm which - when its 135 megawatts of windpower come on line ö ãwill take Montana from 50th place to 15th place (among states) in windpowerä and will produce ã8 percent of Montanaâs electrical portfolio.ä Judith Gap windpower will be sold to NorthWestern Energy for $32 per megawatt, and NWE has ãfirmed that powerä (with sources that, unlike wind, are not intermittent) so that ãthe collective cost is $38 per megawatt,ä Schweitzer said, ãthe cheapest new energy produced in America. And it is green!ä The governor mentioned his administrationâs support for producing biodiesel and ethanol from crops. Although he refrained from specifically mentioning coal-to-liquid fuels or coalbed methane, he did speak of breaking Americaâs dependence on oil and gas imported from countries governed by ãdictators and ratsä and specifically mentioned coal as ãa bridge to the new hydrogen economy.ä Of course, there were plenty of others, on panels and in plenary sessions, to talk up coal. Andre Steynberg, technical manager of research and development at Sasol, the South African coal-to-liquid-fuel producer, breezed through a power point presentation of flow charts and photos of giant ãreactorsä on the large screen behind the podium on the MSU fieldhouse floor. But Steynberg eventually went ãoff messageä when he revealed that Sasol had been converting many of its liquid fuel operations from coal to natural gas. (Sasol recently spent $1.2 billion constructing a pipeline to import natural gas from Mozambique.) Coal is just too environmentally costly, and for Sasol to invest in converting it to liquid fuel, Steynberg said, would require ãincentives.ä Translation of ãincentivesä: government subsidies. Other coal-to-liquid-fuel promoters at the symposium cited their frustration with the lack of private sector funding, and their hope for an infusion of government cash to get a pilot plant up and running and show the private sector it works. At a panel of five Western governors, Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming unexpectedly dampened their hopes. Even though Wyoming now ãexports more BTUs than any other stateä and is rolling in cash from its coal ö and coal bed methane ö boom, Freudenthal had this to say about coal liquefaction: ãIf the private sector says Îwe wonât put money in it,â the states ought to be cautious.ä Schweitzerâs remarks were not characterized by caution. He charged that the federal energy bill (recently signed into law) offers ãno visionä and that consequently ãthe future starts with the states, working with private industryä and coming up with ãbig ideas.ä He means the Rocky Mountain states in particular, as well as the Western provinces of Canada: all rich in coal, oil shale, tar sands and - oh, yes ö renewable resources such as wind. So it was an odd juxtaposition, after Schweitzerâs state-centric speech, to have FERCâs Suedeen Kelly follow him with her unmistakable message that if the states did not act to solve transmission bottlenecks, the federal government would ensure that ãtransmission corridorsä opened up. This was an eerie echo of a message Montanans heard in 1971, when the federal government and the fossil fuel industry ö in a document called ãThe North Central Power Studyä ö decided that this regionâs coal should fuel as many as 42 power plants, sending electricity to population centers east and west. Montanaâs transmission system, now as in 1971, has bottlenecks both east and west. I missed breakout sessions about how to ãsolveä these bottlenecks, partly because I am among those who really donât want to see them solved. Montana already produces twice as much energy as it consumes, and building more long-distance transmission lines to fill with power generated here, either by expensive polluting coal plants or cheaper clean wind farms, does not thrill me. Long distance transmission lines leak enormous amounts of energy, are vulnerable to natural disaster or sabotage, and may become obsolete as more and more utilities turn to conservation and generation closer to the centers of demand. I also missed a other sessions that normally I would have attended, on subjects such as renewable resources, energy efficiency, hydrogen and fuel cell technology ö and on the intriguing topic of how to ãsequesterä carbon to keep it out of the atmosphere. I dutifully attended one session dealing with what is (and is not) in the new federal energy bill and sat through two sessions on coal ö turning it to gas and turning it to liquid fuel. Logically, biofuels should have been treated the same way ö one session on biodiesel and another on ethanol. But both were crammed into one session, to which nonetheless I went with relief, and which turned out to be, for me, the high point of the symposium. Joe Jobe of the National Biodiesel Board began with a jibe at liquefied coal. ãHow many gallons of Fischer-Tropsch fuel is being sold in the U.S. today?ä he asked. Zero gallons. But 25 million to 30 million gallons of biodiesel, he said, were sold in the United States last year. Truckers, enraged at seeing diesel prices climb higher than regular gasoline and then stay high, are avid for information on biodiesel and are driving demand for it. Biodiesel is interesting because it can be produced in your garage from used French fry oil, but also in large plants that crush and refine oilseed crops. Ethanol, too, can be produced on a variety of scales. One of the larger facilities in the Northern Plains region is a 34 million gallon per year ethanol plant that Husky Oil is integrating with its heavy oil upgrader in Lloydminster, Saskatchewan, according to Bert Faber, senior environmental adviser for the company. Montana will produce very little ethanol from corn ö thatâs for places like Iowa and Minnesota ö but this state has a variety of crops that can be converted to fuel and also produce a high quality by-product to feed livestock. Phil Madsen, whose company Katzen International has designed ethanol plants around the world, looks to Montana wheat and barley. So does microbiologist Cliff Bradley, who adds sugar beets (which at current prices are worth more as a fuel crop than a sugar crop) and cellulose (such as from perennial grasses ö $2.50 per gallon gasoline makes ethanol from cellulose viable, he said). Bradley is co-founder of the Missoula-based company Montana Microbial Products, which has produced enzymes that break down a variety of cellulosic materials, thus reducing the energy requirements of the distillation process. Bradley had sat through the coal liquefaction presentations and began with this policy recommendation: ãWe donât turn over one shovelful of coal to turn into liquid fuel until the U.S. implements energy conservation, mass transit, and eliminates gas hogs from the road. Then Iâll listen to schemes to Îliquefyâ Eastern Montana.ä But he had a better idea than that. In 2004, Bradley said, retail sales of gasoline and diesel fuel for transport in Montana totaled 870 million gallons. The price of those fuels was rising by about $1 a gallon during that time, which means that an extra $870 million simply left the state for corporate bank accounts in Houston or Los Angeles. None of it stayed here. These high prices, however, have made ethanol and biodiesel competitive with the fossil fuels. So why not stop sending our money out of state and invest it here, to grow our own fuels? He calculated that Montana could produce 500 million gallons of E85 ethanol from a variety of crops, including perennial grasses and straw (with half left on the ground). ãThe technology is here. Itâs not how you do it, but who owns it. If you sell your crops to Archer Daniels Midland (to make ethanol) this gains us nothing. But biofuels can be an opportunity for farmers and communities to keep value-added dollars in the local economy.ä Bradley said that one coal to liquid fuels plant was projected to cost $3.3 billion to build and would produce 10,000 gallons of fuel per day. Assuming we could use this fuel in-state and not ship it off to the military, this still would cover less than 10 percent of Montanaâs transport fuel needs. For much less than that amount, perhaps as little as $1.1 billion, Bradley figures we could build enough biofuels capacity eventually to furnish 100 percent of Montanaâs liquid fuel needs. Where to get a billion dollars? Bradley suggests we start by keeping 10 cents of every dollar of that gasoline price increase in state. That would raise $80 million per year in capital. ãThe governor says, ÎThink big.â So letâs think big with diverse and small scale systems, community owned, integrated with agriculture and local economic development strategies,ä he said. ãMontana does not have to become a national sacrifice area for a faulty federal energy policy.ä _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
