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Fracking: Gas Drilling’s Environmental Threat, investigative reports by ProPublica
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CHARLOTTE, NC – “Duke Energy and Progress Energy who plan to merge, asked on Friday for mining company proposals to supply coal, with bids specifying how much coal would come from mountaintop removal. . . . Mr. Tom Williams Duke director of external relations . . . said that ‘It’s just another component of being prudent. We would certainly buy non-MTR coal when it is not at a price premium, and that is a policy of our company.’ Mr. Williams added that the practice also helps Duke coal buyers understand how much it would cost to meet its fuel needs if mountaintop removal is stopped.”
— Thompson-Reuters
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Why does Duke say it is going to ask mining companies for the price of mountaintop coal? Surely Duke knows already, since half of the coal it buys now is from mountaintop removal.
What is the “price premium” for underground coal that Duke says is the reason it keeps buying mountaintop coal? Neither utilities nor mining companies will release prices for mountaintop removal coal, so we have to use Energy Department comparisons between coal from surface mines, which includes mountaintop removal coal, and coal from underground mines. Across the South Atlantic region, where Duke is based, underground coal costs 11% more than surface coal, according to this data, although in West Virginia and South Carolina, underground coal actually costs less than surface coal.
How would that translate into average customer bills? First, since half of the coal Duke already buys is from underground mines, and the surface and underground coal is mixed at transshipment points, the “premium” would be applied to all of Duke’s coal customers, so the effect on each would be halved. Second, Duke’s fuel cost component is 19% of a typical residential bill in Ohio. Combining these two, the consequence for a typical Duke residential customer in Ohio would be a 1% increase on their bill.
— Paul Ryder, Organizing Director, Ohio Citizen Action
 TOLEDO — “Members of the House Republican majority repeated bland assurances from drillers about how safe and pollution-free their operations will be. They fell over themselves to give gas and oil companies their choice of exploration sites.
Meanwhile, they discarded proposals from Democratic lawmakers to place reasonable limits on drilling and strengthen environmental protections. Incredibly, they even rejected an effort to add state protections to a federal ban on drilling in or under Lake Erie.
If Senate members are as determined as their House colleagues to open 174,000 acres of state parks to industrial drilling, the least they can do is impose more stringent safeguards on the operations. But a better course would be to abandon this ill-conceived legislation altogether.”
— Editorial, Toledo Blade
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CATARINA, TX — “The technique, also called fracking, has been widely used in the last decade to unlock vast new fields of natural gas, but drillers only recently figured out how to release large quantities of oil, which flows less easily through rock than gas. As evidence mounts that fracking poses risks to water supplies, the federal government and regulators in various states are considering tighter regulations on it.
The oil industry says any environmental concerns are far outweighed by the economic benefits of pumping previously inaccessible oil from fields that could collectively hold two or three times as much oil as Prudhoe Bay, the Alaskan field that was the last great onshore discovery. The companies estimate that the boom will create more than two million new jobs, directly or indirectly, and bring tens of billions of dollars to the states where the fields are located, which include traditional oil sites like Texas and Oklahoma, industrial stalwarts like Ohio and Michigan and even farm states like Kansas.”
— Clifford Kraus, New York Times
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NEW ALBANY, IN — “Two of the four coal-fired generating units at Duke Energy’s 560 MW Gallagher plant in Indiana may shut down, instead of being converted to natural gas, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The utility was expected to spend $85 million to repower units 1 and 3 with natural gas. It reportedly decided instead to buy an interest in the 640 MW Vermillion natural gas-fired power plant. Duke currently owns a 75 percent interest in each of the eight turbines.
As a result, Duke said it could retire units 1 and 3 and cut the plant’s output from 560 MW to 280 MW.
The conversion was part of a December 2009 settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce power plant emissions. Duke had to pay a $93 million penalty along with a civil penalty and take on environmental mitigation projects. The settlement also required Duke to install pollution control equipment for sulfur dioxide emissions on units 2 and 4.”
— Power-Gen Worldwide Magazine
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— Grace Schneider, Louisville Courier-Journal
LOUISVILLE, KY — “Mercury is a potent neurotoxin that has been shown to cause neurological damage, including lower IQ in children exposed in the womb and during early development. Power plants are responsible for half of human-caused mercury emissions, EPA says…
Environmentalists and some medical doctors have called the Louisville area a mercury ‘hot spot’ because of its concentration of coal-fired plants. Two are within the Louisville city limits, and another is across the Ohio River in New Albany, Ind.
To be fair, the rate proposal is based on the utility’s need to meet more than just mercury mandates. The Louisville area struggles to meet new sulfur dioxide standards and ozone standards. The EPA says that on balance, the measures will bring more economic and health benefits than pocketbook pain.
But one area where the utility would really like some help is with the deadlines — company officials said they will be pressed to meet new rules in just three or four years, given the large amount of construction required.
