tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/coal-power-plants-81300/articlesCoal power plants – The Conversation2024-03-03T19:19:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2150672024-03-03T19:19:20Z2024-03-03T19:19:20ZThe National Electricity Market wasn’t made for a renewable energy future. Here’s how to fix it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567029/original/file-20231221-25-f2uwk9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C6016%2C3998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/renewable-clean-vs-traditional-energy-concept-1112143700">Trong Nguyen/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rooftop solar is Australia’s <a href="https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Energy-data-modelling/GenCost">cheapest source</a> of electricity. The consumer can get electricity from rooftop solar at less than <a href="https://assets-global.website-files.com/612b0b172765f9c62c1c20c9/615a513770739cc6477e67f4_Castles%20and%20Cars%20Rewiring%20Australia%20Discussion%20Paper.pdf">a fifth</a> of the <a href="https://www.canstarblue.com.au/electricity/electricity-costs-kwh/">average cost per kwh</a> of <a href="https://www.aemc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2021-11/2021_residential_electricity_price_trends_report.pdf">buying it from a retailer</a>. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, rooftop solar output is <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-21/rooftop-solar-cells-in-australia-to-outperform-demand/103489806">growing fast</a>. In 2022, <a href="https://apvi.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/National-Survey-Report-of-PV-Power-Applications-in-AUSTRALIA-2022.pdf">one-in-three</a> homes had solar panels. Total rooftop solar capacity exceeded 30 gigawatts, compared to the <a href="https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/stakeholder_consultation/consultations/nem-consultations/2023/draft-2024-isp-consultation/draft-2024-isp.pdf">remaining 21GW</a> of coal generation.</p>
<p>Rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems will soon supply half of our electricity demand. At times of the day, they already supply <a href="https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/stakeholder_consultation/consultations/nem-consultations/2023/draft-2024-isp-consultation/draft-2024-isp.pdf">close to 100%</a> of electricity demand and in some regions can <a href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-has-enough-renewables-to-reach-100pct-at-times-but-coal-gets-in-the-way/">briefly meet all demand</a>.</p>
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<p>This means renewable energy is displacing the electricity traded through the wholesale market and supplied via the transmission system. The National Electricity Market (<a href="https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/about-the-national-electricity-market-nem">NEM</a>) is the wholesale market where large generators and retailers buy and sell electricity to supply the eastern and south-eastern states. It was never designed to cope with large amounts of renewable energy feeding into the grid at large, medium and small scales. </p>
<p>The market’s design doesn’t allow for harnessing the full economic and technical potential of the millions of consumer-owned generators, known as distributed energy resources (DERs). Comprehensive market reforms are <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/energy-distribution-companies-need-radical-reform-report-20240208-p5f3cv">urgently needed</a> to achieve an energy transition at least cost to energy users. </p>
<h2>What are the challenges of reform?</h2>
<p>The National Electricity Market has operated largely in its current form since the 1990s. It was designed for large fossil-fuelled power stations, but many of these are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/15/aemo-warns-coal-fired-power-plants-could-drop-off-before-replacements-are-ready">on the way out</a>.</p>
<p>Millions of rooftop solar systems are now connected to the grid. The market needs to change to a system that can manage and co-ordinate these small renewable energy generators. </p>
<p>To minimise disruption, a reformed market has to be able to accommodate and value the electricity and power system services that these millions of distributed energy resources can provide. They offer flexibility and can help balance supply and demand, thus improving grid stability. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-successful-energy-transition-depends-on-managing-when-people-use-power-so-how-do-we-make-demand-more-flexible-213079">A successful energy transition depends on managing when people use power. So how do we make demand more flexible?</a>
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<p>Between 2019 and 2023, the <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/ministers-unplug-energy-security-board-20230519-p5d9ta">former</a> Energy Security Board (<a href="https://www.directory.gov.au/portfolios/climate-change-energy-environment-and-water/department-climate-change-energy-environment-and-water/energy-security-board">ESB</a>) and regulators were tasked with <a href="https://esb-post2025-market-design.aemc.gov.au">delivering a new market design</a> for the clean energy transition. Reforms to better integrate variable renewable generation included:</p>
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<li><p>improved <a href="https://aemo.com.au/newsroom/news-updates/forecasting-increasingly-critical-to-harnessing-wind-and-solar-for-power-systems">forecasting of electricity demand and supply</a></p></li>
<li><p>the <a href="https://aemo.com.au/en/initiatives/trials-and-initiatives/wholesale-demand-response-mechanism">Wholesale Demand Response Mechanism</a> to allow demand-side (or energy consumer) participation in the market.</p></li>
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<p>The Energy Security Board also proposed a <a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/government-priorities/energy-ministers/energy-ministers-publications/two-sided-markets">two-sided market</a> to allow energy users to actively trade electricity. The design of the <a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/default/files/2024-02/ESB%20report%20-%20CONSUMER%20ENERGY%20RESOURCES%20AND%20THE%20TRANSFORMATION%20OF%20THE%20NEM.pdf">reform fell short</a>, but the intent remains valid. This reform needs to be revisited. </p>
<p>The electricity market rules define what commodities are valued and traded, how they are to be traded and by whom. These rules are embedded in thousands of pages of <a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/government-priorities/energy-markets/energy-market-legislation">legislation</a>. Each change takes about two years to progress. </p>
<p>These incremental market and policy patches fall short of the systemic change needed for a clean energy future. The whole National Electricity Market and its processes must be redefined. </p>
<p>The current focus of attention is on the large scale. What is being overlooked is the potential of small-scale and local generation to supply electricity where it is needed. This oversight creates a risk of building too much transmission infrastructure at great cost. </p>
<p>The opportunity of energy market reform is that the millions of small, privately owned, behind-the-meter generators could economically provide a big share of Australia’s future electricity and power system services. </p>
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<img alt="Rooftop solar panels on a new development of townhouses" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572358/original/file-20240131-19-cz6313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572358/original/file-20240131-19-cz6313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572358/original/file-20240131-19-cz6313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572358/original/file-20240131-19-cz6313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572358/original/file-20240131-19-cz6313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572358/original/file-20240131-19-cz6313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572358/original/file-20240131-19-cz6313.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A new Sydney townhouse development has solar panels installed on every roof.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sydney-australia-oct-23-2023-aerial-2378539637">HDC Creative/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Government must lead the transformation</h2>
<p>The clean energy transition is a national priority. Change on this scale requires governments to work together to deliver economic productivity, affordable energy and climate action. </p>
<p>A clear set of principles is needed to guide these changes. The principles from the <a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/default/files/2022-08/National%20Energy%20Transformation%20Partnership.pdf">National Energy Transformation Partnership</a> agreement between federal, state and territory governments are a good place to start. It recognises consumers’ needs as central to the transformation, and that a strong economy depends on affordable, clean and secure energy sources. </p>
<p>The agreement also recognises the role electricity networks and demand-side participation will play in the energy transition. The demand side includes all the small, behind-the-meter, grid-connected, rooftop solar systems and interruptible uses of electricity <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-electric-water-heaters-to-store-renewable-energy-could-do-the-work-of-2-million-home-batteries-and-save-us-billions-204281">such as hot-water systems</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/using-electric-water-heaters-to-store-renewable-energy-could-do-the-work-of-2-million-home-batteries-and-save-us-billions-204281">Using electric water heaters to store renewable energy could do the work of 2 million home batteries – and save us billions</a>
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<p>Reforming the electricity market is complex work. It requires an in-depth knowledge of governance and regulatory frameworks, commercial realities and consumer needs. </p>
<p>Putting energy users at the heart of these complex reforms requires a holistic <a href="https://es.catapult.org.uk/guide/systems-thinking-in-the-energy-system/">systems thinking</a> approach to policy and regulatory design. Such an approach takes into account how all parts of a complex system interact. </p>
<p>With the consumer having such a key role, the focus, planning and investment in these smaller energy sources must be on par with that given to the large generators. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-is-renewable-energy-zone/">Renewable Energy Zones</a> – areas with the greatest potential to develop renewable energy projects – have shown that, with the right policy settings, <a href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/queensland-renewable-energy-zones-flooded-with-60000mw-of-project-proposals-75017/">billions of dollars of investment</a> can be mobilised. The same level of focus on policy settings and market reforms is needed at the small scale of “Community Energy Zones”. </p>
<p>Each zone must be able to accommodate the unique characteristics of its energy users. It must create an investment environment that supports a local ecosystem of skills, trades and community benefit, ultimately leading to a zero-emission community. It must also support technological and business innovation and allow distribution networks to transition to a smart grid at low risk and low cost. </p>
<p>Learning from successful examples overseas such as <a href="https://www.ukri.org/blog/delivering-smart-local-energy-systems/">smart local energy systems</a> (UK) and <a href="https://viablecities.se/en/om/">Viable Cities</a> (Sweden) will be crucial.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vikki McLeod is in receipt of a PhD write-up scholarship from the RACE for 2030 CRC. She has recently commenced a role as energy market reform adviser at Rewiring Australia.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof. Marcus Foth receives research funding from the Australian Research Council and the RACE for 2030 CRC. He is a member of the Queensland Greens.</span></em></p>Big changes are needed to create a consumer-centric National Electricity Market that’s able to manage the rise of rooftop solar.Vikki McLeod, PhD Graduate, Centre for Clean Energy Technologies and Practices, Queensland University of TechnologyMarcus Foth, Professor of Urban Informatics, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2182312023-11-23T19:04:01Z2023-11-23T19:04:01ZPollution from coal power plants contributes to far more deaths than scientists realized, study shows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560874/original/file-20231121-4173-worc70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C107%2C5083%2C3435&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kids jump on a trampoline as steam rises from a coal power plant in Adamsville, Ala., in 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kids-jump-on-a-trampoline-at-their-grandparents-home-as-news-photo/1232409457?adppopup=true"> Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Air pollution particles from coal-fired power plants are more harmful to human health than many experts realized, and it’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adf4915">more than twice as likely to contribute to premature deaths</a> as air pollution particles from other sources, new research demonstrates.</p>
<p>In the study, published in the journal Science, colleagues and I mapped how U.S. coal power plant emissions traveled through the atmosphere, then linked each power plant’s emissions with death records of Americans over 65 years old on Medicare.</p>
<p>Our results suggest that air pollutants released from coal power plants were associated with nearly half a million premature deaths of elderly Americans from 1999 to 2020.</p>
<p>It’s a staggering number, but the study also has good news: Annual deaths associated with U.S. coal power plants have fallen sharply since the mid-2000s as <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-us-coal-power-is-disappearing-and-a-supreme-court-ruling-wont-save-it-187254">federal regulations compelled operators</a> to install emissions scrubbers and many utilities shut down coal plants entirely.</p>
<p>In 1999, 55,000 deaths were attributable to coal air pollution in the U.S., according to our findings. By 2020, that number had fallen to 1,600.</p>
