O P E N I N G S T A T E M E N T
Senator
George Voinovich
Ranking
Member
Senate
Clean Air Subcommittee
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Hearing
on Mercury and CO2 Technologies
Tuesday
January 29, 2002
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Mr. Chairman (Lieberman), thank you for
holding this hearing today on the available technologies for controlling CO2
and mercury. I requested this hearing
last year when the Committee first began holding hearings on S.556, the
Jeffords/Lieberman 4-Pollutant Bill, and I am pleased that you have chosen this
topic for your first Hearing as Chairman of this Subcommittee.
It is my understanding that the Chairman of
the Full Committee, Senator Jeffords, has announced that he intends to markup
his legislation on February 12th.
While I believe it is important to move forward if we hope to get a Bill
this year, I also believe it is important that we cover the necessary issues
and understand what the impact of the Bill will be on the environment, our
energy supply, and our nation’s economy.
So far, as a Committee and as a Subcommittee, we have not begun to
answer any of these questions.
We are told that the Chairman’s Bill, as
drafted, is not supported by a single utility in this country. We know that the National Governor’s
Association has endorsed a 3-Pollutant strategy, not the 4-Pollutant strategy
found in the Chairman’s Bill. And, we also
know that the Chairman’s Bill will mean the end of coal as a viable fuel
source.
What we don’t know, is what the impact of
this Bill will have on our energy supply or what the impact will be for our
nation’s manufacturing base. The
Chairman’s Bill will cause massive fuel switching to natural gas, which is an
important raw material for our nation’s chemical and plastic industry, for the
fertilizer for our farmers, and for the food preparation and service
industry. We also don’t know what the
impact will be on our nation’s public power sector or the Coops. All of these issues need to be addressed by
this Subcommittee or the Full Committee before we move forward with the
legislation.
The fact of the matter is, if we want a Bill
with a chance of passing then we need to sit down together, on both sides of
the aisle, and work through these issues.
Mr. Chairman, I want to work together to pass meaningful legislation
which will make significant emission reductions and which will secure our safe,
efficient, reliable and cost-effective energy supply for the American consumer.
Today’s hearing is an important first step. As a Committee and as a country, we are all
familiar with the available control technologies for reducing NOx and SO2. Although it is important to note that some
of these technologies are still in their infancy, such as SCR units, and we
need to monitor closely the problems some utilities are having as they install
the devices.
What is less well known, are the available
technologies for reducing mercury and CO2.
According to the EPA, current technologies
can reduce mercury anywhere from 40% to 90%, depending upon the type of coal
burned. In addition, some of the test
cases seem to show that it is easier to reduce mercury levels when the
concentration of mercury in the coal is very high. It is much harder to obtain the same mercury reduction percentage
from coal containing lower amounts of mercury.
Therefore, it could be difficult to reduce mercury to the levels
required under the Jeffords’ Bill if you start with relatively clean coal.
It is also my understanding that some of the
state-of-the-art facilities around the country have had a difficult time
reducing the mercury. For example, I
have a letter from Kansas City Power and Light, which I would like to introduce
into the record, and I would like to read a brief passage,
“Kansas City Power and Light just rebuilt a
550 megawatt unit, our Hawthorn 5 facility, using a state-of-the-art
combination of SCR, dry scrubber and fabric filter and burning low sulfur
subbituminous coal. This combination of
equipment and fuel, making Hawthorn 5 the cleanest coal-fired power plant in
the country, may be able to achieve a 45 percent level of mercury reduction,
based on currently available information.”
We clearly need to be careful about requiring more than co-benefits for
mercury reductions.
As far as CO2 is concerned, there are some
control technologies for coal that allow for the capture or sequestration of
CO2, such as the Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle or IGCC and some other
technologies. I am glad that both GE,
one of the producers of the technology and Global Energy, a Cincinnati based
company are here today to testify.
However, we must not lose sight of the fact
that while the technology is old, its application to the energy industry and
its ability to capture carbon are relatively new. In addition, it’s my understanding that this technology can be
expensive. It is not simply adding a
new component to an existing unit, such as a scrubber, but basically building a
new plant from the ground up. I would
like to hear specifically from the witnesses on this point.
Unfortunately we are not the only ones new to this technology. I understand that the State of Florida is considering requiring the DOE IGCC pilot facility in Tampa to either add a scrubber to the facility, which creates significant technical problems, or burn a combination of coal and biomass, which defeats the purpose of clean coal technology. If this Committee is going to encourage this technology then we must first understand how the States will regulate them.
In addition, according to Tampa Electric,
“Although theories exist on methods to
control mercury and carbon dioxide from IGCC facilities, no technology exists
that could be implemented today. The
projects remain in the development phase and have not yet been demonstrated as
commercially viable.”
And I would like to introduce a letter into the record from Tampa
Electric which goes into more detail.
I look forward to the testimony of all of the
witnesses and I look forward to working with all of my colleagues on a
bipartisan and multi-regional approach to this issue. Thank you.