But speaking of construction, there’s one other benefit: As many as 3,000 construction jobs in the next few years to make all the changes — and that’s just at the LG&E/KU sites. My guess is that construction workers will like the paychecks that go with projects that clean the air.”
— James Bruggers, Louisville Courier-Journal
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CHICAGO — “Environmental and medical advocates urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to adopt strict new rules regulating toxic emissions from the nation’s coal-fired power plants, saying it would reduce respiratory illnesses, birth defects and developmental problems in children. But some industry groups said the benefits are exaggerated.
If the proposed rules are adopted, it would be the first time that the EPA regulated toxic air emissions such as mercury, lead, arsenic and acid gas emitted by coal-fired power plants. The facilities emit some 386,000 tons of toxic air pollution annually, by far the largest industrial source of toxic air pollution in the United States.
‘The EPA has failed until now to issue a rule to protect public health and the environment,’ said Steve Frenkel, director of the Midwest office of the Union of Concerned Scientists. ‘The power sector has escaped regulation of toxic air pollutants and (regulations are) long overdue. Our hope is that the U.S. EPA will stick to their guns and adopt a strong rule … and not be swayed by fear mongers in industry.’”
— Chicago Tribune
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LONDON, England — “As questions about hydraulic fracturing – fracking as it is known in the industry – continue to build, the oil and gas industry is finding investors asking for more transparency as to how companies are going to face the growing risks to production.
France has banned fracking, and US federal regulators are investigating the safety of the process.
But the real risk to the industry at this point is how some US states and cities have taken the issue into their own hands: Pittsburgh has banned such drilling, and the New York State Assembly approved a temporary moratorium. There are other efforts under way in pockets across the US to further control or bar the process.
At ExxonMobil’s annual shareholder meeting Wednesday, Rex Tillerson, the chief executive, said fracking has been around for years, but those working to undermine it were presenting it as ‘new and futuristic’.”
— Sheila McNulty, Financial Times
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NEW RICHMOND — In March, 2011 Peter Lanzalotta, a Principal with Lanzalotta & Associates LLC, testified to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club. Mr. Lanzalotta’s testimony focused on Duke Energy’s Beckjord power plant in New Richmond, Ohio about 13 miles east of Cincinnati.
“My conclusion is that the Duke transmission system as portrayed in Duke’s 2015 base case is capable of meeting mandatory NERC transmission system planning requirements and Duke system planning practices, all of which address the electric system’s capability to provide reliable electric service, even if all of the Beckjord coal-fired generation is retired within the next several years with little or no transmission system reinforcement.”
Mr. Lanzalotta is a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electric Power Engineering and a Masters degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from Loyola College. His area of expertise include electric system planning and operation. He is a registered professional engineer in the states of Maryland and Connecticut. He has been involved with the planning and operation of electric utility systems as an employee of and as a consultant to a number of privately- and publicly-owned electric utilities over a period exceeding thirty years. His clients have included utilities, state regulatory agencies, state ratepayer advocates, independent power producers, industrial consumers, the United States Government, environmental interest groups, and various city and state government agencies.
— Rachael Belz, Coal Program Organizer, Ohio Citizen Action
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CHICAGO — “Kelly Mitchell’s adrenaline surged as she began her ascent up the 450-foot smoke stack at the Fisk coal-fired power plant in Chicago. Wearing a tight-fitting safety harness and loaded down with industrial climbing gear, Mitchell, along with seven other activists from Greenpeace, scaled the stack at the break of dawn on Tuesday in order to paint ‘Quit Coal’ in bright yellow on the side of the towering structure.
Greenpeace coordinated this action—the most high profile anti-coal protest the group has orchestrated in the United States—to protest both the local problems associated with coal-fired power generation (air pollution that causes sickness and death) and its aggregate contributions to global warming as a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.
While Greenpeace is demanding that Fisk and the nearby Crawford plant be shut down, it is also sending a message to other parts of the environmental and climate justice movements. In the wake of failed efforts to push Congress to pass comprehensive climate change legislation, many in the movement—not least those perched atop the smoke stack at Fisk—argue it is time for more radical tactics.”
— Robert S. Eshelman, The Nation
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— Deanese Williams-Harris, Chicago Tribune
COLUMBUS — “With Ohio facing $500 million in backlogged capital projects at its state parks and gas prices still flirting with $4 a gallon, House Republicans say now is the time to allow oil and gas drilling in parks and other state-owned land.
After a three-hour debate, the House voted 54-41 yesterday for a bill that would create an Oil and Gas Leasing Commission to oversee the leasing of state-owned land for oil and gas drilling.
‘It will not solve Ohio’s problems or energy-price problems, but it is a component we cannot ignore,’ said Rep. John Adams, R-Sidney, the bill sponsor.