<figure><img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2941/lucas-maps-GIF5.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2"><figcaption> How PM2.5 levels from coal power plants in the U.S. have declined since 1999 as more plants installed pollution-control devices or shut down. Lucas Henneman.</figcaption></figure>
<p>In the U.S., coal is being displaced by natural gas and renewable energy for generating electricity. Globally, however, coal use is <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2022">projected to increase</a> in coming years. That makes our results all the more urgent for global decision-makers to understand as they develop future policies.</p>
<h2>Coal air pollution: What makes it so bad?</h2>
<p>A landmark study in the 1990s, known as the <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199312093292401">Harvard Six Cities Study</a>, linked tiny airborne particles called PM2.5 to increased risk of early death. Other studies have since linked PM2.5 to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12152656">lung and heart disease, cancer</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.3300">dementia</a> and other diseases. </p>
<p>Following that research, the Environmental Protection Agency <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/timeline-particulate-matter-pm-national-ambient-air-quality-standards-naaqs">began regulating PM2.5 concentrations in 1997</a> and has lowered the acceptable limit over time.</p>
<p>PM2.5 – particles small enough to be inhaled deep into our lungs – comes from several different sources, including gasoline combustion in vehicles and smoke from wood fires and power plants. It is <a href="https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/particulate-matter-pm-basics#PM">made up of many</a> different chemicals.</p>
<p>Coal is also a mix of many chemicals – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2011.04.070">carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, even metals</a>. When coal is burned, <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/coal/coal-and-the-environment.php">all of these chemicals</a> are emitted to the atmosphere either as gases or particles. Once there, they are transported by the wind and interact with other chemicals already in the atmosphere.</p>
<p>As a result, anyone downwind of a coal plant may be breathing a complex cocktail of chemicals, each with its own potential effects on human health.</p>
<figure><img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2934/lucas-gif1.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2"><figcaption> Two months of emissions from Plant Bowen, a coal-fired power station near Atlanta, show how wind influences the spread of air pollution. Lucas Henneman.</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Tracking coal PM2.5</h2>
<p>To understand the risks coal emissions pose to human health, we tracked how sulfur dioxide emissions from each of the 480 largest U.S. coal power plants operating at any point since 1999 traveled with the wind and turned into tiny particles – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adf4915">coal PM2.5</a>. We used sulfur dioxide because of its known health effects and drastic decreases in emissions over the study period.</p>
<p>We then used a statistical model to link coal PM2.5 exposure to Medicare records of nearly 70 million people from 1999 to 2020. This model allowed us to calculate the number of deaths associated with coal PM2.5.</p>
<p>In our statistical model, we controlled for other pollution sources and accounted for many other known risk factors, like smoking status, local meteorology and income level. We tested multiple statistical approaches that all yielded consistent results. We compared the results of our statistical model with <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba5692">previous results</a> testing the health impacts of PM2.5 from other sources and found that PM2.5 from coal is twice as harmful as PM2.5 from all other sources.</p>
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<img alt="Two people stand outside an older brick home with power plant smokestacks in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561153/original/file-20231122-17-wwzsob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561153/original/file-20231122-17-wwzsob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561153/original/file-20231122-17-wwzsob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561153/original/file-20231122-17-wwzsob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561153/original/file-20231122-17-wwzsob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561153/original/file-20231122-17-wwzsob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561153/original/file-20231122-17-wwzsob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Residents living near the Cheswick coal-fired power plant in Springdale, Pa., publicly complained about the amount of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and coal particles from the plant for years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/marti-blake-speaks-to-the-postman-in-front-of-the-smoke-news-photo/874051624">Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The number of deaths associated with individual power plants depended on multiple factors – how much the plant emits, which way the wind blows and how many people breathe in the pollution. Unfortunately, U.S. utilities located many of their plants upwind of major population centers on the East Coast. This siting amplified these plants’ impacts.</p>
<p>In an <a href="https://cpieatgt.github.io/cpie/">interactive online tool</a>, users can look up our estimates of annual deaths associated with each U.S. power plant and also see how those numbers have fallen over time at most U.S. coal plants.</p>
<h2>A US success story and the global future of coal</h2>
<p>Engineers have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ep.670200410">designing effective scrubbers</a> and other pollution-control devices that can reduce pollution from coal-fired power plants for several years. And the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/Cross-State-Air-Pollution/overview-cross-state-air-pollution-rule-csapr">EPA has rules</a> specifically to encourage utilities that used coal to install them, and most facilities that did not install scrubbers have shut down.</p>
<p>The results have been dramatic: Sulfur dioxide emissions <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ep.670200410">decreased about 90%</a> in facilities that reported installing scrubbers. Nationwide, sulfur dioxide emissions decreased 95% since 1999. According to our tally, deaths attributable to each facility that installed a scrubber or shut down decreased drastically.</p>
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<p>As advances in fracking techniques reduced the cost of natural gas, and regulations made running coal plants more expensive, <a href="https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010007819500088">utilities began replacing coal with natural gas</a> plants and renewable energy. The shift to natural gas – a cleaner-burning fossil fuel than coal but still a greenhouse gas <a href="https://theconversation.com/biden-announces-a-sweeping-methane-plan-heres-why-cutting-the-greenhouse-gas-is-crucial-for-protecting-climate-and-health-168220">contributing to climate change</a> – led to even further air pollution reductions.</p>
<p>Today, coal contributes about 27% of electricity in the U.S., <a href="https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T02.06#/?f=A">down from 56% in 1999</a>.</p>
<p>Globally, however, the outlook for coal is mixed. While the U.S. and other nations are headed toward a future with substantially less coal, the International Energy Agency <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2022">expects global coal use to increase</a> through at least 2025.</p>
<p>Our study and others like it make clear that increases in coal use will harm human health and the climate. Making full use of emissions controls and a turn toward renewables are surefire ways to reduce coal’s negative impacts.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218231/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucas Henneman receives funding from the Health Effects Institute, the National Institute of Health, and the Environmental Protection Agency.</span></em></p>The longest-running study of its kind reviewed death records in the path of pollution from coal-fired power plants. The numbers are staggering − but also falling fast as US coal plants close.Lucas Henneman, Assistant Professor of Engineering, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2098942023-09-01T13:43:36Z2023-09-01T13:43:36ZPulverised fuel ash: how we can recycle the dirty byproduct from coal-fired power stations<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545549/original/file-20230830-15-9481l8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4031%2C2576&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The pulverised fuel ash from coal-fired power stations is typically stored in landfill.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/coal-fired-power-station-cooling-towers-110448884">Sponner/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ash from burning coal in coal-fired power stations lies in thousands of landfills around the world. This waste material, generally considered a hazard, is now being put to good use in the construction industry.</p>
<p><a href="https://bloombergcoalcountdown.com">More than 6,000</a> coal-fired power stations produce this powdery byproduct, which is properly known as “pulverised fuel ash” (PFA) or “fly ash”. Traditionally, it was released into the atmosphere from the smoke stack after the coal was burned, but, because of its effect on air quality, it is now captured and stored in landfills. </p>
<p><a href="https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/publications/effects-of-lysinibacillus-sphaericus-on-physicomechanical-and-che">Our research</a> focuses on how we can recycle and make best use of these types of dirty byproducts for the sake of the environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A small heap of a brown/grey ash." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545562/original/file-20230830-23-wovt73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545562/original/file-20230830-23-wovt73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545562/original/file-20230830-23-wovt73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545562/original/file-20230830-23-wovt73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545562/original/file-20230830-23-wovt73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545562/original/file-20230830-23-wovt73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545562/original/file-20230830-23-wovt73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pulverised fuel ash or fly ash is a byproduct from coal-fired power stations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/fly-ash-coal-waste-used-concrete-1934812655">alegga/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-decarbonize-concrete-and-build-better-future#:%7E:text=Concrete%20is%20the%20most%2Dconsumed,and%20demand%20for%20infrastructure%20grows.">current demand</a> for concrete worldwide is around 14 billion cubic metres annually. This is projected to increase by 43% to 20 billion cubic metres by 2050. The impact of the carbon dioxide emissions (<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02612-5">8% globally</a>) that is associated with this increase, against the backdrop of the current environmental crisis, is immense. </p>
<p>There is a dire need for a change in lifestyle and for tighter environmental regulation of industrial operations and processes. This should include a serious mitigation of the worsening environmental landscape. Increasing the use of industrial waste and byproduct materials is one such strategy. </p>
<p>Some of the most abundant global waste streams result from the many years of coal mining, so the role that can be played by re-using coal waste, including PFA, is significant. </p>
<p>And this idea is based on old technology if you consider how the Romans used ash. The dome of the Pantheon in Rome, built in AD128, as well as the Colosseum, are examples of successful structures built with <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/why-modern-mortar-crumbles-roman-concrete-lasts-millennia">volcanic ash-based concrete</a>. </p>
<h2>Portland cement</h2>
<p>PFA can be blended with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/portland-cement">Portland cement</a> to make concrete. That’s the most common type of cement in general use around the world and is a basic ingredient of concrete, but also mortar, stucco and some grout. Portland cement is a hydraulic cement, which means that it reacts with water to form a paste that binds sand and rock together, creating concrete. Around <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/221654/best-ways-carbon-emissions-from-cement/">3.5 billion tonnes</a> of Portland cement are produced annually.</p>
<p>The problem, though, is that producing Portland cement uses a lot of energy and also precious natural resources. You must quarry the raw materials, which not only damages the landscape but also results in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435121001975?dgcid=author">emissions</a> of up to 622kg of carbon dioxide per tonne of cement. </p>
<p>Lessening the impact of Portland cement on the environment is therefore vital. PFA is the most attractive byproduct for this purpose, due to its abundance and low cost. Also, if it is properly used in combination with Portland cement, it can result in stronger and <a href="http://www.xpublication.com/index.php/jcec/article/view/446">more durable concrete</a>.</p>
<p>However, as more coal-fired power stations are decommissioned and fewer come into operation worldwide, stockpiles of PFA become depleted. This means we will need to use the material more efficiently in the future. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A large industrial site featuring several buildings and chimneys" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545915/original/file-20230901-29-xrkzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545915/original/file-20230901-29-xrkzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545915/original/file-20230901-29-xrkzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545915/original/file-20230901-29-xrkzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545915/original/file-20230901-29-xrkzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545915/original/file-20230901-29-xrkzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545915/original/file-20230901-29-xrkzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The now decommissioned Aberthaw power station in south Wales. On the right of the picture is the grass-topped ash mound.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ben_salter/46572448115/in/photostream/">Ben Salter/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Attention will have to shift to different types of fly ash or unburnt colliery waste. But coal mining waste, either from current or past mining activities, will continue to feature in the construction industry for a long time.</p>
