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Weekly John Locke Foundation research division newsletter focusing on environmental issues.

This newsletter highlights relevant analysis done by the JLF and other think tanks as well as items in the news.

1. Carbon Capture: Eco cronyism’s new frontier

A new car is being added to the global warming gravy train. It’s called carbon capture and storage (CCS) or, as one expert recently referred to it, the Edsel of energy policy. But the difference between the Edsel and carbon capture is that the $350 million that was invested in and lost on the Edsel was Ford Motor Company’s own, while much of the money going into the installation of carbon capture technology by power plants is coming from the taxpayer. And what is not coming from taxpayers is coming from electricity ratepayers who are held hostage by state empowered monopoly providers of electric power.

The point of carbon capture is to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) — not carbon, by the way — that is emitted when using coal to generate electricity. Of course, carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas that has been demonized by those who are pushing the idea that the burning of fossil fuels will cause dramatic and dangerous increases in global temperatures. The way the technology works is that it captures CO2 when coal is burned, transports it by pipeline, and then stores it underground. Oddly, it treats CO2 like it is nuclear waste, when, in fact, it is an essential gas that makes life on earth possible. Putting aside the question of whether this entire effort is a waste of time and resources in terms of its actual benefit to mankind or the environment, which I think it is, the problem is that while the process is doable, it is outrageously expensive. Like wind and solar power, without massive subsidies from the government, it makes no economic sense. In fact, if the power companies were to pay for this using their own resources, it would ultimately make no sense to use any coal at all for electricity generation. As Steve Goreham points out in the aforementioned Washington Times piece:

The DOE estimates that CCS increases coal-fired electricity cost by 70 percent. This does not include the additional cost of building pipelines to transport the carbon dioxide and the cost of establishing reservoirs to store the CO2 underground.

So this is where the taxpayer steps in. Goreham cites the example of a new coal fired plant being built in Mississippi:

An example is Southern Company’s planned coal-fired plant with CCS in Kemper County, Mississippi, which is scheduled to begin operations in 2014. With recent cost overruns, the Southern Company now estimates a $4.7 billion price tag for the 582-megawatt plant. This exceeds the price of a comparable nuclear plant and is almost five times the price of a gas-fired plant. The DOE pledged $270 million in funding for the Kemper County plant along with a federal tax credit of $133 million.

And as noted, costs that the taxpayer doesn’t get hit with, the ratepayer does. In spite of these hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies, Goreham notes "Mississippi customers will be socked with a $2.88 billion electricity rate increase to support the plant."

On second thought, I think that any comparison to the Edsel actually does an injustice to Ford Motor Company.

2. 2013 Ozone Report — Countdown to the best ozone (smog) season on record

The 2013 ozone season began on April 1 and will end in a couple of weeks on October 31. As in the past, each week during the ozone — often called smog — season, this newsletter will report how many, if any, high ozone days have been experienced throughout the state during the previous week, where they were experienced, and how many have been recorded during the entire season to date. According to current EPA standards a region or county experiences a high ozone day if a monitor in that area registers the amount of ozone in the air as 76 parts per billion (ppb) or greater. As noted, the official ozone season will end on October 31. What this means is that North Carolina is less than 3 weeks away from having the best ozone season on record.

During the period from October 7-13, there were, once again, no high-ozone days recorded. For the state as a whole, there has been only 1 high ozone day registered on one monitor in 2013.

All reported data is preliminary and issued by the North Carolina Division of Air Quality, which is part of the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources. The table below shows all of North Carolina’s ozone monitors and the number of high ozone days for the week and the year to date.

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