CO2 Controls for Power Plants Now? A Good Idea?

As you may know, one of the immediate issues being discussed and litigated in the area of climate change is the imposition of CO2 controls on the Desert Rock power plant in New Mexico simply by interpreting the existing Clean Air Act to include CO2 as a PSD “regulated pollutant”.  For those of you who may be dealing with this issue now or in the future, I suggest a few considerations. 

First, while increasing the cost of gasoline may be good for the development of renewable energy sources and alternatives like the electric car to power the transportation system, roughly doubling the cost of new electricity by imposing carbon emission controls or carbon capture and sequestration may not be such a good idea right now.  In my view, there are two important considerations.  The first is how much benefit CO2 controls imposed now will have.  Using IPCC models (from one of the IPCC foremost modelers) and data, even full compliance with the Kyoto protocol and then continuing to maintain those reduced, 1990 levels of CO2 over the next 100 years would only lower the temperature increase by 0.1 degree Fahrenheit ("F") by 2050, and by 0.3 degrees F by 2100, out of a total 4.7 degrees F (the IPCC's "standard" predicted increase in temperature by the year 2100). 

Another measure of Kyoto's theoretical benefit (i.e. assuming that the U.S. and Australia had participated and other nations had met their obligations (neither is the case)), the delay in the global warming predicted by the models would be approximately 5 years.  If the actual effect of Kyoto is calculated, it would decrease global warming by a mere .07 degrees F and postpone the rise of global temperatures 7 days over the course of 21st century. 

Weighed against these levels of environmental benefit is not only net cost of $5 trillion ($6 trillion from the U.S. alone, which experiences trivial benefits) over the 21st century, but a current lack of cost-effective CO2 recovery technology that is ready for prime time, the need for urgent development of that technology, and a decision on whether it makes sense to do it on a source-by-source, discretionary, permitting basis (as opposed to a reasonable carbon tax -- which is infinitely more cost-effective and quicker than cap and trade). 

I hope and expect that cost/benefit analysis of issues such as these, which have not been included in the media discussion and debate to date, will be raised and debated in every Environmental Impact Statement and permit program before CO2 emission control programs are imposed by administrative fiat under the Clean Air Act.  The public and Congress also need to consider and debate these issues.  The science and the economics of the analysis recited above are essentially non-controversial.

(This post was contributed courtesy of Robert Connery, Environmental Compliance Attorney in Holland & Hart's Denver Office.)