An Update on Wind Power
by John and Lila Berge

At the April general meeting of the Southeast Gateway Group, we gave a slide presentation on our recent trip to Spain. In that talk, we showed acres of wind turbines on the hills around Gibraltar and discussed some recent developments in wind power around the world. For those who were not at that meeting, we thought it might be of interest to include an expanded discussion in this newsletter. Until recently, Spain had produced most of its electric power hydroelectrically and used bottled gas for cooking. Now they are erecting wind turbines along the coasts and in the mountains and are completing a natural gas line under the Strait of Gibraltar to pipe in Algerian and Libyan gas.

According to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute, “Advances in wind-turbine design have reduced the cost of wind power to less that 4 cents per kilowatt hour at prime wind sites -- well below the price of nuclear power or coal. On prime sites, wind power can now even compete with gas, currently the cheapest source of electricity generation .... (W)ith each doubling of wind generating capacity, costs fall by 15%. The recent (1995-2001) growth rate of 32% a year means costs are dropping by 15% about every 30 months”. In 2001 wind electrical generation capacity world-wide jumped by 36% and by 66% in the United States. Of course, this is calculated from a small base but it shows the trend is in the proper direction.

The table below shows the trends in energy use by source from 1995 to 2001.

Energy Source: / Annual Rate of Growth: (percent):
Wind Power / + 32.0
Solar Photovoltaics / +21.0
Geothermal Power* / +4.0
Hydroelectric Power / +0.7
Oil / +1.4
Natural Gas / +2.6
Nuclear Power / +0.3
Coal / -0.3
* data available only through 1999

Quoting Brown further, “Germany, with more than 12,000 megawatts of wind power at the end of 2002, leads the world in generating capacity. Spain and the United States at 4,800 and 4,700 megawatts are 2nd and 3rd.” He further states that in the United States, there is enough “harnessable wind energy” in North Dakota, Kansas and Texas to satisfy all national energy needs, according to a survey of wind resources published in 1991. Today with improvements in design, “this greatly understates the U. S. potential”.

Using cheap electricity generated from wind to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen, then transporting that hydrogen through pipelines similar to the natural gas network to power residential and industrial customers, or storing it in power plants for use when winds die down, could be done in the near future. Switching to a wind/hydrogen system would cut carbon emissions by half or 2/3 globally. Canada and the European Union countries are working toward such goals while US taxpayers continue to pay subsidies to coal, oil and gas companies mired in “status quo” production, planning and lobbying.

The above has been excerpted from The Earth Policy Reader by Lester R. Brown, Janet Larsen and Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts. Further information can be obtained at http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/EPR_contents.htm. For a discussion on reshaping the energy sector in an eco-economy, see Chapter 5, “Building the Solar/Hydrogen Economy” in Eco-Economy: Building An Economy For The Earth by Lester R. Brown. http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/chap05.PDF.

Calendar:

July 17, Saturday: Hike the White River State Trail. The trail goes past numerous bridges, scenic vistas, quaint towns, farmlands and wetlands. It goes through the historic village of Lyons, past the Lyons Town Hall, a restored historical building built in 1877. Lyons is south of Highway 36, midway between Burlington and Lake Geneva. There is parking in downtown Lyons where the trail starts at Mill St. Meet at the trail head at 10:00 a.m. The hike will be followed by lunch at a local restaurant. The White River State Trail requires a daily pass for bicycles, but not for hikers. Please call Juanita Patterson, (262) 835-7791, or email her at jjp72696 @ aol.com, if you plan to attend.

July 24, Saturday: Highway 38 Clean-up. Meet at Bob and Betty Gericke’s 3927 North Lane, Franksville at 9:00 a.m. for assignment and equipment. To be followed by the usual pot-luck lunch and fine conversation. We need at least a dozen people to do the job right and with minimum strain. For directions and further information, call Betty at (262) 886-9057.

August 1–5: Retrace Lewis & Clark on the Missouri River. We’ll paddle the wild and scenic section in Eastern Montana. Cover about 110 miles over 4–5 days. Hiking opportunities too. Easy paced. Contact Mary Ann Ortmayer (262) 554-5058.

August 5, Thursday: We are planning an August picnic with the Audubon Chapter on their regularly scheduled date which is the first Thursday, August 5. This would be a joint meeting to share many mutual ideas and just plain fun. The picnic will be at the Pringle Nature Center located at 9800 160th Avenue, Bristol.

August 12, Thursday: Southeast Gateway Group Executive Committee meeting at Messiah Lutheran Church, 3015 Pritchard Drive in Racine, starting at 7:00 p.m. All members are welcome.

From the Chair
by Barry Thomas

The headline in the April 29, 2004 edition of the Kenosha News stated, “Air quality receives another ‘F’.” For the second year in a row, Kenosha County was listed by the American Lung Association as having the second worst air quality in Wisconsin. Racine County came in sixth but also received a failing grade. The grades are primarily a result of the high ozone levels experienced by many Wisconsin counties that border Lake Michigan. There was some good news in that a grade of “B” was given for particulate emissions.

As we enter an election year, it is important to take a look at the history of air quality regulations and how they impact us. When the Clean Air Act was signed by President Nixon in 1970, it forced factories and power plants to minimize their emissions of harmful pollutants. Because it was recognized that suddenly imposing these requirements on businesses could cause an overwhelming economic burden, a concession was made. The regulations would only apply to newly built facilities. To avoid the law, many businesses simply upgraded their old, dirty plants rather than building new ones. Congress recognized this loophole in the law and updated the act in 1977 by including a regulation called New Source Review (NSR). Under NSR a company would have to install the best available pollution control technology whenever a plant was modified or updated. NSR was largely ignored and poorly enforced until the Environmental Protection Agency finally blew the whistle in the late 1990’s. As a result of being caught violating the law, many power companies were about to sign agreements which would have resulted in dramatic advances in clean air. But then something happened: George W. Bush was elected President. Under the Bush administration, rules changes were quietly introduced that effectively eliminated the NSR regulations.

