Energy and Environment MonitorTalk about hitting the ground running, the Sierra Club’s new Executive Director Michael Brune recently vowed on his first day on the job that the “Sierra Club staff, volunteers, and our allies across the country will work to retire the existing fleet of more than 500 dirty coal plants and replace them with the efficient use of clean, renewable energy resources” within the next twenty years.
To say that’s an aggressive goal would be an enormous understatement. USDOE reports that 44.7% of all US electricity generation in 2009 was from coal-fired power plants. And given America’s still-battered economy, it is a curious goal indeed.
Mr. Brune, age 38, the sixth executive director of the organization, came to the Sierra Club after leading the Rainforest Action Network for seven years. Brune also spent four years as a Greenpeace activist, a brief stint as an activist at the Coastal Rainforest Coalition, and in 1993 earned B.A. degrees in Economics and Finance at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is also the author of Coming Clean -- Breaking America's Addiction to Oil and Coal (Sierra Club Books, 2008).
Capital Cost to Replace All Existing US Coal-Fired Power Plants:
Even if we assume that all new US electricity generation will be from non-coal energy sources, an expensive and doubtful proposition unto itself, the Sierra Club is calling for the replacement of all current coal-fired power generation facilities, approximately 350 gigawatts (GW) generation capacity. And since the Sierra Club is demanding the construction of “clean, renewable energy resources” to replace the existing coal plants, they would presumably rule out the construction of nuclear fuel or other fossil fuel plants.
If one were to develop a rough estimate of the capital costs required to replace all of the nation’s existing coal power plants with renewable energy power plants, the following facts would be relevant.
The least expensive renewable fuel power plant technology to construct is onshore wind-power, per the U S Energy Information Administration (EIA) Assumptions to the Annual Energy Outlook 2010 (April 2010) report referenced below. Note that geothermal is somewhat less expensive than wind, but since geothermal power is not practical in many areas of the country, onshore wind power would be the logical basis of this cost estimate:
· Wind generated electricity – Total Cost for new projects initiated in 2009 (2008 $/kW) = $1,966/kW of generation capacity.
· Total existing coal-fired power generation capacity = 350 GW = 350,000 MW = 350,000,000 kW
· Total capital cost to replace all existing US coal-fired power generation with onshore wind power = 350,000,000 kW x $1,966/kW = $688 billion
Summary & Conclusions:
Beyond the initial capital cost of approximately $700 billion, there would need to be roughly 3,500 new wind farms (assuming 100 MW capacity per wind farm) constructed. This massive effort would have to average 175 new wind farms constructed and operational each year over the next 20 years.
Even with a mix of wind, solar, geothermal and hydro, it is inconceivable that all existing US coal-fired electric plants could be retired within two decades. And this would be in addition to all of the new electricity generating plants that will need to be constructed by 2030 to meet the increased electric power demands of our growing nation.
Are Americans ready to abandon coal, currently the predominant, cost-effective and reliable source of the nation’s electricity, for expensive and potentially unreliable sources of energy? Renewable energy, as well as nuclear energy, should be an increasingly important component of the country’s energy mix in the coming decades, but only in a reasonable and cost-effective manner.
For further details on US coal-fired power generation, and the Sierra Club’s efforts to oppose it, see the following sources:
- Sierra Club Press Release (March 16, 2010)
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=165381.0
- US Department of Energy Report No.: DOE/EIA-0226 (2010/03), Table 1.1. Net Generation by Energy Source: Total (All Sectors), 1995 through December 2009.
- U S Energy Information Administration/Assumptions to the Annual Energy Outlook 2010 (April 2010), Table 8.2. Cost and Performance Characteristics of New Central Station Electricity Generating Technologies.
This article was partially excerpted from publically available information, and was authored by Rick Wilson, Acacia Environmental Group LLC. Any opinions expressed in this article are those solely of the author, and are not intended as legal or professional guidance to any specific readers. For more information on the author see here.
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