Michigan still doesn't get it

by: Eric B.

Fri Mar 13, 2009 at 11:50:27 AM EDT

Andy Dillon in MIRS:

In the most recent private meeting that included officials of the Jackson energy company, the Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth (DELEG), Gov. Jennifer GRANHOLM and Dillon, he reported the company wanted to know why it had to take a dual track to get permission to construct a new coal-fired plant in the Saginaw region.

CMS already had a request pending at the Public Service Commission, but the Governor's new policy, which was popped in her State of the State address, would force the utility to jump through an additional hoop.

"What if they got the OK from the PSC and not DEQ?" Dillon wondered out loud.

The knock on the governor's EO is that it requires the DEQ to weigh economic considerations when it is not equipped to do so.  In the same vein, the PSC is not equipped to weigh environmental considerations or -- you know -- enforce federal clean air standards, which we all know are coming.

I don't understand why this is so difficult to comprehend.  The Obama administration is going to follow the very clear instructions of the U.S. Supreme Court to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant and if Michigan wishes to have authority delegated to it to enforce the Clean Air Act within its borders, it's going to have to let the DEQ regulate carbon dioxide emissions as a pollutant.  That means necessarily having a say in the construction of new coal plants.  We can either prepare for that, or wait around for the federal government to force us into compliance.

Meanwhile, let's not overlook that carbon dioxide is the only greenhouse gas.

more...

LANSING -- The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has approved a permit for a large dairy farm to open in St. Joseph County's Leonidas Township.

The agency's action Tuesday grants necessary water-discharge permits to Bustorf Dairy, which plans to run a concentrated-animal feeding operation, or CAFO, with 2,260 dairy cows.

If you've ever watched Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, you know that methane cometh from pig shit.  It also comes from cows.  Methane is also a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Any cap-and-trade scheme that comes down from Washington is going to include sources for methane emissions, like factory farms.  Is this even on anyone's radar?  Must we allow our pork chop and milk factories to also contribute to global warming?

Finally, yesterday, the Detroit News editorial page made great strides in its continued degeneration into something just a notch above World Net Daily.  I mean, I actually support the idea of nuclear power, but after reading this I was less convinced that it is a good idea, which is amazing since it's an Op-Ed advocating it.

Many experts, except the environmental lobby, seem to recognize that coal and nuclear power are inevitable in Michigan's energy future. What is not inevitable is a rigid commitment to renewables-at-all-costs that puts the state government on both the wrong side, and the losing side, of America's national debate over energy policy.

A better approach is to recognize the green power of nuclear energy.

There is one question I always ask when someone says, "We should harness the green power of nuclear energy!"  It is, "How precisely do you plan to pay for this?  The answer is always the same ... a pregnant pause, followed by "We should harness the green power of nuclear energy!"

Costs for nuclear power plants are a lot higher than those of coal plants.  They also come with a history of turning out to be bad investments, which is one of the reasons why last year state government de-deregulated a portion of Michigan's energy market.  The utilities required a captive customer base to get financing for new plants.

Meanwhile:

Reducing Michigan's reliance on fossil fuels 45 percent within a short time has ominous implications that could touch the pocketbooks and change the daily lives of Michiganians. I applaud the lofty aim, but coal is our country's most abundant energy resource. In sad truth, it is here to stay for a while.

Shifting to solar and wind energy, along with improvements in energy efficiency, is not a simple step. Conservation and renewable energy sources are worthwhile, but additional base-load electricity will certainly be needed to meet the increasing demand for electricity once the economy gets back on track.

Today solar and wind combined provide less than 3 percent of Michigan's electricity. Can you imagine assembling an automobile only when the sun shines and the wind blows?

Unimaginative thinking all the way around. It's also the kind of thinking that will let other states outcompete us into the future.

Here is how you do things ... first off, you figure out how much energy you can reliably produce from renewable sources of energy.  Then, you update the electrical infrastructure to more quickly and easily shift energy around from renewables that aren't available 100 percent of the time.  Then, you focus on energy efficiency, updating buildings that are old, out-of-date, and inefficient and building new ones that aren't.  Finally, what's left of demand ... you figure out how to provide that energy in as efficient and cost-effective a way as possible.  You do this all the while keeping in mind that the costs for things like coal are going to be even higher in the future than they are today, because you're going to have some kind of new regulatory structure come from Washington.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the course this guy is advocating is the direct opposite of what we ought to be doing, which is unfortunate because it's also basically the direct opposite of the direction we're currently headed.  We've started with the assumption that we need to fill an energy need as quickly and cheaply as possible, and have settled on technology that in the past has fit that bill but will no longer satisfy that in the future.