OPINION & EDITORIAL
Environmentalists offer few solutions
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Also by Mark Baumgarder:
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- Halloween's uncertain future (March 16, 2005)
- Economy looks good (March 10, 2005)
- Discretionary costs at heart of budget (February 17, 2005)
- Ash Wednesday: reason to reflect (February 9, 2005)
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by Mark Baumgarder
Thursday, April 14, 2005
A case currently in the hands of the Wisconsin Supreme Court could significantly impact the economy and everyday day lives of state residents, particularly if the plaintiffs have their way.
Judgment in the case of Clean Wisconsin, Inc., et. al v. Public Service Commission, et. al will decide whether a $2.15 billion proposal by We Energies (a utility company serving parts of Wisconsin and upper Michigan) to build two additional coal-fired power plants on the shore of Lake Michigan in Oak Creek will go forward. As reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the plants would generate 1,220 megawatts of power, enough to serve 610,000 homes.
Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan sided with Clean Wisconsin Nov. 29, 2004, ruling that the state Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the proposal without proper consideration of alternative sites and ways of generating power.
In a statement issued the day after the ruling, the PSC announced their intention to appeal stating, “The PSC held over 24 hours of public hearings where nearly 300 citizens testified. There were also over 90 hours of technical hearings with 70 expert witnesses on the Elm Road power plant project that resulted in a record of almost 6,000 pages that were reviewed by the Commissioners before they made their decision.”
For their part, We Energies considered several layouts and has constantly explored conservation efforts and sources of renewable energy. Clearly, they did not make their proposal hastily and without extensive technical research.
Supporters of Clean Wisconsin’s efforts to undermine this project include the odd combination of S.C. Johnson & Son Inc., Calpine Corp., Sierra Club and Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WisPIRG). Opponents of the Oak Creek project generally offer similar reasons for their positions — a desire for alternative considerations and a better environment. The motivations for all four of these organizations deserve examination.
S.C. Johnson recently installed a 3.2 megawatt turbine and generator to burn methane gas. Calpine currently sells power to We Energies from their Zion Energy Center in Illinois. But of course the financial incentives to these companies for keeping We Energies (and Wisconsin residents) dependant on costly out-of-state electricity and certain renewable sources have nothing to do with their opposition to the project.
The environmental organizations’ opposition to this project is perhaps less complicated. They support clean air and water, but so does everybody else — including power companies such as We Energies, who intends to remove 70 percent of mercury, 95 percent of sulfur dioxide and 90 percent of nitrogen oxides from their emissions.
In their constant advocacy of clean air and water, the environmental groups have spoken louder on this case than others. The Sierra Club and others had little to say when their attorney Dennis Grzezinski and others managing the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District dumped 4.6 billion gallons of raw sewage into Lake Michigan last May.
In general, those opposing the project support increased use of natural gas and wind energy. Each has its problems.
Natural gas offers the property of cleaner emissions. However, it comes with volatile pricing, a situation only made worse by a utility company increasing its demand. We Energies estimate the cost of replacing coal with natural gas in the Oak Creek project at $1.9 billion.
Environmental organizations also push expansion of wind energy. Wind turbines essentially operate as fans in the generating region of operation. A fan does not consume power equivalent to the amount of power required for an entire apartment. Likewise, even on a windy day, a similarly sized fan operating as a generator will not produce enough power for the apartment.
Even with existing conservation efforts, Wisconsin will require 7,000 additional megawatts of electricity by 2016. To put this in perspective, We Energies currently supplies approximately 6,000 megawatts of electricity.
The steadily increasing demand for power in Wisconsin requires foresight and effective leadership to develop cost-effective solutions that balance environmental concerns while meeting energy specifications. In proposing their Oak Creek expansion project, We Energies has provided both. With their efforts to block the project on legal technicalities, Clean Wisconsin, WisPIRG, the Sierra Club and other organizations have offered neither.
Mark A. Baumgardner (mbaumgardner@wisc.edu) is a senior majoring in electrical engineering.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 12:44am):
Mark's opinion does not relate to the subject matter. If the Wisconsin Supreme Court decides that the PSC did not do a proper evaluation, the only thing that it will make the PSC do is ... make a proper evaluation.
The question that the court has is whether the PSC, who by law has to consider these alternatives, did so. Whether someone else did or did not, such as the Sierra Club, is irrelevant to the court, because what the court needs to determine is whether the PSC did their job.
The rest of Mark's opinion piece lacks substance. The statistics as to people testifying, or pages read, never touches the main point - what was in the final product? Because that is what the court is looking at. Did the PSC look at the alternatives that they are required to?
Mark left that question hanging, to go on a tangent, a poorly thought out rant, which had little to do with what he claims to be addressing.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 12:59am):
For the sake of looking at Mark's little rant, let's see how well it is constructed.
I for one was rather amused with his diatribe about wind power. I would like to see what he has in his apartment to get his consumption up to 0.66 MW of power, because that is what wind turbines generally produce. My own apartment is only at aroun 0.5 kW, so he's consuming around 1300x as much as my apartment does...
