New coal plant is wrong direction for South Carolina

Santee Cooper is taking South Carolina in the wrong direction with the $1 billion pulverized coal plant that the utility plans to build on the banks of the Great Pee Dee River.

The leadership at Santee Cooper is locked into an outdated approach to meeting power demand. Santee Cooper's insistence on using dirty coal technology and ignoring cleaner, more efficient options will ultimately force South Carolinians to pay higher power bills while compromising environmental and human health.

Coal is in fact a very expensive source of new energy. South Carolina's coal prices, put in nominal dollars, have more than quadrupled in the last 30 years. Additionally, when you add all the "costs," namely pollution from coal-fired power plants, such as carbon dioxide and toxic mercury, coal is in fact a very expensive way to produce power.

Carbon dioxide is a major culprit causing global warming, a crisis that will particularly endanger South Carolina's vulnerable coastal areas. What's more, in 2006 officials at the Department of Health and Environmental Control put mercury advisories on 60 bodies of water in South Carolina, including the entire coastline and the Pee Dee River, because of high levels of toxic mercury from coal-fired power plants found in the water that could adversely affect children's health.

The cost of coal is likely to become higher because Congress is poised to pass new laws addressing global warming pollution from fossil fuels in the next couple of years. Utilities that built lots of dirty coal plants will see increased costs within five to 10 years, and these costs will increase rapidly over time. Santee Cooper will assuredly pass this increased cost onto South Carolinians.

Energy efficiency and clean energy sources would be much better investments for Santee Cooper and its customers to meet South Carolina's growing energy needs when compared to a $1 billion dirty coal plant. Santee Cooper's president has stated in his July 15 column that only "1 percent of our customers" purchase renewable energy, implying that clean, renewable energy is unpopular. What he conveniently failed to mention is that Santee Cooper forces customers to self-select and pay more for the clean, renewable power, while they plan to just put the dirty coal on everyone's bill and not give anyone a choice. If people where asked to self-select and pay extra for the dirty coal, my guess is less than 1 percent would choose it.

Santee Cooper is only paying lip service to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Independent research shows the enormous capacity of clean energy resources and energy efficiency in our state. Bio-energy and offshore wind turbines alone could produce the same amount of electricity that the proposed Pee Dee plant will. Remember, no coal is mined in South Carolina, and we are shipping millions of dollars out of our state to buy coal. We could be generating power in state with renewable energy, or better yet, consumers could save money through energy efficiency.

Santee Cooper must work with citizens and conservation organizations to find a solution to South Carolina's growing energy demand. Unfortunately, because Santee Cooper is in the business of making money by selling power, they really have no incentive to help consumers save power. This is worsened by the fact that no one really provides oversight of this utility. Therefore, they cannot be required to get serious about helping consumers save money through smart energy efficiency programs. Other Southeastern states, such as Florida, are growing twice as fast as South Carolina and they are exploring ways to meet their energy needs without building any more coal plants. If they can do it, certainly the Palmetto State can.

Stephen Smith, DVM, is executive director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy and was appointed by Gov. Mark Sanford to the Climate, Energy and Commerce Advisory Committee.