<p>And besides concrete, there are also <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/296519/LIT_8272_420835.pdf">other ways</a> in which we can recycle PFA. This includes using it to improve the properties of soils, making abrasives such as sandpaper and grinding wheels, and using it in the manufacturing of a variety of products, such as plastics, paints and rubber.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Kinuthia receives funding from industry, research councils, and government sources for the furtherance of research into sustainable construction</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Oti receives receives funding from industry, research councils, and government sources for the furtherance of research into sustainable construction</span></em></p>Pulverised fuel ash can be recycled and used to manufacture concrete as well as other products.John Kinuthia, Professor and Manager of the Advanced Materials Testing Centre (AMTeC), University of South WalesJonathan Oti, Associate Professor at the Advanced Materials Testing Centre (AMTeC), University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2048892023-05-16T12:41:27Z2023-05-16T12:41:27ZEPA’s crackdown on power plant emissions is a big first step – but without strong certification, it will be hard to ensure captured carbon stays put<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526015/original/file-20230513-80599-50hj2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=836%2C0%2C2108%2C1350&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Power plants contribute a quarter of the United States' climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/polluted-beauty-royalty-free-image/991612992">Howard C via Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. government is <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-proposes-new-carbon-pollution-standards-fossil-fuel-fired-power-plants-tackle">planning to crack down</a> on power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions, and, as a result, a lot of money is about to pour into technology that can capture carbon dioxide from smokestacks and lock it away.</p>
<p>That raises an important question: Once carbon dioxide is captured and stored, how do we ensure it stays put?</p>
<p>Power plants that burn fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, release a lot of carbon dioxide. As that CO₂ accumulates in the atmosphere, it traps heat near the Earth’s surface, <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide">driving global warming</a>. </p>
<p>But if CO₂ emissions can be captured instead and <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/srccs_wholereport.pdf">locked away for thousands of years</a>, existing fossil fuel power plants could meet the proposed new federal standards and reduce their impact on climate change. </p>
<p>We <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XO3TyEUAAAAJ&hl=en">work on</a> carbon capture and storage technologies <a href="https://keep.lib.asu.edu/items/172390">and policies</a> as a scientist and an engineer. One of us, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jOPykuwAAAAJ&hl=en">Klaus Lackner</a>, proposed a tenet more than two decades ago that is echoed in the proposed standards: For all carbon extracted from the ground, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1323-0_3">an equal amount</a> must be disposed of safely and permanently. </p>
<p>To ensure that happens, carbon capture and storage needs an effective certification system. </p>
<h2>EPA’s proposed carbon crackdown</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/greenhouse-gas-standards-and-guidelines-fossil-fuel-fired-power">proposed new power plant rules</a>, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency on May 11, 2023, are based on performance standards for carbon dioxide releases. They aren’t yet finalized, and they <a href="https://theconversation.com/bidens-strategy-for-cutting-carbon-emissions-from-electricity-generation-could-extend-the-lives-of-fossil-fuel-power-plants-204723">likely will face fierce legal challenges</a>, but the industry is paying attention.</p>
<p>Power plant owners could meet the proposed standards in any number of ways, including by shutting down fossil fuel-powered plants and replacing them with renewable energy such as solar or wind.</p>
<p>For those planning to continue to burn natural gas or coal, however, capturing the emissions and storing them long term is the most likely option. </p>
<h2>How CCS works for power plants</h2>
<p>Carbon capture typically starts at the smokestack with <a href="https://www.rff.org/publications/explainers/carbon-capture-and-storage-101">chemical “scrubbers</a>” that can remove more than 90% of carbon dioxide emissions. The captured CO₂ is compressed and sent through pipelines for storage.</p>
<p>At most storage sites, CO₂ is injected <a href="https://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/carbon-storage/strategic-program-support/natcarb-atlas">into underground reservoirs</a>, typically in porous rocks more than 3,300 feet (1,000 meters) below the surface. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525964/original/file-20230512-23-7qw92n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cutaway and closeup shows how CO2 is trapped in rock pore spaces." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525964/original/file-20230512-23-7qw92n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525964/original/file-20230512-23-7qw92n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525964/original/file-20230512-23-7qw92n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525964/original/file-20230512-23-7qw92n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525964/original/file-20230512-23-7qw92n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525964/original/file-20230512-23-7qw92n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525964/original/file-20230512-23-7qw92n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cutaway of the Earth shows how impermeable rocks cap CO₂ reservoirs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/">Global CCS Institute</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Geologists look for sites with multiple layers of protection, including impermeable rock layers above the reservoir that can prevent gas from leaking out. In some sites, CO₂ chemically reacts with minerals and is eventually immobilized as a solid carbonate.</p>
<p>Carbon capture and storage is <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage-epas-new-power-plant-standards-proposal-gives-it-a-boost-but-ccs-is-not-a-quick-solution-205462">currently expensive</a>, and developing the pipeline and storage infrastructure will likely take years. But as more CCS projects are built – helped by some <a href="https://www.wri.org/update/45q-enhancements">generous tax credits</a> in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act – costs are likely to drop.</p>
<p>The Sleipner project in the North Sea has been putting away <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610217317174%5d.">roughly 1 million</a> metric tons of CO₂ a year since 1996. In Iceland, CO₂ is injected into volcanic basalt rocks, where it reacts with the stone and rapidly <a href="https://www.carbfix.com/">forms solid mineral carbonates</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525958/original/file-20230512-24221-4sjmk9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A US map shows reservoirs across the Plains, Southeast and Midwest in particular, as well as the coasts." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525958/original/file-20230512-24221-4sjmk9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525958/original/file-20230512-24221-4sjmk9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525958/original/file-20230512-24221-4sjmk9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525958/original/file-20230512-24221-4sjmk9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525958/original/file-20230512-24221-4sjmk9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525958/original/file-20230512-24221-4sjmk9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525958/original/file-20230512-24221-4sjmk9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=583&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Several regions of the U.S. have geological reservoirs with the potential to store captured carbon dioxide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/climatechange/carbon-dioxide-capture-and-sequestration-overview_.html">Environmental Protection Agency</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the U.S., companies have been injecting CO₂ into underground reservoirs for decades – initially, as a way to force more oil out of the ground. Today, these “enhanced oil recovery” projects can receive tax credits for the CO₂ that remains underground. As a result, some now inject more carbon into the ground than they extract as oil. </p>
<p>While there have been no notable CO₂ releases from geologic storage, <a href="https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M292/K947/292947433.PDF">other gas storage leaks demonstrate</a> that injection has to follow well-defined safety rules. Nothing is guaranteed. </p>
<p>That’s why monitoring and certification are essential.</p>
<h2>How to effectively certify carbon storage</h2>
<p>The EPA has rules for CO₂ storage sites, but they are focused on protecting drinking water rather than the climate. Under <a href="https://www.epa.gov/uic/class-vi-wells-used-geologic-sequestration-carbon-dioxide">those rules</a>, monitoring is required for all phases of the project and for 50 years after closing to check the safety of the groundwater and ensure that material injected underground does not contaminate it.</p>
<p>However, the current <a href="https://netl.doe.gov/coal/carbon-storage/faqs/permanence-safety">monitoring techniques</a> don’t measure the amount of carbon stored, and the rules do not require that leaked carbon be replaced. </p>
<p>To provide more direction, we developed a <a href="https://keep.lib.asu.edu/_flysystem/fedora/c160/Conceptual_framework_certification_v2_1.pdf">certification framework</a> designed to ensure that all carbon is stored safely and for the tens of thousands of years necessary to safeguard the climate.</p>
<p>We envision liability for the captured carbon dioxide shifting from the power plant owner to the storage site operator once the carbon dioxide is transferred. That would mean the storage site operator would be held liable for any leaks.</p>
<p>Under <a href="https://keep.lib.asu.edu/_flysystem/fedora/c160/Conceptual_framework_certification_v2_1.pdf">the framework</a>, a certificate authority would vet storage operators and issue certificates of carbon sequestration for stored carbon. These certificates could have market value if, as the EPA suggests, power plant operators are held responsible for the carbon stored. Future regulations could expand this requirement to other emitters, or simply demand that any carbon released is cleared by a corresponding certificate showing the same amount of carbon has been sequestered.</p>
<p>Careful monitoring, paired with certification that requires storage site owners to make up any losses, could help avoid <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/24/shell-ccs-facility-in-canada-emits-more-than-it-captures-study-says.html">greenwashing</a> and ensure that the investments meet the nation’s climate goals. </p>
<p><iframe id="Fsawi" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Fsawi/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Certification can be useful for carbon stored in any quantifiable storage reservoir, including trees, oceans and human infrastructure such as cement. We believe a <a href="https://keep.lib.asu.edu/_flysystem/fedora/c160/Conceptual_framework_certification_v2_1.pdf">universal approach to certification</a> that sets minimum requirements and responsibilities is necessary to assure that carbon is stored safely with a guarantee of permanence, regardless of how it is done.</p>
<p>Climate change will <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2022/04/04/quantifying-risks-to-the-federal-budget-from-climate-change/">cost trillions of dollars</a>, and the federal government is putting <a href="https://www.wri.org/update/carbon-removal-BIL-IRA">billions into research and tax breaks</a> to encourage development of carbon capture and storage sites. To avoid dubious methods, corner-cutting and greenwashing, carbon storage will have to be held to high standards. The U.S. can’t afford to pin a large chunk of <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/climate/">its climate strategy</a> on carbon storage without proof.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Arcusa receives funding from Arizona State University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Klaus Lackner receives funding from Arizona State University and the Kaiteki Institute at ASU.</span></em></p>Fossil fuel power plants can avoid most emissions by capturing carbon dioxide and pumping it underground. But to be a climate solution, that carbon has to stay stored for thousands of years.Stephanie Arcusa, Postdoctoral Researcher in Carbon Sequestration, Arizona State UniversityKlaus Lackner, Professor of Engineering and Director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emissions, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1764342022-02-15T13:24:07Z2022-02-15T13:24:07ZHow poisonous mercury gets from coal-fired power plants into the fish you eat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446121/original/file-20220213-17-gt0hty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C3000%2C2110&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Coal-fired power plants are a source of mercury that people can ingest by eating fish.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/danielle-gross-casts-his-fishing-line-into-the-potomac-news-photo/478998730">Mark Wilson/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People fishing along the banks of the White River as it winds through Indianapolis sometimes pass by ominous signs warning about eating the fish they catch. </p>
