State officials say state's energy export role makes measurement unfair
BOB MOEN Associated Press writer | Posted: Sunday, June 3, 2007 12:00 am
WHEATLAND - Jean Short admits she was wrong some 35 years ago to speak out against building the huge coal-fired power plant that now sits a few miles outside of town.
She can't even recall exactly why she opposed it. Some opponents were concerned the plant would emit too much air pollution or consume too much water.
"It's a good thing I didn't win," said Short, a Wheatland resident since 1968. "I think I was just young and stupid, and wanted a cause of some kind."
The Laramie River Station, its three 605-foot-tall stacks dominating the prairie landscape around Wheatland for as far as the eye can see, has provided well-paying jobs and wealth to the local economy without polluting the skies and drying up water resources, Short said.
Located several miles outside this town of about 3,600 residents where Main Street has just one stoplight downtown and it's not hard to run into people who have lived here 30 years or more, the plant's emissions blend in with Mother Nature's clouds drifting overhead and quickly dissipate.
There are no discernible smells. There's a faint buzzing sound from the high-voltage power lines that carry electricity to up to 1.6 million homes on the nation's western and eastern power grids. A deer grazes near some small trees just outside a chain-link fence.
But the picture belies figures that show Wyoming produces more CO2 per capita than any other state in the nation.
With six coal-fired plants operating in the state and booming mining and oil and gas industries, Wyoming churned out 69.2 million metric tons of CO2 in 2003, according to the latest U.S. Energy Department numbers. And as the least populated state in the nation, with 501,419 residents according to 2003 Census estimates, that's 276,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per resident, more than any other state in the nation and more than any other country in the world.
State officials say the per capita measurement isn't fair because the state is rich in coal and natural gas that power plants use to produce electricity for millions of homes nationwide.
"We're the largest net exporter of energy of any state in the country," Gov. Dave Freudenthal said. "That combined with the fact that we're the lowest population in the country creates an interesting circumstance."
Freudenthal said about two-thirds of all energy produced in the Wyoming is sent to other states, and of the remaining one-third consumed in Wyoming about half is used to run the coal mines and power plants.
John Corra, director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, said it's not fair that CO2 generated by Wyoming power plants should count against Wyoming and not against the states where the power is consumed.
"Once you take away what we export, then we look an awful lot better," Corra said. "We're not a wasteful state, we're just a very large energy producing state."
Freudenthal said Wyoming recognizes the need to address the CO2 emissions. The state has joined 31 other states in jointly tracking and measuring emissions of greenhouse gases, and state geologists are studying where CO2 can be stored permanently underground.
"We're blessed to be an energy exporter, but in this context it requires us to think a little deeper about what's the right way to do CO2 management, and we need to do CO2 management," Freudenthal said.
Still, Freudenthal said he has no problem with building new coal-fired power plants in the state because CO2 is not a regulated pollutant at either the state or federal levels and the nation's demand for electricity is still growing.
There is one coal-fired power plant under construction in Wyoming, and two others are going through the permitting process needed to start construction.
Besides CO2, which is colorless and odorless, coal-fired power plants produce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide that contribute to smog and acid rain.
However, in Wheatland, the smell from hog farms outside the town is more apt to draw complaints from local citizens than the Laramie River Station power plant, which is owned by a consortium of six electric utility organizations.
"The plant is pretty clean," said 35-year resident Linda Holst, whose husband recently retired from working at the plant.
Floyd Robb, spokesman for Basin Electric Power Cooperative, which operates the plant, said the Laramie River Station meets or exceeds all state and federal pollution standards.
Dr. Tracy Murphy, the state epidemiologist, said he doesn't know of any health problems in Wyoming related to CO2 emissions.
"I doubt the concentration outside would ever get high enough to cause problems," Murphy said.
Despite her earlier opposition to coal-fired power plants, Short said she is OK with building new ones.
"They'll figure out a way to dispollute them, or whatever," Short said.