This past Tuesday, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approved an air quality permit for a proposed 930 megawatt, $2 billion coal-fired power plant near Bay City, Michigan.
The permitting process has been interesting to watch. Gov. Jennifer Granholm has long talked a good game on "green" energy initiatives. And her administration initially balked at permitting this plant.
In the end, however, the permit was approved. And there is nothing like facts on the ground. A power company with a shiny new coal plant is not likely to be serious about energy conservation, alternative energy or nuclear alternatives. And, given that Michigan still receives 70% of its power from coal, this is a massive missed opportunity.
Before I delve further, here are the relative articles:
The DEQ did approve the air permit, which is the last major regulatory approval needed for Consumers Energy to start building the coal plant to be located near the current Karn-Weadock power plant in Hampton Township
The plant will cost an estimated $2 billion, and will create 1,800 jobs during five years of construction.
Proponents of the power plant are happy with the DEQ's approval, while opponents say they'll continue to fight the plant's construction.
"It's a great day for Bay City and Bay County and the surrounding area to have that source of power here, in this community," said Bay City Mayor Charles Brunner. "Because if we don't, we have to buy it off the grid and we're buying power from a powerhouse down in Ohio or some other state. Then we have distribution costs and it gets very expensive."
WZZM TV
As part of the terms of the permitting, Consumers Energy will be required to close up to seven of its existing coal fired power plants:
NORTH MUSKEGON, Mich. (WZZM) - Consumers Energy may retire up to seven of its older and less-efficient coal fired units over the next decade or more. The company operates two such facilities on the lakeshore - one in Muskegon and one in Ottawa County.
WZZM TV #2
The reason for this requirement is the fact that Michigan will not need the power produced by this new coal plant for many years:
This fall, Michigan Public Service Commission staff found that unless Consumers Energy decommissioned older plants, its new plant might not be needed until 2022 – five years later than the utility plans for the plant to be operating.
The PSC analysis related to the plant concluded that Consumers Energy's "long-term capacity need" was "unjustified without the explicit retirement of existing coal capacity in its baseload generation fleet."
Crain's Detroit Business
Reaction from state environmental groups has, obviously, not been positive. Here is Jim Dulzo at the Great Lake Bulletin News Service:
But the decision seems to throw away some key aspects of her clean-energy game. It will cost Consumers’ customers—and Wolverine’s, if its plant is approved—more money. It does little to point the state toward the smarter, more prosperous, jobs-rich energy future that she’s pushed so hard for over the past few years.
And it does almost nothing for a top goal of both her Michigan Climate Action Council and the Midwestern Governor Association: reducing greenhouse gases.
Michigan Land Use Institute
This new plant - and another proposed for Northern Michigan - is the nightmare scenario for those concerned about the state environment. Coal is dirty. It creates mercury, sulfur dioxide, ash waste ponds and the need for dredge disposal areas on the lakeshore.
In recent years, Michigan's power industry has spend a good deal of time and money planning for new power infrastructure. Some alternative energy providers have entered the state. The Thumb now has several large-scale wind farms. And many more wind farm proposals are in embryonic stages.
DTE, the largest utility in SE Michigan has proposed a new nuclear power plant for NE Monroe County. That is not a perfect plan. However, at least DTE seems to recognize that coal power is the enemy. Along with planning for a new nuke plant, it has spent several billion dollars to retrofit its Monroe coal generating facility.
Consumers Energy, however, seems committed to coal. It argues, limply, that its new plant will be more efficient than its existing fleet. But that efficiency improvement will only be in the 10 to 15% range.
And the centralization of power into one facility near Bay City will result in the potential closure of seven smaller power facilities around the state. Note: One of these, the J.R. Whiting plant, is in my home county of Monroe. It's possible closure might result in an unbroken 5,000+ acre block of wild space along western Lake Erie.
However, these seven communities will take a tremendous hit to their tax base. Closing coal plants is good. However, there are problems of economic dislocation related to these actions.
I believe that the answer is decentralization of power production. Why should a resident along Michigan's shoreline be forced to view a massive coal, nuclear or wind farm project when smaller scale nukes and wind farms could be located in every community in the state?
And why are we building a new coal plant, when it has been proven that our energy needs will not require it even in the medium term? And why are we building coal when alternative sources like wind, solar and nuclear are so much better for the local and global environment?