<p><a href="https://extension.wsu.edu/foodsafety/content/risks-of-mercury-in-fish">One of the risks</a> they have faced is mercury poisoning.</p>
<p>Mercury is a neurotoxic metal that can cause irreparable harm to human health – especially the brain development of young children. It is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.7743">tied to lower IQ</a> and results in decreased earning potential, as well as higher health costs. Lost productivity from mercury alone was calculated in 2005 to reach <a href="https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.7743">almost $9 billion per year</a>. </p>
<p>One way mercury gets into river fish is with the gases that rise up the smokestacks of coal-burning power plants. </p>
<p><iframe id="FW8zH" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/FW8zH/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The Environmental Protection Agency has had a rule since 2012 limiting mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. But the Trump administration <a href="https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2019/03/rolling-back-the-mercury-and-air-toxics-standards-proposed-withdrawal-of-appropriate-and-necessary/">stopped enforcing it</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-epa-coal-mercury/trump-administration-weakens-mercury-rule-for-coal-plants-idUSKCN21Y1IW">arguing that the costs</a> to industry outweighed the health benefit.</p>
<p>Now, the Biden administration is <a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-reaffirms-scientific-economic-and-legal-underpinnings-limits-toxic-emissions">moving to reassert it</a>.</p>
<p>I study mercury and its sources as a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MEp4948AAAAJ&hl=en">biogeochemist</a> at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Before the EPA’s original mercury rule went into effect, my students and I launched a project to track how Indianapolis-area power plants were increasing mercury in the rivers and soil.</p>
<h2>Mercury bioaccumulates in the food chain</h2>
<p>The risks from eating a fish from a river downwind from a coal-burning power plant depends on both the type of fish caught and the age and condition of the person consuming it.</p>
<p>Mercury is a <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/special-topics/water-science-school/science/mercury-contamination-aquatic-environments">bioaccumulative toxin</a>, meaning that it increasingly concentrates in the flesh of organisms as it makes its way up the food chain.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person's hands old a smallmouth bass, with the fish's mouth open" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446123/original/file-20220213-87622-e0wm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446123/original/file-20220213-87622-e0wm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446123/original/file-20220213-87622-e0wm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446123/original/file-20220213-87622-e0wm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446123/original/file-20220213-87622-e0wm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446123/original/file-20220213-87622-e0wm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446123/original/file-20220213-87622-e0wm9c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mercury accumulates as it moves up the food chain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/holding-a-smallmouth-bass-royalty-free-image/123084571">doug4537 via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The mercury emitted from coal-burning power plants falls onto soils and washes into waterways. There, the moderately benign mercury is transformed by bacteria into a toxic organic form called methylmercury.</p>
<p>Each bacterium might contain only one unit of toxic methylmercury, but a worm chewing through sediment and eating 1,000 of those bacteria now contains 1,000 doses of mercury. The catfish that eats the worm then get more doses, and so on up the food chain to humans.</p>
<p>In this way, top-level predator fishes, such as smallmouth bass, walleye, largemouth bass, lake trout and Northern pike, typically contain the highest amounts of mercury in aquatic ecosystems. On average, one of these fish contains enough to make eating only <a href="https://www.epa.gov/fish-tech/epa-fda-fish-advice-technical-information">one serving of them per month dangerous</a> for the developing fetuses of pregnant women and for children.</p>
<h2>How coal plant mercury rains down</h2>
<p>In our study, we wanted to answer a simple question: Did the local coal-burning power plants, known to be <a href="https://www.purdue.edu/discoverypark/energy/assets/pdfs/cctr/outreach/Basics2-Mercury-Mar07.pdf">major emitters of toxic mercury</a>, have an impact on the local environment?</p>
<p>The obvious answer seems to be yes, they do. But in fact, quite a bit of research – and coal industry advertising – noted that mercury is a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/etc.1980">global pollutant</a>” and could not necessarily be traced to a local source. A recurring argument is that mercury deposited on the landscape came from coal-burning power plants <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/es062707c">in China</a>, so why regulate local emissions if others were still burning coal?</p>
<p>That justification was based on the unique chemistry of this element. It is the only metal that is liquid at room temperature, and when heated just to a moderate level, will evaporate into mercury vapor. Thus, when coal is burned in a power plant, the mercury that is present in it is released through the smokestacks as a gas and dilutes as it travels. Low levels of mercury also <a href="https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/mercury-emissions-global-context">occur naturally</a>.</p>
<p>Although this argument was technically true, we found it obscured the bigger picture.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A view of the river with a bridge and the city in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446383/original/file-20220214-19-t52yt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446383/original/file-20220214-19-t52yt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446383/original/file-20220214-19-t52yt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446383/original/file-20220214-19-t52yt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446383/original/file-20220214-19-t52yt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446383/original/file-20220214-19-t52yt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446383/original/file-20220214-19-t52yt9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People sometimes fish along the White River where it flows through Indianapolis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/indianapolis-royalty-free-image/520980871?adppopup=true">alexeys via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found the overwhelming source of mercury was within sight of the White River fishermen – a large coal-burning power plant on the edge of the city.</p>
<p>This power plant emitted vaporous mercury at the time, though it has since <a href="https://www.transmissionhub.com/articles/2016/02/indianapolis-powers-harding-street-plant-burns-its-last-coal.html">switched to natural gas</a>. We found that much of the plant’s mercury rapidly reacted with other atmospheric constituents and water vapor to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-010-0703-7">“wash out” over the city</a>. It was <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/gbc.20040">raining down mercury on the landscape</a>.</p>
<h2>Traveling by air and water, miles from the source</h2>
<p>Mercury emitted from the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants can fall from the atmosphere with rain, mist or chemical reactions. Several studies have shown <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2016.01.026">elevated levels of mercury in soils and plants near power plants</a>, with much of the mercury <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep46545">falling within about 9 miles</a> (15 kilometers) of the smokestack.</p>
<p>When we surveyed hundreds of surface soils ranging from about 1 to 31 miles (2 to 50 km) from the coal-fired power plant, then the single largest emitter of mercury in central Indiana, we were shocked. We found <a href="https://doi.org/10.12952/journal.elementa.000059">a clear “plume” of elevated mercury</a> in Indianapolis, with much higher values near the power plant tailing off to almost background values 31 miles downwind. </p>
<p>The White River flows from the northeast to the southwest through Indianapolis, opposite the wind patterns. When we sampled sediments from most of its course through central Indiana, we found that mercury levels started low well upstream of Indianapolis, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-010-0703-7">increased substantially</a> as the river flowed through downtown, apparently accumulating deposited mercury along its flow path. </p>
<p>[<em>Understand developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=science&source=inline-science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>We also found high levels well downstream of the city. Thus a fisherman out in the countryside, far away from the city, was still <a href="https://doi.org/10.12952/journal.elementa.000059">at significant risk</a> of catching, and eating, high-mercury fish.</p>
<p>The region’s <a href="https://www.in.gov/health/files/Marion_sensitive_fishadvisory.pdf">fish advisories</a> still recommend sharply limiting the amount of fish eaten from the White River. In Indianapolis, for example, pregnant women are advised to <a href="https://www.in.gov/health/files/Marion_sensitive_fishadvisory.pdf">avoid eating some fish</a> from the river altogether.</p>
<h2>Reviving the MATS rule</h2>
<p>The EPA announced the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards rule in 2011 to deal with the exact health risk Indianapolis was facing. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2017/09/mercury-and-air-toxics-standards/">rule stipulated</a> that mercury sources had to be sharply reduced. For coal-fired power plants, this meant either installing costly mercury-capturing filters in the smokestacks or converting to another energy source. <a href="https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/">Many converted to natural gas</a>, which reduces the mercury risk but still contributes to health problems and global warming.</p>
<p>The MATS rule helped tilt the national energy playing field away from coal, until the Trump Administration <a href="https://www.epa.gov/mats/proposed-revised-supplemental-finding-and-results-residual-risk-and-technology-review">attempted to weaken the rule</a> in 2020 to try to bolster the <a href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=44155">declining U.S. coal industry</a>. The administration rescinded a “supplemental finding” that determined it is “appropriate and necessary” to regulate mercury from power plants.</p>
<p>On Jan. 31, 2022, the Biden Administration <a href="https://www.epa.gov/stationary-sources-air-pollution/proposed-revocation-2020-reconsideration-and-affirmation">moved to reaffirm that supplemental finding</a> and effectively restore the standards.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446071/original/file-20220213-15-aw2lhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446071/original/file-20220213-15-aw2lhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446071/original/file-20220213-15-aw2lhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446071/original/file-20220213-15-aw2lhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446071/original/file-20220213-15-aw2lhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446071/original/file-20220213-15-aw2lhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446071/original/file-20220213-15-aw2lhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More than a quarter of U.S. coal-fired power plants currently operating were scheduled as of 2021 to be retired by 2035.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=50658">EIA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some economists have calculated the net cost of the MATS rule to the U.S. electricity sector to be about <a href="https://www.nera.com/content/dam/nera/publications/archive2/PUB_MATS_Rule_0312.pdf">$9.6 billion per year</a>. This is roughly equal to the earlier estimates of productivity loss from the harm mercury emissions cause.</p>
<p>To a public health expert, this math problem is a no-brainer, and I am pleased to see the rule back in place, protecting the health of generations of future Americans.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gabriel Filippelli does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Biden administration is moving to revive mercury limits for coal-fired power plants. A scientist explains mercury’s health risks and the role power plants play.Gabriel Filippelli, Chancellor's Professor of Earth Sciences and Executive Director, Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1762552022-02-12T16:36:52Z2022-02-12T16:36:52ZWhat is the ‘social cost of carbon’? 2 energy experts explain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446038/original/file-20220212-17-f9qw0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C4360%2C2865&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Capitol Power Plant, which uses fossil fuels.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObamaClimatePolitics/55211e853add422cb03911d1e33eed21/photo">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When a power plant runs on coal or natural gas, the greenhouse gases it releases cause harm – but the power company isn’t paying for the damage. </p>
<p>Instead, the costs show up in the billions of tax dollars spent each year to deal with the effects of climate change, such as fighting wildfires and protecting communities from floods, and in rising insurance costs.</p>
<p>This damage is what economists call a “<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210301133829.htm">negative externality</a>.” It is a cost to society, including to future generations, that is not covered by the price people pay for fossil fuels and other <a href="https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks">activities that emit greenhouse gases</a>, like agriculture. </p>
