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If we don't want coal, what will power us?

Natural gas is expensive. Nuclear is risky. And solar and wind options are full of questions. If you're a utility executive, good luck. There's no easy solution to our surging energy needs.

By Asjylyn Loder, Times Staff Writer
Published October 7, 2007

If King Coal is dead - and its death knell has resounded in Florida - how will we light our homes in the coming years, and what will it cost?

That's the heart of the state's energy debate, and the first measure of Gov. Charlie Crist's hopes for a carbon-constrained future.

Three planned power plants, all meant to generate electricity by burning coal, have failed in the past four months. A fourth is appealing the state's denial. Together, they would have produced enough electricity to power more than 2.5-million homes, more than a quarter of homes in Florida.

But they would have produced nearly 30-million tons of carbon dioxide every year - a fifth of the greenhouse gases produced by Florida utilities this year.

If not coal, then what?

Utilities must strike a difficult balance between cost and carbon. If cheap but carbon-heavy coal isn't an option, the utilities face a buffet of choices, all with drawbacks: the expense of natural gas, the risks of nuclear, the unanswered questions of solar and wind.

"It's not easy, the decision that faces somebody in a boardroom today trying to decide how to fill growing energy demand," said Bryan Hannegan, environment vice president for the Electric Power Research Institute, an independent nonprofit. Almost any choice that reduces carbon will increase cost.

In June, the state denied Florida Power & Light its bid to build a 1,960-megawatt coal plant near the Everglades, the first to fail. Several utilities in July withdrew plans for an 800-megawatt coal plant slated for Taylor County. In August, state environmental officials denied a 750-megawatt plant planned by Seminole Electric Cooperative. Seminole has appealed. Tampa Electric pulled its plans for a 630-megawatt plant last week.

Florida Power & Light, which provides electricity to much of southern and eastern Florida, gets nearly half of its power from natural gas, making it particularly vulnerable to the fuel's price volatility, said Mayco Villafana, a utility spokesman. It gets just 5 percent from coal, and the new plant was meant to increase the utility's fuel diversity and cushion it against sharp price increases.

To offset the loss, the utility plans to increase conservation programs, Villafana said. It also announced plans to enhance the output of its Turkey Point nuclear facility by 400 megawatts and increase the output at a natural gas plant. A 300-megawatt solar thermal power station was announced late last month, and a new nuclear plant is a possibility.

Tampa Electric has yet to develop its Plan B after it canceled its plans to expand Polk Power Station, said utility president Chuck Black. The utility relies on coal for nearly half of its power, with natural gas supplying 45 percent. Conservation and natural gas will help replace the canceled plant. But Black said he had not given up on its coal technology, a "clean coal" technology that many believe provides the best opportunity to capture carbon from coal and store it forever deep underground.

Coal plants like the one Tampa Electric planned are crucial to learning how to capture and store carbon from a cheap and abundant fuel, Hannegan said.

"No matter how much plentiful sunshine you've got out there, no matter how much wind you've got out there, it's not going to be enough to power the growing economy," Hannegan said. "You need natural gas. You need nuclear. And, yes, you will need coal."

Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Asjylyn Loder can be reached at aloder@sptimes.com or 813 225-3117.

Coal, by the numbers

4,140megawatts:Combined capacity of four canceled coal plants.

2.5-million:Number of homes they could have powered.

30-million:Tons per year of carbon dioxide those plants would have emitted.

Source: Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Tampa Electric, Florida Power & Light, Seminole Electric Cooperative

[Last modified October 5, 2007, 23:08:23]