Scientific debate on the validity of global warming science continues, but the issue has yet had little impact on individuals. That impact is being negotiated in Washington, where a regulatory framework that would mandate reductions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is taking shape. Legislative options under consideration would redefine what power plants must do-and not do-to provide "environmental protection."
Reducing GHG emissions (Figures 1 and 2) will affect all sectors of our economy and those of other countries as well. Never before has the U.S. electric power industry had to adopt such a global perspective while many industries and regulators are busy itemizing local contributions to global warming of every home, business, factory, power plant, and vehicle. Failure to understand the bigger picture could doom to failure any regulatory framework that emerges, taking a bite out of consumers' budgets in the process.
1. What CO2 lacks in strength . . . Many gases are much more effective at trapping heat than CO2. The global warming potential (GWP) of these greenhouse gases measures their contribution relative to that of CO2, which is assigned a GWP of 1 for reference. Note the log scale. Source: 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report
2. . . . it makes up for in volume. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
This article discusses the likely impacts of mandatory carbon controls on existing and future U.S. power generation infrastructure. For perspective, we begin by comparing America's CO2 emissions profile to other nations'. Then we examine how the electric power sector's strategies for coping with carbon caps might differ from those of other major economic sectors.
U.S. vs. them
America is indeed the largest CO2 emitter per capita of any large nation. The average U.S. citizen produces almost four times the world average level and more than double what the average European produces (Figure 3). One observer noted that, though both U.S. and European emissions appear to be stable, we are actually "exporting" CO2 emissions by moving industries that produce lots of the gas (for example, cement, aluminum, steel, and fertilizer) to developing nations, where raw materials, labor, and energy are less expensive.
3. We're No. 1. Levels and trends of per-capita CO2 emissions. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Although per capita CO2 emissions aren't rising rapidly anywhere, total worldwide emissions are, led by China and India (Figures 4 and 5). Every week to 10 days, China builds another coal-fired power plant big enough to power a midsize city in the U.S. China's addiction to coal helps explain why the U.S. Senate unanimously rejected the Kyoto Protocol in 1997.
4. Who let the CO2 out? Sources of anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 emissions by continent. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
5. Men at work. Worldwide anthropogenic CO2 emission trends with a 1990 base year. Note the recent acceleration in output by Asia and Oceania, representing mostly Chinese and Indian industrialization. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Elsewhere, after European CO2 emissions peaked in 1990 (the protocol's baseline year), the arrival of capitalism in Eurasia (the former Soviet Union and its satellites) helped keep them down. By the time the Berlin Wall fell, almost all of the coal-fired plants in Eastern Bloc countries were quite decrepit as a result of long neglect. But with the early-1990s flood of foreign investment in Russian gas and gas pipelines, economics dictated the replacement of much of Eurasia's coal-fired capacity by gas-fired combined-cycle plants. By 1998 the region's CO2 emissions had dropped by more than 1,500 million tons per year. The initial targets under the Kyoto accord required an amount similar to what was already being achieved.
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