<p>To try to account for some of the damage, federal policymakers use what’s known as a “social cost of carbon.” </p>
<h2>A tug-of-war over the social cost</h2>
<p>The social cost of carbon, a dollar figure per ton of carbon dioxide released, is factored into <a href="https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12291.html">the costs and benefits of proposed regulations</a> and purchasing decisions, such as whether the Postal Service should buy electric- or gasoline-powered trucks, or where to set emissions standards for coal-fired power plants. </p>
<p>That extra social cost can tip the scales for whether a regulation’s costs appear to outweigh its benefits.</p>
<p>The Trump administration slashed the social cost to <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/trump-downplayed-costs-carbon-pollution-s-about-change">between $1</a> and $7 per metric ton of carbon dioxide – low enough that the administration could justify rolling back EPA regulations on <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2018-08/documents/utilities_ria_proposed_ace_2018-08.pdf">power plant emissions</a> and <a href="https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/safer-affordable-fuel-efficient-safe-vehicles-proposed">vehicle fuel efficiency</a>.</p>
<p>The Biden administration temporarily raised it to $51, close to its pre-Trump level, and has been preparing to finalize a new social cost that might encourage regulators to push for emissions cuts in everything from agriculture to transportation to manufacturing.</p>
<h2>What social cost means for you</h2>
<p>One of Joe Biden’s <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-protecting-public-health-and-environment-and-restoring-science-to-tackle-climate-crisis/">first actions</a> as president was to reverse the Trump administration’s bargain-basement accounting of the “social cost.” The Biden administration <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/02/26/a-return-to-science-evidence-based-estimates-of-the-benefits-of-reducing-climate-pollution/">returned it to the Obama-era level, adjusted for inflation</a>, by setting an interim social cost at $51 per metric ton of carbon dioxide that would rise over time.</p>
<p>If that were a carbon tax paid by consumers, it would raise gasoline by about 50 cents per gallon.</p>
<p>But the social cost of carbon has no direct effect on the price of gasoline, electricity, or emissions-intensive goods like steel. Instead, it influences purchasing and investments by the government, and indirectly, by private companies and consumers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Biden at a lectern with Hummer EVs in the assembly line behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446040/original/file-20220212-25314-wqw7gl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden spoke at a GM electric vehicle factory in November 2021. The social cost of carbon can signal to automakers that stricter auto emissions rules are likely.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-speaks-at-the-general-motors-factory-news-photo/1236628917?adppopup=true">Nic Antaya/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A higher social cost of carbon signals to companies that the government sees big benefits to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Figuring in damage from emissions also helps it justify investments in green technology.</p>
<p>For instance, the U.S. Postal Service asked Congress in 2022 to approve $11.3 billion for a <a href="https://apnews.com/0a0ead5536be0e3561b4cb2fccccb7a3">new fleet</a> of gasoline-powered mail delivery trucks. Those vehicles would burn through <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/02/02/usps-trucks-epa-climate-change/">110 million gallons of gasoline a year</a>. At $51 per ton of emitted carbon, that purchase implies a social cost of $1.1 billion over 20 years. Incorporating such costs might push the government to consider <a href="https://www.government-fleet.com/10150653/zeta-usps-shows-bias-in-reasoning-for-ice-vehicles">including electric vehicles</a> in the future postal service fleet.</p>
<p>Currently, economists calculate the social cost by using <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-how-integrated-assessment-models-are-used-to-study-climate-change">integrated assessment models</a> that bring together long-term projections for population, economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions. These models use emissions scenarios to estimate future climate change, and then calculate the effects on the country’s – and the world’s – GDP, and they can vary widely depending on the assumptions used. </p>
<p>For example, damage estimates for 2100 produced by the three models currently used in the government’s cost-setting process range from $80 to $290 per ton. The Biden administration set the interim social cost to rise to $85 by 2050 to account for greater impact of climate change over time.</p>
<p>Using models to produce such estimates have become a routine part of policymaking, but they are also <a href="https://www.nber.org/reporter/2017number3/integrated-assessment-models-climate-change">massively uncertain</a>.</p>
<h2>Why Trump’s social cost was so much lower</h2>
<p>The Trump administration’s estimate was lower for two reasons: It accounted for climate damage only within U.S. borders; and the administration placed a lower value on future costs by setting a discount rate of 7%, more than double the 3% used by Obama and Biden. Economists use different rates to “discount” future benefits versus the cost we pay today to get there. A high discount rate on climate means we put a lower value on damages that occur in the future. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, discount rates are contentious. New York state uses a <a href="https://www.dec.ny.gov/press/122070.html">2% discount rate</a> to produce its current social cost of carbon of $125 per ton. Some analysts argue for a 0% discount rate because anything higher places a lower value on costs borne by future generations.</p>
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<p>Several Republican state attorneys general sued to try to block Biden’s interim increase, and a <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1972/cain-ruling-scc-021122.pdf">federal judge in Louisiana agreed</a> with their argument that global damages could not be considered in social costs tailored for U.S. regulations. The judge issued an injunction <a href="https://apnews.com/article/climate-joe-biden-business-trending-news-louisiana-8d06087eb01ebdcf8f60be06a99c05d0">blocking Biden’s interim increase</a>. But an appeals court <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/2049/5th_Cir_Stay_of_SCC_injunction.pdf?1647527400">stayed that injunction</a>, allowing the higher social cost of carbon to again be used while the ruling was appealed, and the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2022 <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/05/justices-decline-to-block-biden-policy-on-social-costs-of-greenhouse-gases/">declined to lift the stay</a>. A similar lawsuit in Missouri <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/rep-ags-appeal-social-costs-greenhouse-gas-lawsuit-2021-09-03/">was dismissed</a>, and the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/the-legal-battle-over-bidens-climate-metric-isnt-over/">declined to review it</a>.</p>
<p>Some scholars debate whether a social cost of carbon should be used at all.</p>
<p>The United Kingdom uses a “cost effectiveness analysis” instead to determine the value of carbon removal. That method uses a target – net-zero emissions – and calculates the cheapest route to get there. Some <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w28472">prominent scholars</a> are recommending the U.S. adopt the U.K. approach, while <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi7813">others</a> object.</p>
<h2>Other options: Carbon taxes and emissions caps</h2>
<p>There are other ways to account for the costs of climate change.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-carbon-tax">carbon tax</a> is more straightforward and effective, but tougher to enact because it requires Congress to act. Such a tax would dissuade people from burning fossil fuels by taxing them for the damage those emissions cause – the negative externality.</p>
<p>Another form of carbon pricing uses a marketplace for companies to trade a declining number of emissions permits. Such <a href="https://www.epa.gov/acidrain/acid-rain-program">cap-and-trade</a> programs are in place today in the European Union, <a href="https://www.rggi.org/">a few U.S. states</a>, including <a href="https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/cap-and-trade-program">California</a> and <a href="https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/washington-s-carbon-pricing-bill-model-other-states">Washington</a>, and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Taxes and emissions caps would reduce carbon emissions, but they are unpopular with voters and Congress because they raise prices. A social cost of carbon is easier both to enact and to modify through regulatory review, without legislation. It allows the government the flexibility to address climate through routine policymaking – but can also be changed by subsequent administrations.</p>
<p><em>This article was originally published Feb. 12, 2022.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The social cost helps regulators factor in harm from climate change when they consider new rules and purchases, like buying electric- vs. gas-powered trucks for the Postal Service.Jim Krane, Fellow in Energy Studies, Baker Institute for Public Policy; Lecturer, Rice UniversityMark Finley, Fellow in Energy and Global Oil, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1597832021-04-27T17:33:00Z2021-04-27T17:33:00ZHow Ontario can recover from Doug Ford’s COVID-19 governance disaster<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397340/original/file-20210427-13-1imr6zm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C68%2C3811%2C2483&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Christine Elliott walk to a news conference at Queen's Park on April 16, 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent days have been the bleakest in a dark year for Ontario residents. The variant-driven third, and most serious, wave of COVID-19 has brought the province’s hospital system to the edge of <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-doctors-prepare-for-worst-case-covid-19-triage-decisions/">critical breakdowns</a> and claimed the life <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-claims-teenagers-life-1.6002023">of a 13-year-old girl</a> — among Canada’s youngest victims in one of its most pandemic-ravaged communities.</p>
<p>Yet the province’s government, led by Premier Doug Ford, seems incapable of formulating an effective response to the situation. It has again failed to act on clear warnings from <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1886237251529">health experts</a>. It has been left to individual local medical officers of health, especially in the hard-hit <a href="https://www.cp24.com/news/toronto-and-peel-expected-to-name-businesses-shut-down-by-new-workplace-outbreak-rules-today-1.5402110">City of Toronto and Peel Region</a>, to take direct action against key sources of outbreaks of the virus, like industrial and warehousing and distribution facilities.</p>
<p>The government seems <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2021/04/23/a-risk-averse-premier-an-epic-cabinet-meeting-a-wave-of-anger-the-inside-story-of-doug-fords-disastrous-announcement.html">unable to act</a> on the consistent advice of its own science advisory table, preferring instead to avoid offending the industrial and business stakeholders to which the government <a href="https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2020/05/19/ontario-planning-on-a-freer-hand-for-business.html">consistently listens</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, when confronted with the worst <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7808100/covid-19-ontario-coronavirus-cases-april-26/">public health disaster</a> in the province’s modern history, the government’s de facto <a href="https://www.thespec.com/opinion/contributors/2020/12/15/ford-struggles-on-the-environment-pandemic-reflect-a-failing-approach-to-governance.html">governance model</a> of trying to run a province of 14 million people by the seat of its pants has, predictably, led to disaster.</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, the situation has fuelled calls for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/18/ontario-covid-lockdown-doug-ford-canada/">Ford’s resignation</a>, even in a large American newspaper. Whether such a step would really help the situation, particularly in the absence of an obvious competent successor within the governing party, is unknown. An election at the current stage of the pandemic seems almost unimaginable, diverting energy and attention from the immediate crisis at hand, further disabling decision-making. </p>
<p>The more critical issue at this point is what to do to bring an effective governance structure to the province’s response to the crisis.</p>
<h2>Coalition government</h2>
<p>At the political level, one option might be to move to a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/19/defeating-covid-19-crisis-wartime-coalition-government">wartime-like coalition government</a>. Among other things, that would mean opposition party representation in cabinet. </p>
<p>Such an approach could have considerable advantages. It might strengthen the legitimacy of the provincial government’s leadership in the crisis, while widening the range of perspectives and pool of talent available at the political level. The Liberal and NDP caucuses include individuals with previous government experience and in-depth understandings of government operations.</p>
<p>At the same time, whatever form of government emerges, the cabinet needs to step back from the day-to-day management of the pandemic. A new chief medical officer of health needs to be appointed. </p>
