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UNCOMMON GROUND MIKE JOPEK SO THANKFUL
GUEST COLUMN PATRICK M. BARKEY
MONTANA’S BUMPY ROAD TO WCLEAN POWER PLAN COMPLIANCE
HAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR – essentially licenses to emit CO2 – that Montana to produce elec- other states may have to sell. If you tricity in a way that reduced think that responsible power planning
IT’S THANKSGIVING AGAIN: THE time for family and food. Thanks- giving o ers the opportunity to be grateful for those who do the work that matters.
I’m thankful for family and friends, the people who support us during di cult times and o er hope when days appear dark. People can nd common ground when hope seemed lost.
Whether one is independently minded, a Republican, a Democrat, or a Libertar- ian matters less that the fact that there exists a willingness to compromise to move us forward.
The issues facing our family or society appear huge, but the solutions always lay within the realm of compromise. I wish we’d treat politics less like a sport and more a duty to govern.
As a farmer, I am grateful for food and the eaters who support us. The Flathead is blessed with a huge variety of local foods. Some farms are large and some small. Yet all farmers work extremely hard, spending months outdoors in all kinds of weather, to produce great prod- ucts like fresh veggies and fruit, local milk, and meats.
I am thankful for the many years that the Beacon has o ered me an opportunity to write opinion columns. I acknowledge that many will not agree or even read a column based on the author. I personally nd that only by talking can we move for- ward as a community, state, and nation. No one has all the answers but collec- tively we advance.
I am appreciative of local leaders like John Muhlfeld, Mark Johnson, and Don Barnhart who help move the communi- ties of White sh, Kalispell and Columbia Falls to be better places for people and commerce.
All three of the tri-city mayors work hard to make their cities better places to live. It’s often thankless work with few accolades, yet leadership matters greatly to people living in the community and
raising a family. Without this caliber of leaders, we would see less progress.
I am thankful for the thousands of people across the valley that supports the conservation of public water and lands. White sh locals have done a tremen- dous job at conserving access to places that matter. Kalispell and Columbia Falls are close to securing into perpetuity the places that matter most.
Leaders like Sens. Jon Tester and Rand Paul have done a yeoman’s job at securing our rights to privacy and allowing liber- ties like opinions to matter. Sure, I agree with neither of these ne gentlemen all the time, but marvel at their ability to lead a democratic nation that deserves headway.
I am so grateful for freedom and democracy; many people and places worldwide see far too little of these pre- cious liberties. It is freedom that allows me to write, share opinions, and publicly debate complicated issue without much fear. People in places like Russia or Syria are not o ered this fundamental privi- lege of liberty.
The passion to lead on the many civic projects across the valley has produced a livable place worthy of us. We are as great as we allow ourselves to be and we move mountains of good projects by working together, regardless of our petty political di erences. Our water is still clean, our air fresh and our public lands remain open to all. These persist as reasons many choose to live here.
The locals that keep the doors open at places like the food pantries in Columbia Falls, Kalispell and White sh are true heroes. They provide food to hungry kids and families. That’s work that matters.
I am grateful for the peacemakers and those who often disagree with me as it makes me a better person, more able to serve others. Thank you for being you and for reading these words throughout the years. Enjoy the holidays.
carbon dioxide emissions by 47 percent? It’s not a hypothetical question. It’s the mandate set for the state in the Environ- mental Protection Agency’s nal ver- sion of its Clean Power Plan, released in August 2015.
And compliance with that mandate – which requires a larger percentage of CO2 reductions in Montana than any other state – is more than a technolog- ical or engineering challenge. It could involve walking away from assets that have provided low-cost power and sup- ported thousands of jobs for years, as well as spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build the capacity to replace them in a short period of time. In short, it could be the biggest economic event to occur in our state in decades.
The road to compliance is di cult for Montana. The regulation speci - cally targets existing fossil fuel-power electric generators, and the largest of those is the four-unit Colstrip coal- red generating station in southeast Mon- tana, whose 2,300 megawatts of base- load capacity have anchored our state’s power grid for decades. A future where those assets are no longer available is a real possibility.
How real? Consider the challenge. The number of tons of annual CO2 emis- sions that Montana is required to elimi- nate – about 8.5 million tons – is roughly equal to the annual emissions of the two older, smaller Colstrip units plus the output of half of one of the newer, larger units.
In reality, that really wouldn’t work. For reasons both engineering and eco- nomic, that facility would be di cult to operate in a con guration where only one and a half of its units survived. That leaves only one other option for com- pliance that could help the facility sur- vive. That is to rely on the existence and the a ordability of emissions credits
requires more than relying on nonexis- tent markets so that others can provide for our needs, you are not alone.
The Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana has prepared a research report on what the early retirement of Colstrip to meet the CO2 emissions mandate would mean for the Montana economy. The results are sobering. Even when set against the job gains that would occur when new, compliant generation is built and oper- ated to replace the Montana-dedicated power lost from Colstrip, the net impact is to reduce jobs, income, output, popu- lation and tax revenues by signi cant amounts.
Particularly of note are the kinds of jobs that Montana would lose. Of the 7,157 jobs that compliance with the EPA’s regulation would destroy, the average earnings are almost $66,000 per job. And while more than 4,000 of those lost jobs would come from eastern Montana, all regions of the state would see mean- ingful declines. At the mid-point of the next decade, the compliance scenario analyzed by BBER would result in a loss in annual income received by Montana households of over a half billion dollars. To put that into context, that’s about half as large as the decline that occurred during the Great Recession.
Why are the impacts so harsh? You really need to read the entire report to nd that out. But it all comes back to the many important roles played by Colstrip. It is the single largest emitter of CO2 in the state, yes. But it also is the backstop of our electrical grid, as well as the state’s single largest industrial facil- ity. Its baseload power generation role in our system is one that newer tech- nologies like wind and solar cannot yet replace. And any mandate that does not recognize that will cause the economy to pay a heavy price.
“THE PASSION TO LEAD ON THE MANY CIVIC PROJECTS ACROSS THE VALLEY HAS PRODUCED A LIVABLE PLACE WORTHY OF US.”
Mike (Uncommon Ground) Jopek and Dave (Closing Range) Skinner often fall on opposite sides of the fence when it comes to political and outdoor issues. Their columns alternate each week in the Flathead Beacon.
“IF YOU THINK THAT RESPONSIBLE POWER PLANNING REQUIRES MORE THAN RELYING ON NONEXISTENT MARKETS SO THAT OTHERS CAN PROVIDE FOR OUR NEEDS, YOU ARE NOT ALONE.”
Patrick Barkey is the director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana.
NOVEMBER 25, 2015 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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