In a letter released today, Mayor Sam Adams criticizes power giant Portland General Electric for keeping coal as a major part of its newly-crafted business plan. The company’s Integrated Resource Plan (downloadable here) sets PGE’s goals for the next two years and makes some movement toward increasing renewable energy options. But the plan also increases the share of PGE’s electricity generated from coal. “I strongly urge you to evaluate phasing out Boardman [coal power plant] and the procurement of coal-produced electricity by 2020 at the latest,” writes Adams in his letter (pdf).
- via Gas 2.0
- Boardman – Dirty Power for Portlanders!
The city aiming to become the nation’s greenest is currently fueled 24 percent by coal. Another 26 percent of Portland’s energy comes from natural gas. “Coal is dirty and an anathema to Portland’s values,” says Adams. “On the other hand, we have to have a functioning economy.” The mayor happened to spend this 4th of July in Boardman and wants PGE to work on transitioning the people working in the coal plant into renewable energy technologies or other green jobs.
In a Portland Tribune editorial accompanying the release of the plan, PGE CEO Jim Piro argued that the plant must be kept open, but could be cleaner. “At PGE, we are committed to reducing the environmental impact of generating electricity by capturing more energy efficiency and adding more renewable power sources to our energy mix. We also understand that the system can’t power up and down with the wind or sunshine — it has to be there when the electricity is needed,” wrote Piro.
Adams does not have any legal say over PGE’s future plans, but he hopes to utilize his “bully pulpit” to get the company to commit to closing Boardman and investing in greater energy efficiency, in collaboration with Portland Clean Energy Works.
The Oregon Public Utilities Commission has to approve PGE’s plan early next year and Adams’ criticism could possibly push the company to revamp its business model. “I want to engage with them and come up with a business model for investing more in energy efficiency, clean energy and eco-districts.” Adams says expanding clean energy will be better for PGE’s business than sticking with its current coal and natural gas mix, though he admits he has not seen that type of business model work on the scale of a city (except with nuclear power, which Adams isn’t interested in). “But this is Portland,” says Adams, noting that 25 years ago people said Portland’s recently-achieved car travel reduction goals were impossible.
Boardman generates a lot of electricity. I wonder what Sam has in mind to replace it with. He doesn’t like nuclear, and dams are not going to be built, I don’t think, so how are we to replace the coal plan?. It can be cleaned up, as far as emissions go, I think, and that should be done as soon as possible.
SO Adams hasn’t seen it work, has no economically efficient or rational alternative, and yet leverages the power of the state against industry energy experts.
Keep it up Portland – we’ll make more homeless and unemployed yet!
And in the dark too!
PGE should tell him to mind his own business and take care of the problems in Portland, like congestion through Portland on I-5, for instance.
Sam – are you an engineer?
If there *is* a plan to replace Boardman with another source of electricity, I’m all for it. But methinks Sam’s idea is to enslave a lot of buff teenagers on bikes to generate electricity for the Pearl while the East Side sits in the dark.
They could use sea turbines. Its not out of the question at all. With the current at the mouth of the Columbia I don’t see why we aren’t utilizing the wasted energy.
Oh ya, I love how you guys(commentors) will always rip on someone for trying to get things accomplished. If he were fixing the “congestion through Portland on I-5” then you would complain about how he’s not doing enough for the environment. You can’t please everyone all the time I guess.
PGE gets limited green power from Bonneville dams. Bonneville sells at a lower rate to public utilities, and as Bonneville reaches capacity prefers public utilities in allocating power, by law. The quickest and cheapest way to reduce Portland’s dependence on coal is public power. Not only would you and I benefit from cheaper prices, business would too. Note a big factor in locating the Googleplex server facility with some great jobs in The Dalles was public power.
All above – Have you read the IRP? I doubt it, and I don’t fault you for it (I read it for my job). But you’re talking out your asses if you think keeping Boardman open is the only viable option. PGE modeled many scenarios, several of which involved closing Boardman as early as 2014. It would be replaced by gains from efficiency and conservation, increased wind generation, and a new natural gas-fired plant near Boardman. These other scenarios are very similar in cost to the company’s currently preferred option, and involve much less risk from carbon costs.
What if PGE goes ahead and spend $500 million on pollution control upgrades and then have to close the plant due to carbon constraints? Customers will get the bill for both the controls and the plant replacement. Your bills are likely to be lower if the plant is shut down and replaced sooner, rather than later. PGE doesn’t worry about controlling these kinds of costs because they can just pass them on to customers, and tack on their profit margin in the process.
Renewable energy has never successfully worked on a city the size of Portland BECAUSE NOBODY HAS EVER EVEN TRIED. Even PGE admits that a lot of the wind energy that is generated in Oregon actually sold to California, because they are at trying harder than we are.
As for congestion on I-5, I’m fairly sure that the problem is Vancouver, so Sam should mind his own business on that too. Specifically, he should remove the stupid thing and put the house back cause they will at least pay property taxes to the city.
Adams should regulate lighting within the city to save energy. There is so much waste with huge signs that burn all night. It’s pollution in more ways than one.
Nevertheless, we need nuke plants. It’s the only way we can get rid of coal until we find something better. Unless you all want to go back to living in huts and occaisionally starving to death…
Dams are bad for fish. Coal plants bad for the air. Nuke plants are just bad. But we want electric cars and more light rail. More power using stuff, less power.
Matthew, how can you blame the morning and evening traffic jams that occur on the south side of Portland on the Vancouverites. I seriously oubt if any of them drive south in the morning and thwen turn around to drive to their jobs. I-5 through Portland is a mess, and it needs to be fixed.
So on Aug 8th 2008 the O ran this piece:
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/inde…
about how solar panels are becoming more affordable.
Then 6 days later, PGE is quoted as saying:
‘Boardman is also a “workhorse” in the utility’s portfolio, he said. On a hot, stagnant day like Thursday, the coal plant can crank up, he noted, while wind turbines stand still.’ in this piece:
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/inde…
I happen to remember that day very well myself, my meter had run backwards from dawn to dusk, and I’d gone hiking in the gouge to get away from the heat, but the air quality was pretty awful.
Of course, the contrast was noted by more than one person who sent a letter to the editor about it. The problem is that PGE only likes to talk about when wind fails on sunny days, and how solar fails on cloudy days, but for some reason they never mention how solar works very well on sunny days, and wind works very well when the weather is bad. PGE is not being very fair here…