<p>This needs to be someone more engaged, energetic and willing and able to stand up to politicians — publicly, if necessary — than the position’s current occupant, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-82-here-and-now-toronto/clip/15795785-the-increasing-calls-dr.-david-williams-resign.">Dr. David Williams</a>. The role also needs an individual better able to understand, integrate and act on the scientific advice being provided to the province. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="David Williams looks up at the ceiling while wearing a mask." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397343/original/file-20210427-19-13gouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397343/original/file-20210427-19-13gouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397343/original/file-20210427-19-13gouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397343/original/file-20210427-19-13gouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397343/original/file-20210427-19-13gouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397343/original/file-20210427-19-13gouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397343/original/file-20210427-19-13gouwv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Williams sits by himself before officially releasing Ontario’s COVID-19 modelling at Queen’s Park on April 1, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The cabinet needs to give a new medical officer of health a mandate and the backing to do what is necessary to get the situation under control, including providing support to local medical officers in the most affected areas. That’s what the chief medical officer of health is supposed to do in situations like the one the province faces, but Williams is not.</p>
<h2>Paid sick days</h2>
<p><a href="https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/sciencebrief/fighting-covid-19-in-ontario-the-way-forward/">The basic menu of other actions is well-known</a> — paid sick leave for workers; a serious re-examination of what are truly essential workplaces, particularly in hard-hit areas; vigorous enforcement of the rules around personal protective equipment, physical distancing, outbreaks and other critical practices in the workplaces that are deemed essential; better targeting of vaccine rollout to vulnerable populations and locations; limiting mobility while allowing safe outdoor activities to occur; and doing whatever is necessary to support local health units and hospitals through what’s hopefully the last, most disastrous phase of the pandemic.</p>
<p>Under mounting pressure, the government <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-paid-sick-leave-covid-19-april-28-2021-1.6005192">announced a plan to provide three paid sick days</a> through a temporary program ending in September.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-year-of-covid-19-has-illuminated-the-urgent-need-for-paid-sick-days-154224">A year of COVID-19 has illuminated the urgent need for paid sick days</a>
</strong>
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<p>Beyond the province’s own incompetence, other factors have contributed to the current disaster and need to be addressed. </p>
<p>The federal government’s failure to impose and enforce <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7614338/canada-covid-19-travel-rules/">serious travel restrictions</a> — even to and from high-risk locations like Brazil, India and Pakistan — until far too late has been a significant contributor to the current, variant-driven COVID-19 wave in Ontario. Steps need to be taken to address that situation immediately. </p>
<p>Better income support from the federal government is going to be needed for those whose jobs are affected by tighter definitions of what constitutes essential workplaces.</p>
<h2>Where’s the Ontario Medical Association?</h2>
<p>A final, largely unnoticed but significant factor in the circumstance in which Ontario finds itself as been the absence of a consistent voice from the province’s medical professionals. In the past, the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), aside from its role as an advocate for the province’s doctors, has been a powerful and highly influential voice around public health matters.</p>
<p>The OMA has played a major role in advancing <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ban-public-and-workplace-smoking-ontario-medical-association-1.369044">anti-smoking policies</a>. It was deeply involved in drinking water safety issues <a href="https://www.kidney-international.org/article/S0085-2538(15)53612-0/fulltext">in the aftermath of the E. coli disaster in Walkerton, Ont</a>. And the association’s interventions around the health impacts of smog and air pollution were instrumental to the <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/page/end-coal">implementation of the phase-out</a> of coal-fired electricity in the province. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Six photos show the demolition of a coal-fired electricity station." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397349/original/file-20210427-19-1r9515o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/397349/original/file-20210427-19-1r9515o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397349/original/file-20210427-19-1r9515o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397349/original/file-20210427-19-1r9515o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=272&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397349/original/file-20210427-19-1r9515o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397349/original/file-20210427-19-1r9515o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/397349/original/file-20210427-19-1r9515o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=342&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A composite image of six photographs shows the stacks at the former Nanticoke Generating Station coming down during demolition in Nanticoke, Ont., in February 2018. The station stopped using coal as fuel in 2013 and was no longer in operation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Peter Power</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The OMA’s relative silence through the pandemic has left a serious gap. The association could play a role as a consistent voice on the pandemic from the medical profession, and provide political support to the front-line medical officers of health. These functions have instead fallen to other organizations, notably the Ontario Hospital Association and Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, and ultimately individual, front-line physicians and academic researchers.</p>
<p>COVID’s third wave has brought Ontario to the brink of catastrophe. The best options for controlling the situation are well understood, but whether the provincial government can or will implement them remains an open question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Winfield receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</span></em></p>The pandemic’s third wave has brought Ontario to the brink of catastrophe. The best options for controlling the situation are well understood, so why won’t the provincial government implement them?Mark Winfield, Professor of Environmental Studies, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1547682021-03-23T14:32:13Z2021-03-23T14:32:13ZSteel is vital to the green transition – here’s how to scrub out the industry’s emissions<p>Coal generated less than 2% of Britain’s electricity <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-down-to-its-last-coal-power-station-rkvxftjg6">in 2020</a>, despite being the largest single energy source seven years earlier. While the country’s electricity gets cleaner every year, there’s one sector where this carbon-rich fossil fuel remains difficult to replace: steelmaking.</p>
<p>If approved, Woodhouse Colliery in Cumbria would be the first deep coal mine to open in the UK for 30 years, and it would produce 2.7 million tonnes of coking coal annually for the steel industry. </p>
<p>Steel has a high strength-to-weight ratio and is relatively cheap to produce – qualities that make the material invaluable in construction and the car industry. As a major component of wind turbines, steel will be a big part of the transition to green energy too. </p>
<p>That’s partially why the global demand for steel is forecast to increase by <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/iron-and-steel-technology-roadmap">more than a third by 2050</a>. This could be bad news for the planet, though, as steel manufacturing already accounts for <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/iron-and-steel-technology-roadmap">7% of CO₂ emissions worldwide</a> and <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/14920/pdf/">2.7% of UK emissions</a>.</p>
<p>The world needs to find a way to make lots of steel while reducing the industry’s carbon footprint. And <a href="https://www.theccc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Sixth-Carbon-Budget-The-UKs-path-to-Net-Zero.pdf">the government’s independent Climate Change Committee</a> has recommended that steelmaking in the UK should reach near zero carbon emissions by 2035. So what’s the best route to a low-carbon steel industry?</p>
<h2>How to make steel</h2>
<p>To produce steel, iron ore is mined, processed and then alloyed with carbon and other elements. Coking coal, a form of coal with a high carbon content, plays three different roles in this process. It can help turn iron ore into iron, process iron into steel, and it’s also a fuel that can help power these processes.</p>
<p>In an integrated steelworks, coking coal is heated to around 1,100°C to produce a pure form of carbon called coke. Coke reduces the ore to iron in a blast furnace by reacting with oxygen to make carbon monoxide. One molecule of iron ore reacts with three molecules of carbon monoxide, leaving two iron atoms and three molecules of carbon dioxide. The greenhouse gas is then released into the atmosphere as waste. </p>
<p>Finally, iron is converted to steel by altering its carbon content in a basic oxygen furnace. Globally, 90% of the steel produced from iron ore is <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/iron-and-steel-technology-roadmap">manufactured using this process</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A hand holding clumps of black coke." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391151/original/file-20210323-18-161uq8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391151/original/file-20210323-18-161uq8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391151/original/file-20210323-18-161uq8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391151/original/file-20210323-18-161uq8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391151/original/file-20210323-18-161uq8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391151/original/file-20210323-18-161uq8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391151/original/file-20210323-18-161uq8m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some coke (not the drink).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/coke-hand-58342231">Kilukilu/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A carbon-neutral steel industry could substitute coal in each step of this process. But at the moment, coal remains the most cost-effective option in most cases.</p>
<h2>What are the alternatives?</h2>
<p>However, integrated steelworks aren’t the only place steel is produced – 630 million tonnes of steel scrap is <a href="https://www.bir.org/publications/facts-figures/download/643/175/36?method=view">recycled each year</a>, saving lots of energy and 950 million tonnes of CO₂, which is more than the annual emissions of the EU’s entire transportation sector. Recycling mainly takes place in an electric arc furnace, where electricity is used to melt and process scrap metal.</p>
<p>But this depends on vast quantities of scrap steel, and a 2015 study found that 85% of stainless steel is already <a href="https://www.recycling-magazine.com/2020/10/01/new-study-shows-life-cycle-of-stainless-steels/">recycled after its first use</a>. There’s little room to increase the percentage of scrap in new steel in Europe, so manufacturing steel from iron ore will still be necessary in the future.</p>
<p>Direct reduction of iron ore to form iron is another process that uses less energy than a blast furnace. <a href="http://www.iipinetwork.org/wp-content/Ietd/content/direct-reduced-iron.html">Natural gas</a> is the fossil fuel of choice for 90% of plants using this method, concentrated in the Middle East and North America where gas prices are low. In 2018, only <a href="https://www.midrex.com/wp-content/uploads/Midrex_STATSbookprint_2018Final-1.pdf">100.5 million tonnes</a> of steel were produced this way – just <a href="https://www.worldsteel.org/media-centre/press-releases/2019/Global-crude-steel-output-increases-by-4.6--in-2018.html">5.6%</a> of the total.</p>
<p>Directly reducing iron ore using hydrogen generated by clean electricity – otherwise known as green hydrogen – and then processing that in an electric arc furnace also powered by green electricity, is one method for producing <a href="https://www.midrex.com/technology/midrex-process/midrex-h2/">low-carbon steel</a>. Continuing to use coal in integrated steelworks, but capturing and either <a href="https://corporate.arcelormittal.com/media/case-studies/capturing-and-utilising-waste-carbon-from-steelmaking">using</a> or storing the CO₂ emitted, is another.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-21209-4_10">Direct electrolysis</a>, where iron ore is turned directly into steel using electricity, also has potential, but it’s a long way from being commercially viable. With time running short, the surest route to the 2035 deadline for decarbonisation is to use the direct reduction method with hydrogen in electric arc furnaces, or use coal in integrated steelworks with carbon capture and storage. Globally, both are likely to <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/iron-and-steel-technology-roadmap">play a role</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Inside the steelworks, sparks fly from the white heat of a furnace." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391150/original/file-20210323-14-rsmokx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391150/original/file-20210323-14-rsmokx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391150/original/file-20210323-14-rsmokx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391150/original/file-20210323-14-rsmokx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391150/original/file-20210323-14-rsmokx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391150/original/file-20210323-14-rsmokx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391150/original/file-20210323-14-rsmokx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Electric arc furnaces can be used to decarbonise the steelmaking process.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/working-electroarc-furnace-metallurgical-plant-workshop-1129551926">Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>In the UK, 95% of emissions from steelmaking come from just <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-decarbonisation-strategy">two sites</a>. It’s here the country’s path to a decarbonised steel sector will be decided. The recently published <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-decarbonisation-strategy">industrial decarbonisation strategy</a> doesn’t specify what technologies must be used, and so doesn’t exclude the continued use of coking coal so long as the carbon emissions can be captured and used or stored. </p>
