An emerging line from the coal industry and coal-friendly politicians is that the recent cold weather has demonstrated the need for more coal-fired power plants. A recent post from Mark Kresowick of the Beyond Coal campaign (se the link to his blog post below) demonstrates that it was actually the inability of coal plants to operate that contributed to the reliability problems, and the answer is More renewables and EE, not less.
You may find this evidence useful in future discussions. Enjoy.
Jim Kotcon
________________________________ From: Mark Kresowik mark.kresowik@sierraclub.org Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 10:17 AM To: James Kotcon Cc: Bill Price; David Muhly; David W. Sturm; Gary Nelson; Daniel Chiotos; Kim Teplitzky; Seth Long; Zachary Fabish; Jacob Kornfeld Subject: Re: WV TEAM Call-Back to the usual number 866-501-6174 Access code 33907431892
To Jim's question, below is a recent email/blogpost from me.
Half of the plants that were offline during the polar vortex were actually coal plants. FERC is holding a technical conference on April 1st on the topic and we'll have someone there.
http://www.pjm.com/~/media/documents/reports/20140109-january-2014-cold-weat... https://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/2014/01-16-14-bulk-power.pdf http://www.ferc.gov/EventCalendar/EventDetails.aspx?ID=7272&CalType=%20&...
It sounds like there have been a lot of questions about the polar vortex and potential reliability problems with coal plants retiring. Senator Murkowski and others have been calling for Senate hearings, and its a major talking point in utility circles right now. To try and dispel some of these myths there is some helpful information below.
Many of the reliability issues during cold snaps are actually caused by coal plants tripping offline. From equipment to coal piles freezing, the 2011 blackouts in Texas and this January's blackout in South Carolina were caused by coal plants unable to operate in cold weather. Coal plants are intermittent, clean energy is variable. Wind and solar variations can be forecast and accounted for, not so for coal and nuclear plants when they shut down abruptly. The other major problem in some regions is gas plants unable to actually get gas because its being used for heating. One solution there is simple: reduce the amount of gas needed. Whatever the problem is for a particular region, the solutions - including those that worked most effectively in the Mid-Atlantic - are actually more energy efficiency, demand response, wind, and solar, not keeping clunker coal plants around. I wrote a blog about this for the Sustainable FERC Project two weeks ago, you can read it here: http://sustainableferc.org/polar-vortex-shows-we-need-more-efficiency-wind-a....
We'll try to share some additional information about this topic as it develops, but its actually pretty much the only thing our colleagues at the FERC Project have written about for the last month, so check out the other two blog entries on that site.
-- Mark Kresowik Eastern Region Deputy Director Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign mark.kresowik@sierraclub.orgmailto:mark.kresowik@sierraclub.org 202-675-7914 (o) 319-621-7393 (c) 50 F St NW Eighth Floor Washington, DC 20001