A Better Way

While IGCC plants and coal-to-liquids facilities certainly offer some advantages over traditional coal-fired power plants, they cannot rightly be considered “green” options when compared to truly clean (and renewable) resources like wind energy, solar energy, biodiesel, and conservation. Renewable projects have numerous advantages, both environmentally and economically. The operation of a wind farm or solar array requires no cooling water or fuel inputs (which leads to predictable prices, in addition to environmental sustainability), and results in no air pollution or solid waste production. In addition, projects can be built incrementally and on a smaller scale, avoiding the boom-and-bust economies that so often accompany large-scale coal development. Renewable projects may also be developed with a more decentralized approach, one that conveys economic benefits to multiple local communities.

Coal-to-liquids projects, both as they exist today and as envisioned by the governor, imply large-scale industrial development. A whole system is required to support the Fischer-Tropsch operation, including coal mines, power plants, railroad spurs (or coal conveyors belts), and pipelines for water, carbon dioxide, and the eventual liquid fuel product.

The only example of a commercial-scale coal-to-liquids operation active today has proven itself to be anything but “clean.” The South African firm Sasol has three Fischer-Tropsch plants that were developed partly in response to apartheid-era oil embargoes. Even today, they account for 40% of the country’s annual fuel needs. Together, these plants emit hundreds of thousands of tons of sulfur and nitrogen oxides each year. And according to an article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Sasol’s Secunda complex has the distinction of being the world’s largest point-source of carbon dioxide (emitting roughly 30 million tons per year). It is interesting to note that Sasol has now converted its flagship plant at Sasolburg from using coal as its feedstock to using more expensive but environmentally preferred natural gas, and is considering doing the same at Secunda.

There is no doubt that a newly constructed coal-to-liquids plant would have a better ability to control its emissions than the Sasol operations. But by the same token, it is exceedingly unlikely that Gov. Schweitzer’s vision of an environmentally benign industry (with no pollution, “no smokestacks,” and no net water use) could possibly be realized. According to media statements made by the governor, the conversion of coal to diesel fuel can be done with zero emissions and at a cost of $1 per gallon. But that figure does not include the infrastructure costs associated with sequestering carbon, and is thought by many to be wildly optimistic.

It is also troubling that after emphasizing the importance of addressing carbon emissions from coal projects, both the governor and the director of the Department of Environmental Quality has approved the Highwood Generating Station, a power plant proposed for Great Falls that has no ability to capture the 3 million tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent greenhouse gases it would emit each year. 

In Conclusion