September 11, 2009
A new government study is likely to give the Obama administration more fire power when it comes to enacting tougher mercury emission controls. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have found the toxic substance in every one of the 291 fish they analyzed with more than a quarter of those having dangerous contamination levels.
The survey, which has been underway for about 10 years and before the Obamas moved to Washington, has been released by the new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it would consider enacting mandatory, drastic mercury cuts. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has started the regulatory process whereby mercury releases from some coal-fired power plants would have to be reduced by as much as 90 percent.
That's the level that the environmental community says is both necessary and doable with current technologies. In fact, they add that such innovations as "activated carbon injection" that place powdered carbon into a plant's flue gas can ensnare not just mercury but other harmful pollutants. Given the results of the U.S. Geological Survey, they want to require older coal-fired plants to retrofit their facilities as opposed to give them the flexibility to do so through free market cap-and-trade programs.
"This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds, and many of our fish in freshwater streams," says Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in a public statement. Mercury deposits found in watersheds contaminate fish, which can result in neurological problems in young children and pregnant mothers.
While cap-and-trade is used to curb sulfur dioxide emissions and is under discussion with respect to carbon dioxide, green organizations say that it won't work with mercury. That's because mercury has a greater potential to fall back to earth and places prospective "hot spot" communities at risk.
The EPA estimates that about 50 percent of the mercury deposits in the United States emanate from local sources while another 40 percent comes from outside the country's borders, mostly Asia. Meanwhile, data collected over eight years by Penn State University for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection show mercury levels 47 percent higher in areas closer to power plants.
Coal plants are the biggest mercury contributors. Approximately 1,100 such units at more than 450 existing power plants emit 48 tons of mercury into the air each year, with 11 tons of that deposited on to U.S. soil and waters, says EPA. They also release arsenic, lead and other heavy metals, all of which are considered hazardous and are therefore subject to clean air laws that require those facilities to use modern pollution controls.
Future Strategies
Critics of the mandatory approach to reducing mercury levels say that the technologies to make huge cuts are not yet commercialized. They favor a voluntary method -- one offered by the Bush administration and one it had enacted in 2006 -- that uses a cap-and-trade system. They say that such a pliable process would have reduced mercury emissions by 70 percent by 2018.
Southern Company, which is spending $6 billion over 10 years to reduce mercury emissions, is one such utility that prefers flexibility. But the company has been cited by the Environmental Integrity Project as the nation's worst mercury culprit. The group, which cultivated 2007 data given to the EPA, said Southern had eight power plants in Georgia and Alabama that rated among the 50 biggest mercury polluters.
While the Bush administration hailed its effort to cut mercury emissions saying that it is the first such team to ever tackle the problem, a federal appeals court subsequently overturned that rule. The court decided that the Clean Air Act "required" utilities to install best available technologies at their plants.
The case for more mercury controls is building. Beyond the recent studies, the Government Accountability Office examined the issue. The congressional watchdog agency determined that "activated carbon injections" had the potential to cut mercury emissions by 90 percent -- at an average price of $3.6 million per plant. Meantime, the U.S. Department of Energy says that the cost of removing such pollutants was $60,000 per pound in 1999 but that figure is $10,000 per pound today.
Policymakers and utilities are under pressure to act, which has helped foster the development of compelling technologies. Modern generating facilities can limit mercury emissions but the older plants that are far less efficient are the ones with the most problems. Such advances have pushed 21 states to go beyond what the federal government has so far done and now require their utilities to make 90 percent reductions in mercury in accelerated time frames.
Progress Energy, for example, is scrapping three older coal-fired plants to build a 950-megawatt combined cycle natural gas facility. It's all because of a North Carolina state law that requires utilities to make significant cuts in their emissions by 2013.
In addition to an estimated 60 percent reduction in the facility's carbon dioxide emission rate, the new units will decrease emission rates for mercury by 100 percent, sulfur-dioxides by nearly 100 percent and nitrogen oxides by more than 95 percent. "We have already invested more than $1.3 billion in clean-air equipment at our largest units, and we have reduced emissions dramatically," says Lloyd Yates, chief executive.
More aggressive environmental policies are coming. It fits with the Obama administration's overall thinking -- linking environmental quality laws to the development of the green energy economy. Utility planners therefore have to rethink their growth strategies and how they will fuel their future generation facilities.
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