Legalectric

Bill Grant, Midwest director of the Izaak Walton League, a national conservation organization, had this to say: “We can ignore this reality until it’s too late to avert the worst effects of global warming, or we can lead by example at home and implement low-carbon coal technologies and carbon capture.”

Low-carbon coal? Say what???? Really, I’m not making this up. This was in a Neal St. Anthony STrib column this weekend… I cannot believe. The full article is below. But this is no suprise given that Bill Grant was at the Sawmill in Grand Rapid, ostensibly to speak on “Conservation” per the program, but instead, like the others present, was promoting IGCC – coal gasification near the site Excelsior Energy has proposed for the Mesaba Project:

Bill Grant – Sawmill – Energy Efficiency and Climate Change

To let the Izaak Walton League know what you think, click on “CONTACT” at the bottom of their home page… and since that doesn’t work, I guess you’ve got to call STAFF and BOARD OF DIRECTORS. Here’s the contact info for Bill Grant in the Midwest Office:

Izaak Walton League – Midwest Office (MWO)
1619 Dayton Ave Suite 202
St. Paul, MN 55104
(651) 649-1446

To look up your IWLA chapter, CLICK HERE

Neal St. Anthony: ‘Clean coal’ possible, experts say, but needs federal help

Xcel Energy and others are embracing coal gasification, but government spending on crucial research has declined.

By Neal St. Anthony, Star Tribune

Last update: May 11, 2007 – 9:47 PM
Xcel Energy CEO Dick Kelly says the Minnesota-based utility will be a national leader in the pursuit of “clean coal” — including a proposed plant in Colorado that will divert carbon emissions to underground burial. But it’s going to need help.

“We’re first going after conservation from residential and business customers because we need to slow the growth in electricity usage,” Kelly said in an interview this week. “Then we’re going after carbon-free sources of energy such as wind, hydro, solar and natural gas. But we’ve got to eventually get to ‘clean coal.’ And we can’t do it alone.”

Kelly’s comments followed the release of a study by a coalition of utilities, state regulators and environmental groups that criticized the federal government’s feeble commitment to the challenge of reducing CO2 emissions from coal, America’s most abundant boiler fuel for power plants.

The report of the Coal Gasification Work Group, shepherded by the nonprofit Great Plains Institute of North Dakota, is significant because it has eight states from the heartland acknowledging the threat of global warming and the importance of U.S. leadership in fixing the problem.

Xcel has pledged several million dollars this year and is looking for other investors in a next-generation Colorado plant of up to 600 megawatts that would use integrated gasification combined cycle technology that can capture 90 percent or more of the CO2 and mercury emissions. The company hopes the technology can be adapted to existing plants.

Boosting efficiency

The “clean-coal” technology uses a chemical process to convert coal into a gas. It is burned in a modified combustion turbine to generate electricity, increasing the efficiency of the plant and reducing emissions. The captured CO2 can be stored underground or piped to depleted oil wells for storage and to aid in the extraction of hard-to-get oil.

A 1970s-vintage gasification plant in North Dakota already is capturing thousands of tons daily of CO2 for injection into an oil field in Saskatchewan, Canada. But integrating the technologies for widespread use is going to require the Bush administration to do more than talk about clean coal, critics say. The Great Plains report said federal spending on related research and development has declined over the past several years.

“Early adopters of these technologies face greater risks, especially with low-rank coals,” said Charlie Bullinger, senior engineer with Great River Energy of Elk River, Minn. “That’s why we’re encouraging an expansion of federal incentives to reduce the risk.”

President Bush has pointed to clean coal as a partial solution to America’s energy issues, including conversion of coal to liquid fuels, and approved some research funding. But the administration has barely acknowledged global warming despite mounting scientific evidence and even calls by industrialists for American leadership in “green technologies.”

Beyond wind and hydro

“We’re doing a lot with wind and some with hydro,” said Mike Gregerson, a retired Xcel engineer who was a technical adviser to the Great Plains group. “Down the road the feds are going to [limit carbon emissions], we feel, but the technology won’t be proven yet.

“The U.S. needs to get going,” he said. “My history in the utility industry says if you encourage the utility industry now, they’ll get to where they need to go.”

Xcel, under Kelly already the largest U.S. seller of wind-generated electricity, has joined with several other leading utilities calling on the industry to lead globally in carbon-avoidance. Kelly said Xcel will need industry and government partners to prove that large-scale coal gasification paired with carbon sequestration can work over the next decade.

“We need to invest in this technology and we can fix this,” said Kelly. “We do need some help from the government.”

Bill Grant, Midwest director of the Izaak Walton League, a national conservation organization, had this to say: “We can ignore this reality until it’s too late to avert the worst effects of global warming, or we can lead by example at home and implement low-carbon coal technologies and carbon capture.”

Neal St. Anthony • 612-673-7144 • nstanthony@startribune.com