Republicans said House Bill 133 would create jobs and help lower energy prices. Oil and gas drillers are particularly interested in southeastern Ohio and Salt Fork State Park.”
— Jim Siegel, Columbus Dispatch
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No commercial coal-to-liquid plants currently exist in U.S.
CHARLESTON, WV — “With TransGas Development Systems LLC expecting to begin construction on its Adams Fork coal-to-liquids plant in Mingo County in a few weeks, it seems fair to ask: Why isn’t anyone else doing this?
For all the talk over the years of the need to develop liquid fuels from coal, and for all the statements by political leaders that coal-to-liquids is a bright opportunity for West Virginia, the idea just hasn’t caught on with the people who would invest the time and money in siting, designing, building and operating such plants…
And, of course, the electric industry lately has turned to natural gas over coal for new plants.
One example of that is in Meigs County, Ohio, where American Municipal Power planned to build a new coal-fired power plant a few miles down the Ohio River from Ravenswood, W.Va. Construction workers and others were looking forward to such a large project. As with most large-scale coal projects, though, that project was challenged by several groups on environmental and economic grounds. Eventually, AMP bought an existing gas-fired plant and abandoned its coal plans.
American Electric Power had considered sites in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky for new power plants using the integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC, technology that converts coal to gas. But those plans have fallen by the wayside.”
— Pam Kasey and Jim Ross, West Virginia State Journal
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COLUMBUS — “A plan that allowed American Electric Power to recover revenue lost by getting customers of one of its utilities to use less electricity was upheld yesterday by the Ohio Supreme Court.
A group of industrial and commercial customers that consume large amounts of electricity had challenged a decision by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio to allow AEP utility Columbus Southern Power, which serves central Ohio, to assess customers for the charges between May 2010 and Jan.1.
The dispute is different from a high-court ruling made earlier this month in which the court found that charges totaling $787 million assessed by AEP from 2009 to this year were unlawful. The company has asked for more time to show that those costs were justified.”
— Mark Williams, The Columbus Dispatch
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CHICAGO — “Greenpeace’s daring actions against Chicago’s lethal and widely denounced old coal-fired plants expanded this afternoon, as eight more activists rappelled off the Pulaski Bridge, near the Crawford coal plant in the neighborhood of Little Village and dropped a banner that blocked coal barge traffic on the river.
The banner declared: ‘We can stop coal’ and ‘Nosotros podemos parar el carbόn.’
Meanwhile, at the Fisk Generation Station, eight other Greenpeace activists scaled the 450-foot smokestack in the ailing Pilsen neighborhood this morning. Citing the spiraling and devastating impact of the decrepit coal-fired plant on the area citizens and the city at large, the protesters are calling on the Edison International subsidiary Midwest Generation and the city of Chicago to ‘quit coal’ and shut down the plant.”
— Jeff Biggers, Huffington Post
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Ohio Consumers’ Counsel facing 51 percent cut
MARIETTA — “The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel has asked Marietta City Council for a resolution of support to prevent a proposed 51 percent cut in state funding for the advocacy group’s annual budget.
‘All of the council members received a letter from the OCC, asking for this resolution of support,’ said Councilman Tom Vukovic, D-4th Ward.
‘If the OCC is undermined, it takes away our advocate for Ohio’s consumers against the utility companies and the PUCO (Public Utilities Commission of Ohio) would have full control over utility rates,’ he said Tuesday.
The resolution, urging the state Legislature to restore funding to the OCC, was introduced during Marietta council’s May 19 session, but met resistance from at least two council members.”
— Sam Shawver, The Marietta Times
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Letters supporting the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act 9,241 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and made personal phone calls urging state legislators to support the Fracking Emergency Medical Right to Know Act as of June 10, 2013.
Ohio coal-fired power plants
Resources on proposed Cleveland incinerator
AEP’s Muskingum River Power Plant
Letters to American Electric Power 989 neighbors have sent handwritten letters urging AEP to retire its Muskingum River coal plant as of July 15, 2011.
Letters to Duke Energy 2,307 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and telewires urging Duke Energy to retire Miami Fort Unit 6 and Beckjord coal plants as of July 15, 2011.
Letters to Kokosing Asphalt 8,709 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging Kokosing Asphalt to be a good neighbor as of February 25, 2011.
Letters to Rumpke 9,205 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging Rumpke to be a good neighbor as of April 15, 2011.
Letters to FirstEnergy 3,914 neighbors have sent handwritten letters and petitions urging FirstEnergy to retire their four Lake Erie coal plants as of July 15, 2011.
Mountaintop removal coal mining
Letters to Senator Sherrod Brown and Senator Rob Portman 6,615 members have sent handwritten letters and petitions to Senator Brown urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
3,751 members have petitioned Senator Portman urging him to support US EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants as of January 24, 2012.
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