On September 15, 2003, President Bush addressed a crowd of cheering power plant employees in Monroe, Michigan. While standing in front of a huge American flag, he said. “We simplified the rules. We made them easy to understand. We trust the people in this plant to make the right decision.” The coal-fired Monroe plant is one of the nation’s top polluters and emits more mercury than any plant in the state. Aren’t you glad we simplified the rules? We need to inform our friends and neighbors about what’s happening with air quality regulations and how it impacts our health and the environment. We also need to encourage them to contact their elected representatives.

Green Award Winner Announced

This year’s Green Award recipient is Jane Fahey and her students from Salem Grade School, located in Salem, WI. Salem Grade School has just begun the process of creating a native Wisconsin prairie on their school grounds. The purpose of the prairie is to establish a positive relationship between the students and the environment. The prairie will be used as an outdoor educational classroom and will provide many hands-on learning opportunities for the class. They will be responsible for creating and maintaining the prairie as well as learning about the environmental relationships that they will observe. The Green Award was presented at our May 20 dinner meeting.
 

Recruitment for Wisconsin Mercury Assessment Study

The Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services is seeking volunteers for a mercury exposure study. Participants will receive a free mercury exposure assessment, which involves providing a hair sample for analysis and completing a brief questionnaire. All materials for this study will be mailed to your home along with a pre-paid, return envelope.

Call 1-866-236-3461 if you are interested in participating in this research.

When “Clear Skies” Are More Polluted Skies
by Lila Berge

George Bush’s National Energy Policy (NEP) was published on May 16, 2001. It laid out in 170 full-color pages the administration’s plan for the country’s environmental future, slashing wilderness and wildlife protection laws in order to open more public land for oil, coal and gas companies to develop. Offshore drilling would be expanded over the objection of Florida and other coastal states. The Clean Air Act (CAA), passed in 1970 and signed into law by President Nixon, would be rewritten by industry insiders and not by environmental scientists. In fact, e-mails were sent out by Joseph Kelliher, an assistant to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to lobbyists and officers of energy companies to submit their “wish lists” of Clean Air rules changes — “If you were King or Il Duce, what would you include in a NEP…?”

This was at the same time that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), then under Administrator Christine Whitman, was trying to enforce CAA rules, broken or ignored over the previous twenty years. At the top of industry’s “wish list” was to do away with New Source Review. NSR, passed in1977, was meant to require power companies to install clean air technology whenever they replaced or significantly modified older coal plants. As a congressional compromise, these companies were allowed to avoid this expense while they operated at their original, or grandfathered in, capacities. For decades the EPA had tried to reach an agreement with industry over NSR’s meaning — what was a “new source” and what was simply “updating” of old plants? While lawyers debated, nothing was being done about compliance or the lack thereof. Lawyers got richer, but the air got dirtier. In 1997, the EPA realized industry was stalling, not negotiating in good faith. EPA began collecting data. In 1999, EPA took the worst eleven polluters to court. These coal-fired power plants had emitted more than 2 million tons of sulfur dioxide, 600,000 tons of nitrogen oxides (SOX and NOX) and uncounted tons of cancer-causing fine particulates, plus the neurotoxin mercury. Penalties of $27,500 per plant per day in violation (since the 70’s!) were possible. Some companies struck a deal with the federal government, paid fines and cleaned up. Others started writing huge checks to the George W. Bush presidential campaign.

Nine days after he was sworn in, President Bush created the National Energy Policy Development Group, a task force headed up by Vice President Cheney and listening only to the lobbyists and executive officers of energy companies. In November 2001, the EPA staff was given proposed changes drawn up by this task force…NSR was to be gutted. Under the misleading title “Clear Skies Initiative”, the Administration would depend on a cap-and-trade system, allowing companies to buy and sell “allowances” for air emissions. But the allowances were set so high they actually allowed 50% more SOX, nearly 40% more NOX, and three times as much mercury as allowed under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA, which was 80% done reaching agreements with seven or eight companies to pay up and clean up, watched those agreements evaporate. Christine Whitman resigned along with two other top EPA enforcement officials. The newly appointed EPA Administrator, former Colorado Governor Mike Leavitt, has a reputation of making deals favorable to industry. In August 2003, two days before Labor Day weekend, when nobody might notice, the new NSR formula was announced allowing a coal-fired power plant to spend up to 20% of a plant’s replacement cost per year without triggering the NSR threshold, a huge loophole. A company could replace an entire plant in five years without reaching the threshold. EPA experts had recommended 0.75%, but this was deleted by the administration.

The American Lung Association estimates that the new rules (compared to the 1977 NSR rules when and if enforced) would result in emission increases of 7 million tons of SO2 and 2.4 million tons of NOx per year by 2020. Under the new rules, every action the Justice Department filed against power companies would have been thrown out of court.

Towards the end of 2003, Leavitt proposed two new regulations. The first further relaxed the mercury limits allowing the release of up to seven times as much mercury. The second by-passed Congress, which had failed to pass Bush’s proposal, and would have established Bush’s Clear Skies Initiative with even higher limits than originally announced. According to one anonymous EPA senior advisor, “All the arguments about NSR and the ability to control pollution from power plants are made moot” by this new rule. But on Christmas Eve 2003, before these new source rules could take effect, a federal court halted their implementation in response to a lawsuit filed by 14 State Attorneys General, including Wisconsin’s.

Thanks to Bruce Barcott, contributing editor at Outside magazine, for his article in The (New York) Times Magazine and other sources for the research of information for this article.