trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/rx13vfgbhkf_mfkkutknpa2 content esgSubNav
In This List

State lawmakers gather alongside industry to plan future for coal technology

Podcast

Next in Tech | Episode 49: Carbon reduction in cloud

Blog

Using ESG Analysis to Support a Sustainable Future

Research

US utility commissioners: Who they are and how they impact regulation

Blog

Q&A: Datacenters: Energy Hogs or Sustainability Helpers?


State lawmakers gather alongside industry to plan future for coal technology

This is part two of a two-part report from a conference held by the Virginia Coal and Energy Alliance exploring efforts to reinvigorate coal use. Part one examined the U.S. Department of Energy's efforts to develop smaller, modular coal-fired power plants. Part two takes an inside look at a coal committee meeting of the Southern States Energy Board, a coalition of state lawmakers who want to boost the coal industry.

Aiding the Trump administration in its effort to revitalize the U.S. coal industry was the focus of a coalition of lawmakers from southern states gathered in a hotel conference room during a coal industry meeting in Tennessee.

"We are here to provide solutions that ensure coal continues to be a major part of our nation's energy dominance," said Eddie Joe Williams, President Donald Trump's appointment to federal representative of the Southern States Energy Board, on May 21. "We're going to see movement like we haven't seen in the last eight years and for that, I'm thankful."

Williams was speaking at a meeting of the board's Committee on Clean Coal Energy Policies and Technologies, which followed morning presentations from federal officials and industry representatives at a conference co-hosted by the Virginia Coal and Energy Alliance. At the meeting, representatives focused on both "keeping coal in the mix" and "bringing back coal."

"We've tried the last eight years for regulation," Williams said. "It simply doesn't work. You can't force the issue, you have to let the marketplace take place and you do that through innovation, not regulation."

The Southern States Energy Board, or SSEB, is a nonprofit interstate compact organization consisting of a presidential appointee and a governor and state legislators from 16 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The organization has existed since 1960 with the consent of the U.S. Congress to help develop energy and environmental policies and programs. Some of its work is funded through the U.S. Department of Energy.

Support for some of DOE's recent coal initiatives, including efforts to design new modular coal plants, was a major theme of the group's discussion.

"We've gotten the shaft through the years on the budget compared to some of the other areas and I think it's our time," said Joseph Giove, DOE's director of coal business operations, who held the same position under the Obama administration. "It's our time to get it bumped up and it's our time to put out something that is really going to make a difference."

One initiative the DOE has undertaken is a request for information about the potential for building small, modular coal plants with attributes that would be competitive with other forms of generation. Alabama State Rep. Randy Davis, vice chairman of SSEB, said the board needs to use its collective regional voice to support efforts like the DOE program. A document containing 10 "current issues for survey and discussion" distributed at the meeting suggested emerging technology could make coal economically and environmentally competitive with low-cost natural gas.

"These technologies must be made available within the relatively near future (10 years or so) in order to continue a diverse energy and fuel mix for the nation," the document states.

While an executive with an American Electric Power Co. Inc. subsidiary indicated at the conference that there is at least some utility interest in small modular coal plants, he also said several engineering breakthroughs need to occur before they would be deployed. Among the questions the state lawmakers were considering is whether they should propose a "presidential initiative" to accelerate advanced and transformational technologies, such as modular coal generation, that could reinvigorate the coal industry.

"The only question is will the DOE have the money to be able to actually do this kind of pilot work? My thought, overall, is no," said Kenneth Nemeth, secretary and executive director of the SSEB. "My thought is that money is going to have to come from somewhere else."

Nemeth suggested a pilot project could be revenue-neutral if private companies reimbursed the federal government. At the moment, however, it seems getting a utility to take on such a project could be a hard sell.

"I can't get past the fact that I don't have one utility executive in Kentucky that has any intention of ever building a coal-fired power plant again," Charles Snavely, the head of the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet and a former Arch Coal Inc. executive, said at the SSEB meeting. "What do we do from a resolution or policy standpoint [to mitigate the] risk that's out there in the utility industry? I don't know how to answer that."

Any coal plant developed or built during the Trump administration could likely be subjected to laws or regulations that might tank a long-term investment under a future presidential administration more concerned about addressing climate concerns than preserving coal jobs. Shannon Angielski, executive director of the Carbon Utilization Research Council, said at the meeting that the risk of potential carbon dioxide emission regulations could keep utilities on the sidelines until carbon capture and utilization technologies are made more commercially viable.

"Almost all of our power generators in our organization have said it's not going to change what we're thinking about in terms of building new coal," Angielski said of Trump's arrival at the White House. "We have to address our emissions from carbon from any new coal power plant if we're going to make a 30-year investment. That is important to understand."

The SSEB members were also concerned about saving the existing coal-fired fleet, which has continued to report retirements since Trump has taken office.

"What we're trying to discuss is how to keep those coal plants in operation and how can we keep the coal in those plants and not keeping these have another 20 to 25 years left of their life being closed," Jeremy Oden, commissioner with the Alabama Public Service Commission and chairman of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' Subcommittee on Clean Coal and Carbon Management, told lawmakers at the SSEB meeting. "That is our number one discussion right now as commissioners."