September
2003 Issue
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Wisconsin Favorites
Heavenly Harvests
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ARCHIVES |
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CLEAN COAL
The premier fossil fuel of the 19th century is still
the most abundant
and accessible energy source to power our 21st century economy.
Suppose you lived in a state
that generates 15 to 20 percent less electricity than it uses
on any given day and relies on imports to make up the difference—a
state where electricity shortages have repeatedly disrupted
commercial and industrial activity, and though none have occurred
recently, people who get paid to keep an eye on such things
warn that a resurgent economy could trigger fresh reliability
problems.
Suppose also that the new electric
generating capacity your state has added in recent years is
all fueled with natural gas, and that growing gas consumption
by power plants has been helping drive gas prices to unprecedented
highs.
And finally, suppose your state
long ago developed every worthwhile hydroelectric site within
its borders, was not widely known for consistent sunshine
or geographically situated to use wind as more than a supplemental
power source, and back in the1970s had specifically outlawed
construction of new nuclear plants.
If all those things were true,
chances are you'd be a Wisconsin resident and quite properly
concerned about the fuel choices available to ensure adequate
generating capacity to meet the growing needs of homes and
businesses in your community.
Choosing the Best Uses
Until well past the midpoint
of the 20th century, most Wisconsin residents would seldom
find themselves more than a few feet from a piece of coal.
It heated most people's homes. The railroads that were a big
part of the state's economy not only delivered coal as they
do today, but they also ran on it. Great Lakes freighters
were often both filled with coal and fueled by it, as were
the industries they fed and the power plants that made electricity.
Though most of these uses for
coal have faded since the 1950s, its use in generating electricity
has climbed along with electrical demand. And along with its
heavy use as a generating fuel comes concern about the environmental
drawbacks of fossil fuel use. Coal combustion without special
controls will emit potentially harmful pollutants, so to be
able to make use of coal's enormous potential, utilities and
other users have had to develop ways to improve efficiency
and make coal burning cleaner.
Fortunately, the large-volume
usage required for electric generation lends itself to increasingly
sophisticated combustion technologies that never would have
been practical for home heating or other smaller uses that
were so common in the past.
As a result, burning coal in
a power plant is a far cleaner activity than it was a recently
as three decades ago. The U.S. today burns three times as
much coal generating electricity than it did in 1970, yet
emissions of the main pollutants from coal burning have dropped
dramatically. Despite the big increase in coal use, nitrogen
oxide emissions are about 40 percent lower than they were
30 years ago and sulfur dioxide emissions are headed for a
50-percent reduction over roughly the same period.
So we now have much more coal
combustion and much cleaner air, all at the same time. These
improvements were achieved largely by capturing undesirable
emissions after they were produced but before they left the
smokestack. But cleanliness is more certain if the emissions
aren't produced in the first place, and even more dramatic
improvements can be achieved by altering the ways coal is
burned.
Dairyland Makes Its Plans
Looking ahead to expected demand
growth and the eventual retirement of some older, coal-fired
generating units, officials at Dairyland Power Cooperative
say they'll need to add significant new capacity before the
end of this decade. They're focusing on the concept of a new
coal-fired unit of about 300 megawatts on the existing power
plant site at Alma, Wisconsin.
It's anticipated the new unit
will be needed by 2009. Under consideration is a clean coal
boiler design called a circulating fluid bed (CFB). The CFB
differs from conventional coal combustion technology in fascinating
ways.
A standard boiler uses coal
pulverized to the texture of talcum powder and blown into
the furnace through nozzles, almost like a liquid. It burns
at 2500 degrees Fahrenheit and oxides of both sulfur and nitrogen
are formed. Scrubbers and other technologies are used to capture
or convert them before they escape the stack. For instance,
lime is injected to react with sulfur dioxide and form a calcium
sulfate sludge.
A new boiler installed today
would be required to use selective catalytic reduction, a
process in which ammonia reacts with the oxides of nitrogen
to convert them into straight nitrogen, the gas that makes
up 78 percent of the atmosphere.
Those are among the technologies
have been allowing us to burn more coal with less pollution,
but there's still room to improve.
According to Neil Kennebeck,
director of planning at Dairyland Power Cooperative, the circulating
fluid bed is "number one" among clean coal boiler
designs. Instead of pulverized coal, it uses coal crushed
to pieces of half an inch or less. These are suspended on
a cushion of air over a limestone bed, and this is where combustion
occurs. The limestone yields the same calcium sulfate reaction
that occurs in the older scrubber technology, but it happens
earlier in the process and no nitrogen oxide is formed.
