Choose Your Energy Century

by Michael Silverstein and Kay Wood The new EPA carbon rule will lead to closing down many coal-fired power plants. Utilities are not going to eat the costs of replacing these power generators. They will pass them on to electricity users in the form of higher rates. That’s the main argument being used by coal companies and other opponents of the new rule. The main argument in favor of the EPA carbon rule being advanced by its proponents is that the health benefits of getting rid of pollution from burning coal more than offsets the costs of electricity rate hikes. True enough. But there’s an even more fundamental argument to be made. One based on economic evolution. On energy evolution. And on the evolution of the electric utilities industry in particular. Two words explain twentieth century electric generation in this country: Excess and coal. Electric utilities long met the demands of their customers by producing ever more electricity without any regard for how much might be wasted along the way. Coal, which had been the main source of energy for mechanical transportation in the nineteenth century (steam powered trains and steamships), when these markets for coal dried up became the main source of energy used by utilities to generate electricity in the twentieth century. The focus of electricity producers is changing rapidly today, however. Smart meters and grid improvements that eliminate waste are both intended to reduce the need for excess production. Beyond this, alternatives to coal as a source of utility energy, in the form of natural gas to some extent and to a far great degree wind and solar-based generation, are fast becoming more competitive with coal. So step back when considering the new carbon rule from the EPA and you’ll see a story of energy evolution. See coal as an early industrial age energy resource. A resource that got a transportation-related bump in the nineteenth century and an electricity producing bump in the following century. A resource whose present energy use is fading rapidly in this country. Seen from this perspective, the new carbon rule from the EPA doesn’t change coal’s role in electricity production. It merely expedites and facilitates an inevitable trend. Coal just ain’t twenty-first century.

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Michael Silverstein is a long time environmental writer, and former senior editor at Bloomberg. Kay Wood is the author of an environmental graphic novel, The Big Belch.

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