Not really. He's playing the trick of assuming that the wind turbines are the size of a house fan, but quite obviously, they are not. He knows better, but is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people who aren't reading closely.
His discussion of the additional power requirements that Wisconsin will need is similarly biased, stating that "even with existing conservation efforts, Wisconsin will require 7,000 additional megawatts of electricity by 2016." Simple economics will tell us that increasing energy costs will only place greater emphasis on improving the efficiency of our equipment and processes, and increase the need for other forms of conservation. To do a proper projection, you need to not only look at the rate of demand, but the cost eleasticity of that demand, and the rate of efficiency improvements in response to cost. Lacking these, his numbers only provide an upper bound, but are not an estimate.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 7:55am):
You are exactly right, those wind turbines are much larger than house fans and guess what- nobody wants them in their backyard.
This was a solid piece.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 7:56am):
I voted on moral issues in november. My morals are not destroying our earth so my kids can enjoy it. Not legislating hate on anyone else, ect ect. I guess baumgardner and his ilk just don't like morals.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 8:24am):
Here's a Power Curve of a Wind Turbine from an agency that advocates wind power:
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/pwr.htm
That 0.66 MW rating you refer to comes from average sustained winds of 15 m/s- about 33 MPH. Do you know anywhere in the state where we can find that?
Also, even if we can get that 0.66 MW, it would take about 1,850 huge wind turbines operating at 100% efficiency at all times to equal the 1,220 MW Oak Creek proposal.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 9:02am):
Nuclear power is the answer!
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 9:13am):
"The graph shows a power curve for a typical Danish 600 kW wind turbine."
Just grabbing a random wind turbine off the shelf never works, they are optimized for the prevailing wind conditions, which is why even in the one you looked at, you see the efficiency tailing off after the peak wind speed. The ones in Wisconsin are operating at 0.60-0.69 MW, with the majority at 0.66 MW.
Furthermore, who said that it had to come from wind? There are multiple potential sources, or a mix of sources. The point was to show that he was being misleading with his semantic games.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 10:47am):
The first poster in this feedback is dead fucking on. The case here is whether the PSC did it's job right, and the Sierra Club is not there to offer alternatives (although if Mark read their amicus briefs, I'm sure they did), but whether the PSC did a thorough enough job.
Wis. Stats. Section 1.11 require an Environmental Impact Statement created for all major state actions regarding anything...be it building a power plant or a new road, or a public building. It requires that alternatives be considered and offered up. Just because there were public hearings, they do not constitute alternatives.
This law has been on the books since the 70's, so this hardly news. It's just that anytime some lefty group comes along and questions big business, suddenly we're impeding the market.
IF the PSC had done its job right, this case would not be heard by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The lower courts would have dealt with it. Instead...here we are.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 11:16am):
"those opposing the project support increased use of natural gas"
This is especially stupid. I can heat my home cleanly and efficienty with natural gas, not so much if I'm forced to use coal because it's all I can afford after power plant demand pushes the price of gas to the moon. But then oil and gas is projected to run out hundreds of years sooner than coal so maybe it just as well I get used to coal heat at home.
Wind power will be prevented by NIMBY.
The best thing to do would be pebble bed nukes.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/05/issue/feature_earth.asp
Nuclear power plants are very high yield, with low-cost fuel. Finally, they offer the best avenue to a "hydrogen economy," combining high energy and high heat in one place for optimal hydrogen generation.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 11:33am):
I'm liberal so I don't have any ideas, I just complain.
This article sucked.
Anything but this article!
No, that sucks too!
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 12:21pm):
nobody would like to live next to a wind turbine, you're right.
But i would sure rather live next to some wind turbines than a coal power plant.
Also, I am from Milwaukee and people were pissed about the sewage outflow during last season's rains. And people in Oak Creek are not too happy about having a coal plant in their backyard. Let me guess, Mr. Baumgarder, you don't live in Oak Creek do you? It is a cop-out to build polluting powerplants on the lake so most of the emissions blow out of the state, because many of them wind up in the lake or east of us, and we recieve much of the pollution from the west. It seems pretty chldish not to take respnonsibility for our own mess.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 12:51pm):
"It is a cop-out to build polluting powerplants on the lake so most of the emissions blow out of the state"
They build them on the lake so they have a heat sink big enough to dump the condensed steam into. Michigan builds power plants on Lake Michigan as well. I do agree that nuclear power is the best way to go.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 8:42pm):
What, you think these morons have any idea how power plants work? At least some of the greenies are beginning to understand that nukes are the only possible way for civilization to continue without smothering the world in carbon dioxide.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 8:43pm):
I'm hoping something will come up, after all, the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stone.
Anonymous (April 14, 2005 @ 11:36pm):
"What, you think these morons have any idea how power plants work?"
Some of these people who you deride as morons were designing and building power plant systems before you even entered high school. Don't act so high and mighty when you don't know who your audience is; some of them almost assuredly know more than you.