<p>Carbon capture is already a competitive option for decarbonising industrial processes such as <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/transforming-industry-through-ccus">ammonia production</a>. But CO₂ mixes with other gases in steelworks emissions, making the capture process <a href="https://c4u-project.eu/the-project/">more difficult</a>. </p>
<p>Globally, it’s likely that coal will continue to be used for making steel in the 2030s and beyond, due to the lifespan of existing plants and the immaturity of low-carbon alternatives. Fortunately, coal use in steel manufacturing by 2050 would still be compatible with <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/iron-and-steel-technology-roadmap">the Paris Agreement</a>, as long as emissions were 40% of today’s levels and about a third of those were captured. Hydrogen and electrification would do the rest of the work.</p>
<p>Coal use in steelmaking does not need to cease immediately, but guaranteeing that the future of steelmaking will be low-carbon requires action now. Continued coal use must be met with radical improvements in carbon capture and storage technology – it’s here the industry needs to show it can keep up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154768/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Carr receives funding from ERDF, as part of the Reducing Industrial Carbon Emissions (RICE) project. He also receives funding from the Innovate UK IDCF Roadmap and Deployment projects. He is a member of the Energy Institute.</span></em></p>Low-carbon alternatives for steelmaking are numerous – but which will be ready in time?Stephen Carr, Lecturer in Energy Physics, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1364262020-04-23T22:58:20Z2020-04-23T22:58:20ZEnergy efficiency could help avoid the need to build up to 50 power plants in Indonesia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328029/original/file-20200415-153334-9lr1z9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1920%2C1215&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Saving energy can save money and the environment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://pixabay.com/illustrations/air-conditioner-remote-split-4070641/">Mohamed Hassan/ Pixabay</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of a series to celebrate Earth Day on April 22</em>.</p>
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<p>Indonesia’s electricity <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082618312559">demand is growing rapidly</a>. Robust economic growth combined with unprecedented urbanisation and industrialisation are driving this demand.</p>
<p>Based on the <a href="https://www.esdm.go.id/assets/media/content/content-handbook-of-energy-economic-statistics-of-indonesia-2016-lvekpnc.pdf">Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources statisctics</a>, daily peak electricity demand is also increasing rapidly. It is officially projected to double by 2030 to <a href="https://jdih.esdm.go.id/storage/document/Kepmen-esdm-143-Thn%202019%20RUKN%202019.pdf">over 160 gigawatts (GW)</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082618312559#bb0205">Domestic appliances and equipment</a>, such as air conditioners (ACs), lighting, refrigerators and TVs, will lead energy demand in Indonesia by 2030, representing as much as 70% of the load during peak time at 8pm. </p>
<p>To meet the rising demand, Indonesia plans to <a href="https://jdih.esdm.go.id/storage/document/Kepmen-esdm-143-Thn%202019%20RUKN%202019.pdf">build 87GW of additional power</a> – the equivalent of 175 medium-size (500 megawatt) power plants – by 2030. </p>
<p>However, our research <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082618312559">identifies</a> strategies to cut electricity consumption by 25GW by 2030, equal to 35% of the peak electricity consumption in that year. The adoption of efficient technologies would reduce electricity use in lamps, air conditioners, refrigerators and other appliances.</p>
<p>With these technologies, Indonesia can avoid building 50 of the planned power plants by 2030.</p>
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<h2>Efficient technologies to reduce load</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0973082618312559#bb0205">Our model</a> forecasts energy demand by appliance types and analyses different scenarios of technology adoption to understand their impacts on future electricity loads.</p>
<p>We found the efficient technologies provide the same service to the households (lighting, cooling, etc) but use less energy. This makes them as much as 50% less expensive for consumers to run.</p>
<p>For example, common technologies are LEDs (light-emitting diodes), which produce more light with less heat loss, inverter ACs, which allow the AC to work at variable speed, and increased refrigerator insulation, which will keep food compartments cold longer. </p>
<p>While some Indonesians have already chosen to buy efficient technologies, <a href="https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl-3729e.pdf">tens of millions of energy-consuming products</a> are entering households for the first time in the coming years. </p>
<p>Therefore, it is important to have strong policies in place to eliminate inefficient products and promote efficient ones in the market.</p>
<p>In particular, with sales of air conditioners growing at 7.5% every year in Indonesia, we find over half of the potential savings could come from this product alone.</p>
<p><a href="https://eta-publications.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/lbnl_report_indonesia_acs_2020_rev.pdf">Further research</a> by our team has shown efficient cooling technologies using an inverter drive are available in Indonesia at a cost not necessarily higher than the inefficient ones. </p>
<p>In terms of climate impacts, we found efficient appliances and lighting could achieve nearly 27% of the energy sector <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/09/02/indonesia-cut-emission-29-percent-2030.html">emission-reduction target</a>. That’s 84.5 million tons of CO₂ saved by 2030. This makes it an essential tool in reducing carbon emissions (decarbonisation) of Indonesia’s energy sector, along with <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-solar-energy-can-help-indonesia-attain-100-green-electricity-by-2050-134807">deployment of renewable energy</a>.</p>
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<p>The ministry has introduced the national sectoral targets for energy conservation into the National Elecricity Master Plan, or <a href="https://jdih.esdm.go.id/storage/document/Kepmen-esdm-143-Thn%202019%20RUKN%202019.pdf">RUKN</a>, to reduce energy consumption for the first time in 2019.</p>
<p>The plan stipulates that 37GW of the projected 166GW peak demand in 2030 can be avoided through energy conservation for the next ten years.</p>
<p>Energy conservation relies on energy-efficient technologies (this is what our research focuses on) as well as changes in consumer behaviours (such as turning off the light when you leave a room). </p>
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p>As electricity demand grows in Indonesia at the same time as the country pursues clean energy, energy efficiency is a critical tool for financial viability and energy security. </p>
<p>Energy efficiency means using less energy to perform the same task. Technologies now offer us the benefits of energy efficiency. Energy-efficiency policies support the deployment of these technologies.</p>
<p>We recommend that Indonesia consider energy efficiency as a resource for meeting the country’s future energy needs.</p>
<p>Even with low coal prices, energy efficiency is the cheapest way to provide electricity to the Indonesian people. </p>
<p>Typically, we have found the cost of saving a unit of electricity (kWh) is around 2-3 cents, compared to the typical household electricity rate of 10-11 cents/kWh in Indonesia. </p>
<p>Energy efficiency will also help with the integration of renewable energy (like solar PV) by reducing the evening peak demand and the need for energy storage systems or expensive plants that are run only for high demand, such as gas-fired <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant">“peaker” plants</a>. </p>
<p>Because of the shape of the load – high peak demand at 8pm – the system will need additional capacity that baseload cannot meet, i.e. coal. </p>
<p>We recommend the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources turn to the 37GW energy conservation target to help the country meet its climate commitments of <a href="https://setkab.go.id/en/president-jokowi-indonesia-commits-reducing-emission-by-29/">29% unconditional emission reduction</a> by 2030.</p>
<p>We hope our research can help prioritise policy action and track progress towards the country’s clean energy and climate goals.</p>
<p>Implementing these targets will help save the government money, reduce local and global pollution, and ultimately will reduce costs for Indonesian consumers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136426/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginie Letschert menerima dana dari U.S Department of Energy (Government) and High Tide Foundation (Philanthropy). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael McNeil menerima dana dari U.S Department of Energy (Government) and High Tide Foundation (Philanthropy). </span></em></p>Efficient technologies can save Indonesians not only billions of rupiah but also avoid the need to built 50 power plants by 2030.Virginie Letschert, Researcher at International Energy Analysis Department, Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryMichael McNeil, Energy/Environmental Policy Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National LaboratoryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1291882020-01-22T10:19:49Z2020-01-22T10:19:49ZHow climate-related weather conditions disrupt power plants in Indonesia and affect people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310178/original/file-20200115-151825-10j2tdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3992%2C2211&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indonesia's power plants are vulnerable to climate-related events, such as floods and droughts. </span> </figcaption></figure><p>Severe weather conditions triggered by climate change can adversely affect the operation of power plants.</p>
<p>Heavy rainfall, heatwaves and lightning can disrupt electricity transmission and distribution networks and cause power outages.</p>
<p><a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/31910/Stronger-Power-Improving-Power-Sector-Resilience-to-Natural-Hazards.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">A 2019 World Bank report</a> showed natural shocks and climate change caused 44% of power outages in the US between 2000 and 2017 and 37% of outages in Europe between 2010 and 2017. </p>
<p>This cost electricity utilities, consumers and governments billions of dollars per year. </p>
<p>Similar cases also happen in Indonesia.</p>
<p><a href="https://research.utwente.nl/en/publications/the-vulnerability-of-the-power-sector-to-climate-variability-and-">Our study</a> found disruptive weather and climate change disrupt the electricity supply chain, including electricity generation, transmission and distribution, affecting Indonesia’s state-owned electricity company (PLN) and its consumers. </p>
<p>Based on extensive field work in February and March 2018, the study involved interviews and focus group discussion supplemented by published reports and PLN’s internal reports.</p>
<p>At least three categories of severe weather events may disrupt the operation of power plants in Indonesia.</p>
<p><strong>1. Heavy wind and rainfall</strong> </p>
<p>Heavy wind and rainfall are by far the most significant threats to the power distribution networks.</p>
<p>In the Java-Bali region alone, these events accounted for more than <a href="https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/141600596/energies_12_03640.pdf">95% of weather-related power outages during 2014–2015</a>. </p>
<p>Strong winds knocked down trees and billboards onto power distribution lines.</p>
<p>Heavy rainfall also led to widespread power cuts as soaked, heavy tree branches touched distribution wires. </p>
<p>Heavy rainfall also made coastal power plants and transmission substations more vulnerable to floods. This could lead to emergency power shutdowns.</p>
<p>A notable example is a severe flood on the northern coast of Jakarta in January 2013 that forced the gas-fuelled Muara Karang power plant <a href="https://bisnis.tempo.co/read/456148/pltgu-muara-karang-kembali-beroperasi/full&view=ok">to shut down for 12 days</a>. </p>
<p>Furthermore, <a href="https://bisnis.tempo.co/read/456148/pltgu-muara-karang-kembali-beroperasi/full&view=ok">more than 500 units</a> of inundated distribution substations in the Central Jakarta region were turned off for safety reasons. The incident <a href="https://money.kompas.com/read/2013/01/27/16293745/kerugian.karena.listrik.padam.saat.banjir.rp.116.miliar">cost the state US$15 million</a>.</p>
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<p>Coal and gas power plants are also at risk from heavy rainfall and rising seawater temperature. Excessive river flow due to heavy rainfall could also transport waste into power plants. This would disrupt the cooling water system and, in a worst-case scenario, force the plants to shut down.</p>
<p>In addition, excessive water will turn coal into sticky sludge and reduce power plants’ efficiency. </p>
<p>In another example, in March-April 2010, excessive water entered the reservoirs of three Citarum hydro power plants in West Java, leading to lasting <a href="http://jurnalth.pusair-pu.go.id/index.php/JTH/article/view/245/169">downstream flooding</a>. </p>
<p><strong>2. Rising seawater temperature and heatwaves</strong> </p>
<p>Rising seawater temperatures and heatwaves can also affect the operation of power plants.</p>
