Texas owes it to future to slow down power plant approvals
BYLINE: AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Allied with some of the state's biggest cities, environmental groups are mobilizing against one of the biggest and most important electricity companies in Texas, TXU Corp., which has applied for permits to build 11 new coal-fired power plants. What's needed most right now isn't more power but a brake - on the state environmental commission's dash toward approval of the permits.
Though none of the new coal plants would be built near Austin, and each would be far less polluting than its predecessors, their collective impact on Central Texas' air quality could have a direct affect on this region's health and economy. TXU serves mostly North Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but its service territory reaches as far south as Round Rock and even into a bit of northern Travis County.
The choice offered by each side is stark: Without the new power plants, TXU warns, Texans could face brownouts and blackouts as demand exceeded supply within just a few years. With the new plants, TXU says, it will cut its total pollution production by 20 percent - and electricity prices should go down, too, because coal is a cheaper fuel than natural gas.
But environmentalists cite studies that indicate that though TXU's plan might mean lower ozone levels in some parts of the state, its new plants (and others that are planned) could, when atmospheric conditions are right, actually increase them in the Austin area on certain days.
The Austin area just barely complies with federal ozone standards now. TXU says it thinks the impact on Austin would be minor, and not as much as one study indicates.
If that doesn't terrify you enough, some environmentalists predict that pollution from the plants could contribute to 12,000 deaths and rack up as much as $71 billion in public health costs.
Citizens who don't have time to study up on electrical engineering, environmental science, respiratory medicine and economics should be able to rely on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to sort through the complex, often contradictory claims to arrive at an answer that will best serve the people of the state.
But from the start, Gov. Rick Perry aggressively took the side of TXU, even appearing at an April press conference in Dallas when the company announced its construction plan. All three members of the environmental commission, which will decide whether to grant TXU the necessary permits, were appointed by Perry, and no Perry appointee we know of has ever publicly defied the governor's line on any major issue.
Furthermore, Perry issued an order that directed the commission to process the permit applications as quickly as possible, from the usual year to about six months. So far, the commission has complied.
What TXU and other power plant builders are planning isn't an incremental increase in the state's power supply, but a new generation of plants that will operate for the next 50 years.
Though much cleaner than existing coal plants, they don't use what might soon prove to be an economical and even more effective technology to reduce pollution. Furthermore, the commission is not considering the impact of dumping enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming.
The state needs to take a better look at making sure it is doing all it can to promote energy efficiency, which could reduce or at least delay the need for new plants. What the state decides now will affect its air for decades to come, and that must carry equal consideration with power needs in 2009.
The Legislature convenes in January. The commission needs to slow down its permitting process at least to its usual pace so more thought and planning can be given to energy and healthy air studies for the next 50 years.