New regs may darken coal’s future in Michigan

Switchgrass may replace fossil fuels at the Wolverine power plant planned in Rogers City

As Michigan regulators wait for federal greenhouse gas emission rules to take effect, the developer of a controversial planned petroleum coke-fired power plant in Rogers City indicates that it may refocus on biomass.

When an appeals board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rejected the air permit for a proposed coal plant in Utah earlier this month because the agency had failed to adequately consider carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, environmentalists rejoiced.

CO2 is known to contribute to global warming, and coal-fired power plants produce a third of the United States’ CO2 emissions. Last year the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that CO2 could be considered a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act, but the EPA under the fossil fuel-friendly Bush administration has not yet set rules for how to regulate CO2.

The Utah ruling was another in a series of developments that seem to signal a shift in U.S. policies on climate change, a strike against the many coal power plants in development across the nation, including four in Michigan.

“We are obviously in a bit of an awkward position.” Bob McCann, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, told Michigan Messenger.

“We’ve got four applications in front of us that we are required to move through review process, but the general expectation is that sometime early next year the EPA is going to put out something that would address CO2 regulation at the federal level.”

A 750-megawatt plant is planned by Mid-Michigan Energy Station in Midland County, a 78-megawatt plant by the Holland Board of Power and Light in Holland, and a 930-megawatt plant by Consumers Energy in Bay County.

The most developed proposal, McCann said, is the 600-megawatt coal and petroleum coke power plant planned in the tiny northern Lake Huron town of Rogers City by the Wolverine Power Cooperative.

The plant was originally planned to burn coal, but then, citing economic considerations, Wolverine revised its proposal so that it could also burn petroleum coke, a product of the oil-refining process that is cheaper and dirtier than coal. MDEQ has issued a draft permit for the operation and held a public hearing on it earlier this month.

Though many locals are in favor of industrial development that could mean jobs, the Wolverine proposal has also generated strong opposition among those concerned with the environmental and public health impact of a coal or petroleum coke plant.

In February a group opposed to the Wolverine plant, Citizens for Environmental Inquiry, filed suit against the MDEQ, asking for an injunction against new coal plants until the state established CO2 regulations.

McCann said he did not expect the state to finalize an air permit for the project within the next few months before the Obama administration begins.

“I understand concerns that people do have about this issue,” McCann said. “Obviously while CO2 is not a toxic type pollutant like mercury [which coal plants also emit], science in the last five to 10 years has been showing us that CO2 at levels we would see out of coal plants poses risks on both the local and global levels.”

“We are keeping a close eye on the situation.”

Meanwhile, Wolverine said that it can adapt to the evolving regulatory environment.

“Wolverine has designed the Wolverine Clean Energy Venture from the onset knowing that C02 regulation is a possibility,“ company spokeswoman Nancy Tanner wrote in an e-mail to Michigan Messenger. “This is one of the reasons that sustainable biomass could be such an important component of our project.”

According to research sponsored by Wolverine at Michigan Technological University, the forested areas within 75 miles of Rogers City could supply 220,000 tons per year of unused logging residue and other burnable materials.

Robert Froese, professor in the Michigan Tech School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, reported that this would be enough to generate at least 35 megawatts of electricity, the energy needed to serve 25,000 Michigan households.

If more forest area were harvested, even more energy could be generated. Another possibility is to use the vast areas of idle agricultural land to grow energy crops such as switchgrass and fast-growing trees like poplar, silver maple and European larch.

Within 75 miles of Rogers City, Froese reported, there are nearly 500,000 acres of open land not being used for agriculture.

Using locally produced materials to generate electricity could also help the local economy.

According to an economic impact study commissioned by the company and local governments the number of jobs associated with operating the plant would nearly double if just 20 percent of the operations fuel came from biomass.