Another big advantage with the
CFB boiler, Kennebeck tells Wisconsin Energy Cooperative News,
is that it allows "lots of fuel flexibility," including
different varieties of coal and even waste wood, a material
that's abundant in Wisconsin.
The CFB boiler is "mature
technology," Kennebeck says. Also available but farther
out on the cutting edge is integrated gasification combined
cycle technology, or IGCC, which seeks to push the removal
of pollutants even earlier in the process.
An IGCC unit can use partial
combustion to extract combustible gases from coal, burn the
gases for boiler fuel, separate the ash into the solid waste
stream, and remove potential pollutants before they ever get
near a smokestack. And if that's not enough, Kennebeck says
there are additional attractive capabilities on the horizon.
"The dream is to be able
to extract the sulfur and use it for industrial applications;
to extract the metals contained in the coal; to use the coal
as a feedstock," Kennebeck says. "This is not economically
feasible with the present technology, but I think they'll
get there."
We've been on the way there
for some time. During the 1970s, the federal government had
a program "going great guns," Kennebeck says, to
develop gasification technology. Then big discoveries of natural
gas occurred and the program was dropped. But now some established
gas fields are being tapped out, new exploration is lagging
and gas prices have been setting records.
Which leads inevitably to a
really big question: Can coal ever become a fuel that's as
clean and desirable from an environmental standpoint as our
apparently dwindling supply of natural gas?
That's coming, Kennebeck says.
"The U.S. has a huge supply
of coal and you just can't ignore it," he explains. "It's
a huge supply of energy and we have to figure out a way to
use it that's clean."—Dave Hoopman
One way or the other...
As things stand now, there are
only two practical fuel choices for Wisconsin in adding major
generating capacity: coal and natural gas.
Almost three decades ago, the
state Legislature acted to prohibit construction of new nuclear
generation. Wind and solar energy are attractively clean,
but not the answer for absolute energy needs that are indifferent
to whether the sun is shining or the air is still—not
to mention the challenge of simply siting the thousand or
so wind turbines that would be needed as a substitute for
the new clean coal units Milwaukee-based WE Energies has proposed
for its existing power plant site at Oak Creek.
For "base load" generation—the
plants that have to run 24/7, it's gas or coal.
Americans for Balanced Energy
Choices, a national group supporting the WE Energies coal
proposal, provided us with a study of the impact on Wisconsin's
natural gas supplies and consumer prices if the Oak Creek
project were fueled with gas instead of coal.
The study claims:
• Fueling the same capacity with gas instead of coal
would equal the annual gas consumption of all the homes in
Wisconsin.
• The amount of gas required by the three proposed plants
for a single day's operation would heat 3,100 Wisconsin homes
for a year.
• Existing interstate gas pipeline capacity into Wisconsin
might not adequately serve the increased demand, and new pipelines
would probably need to be built.
The continental United States holds reserves of coal estimated
to be sufficient for another 250 years. Given the tendency
of energy issues to bring out the worst aspects of international
politics, two-and-a-half centuries' worth of inexpensive fuel
under our own feet would seem to make coal's environmental
problems well worth solving.
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Deepening Demand
Technology, Workforce Booms Create Electric
Challenge
Editor’s note: In last month’s
cover feature story, we covered basic principles of electricity,
including its behavior, basic production, common myths, and
more. This month, David Jenkins, manager of the statewide electric
cooperative association, writes about the increasing demand
for electric power and what it means for Wisconsin’s energy
future.
Thirty years ago, the chances
of finding a personal computer in a Wisconsin home were just
about zero.
We did not have VCRs. Microwave
ovens were rare.
Almost no one in our state—or in the country—could
predict the explosion that would occur in the invention and
distribution of electrical devices and products in the next
30 years.
Computers: A Case In Point
As an example, a U.S. Commerce
Department report showed computer ownership was only 8.2 percent
of households in 1984. Census figures from August 2000—the
most recent comprehensive accounting of computer ownership available—showed
that just over half of all U.S. households had personal computers.
That 51-percent share represented 53.7 million households, and
the number has certainly swelled during the three years since
the census. It may have even chalked up an increase of the magnitude
occurring in a 20-month span between 1998 and 2000—8.9
percent.
The same 2000 report showed the
number of households with Internet access also soared, hitting
41.5 percent, up from just 18.6 percent in 1998.
