The question concerning coal plant retirements forced by looming regulatory rules, low gas prices, and moribund load growth has changed from “Why?” to “How many plants?” Many highly detailed analyses and reports have been written on the subject by superbly qualified analysts. This approach to estimating potential plant closures is much more qualitative, and much easier to understand. However, the results closely align: About 50 GW are threatened.
Few subjects elicit such a visceral response from members of the U.S. power industry as the forced retirement of coal-fired power plants. For the first half of the last century, commissioning of a new coal plant was considered an economic bonanza for the local economy, heralding an increase in the regional standard of living through electrification and steady, good-paying jobs. Jobs and electricity trumped most environmental issues, not by design but by circumstance. The second half of the 20th century saw the struggle to balance environmental stewardship with power plant development.
Since the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in late 1970, polluting discharges have steadily decreased to the point that today’s air and water cleanliness is unmatched since before the start of the industrial revolution. However, reducing the environmental impact of generating electricity was seldom voluntary. Industry compliance usually was forced by legislative imperatives. Once a legislative goal was set, technology to meet the new rules quickly followed—a process that continues today. Nevertheless, many utilities still firmly resist basic environmental upgrades, such as flue gas desulfurization (FGD) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR). That fight is futile and will only delay the inevitable.
Today, the question has evolved into “How much regulation is enough?” Given that the technology for economic upgrades is reasonably well defined (scrubbers, SCRs, low-NOx burners, fabric filters, and the like) and that upgrades are steadily progressing across the nation’s fleet of coal-fired plants, there must be a balance between costs and benefits. One might describe this as the regulatory finish line. But that’s not the case.
The industry has “taught” regulators that technological solutions will inevitably follow any new, more-stringent rule. This “lead-lag” approach to regulating the industry is fitting when the cost of compliance is reasonably well understood and the benefits are well defined. This was the case for the rules to remove SO2 and NOx from plants’ stack gases, for example. Massive quantities of those and other emissions have been successfully captured over the past two decades at reasonable cost to ratepayers.
Future scenarios will be different. Removing additional pollutants will be significantly more challenging because the technology required is much more expensive—because the chemicals are tougher to remove and their amounts are minute. You might say all the low-hanging fruit has been picked; now we have to bring in the ladders and lifts.
The other challenge is the number of new technologies that the industry is being asked to develop and deploy simultaneously in response to proposed new rules: the upcoming Clean Air Transport Rule (replacing the defunct Clean Air Interstate Rule), the Utility MACT rule, the wet ash classification rule, and the Clean Water Act Section 316(b) upgrades that may force plants using once-through cooling to upgrade to cooling towers. These rules, plus others, such as potential rules covering carbon dioxide (CO2)emissions, are packed end-to-end in the EPA’s regulatory queue with no end in sight.
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