Avista still relies on coal power

Concerned about global warming?

Then turn off some lights and ease up on the air-conditioning this summer, because burning coal is lighting and cooling much of Spokane and North Idaho during the late summer months.

The Northwest has a reputation of using greener sources of electricity that don’t pollute. Yet, Avista and West Side utilities burn coal — and lots of it when regional rivers retreat and the wind quits blowing.

A new environmental report on the worst-polluting power plants in the United States put the Colstrip, Mont., coal-fired power plant on the list for emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide. The plant in Eastern Montana also made the list for high emissions of nitrogen oxides and mercury.

Avista owns a 15 percent interest in two of the four coal burning plants at the Colstrip complex.

Other owners include Portland General Electric Co., Puget Sound Energy Inc., PacifiCorp, and two utilities serving Montana, including plant operator PP&L Montana LLC.

Over the course of a year, burning coal at the plant provides about 33 percent of the electricity sold by Avista, said spokesman Hugh Imhof. In late summer that amount climbs as generation of electricity ebbs at dams and windmills.

The beauty of burning coal is that it is relatively cheap and very reliable: “Economically, coal is a great baseline resource,” Imhof said. “Unfortunately, it has problems. But it’s tough to replace.”

Colstrip is the second largest coal-burning plant west of the Mississippi River, able to generate 2,094 megawatts from four units, or enough power for 1.3 million homes. It burns the equivalent of one railcar of coal every five minutes.

The plant is fed by a low-sulphur coal mine and features newer scrubbers to lessen some emissions.

The report by the Environmental Integrity Project said burning coal for electricity accounted for 40 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions. Of the power plants, Colstrip ranked No. 12 on the list of CO2 polluters. When the emissions are factored in with the amount of electricity produced, which the report called an emissions rate, Colstrip ranked No. 26.

The only plant in Washington state to make the list is Transalta’s coal-burning plant in Centralia, which ranked No. 13 on the list of “dirtiest power plants” by emission rates for CO2.

The states of Georgia, Texas and Indiana each had two of the worst polluting plants in the country within the top 10.

Avista has been wrestling with trying to find the right mix of electricity production at the right price. Next month, the utility will release a 20-year plan that envisions less reliance on coal, instead relying on conservation, renewable resources like wind and solar, and other electricity producing activities to meet what is expected to be higher demand.

The company must begin making changes to meet a new state law banning utilities from signing long-term contracts with coal-fired plants that produce excessive greenhouse gases.

Imhof said that’s among the reasons Avista encourages ratepayers to conserve energy during the summer.

A Wall Street Journal story this week reported that states across the country are putting proposals for new coal plants on hold, forcing the issue of either cutting the nation’s electricity demands or perhaps building new nuclear power plants.