Demand Swells
Despite the fact that, because
of the oil embargo of 1973–74, energy conservation efforts
produced significant reductions in energy use by appliances,
demand for electric power has grown steadily for the past 30
years. That growth has been fueled, at least in part, by the
dramatic rise in electronics use, mentioned above.
From 1970 to 2001, Wisconsin’s
population grew 23 percent. But electric power use grew from
24.7 million kilowatt-hours to 65.6 million kilowatt-hours,
a 264-percent increase. This is a rate of increase of almost
9 percent per year.
While that rate of increased has
slowed in the past five years, it is still slightly more than
2 percent per year. For Wisconsin, that means the equivalent
of a 300-megawatt power plant (a megawatt is enough electricity
to serve about 1,000 homes) must be built every year, plus the
transmission facilities to serve that generation.
Are we energy hogs? Well, are you?
Do you use more electricity than
you need so that you can happily pay your electric cooperative
more money than you have to for electric service?
The fact is Americans have made
tremendous progress in increasing the efficiency of electric
appliances. For example, in 1972 a washing machine used 1,585
kilowatt-hours per year. Today’s machines use 496. A refrigerator
in 1972 used 1,725 kilowatt-hours, compared with the 515 kilowatt-hours
per year the refrigerators of today use.
Essentially we have made our appliances
three times as energy efficient as they used to be.
But we still use more electricity
overall, because so many of the major technological innovations
that have transformed the world in the past generation are electrical
devices.
But there are other reasons, too.
Since 1970, there has been a profound
change in the number of people employed in Wisconsin. In 1970
the total employment in the state was 1,530,500. In 2000 it
was 2,833,200, an increase of 85 percent. But population grew
by only 23 percent.
What happened over the last generation
is that huge numbers of women have entered the state’s
workforce. This has been important for the incomes of families.
But it has also driven up electric power consumption. When people
are employed in a business, they will use electric power in
producing the product or service they provide.
We know how much power we use,
and we know the reasons why we use it. What we do not know is
where is the power we will need in future years going to come
from.
Present Production, Future Strategy
Even though 60 percent of our
state’s electricity comes from generators that use coal
as a fuel, some groups want to eliminate use of coal. It has
been illegal to build nuclear plants in Wisconsin for almost
25 years. Natural gas is extremely expensive and is likely to
remain so. Small hydroelectric dams face enormous difficulties
in getting re-licensed. That leaves other renewable sources.
Cooperatives are developing renewable
sources such as landfill gas, manure digesters on farms, and
wind.
But some renewable generators
need a thermal power plant (coal, gas, nuclear) to back them
up when the wind is calm and the sun does not shine.
So what should be our electrical
energy strategy? It will most likely be based on four things:
• building new thermal generation (coal, gas, and even
new nuclear power resources will most likely be evaluated by
state utility leaders in the future),
• building more transmission links to move power within
the state to where it is needed and to import more power from
outside Wisconsin,
• building more and different types of renewable generation
as well as distributed generation (such as fuel cells for residential
or commercial use), and
• improved energy efficiency and conservation.
All four elements are important
if electric cooperatives are to continue to fulfill their missions
to provide reliable, affordable power to their members.
Wisconsin’s electric cooperatives
are continually exploring new ways to make electricity efficiently,
to make it affordable, and to produce it in an environmentally
friendly manner. They are maintaining a strong commitment to
energy conservation and efficiency.—David Jenkins
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Coaxing
Coal
Editorial by Perry Baird
If ever an event could add an
exclamation point to a pressing need, mid-August’s massive
power outage did just that for arguments to shore up the nation’s
electric power system.
Everyone from the president on
down called the blackout a “wake-up call” alerting
us to weakness in the complex network that produces, transmits,
and delivers electric energy.
As chance would have it, key components
of that power grid were topics we had already planned to feature
in this month’s magazine. “Not Green, but Clean”
was Dave Hoopman’s working title for his piece on new
and cleaner technologies for generating electricity with one
of our most abundant resources: coal.
Compelling Stats
Admittedly, the visual appeal
of a number of charts and graphs is somewhat limited, but they
do tell a compelling story. They illustrate that demand for
electric power continues to rise despite dramatic success in
cutting the energy consumption of most appliances. And they
show use of coal to meet that heightened demand has increased
threefold in the past 30 years, while total emissions of harmful
pollutants have shrunk.
The next generation of coal-burning
power plants should take the emissions down even more—that
is, if utilities are permitted to build new facilities to implement
the clean-coal technologies.
At a recent legislative committee
hearing on a proposed rule to cut mercury emissions (see story
on page 7), a large crowd of electric co-op directors and staff
in attendance heard of the opposition to literally any new generating
project that involves coal—clean or otherwise.