<p>For coal power plants, seawater temperature affects their cooling systems. This system circulates seawater through pipes to absorb heat from steam and discharges the warmer water back to the sea. Warmer seawater reduces the energy efficiency of the power plants.</p>
<p>Higher seawater temperature also triggers jellyfish blooms. In April 2016, an <a href="https://regional.kompas.com/read/2016/04/30/17114311/Ribuan.Ubur-ubur.Serbu.PLTU.Paiton.Mesin.Pembangkit.Masih.Terganggu">inflow of jellyfish</a> forced Paiton coal power plant in East Java to shut down for 20 days. This caused an estimated loss of $21.7 million for PLN.</p>
<p><a href="https://news.detik.com/berita-jawa-timur/3201707/bmkg-sebut-perubahan-iklim-dingin-sebabkan-migrasi-ubur-ubur-ke-laut-utara-jawa/komentar">Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency has explained</a> that an extremely cold temperature in Australian seas triggered the jellyfish outbreak. The change in temperature forced jellyfish to migrate to the warmer North Java Sea.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Large numbers of jellyfish threaten to shut down an Israeli power plant every summer. In recent years, several other power plants around the world have faced the same threat.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Heatwaves are a particular concern for natural gas power plants. These plants need ambient air to produce electricity. The higher the air temperature, the lower the efficiency of a gas power plant, which then reduces its power outputs. </p>
<p><strong>3. Severe drought and lightning</strong> </p>
<p>Extreme dry seasons affect hydro power plant operations.</p>
<p>Drought reduced generating capacity in Saguling and Cirata hydroelectric power plants, both located in West Java, in 2011, resulting in <a href="http://iesr.or.id/kekeringan-potensi-rugi-pln-rp-55-t/">estimated financial losses of $51.5 million for the utilities</a>.</p>
<p>Power plants’ transmission networks are prone to lightning strikes. </p>
<p>A lightning strike can damage power transmission equipment and result in power failures.</p>
<p>PLN recorded 107 incidents of lightning strike-related power outages in the Java-Bali transmission network from <a href="https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/141600596/energies_12_03640.pdf">2011-2017</a>.</p>
<h2>Climate-related weather extremes affect consumers</h2>
<p>Floods in 2014 and 2015 forced PLN to shut down the inundated distribution substations for safety reasons. It affected 89,000 consumers. They could not get electricity for an average of <a href="https://ris.utwente.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/141600596/energies_12_03640.pdf">16 hours in 2014 and 1.7 hours in 2015</a>.</p>
<p>Floods earlier this month forced PLN to turn off nearly <a href="https://katadata.co.id/berita/2020/01/02/banjir-jakarta-pln-masih-padamkan-listrik-di-1082-wilayah">2,500 distribution substations in Greater Jakarta</a>. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/jakartas-flood-costs-will-increase-by-up-to-400-by-2050-research-shows-129698">Jakarta's flood costs will increase by up to 400% by 2050, research shows</a>
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<p>Power interruptions are inconvenient and lead to economic losses for consumers and electric power utilities. </p>
<p>For households, power outages make it impossible to turn on air conditioners, causing inconvenience and discomfort, especially in cities with warmer temperatures. Power failures also affect household tasks, children’s educational outcomes, and other social activities (like transportation, hospitals, food deliveries).</p>
<p>Weather-related power outages affected PLN financially due to the reductions in electricity sales and damaged infrastructure. Unfortunately, the total loss has not been estimated to date. </p>
<p>In some cases, PLN had to generate electricity from diesel power plants, which are costly compared to coal or natural gas, to compensate for the power plants hit by extreme weather. </p>
<h2>Climate-resilient infrastructure is a necessity</h2>
<p>Amid the constant threats of weather-related power outages, analysis of the vulnerability of Indonesia’s electricity sector to climate change is still lacking.</p>
<p>Given the sector’s vital role in meeting the target of <a href="https://en.tempo.co/read/923712/indonesias-target-of-electrification-set-at-99-9-percent-in-2019">99% of the population having access to electricity</a> as well as the national target of <a href="https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/09/02/indonesia-cut-emission-29-percent-2030.html">reducing CO₂ emissions by 29% by 2030</a>, the country must improve the sector’s resilience to climate crisis. </p>
<p>To do that, the government first needs to acknowledge that electricity infrastructure in our country is vulnerable to the threats of climatic changes. </p>
<p>The government should then find strategies to achieve a low-carbon, climate-resilient electricity sector. These strategies should be part of Indonesia’s <a href="https://www.bappenas.go.id/files/2913/4985/2794/national-action-plan-for-climate-change-adaptation-ran-api-synthesis-report__20121226163242__0.pdf">National Action Plan for Climate Change Adaptation</a> published in 2012. </p>
<p>Second, the government needs to increase awareness of the electricity sector’s stakeholders, like PLN and independent power producers, on climate change consequences for their business operation sustainability.</p>
<p>It is crucial for electric power companies to include climate change risks in their long-term business strategies and capacity building.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kamia Handayani receives funding from LPDP. Besides as a researcher at the University of Twente, Kamia Handayani also affiliated with PT PLN (Persero) as an employee on learning assignment.
</span></em></p>Climate change affects power plants in Indonesia, eventually disrupting energy supply to consumers.Kamia Handayani, Guest researcher of Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences (BMS), Department of Governance and Technology for Sustainability (CSTM), University of TwenteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1195502019-06-28T14:45:31Z2019-06-28T14:45:31ZCourt stops construction of Kenya’s coal power plant. Here’s why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281615/original/file-20190627-76697-fi6hjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The coal plant would be about 20km from Lamu town - a Unesco world heritage site</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Jen Watson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Kenyan judges have <a href="https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/ea/Kenyan-coal-plant/4552908-5173288-22yx7dz/index.html">stopped plans</a> to construct the country’s first ever coal-powered plant near the coastal town of Lamu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The tribunal ruled that the National Environment Management Authority had failed to do a thorough environmental assessment. The Conversation Africa’s Moina Spooner asked David Obura to give some insights.</em></p>
<p><strong>Why did the Kenyan government opt for a coal-powered fire station given the global move away from coal?</strong></p>
<p>The government’s justification for the coal plant came from its “<a href="https://vision2030.go.ke/">Vision 2030</a>” goals for development, launched in 2008. Under this strategy, adequate, reliable, clean and affordable energy was highlighted <a href="https://www.ketraco.co.ke/about/vision2030.html">as key</a> to meeting the country’s growing demands. </p>
<p>The government anticipated that over the 20 years of the plan demand for energy would increase six-fold from about <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/economy/Electricity-demand--crosses-1-800MW-mark/3946234-4645308-ur8eup/index.html">1 800 MW</a> to <a href="https://renewableenergy.go.ke/index.php/content/46">15 000 MW</a> peak load in 2030. About a quarter (26%) of the final installed capacity was expected to be obtained from geothermal, 19% from nuclear, and 13% from coal. Coal <a href="https://www.renewableenergy.go.ke/downloads/studies/LCPDP-2011-2030-Study.pdf">was seen</a> as a cheaper substitute for more expensive oil, and to provide consistent baseload power.</p>
<p>However, cleaner fossil and non-fossil fuels are fast gaining <a href="https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2018/Apr/IRENA_Report_GET_2018.pdf">advantage</a> because of their improving cost to the user, measures of energy efficiency, reliability, stability of supply and low environmental impacts. And energy demand hasn’t risen as expected, remaining below <a href="https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/economy/Electricity-demand--crosses-1-800MW-mark/3946234-4645308-ur8eup/index.html">2000 MW</a>.</p>
<p>Given all the above, it’s believed that vested interests are likely to be playing a role in Kenya’s push for the coal plant. The plant is owned by <a href="https://www.banktrack.org/project/lamu_coal_power_project">Amu Coal</a> – a consortium of Kenyan and Chinese energy and investment firms. There are <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/09/when-coal-came-to-paradise-china-coal-kenya-lamu-pollution-africa-chinese-industry-bri/">reports that</a> China has positioned itself to help drive Kenya’s energy market while, in its shift to cleaner domestic energy, the country is moving its existing stock and labour abroad.</p>
<p><strong>What are the particular environmental challenges that a plant like this presents?</strong></p>
<p>The burning of coal <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-environmental-impact-of-a-coal-plant-on-kenyas-coast-is-being-underplayed-84207">will cause</a> massive <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Environmental_impacts_of_coal">pollution</a> to the air, fresh water and ocean.</p>
<p>Contributing to this is the fact that the coal intended for use, from South Africa and Kitui in Kenya, is bituminous – this means that it burns poorly and <a href="https://www.thebalance.com/bituminous-coal-characteristics-applications-1182545">has</a> particularly high levels of pollutants. South Africa has one of the highest emissions from coal power plants in the world, with widely documented <a href="https://cer.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2017-SA-UPR-submission-mining-and-HR-2016-10-5-final.pdf">effects</a> on people and nature. </p>
<p>The plant will also dramatically increase Kenya’s national contribution to global carbon dioxide <a href="https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/25363/Perspectives31_ImpactCoalPlantLamu_28032018_WEB.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1">emissions</a>. </p>
<p>On top of air pollution, coal leaves behind residue ash when it’s burned. The Lamu Coal Plant <a href="https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/25363/Perspectives31_ImpactCoalPlantLamu_28032018_WEB.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1">proposes</a> a yard that will hold about 26 million cubic metres of ash and stand 26 metres high, in places less than three metres above sea level. This may remain as a permanent mound of waste – until eroded by the rising sea. This is a huge concern on the low-lying coastline – until recently sea level was projected to rise almost one metre by 2100, but <a href="https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/06/22/greenlands-ice-sheet-is-melting-unusually-fast">new evidence</a> including recent ice melt in Greenland, suggests this rate could be much higher.</p>
<p><strong>The judges ruled that the environmental impact assessment was bad. How are they carried out in Kenya. Who is responsible for them?</strong></p>
<p>Environmental Impact Assessments in Kenya are implemented by independent experts accredited through the <a href="http://eik.co.ke/">Environmental Institute of Kenya</a>. They are commissioned by project developers to carry out assessments. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nema.go.ke">National Environment Management Authority</a> is responsible for reviewing assessments for their content and quality. It has the power to approve or deny an environmental license for operations. </p>
<p>A portion of responsibility therefore lies with all three – environment management authority, the experts who are paid to carry out the studies and the project developers who commission and pay for them. But ultimately the buck stops with the national authority.</p>
<p><strong>What went wrong?</strong></p>
<p>The court case highlighted that the environmental challenges listed above were not adequately covered by the Environmental Impact Assessment. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Detailed insights into how much pollution from coal, dust and ash the plant would produce, and how this would affect people, plants, animals and marine life;</p></li>
<li><p>How much and in what directions pollution would be spread by wind and water currents;</p></li>
<li><p>The impact of a changing climate, like rising sea levels, on the plant and the coal residue that it will leave behind;</p></li>
<li><p>sufficient and credible mitigation actions for all these impacts. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The court’s decision shines a light on these deficiencies and calls into question the fundamental role played by the environmental authority. It’s job is to review and maintain quality control over assessments. It clearly didn’t do that in this case. This mirrors an earlier case in which a High Court <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/kenya-court-declares-construction-of-lamu-port-violates-indigenous-communitys-right-to-information-healthy-environment-culture-orders-compensation">decision</a> stopped dredging for the new Lamu port, adjacent to the coal plant. </p>
<p>For now, the court order has given the project proponents a clear directive to do a new environmental impact assessment if they want to go ahead with the plant. It could take a year or two to complete for a project of this scale. Many Lamu residents and environmental groups hope that the project will be shelved. Even if that doesn’t happen, at least a signal has been sent that future Environmental Impact Assessments must meet necessary standards, and will face critical scrutiny to ensure they do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119550/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Obura was an expert witness in the NET court case, against the coal plant.</span></em></p>The court case highlighted that key environmental challenges were not adequately covered by the Environmental Impact AssessmentDavid Obura, Adjunct Fellow, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.