Against It…Whatever
At the Madison hearing, Wisconsin
Electric Cooperative Association Manager Dave Jenkins informed
state lawmakers of a vexing example. He cited a membership solicitation
letter from the executive director of Clean Wisconsin (formerly
the Environmental Decade), proudly trumpeting that her group
was “fighting construction of new coal-fired power plants
in five counties across the state.” Her hit list included
the proposed clean-coal facilities referenced in Hoopman’s
article in this issue: Oak Creek (planned by Milwaukee-based
WE Energies) and Alma (being considered by Dairyland Power Cooperative
of La Crosse).
Incredibly, the Dairyland project
has not even been officially proposed yet, and already Clean
Wisconsin is gearing up opposition. It brings to mind the Groucho
Marx song from the movie Horsefeathers: “I don’t
know what they have to say / It makes no difference anyway /
Whatever it is, I’m against it / No matter what it is
or who commenced it / I’m against it.”
Electric co-op leaders attending
the hearing included farmers, resort owners, and other small-business
operators—all of whom know that there’s a lot riding
on development of large-scale and efficient energy resources
in the very near future.
As if to underscore that notion,
it was the day following the hearing that millions of homes
and businesses—from the East Coast, into the Midwest,
and up into Canada—got a taste of how “just saying
no” to energy-production projects could play out.
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Heavenly
Harvest
Not very long ago Wisconsin families
who wanted luscious, ripe vegetables and fruits were forced
either to grow their own or to cultivate a relationship with
a nearby truck farmer. But today Wisconsinites are blessed with
an abundance of outlets for prime produce, in the form of the
state’s many farmers’ markets.
Though most farmers’ markets
begin in spring or early summer, at no time do they surpass
the bounty offered in September and October, when hot-season
crops are still available and autumn crops are just ripening.
Stroll through any good-sized
farmers’ market this fall, and your shopping basket will
soon be brimming with plump red tomatoes, jewel-colored peppers,
golden squash, blushing apples, and succulent peaches. Round
out your family’s diet for the week with fresh or smoked
meats, an assortment of home-baked breads and cookies, jam,
and locally crafted cheeses. And don’t forget to beautify
your home for the season; late-season markets abound with the
warm autumn hues of pumpkins, gourds, Indian corn, and potted
mums.
Wisconsin farmers’ markets
first became popular in the more urban communities, where few
people grew their own produce. Even now Madison boasts the state’s
largest and most spectacular market, while the Milwaukee area
lays claim to the largest number of venues. Today, however,
nearly all Wisconsin counties have at least one good-sized outlet.
Most will be open through October.
Following is a
partial list of farmers’ markets near electric cooperative
territory; according to recent information, all are held on
Saturday and are open in the mornings unless otherwise noted:
Ashland, Bayfield, Beloit, Cambridge (Thurs. p.m.), Chippewa
Falls (Thurs. p.m.), Darlington (Thurs. p.m.), DePere (two markets—one
Tues., one Thurs.), Dodgeville, Durand, Eau Claire (2 markets—one
Weds. and Sat. a.m. and Thurs. p.m.; one Mon., Weds., and Sat.
a.m.), Elkhorn, Fennimore, Green Bay (two markets—one
on Weds., one on Sat.), Hillsboro, Holmen (Weds. p.m.), Horicon
(Thurs.), Hudson (Thurs.), Hurley (also Weds. p.m.), Iola (also
Fri. and Sun.), La Crosse (two markets—one Weds., one
Sat.), Ladysmith (also Weds. p.m.), Lancaster, Marshfield (Sun.),
Mauston, Mayville (Weds.), Medford, Menomonie (also Weds. p.m.),
Mineral Point, Monroe (Weds. p.m. and Fri. a.m.), Mt. Horeb
(Thurs. p.m.), Neillsville, Onalaska (Sun.), Platteville, Prairie
du Chien, Princeton (first Weds. in month), Richland Center,
River Falls (also Weds.), Shawano, Sparta (also Weds. p.m.),
Tomah (also Weds. p.m.), Viroqua, Washburn (Tues. p.m.), Waupaca
(daily), Wausau (also Weds.), Wautoma (daily), Whitehall (Fri.
p.m.), and Wisconsin Dells (daily).
For a complete list or for more
information about the markets near you, call the state farmers’
market representative at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture
(608/224-5126) or log on to www.ams.usda.gov/farmersmarkets/states/wisconsin.htm.
—Linda Hilton
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