S.C. has swelling carbon footprint

South Carolina is generating more hot air than ever. Fueled largely by gases from coal-fired power plants and vehicles, the state has increased its carbon dioxide emissions, the main contributor to global warming, by 45 percent since 1990, a Post and Courier analysis shows.

By some measures, only two other states' carbon footprints grew faster than South Carolina's.

In 1990, South Carolina's power plants, factories, vehicles and other carbon dioxide sources cranked out 61 million tons of carbon dioxide. In 2007, these sources released 89 million tons, an increase of about 28 million tons, the newspaper's analysis of U.S. Energy Information Administration data shows.

Power plants and vehicles were responsible for most of this additional carbon dioxide, while emissions from homes, commercial businesses and industries remained relatively stable.

South Carolina's overall increase comes amid a solidifying consensus among scientists that man-made greenhouse gases will cause catastrophic changes to the climate in 30 to 40 years unless emissions are reduced soon.

The state's dependence on coal-powered electric generators also puts it squarely in the debate over federal energy legislation and raises important questions about the state's portfolio of energy sources.

Expansion & emissions

A large share of South Carolina's increase in carbon dioxide emissions happened as Santee Cooper expanded its Cross plant in Berkeley County and South Carolina Electric & Gas built a new plant near Orangeburg to meet the state's growing demand for power.

In 1999, for instance, Santee Cooper's coal plants burned 6.4 million tons of coal a year, the utility says. Last year, its plants consumed 9.1 million tons. Its carbon dioxide emissions increased by nearly 6 million tons during this decade.

Santee Cooper officials noted that it serves three of the fastest-growing counties in the state, and that the number of retail customers increased by 80 percent from 1990 through 2007. Its energy sales nearly doubled during this time.

As prices for natural gas rose after 2002, "coal was the clear choice for reliable, affordable new generation," said Mollie Gore, publications director for Santee Cooper. She said the utility has been working to diversify its fuel sources through renewable resources and nuclear power. The utility also recently decided to nix its $1.2 billion Pee Dee coal plant partly over concerns about federal efforts to regulate carbon dioxide through a cap-and-trade program.

Another big carbon dioxide emitter, SCE&G, saw its emissions spike in 2006 at 16 million tons and decrease to a projected 10 million tons this year, said Scott Grigg, supervisor of public affairs for Scana Corp., SCE&G's parent company. Grigg cited the economic downturn and the utility's shift toward natural gas for the decline. Natural gas releases smaller amounts of carbon dioxide than coal.

Only two other states, Arizona and Colorado, saw larger percentage increases in their carbon dioxide releases since 1990.

Global warming issue

South Carolina may have seen a big jump in its greenhouse gas production during the past two decades, but when it comes to total emissions, other states have far larger carbon footprints.

Texas tops the list with 677 million tons, or more than 7.5 times what's released in South Carolina, followed by California (402 million tons) and Pennsylvania (274 million tons).

Overall, federal data shows that nearly half of South Carolina's carbon dioxide emissions, about 41 million tons, came from power plants that residents and businesses depend on for electricity.

About a third, 32 million tons, came from burning fossil fuels in cars and trucks. A smaller fraction, 1.9 million tons, came from homes, while commercial and industrial sources emitted 15 million tons.

Cary Chamblee, acting director of the Sierra Club in South Carolina, said that South Carolina's increase in carbon dioxide emissions "does not bode well for our state and our planet."

Most top energy thinkers say the climate is getting hotter, and man is largely responsible for this warming trend. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a consensus of 3,000 scientists from 130 countries, says in its most recent report that global warming is "unequivocal" and that there's a 90 percent certainty that man-made emissions are responsible.

The global warming issue also has generated a healthy industry of skeptics.

Think tanks, such as the libertarian Heartland Institute, have organized conferences to challenge the consensus that human activity is warming the planet. Some industry-funded groups also are siding with the skeptics.

The U.S. Chamber of commerce, for instance, has taken a hard-line approach to the climate issue, prompting Apple Computer, Nike and three major utilities to drop out of the group or remove board members. Meanwhile, polls show only a third of Americans think man is responsible.

In the next decade, "I think that it will become apparent that the scientists were right, and then in the 2020 decade, people will start getting desperate," Joseph Romm, an energy specialist who runs ClimateProgress.org, recently told journalists at the McCormick Energy Solutions Conference at Ohio State.

Avoiding catastrophe

Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have risen dramatically since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and accelerated sharply during the past 50 years. In 1958, levels were about 315 parts per million; today, they're 386 parts per million. Steven Koonin, the Energy Department's undersecretary of science, told journalists at the Ohio State conference that 550 parts per million "is where catastrophic things happen," and that if nothing is done to curb greenhouse gases, the world will reach that 550 parts-per-million level by 2050.

The last time carbon dioxide levels were at today's level was 15 million years ago, University of California-Los Angeles researchers said last week in the journal Science. At that time, global temperatures were 5 to 10 degrees higher and sea levels were 75 to 120 feet higher with no permanent sea ice cap in the Arctic, the UCLA report said.

One strategy to reduce emissions is to put a price tag on carbon dioxide. Supporters, including the Obama administration, say doing so will make natural gas, nuclear, wind and renewable energy sources more attractive. Congress is debating legislation that would cap emissions and allow industries to buy and sell carbon dioxide "credits."

Koonin of the Energy Department said the legislation would cost people $170 a year, or about the cost of a postage stamp every day.

Chamblee of the Sierra Club said the legislation could help the state land new manufacturing jobs, particularly in the offshore wind arena. "We have a base for this," he said, noting that General Electric has the world's largest wind turbine plant in Greenville. "We just need to tap into it."

But some Republicans, including U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, view cap-and-trade as a creeping form of socialism that would overburden businesses with higher electricity rates. "Cap-and-trade would mean lights out for South Carolina," he said recently.

Richard Sandor, chairman of the Chicago Climate Exchange and dubbed by Time magazine as the "father of carbon trading," laughed at this notion. Cap-and-trade was a free-market concept largely created by congressional Republicans and President George H.W. Bush in the late 1980s and early 1990s to solve the acid rain problem, he said, adding that the acid rain program worked.

Many economists say that making carbon dioxide emissions more expensive is the whole point.

To economists, greenhouse gases are "externalities," products that no one pays for but still have a cost. Putting a price on carbon would incorporate the costs of global warming into our consumption of fossil fuels and send a signal to the market that other forms of energy, such as wind and solar power, are truly competitive, said Andrew Keeler, an economist with Ohio State's John Glenn School of Public Affairs.

Doing nothing also comes with a cost.

Don McConnell, a senior vice president at Battelle, an Ohio-based nonprofit that does about $5 billion in research and development, said that computer models say the biggest impact of global climate change will be "radical changes in water distribution," with parts of Africa turning into desert and the United States midsection turning into a dustbowl.

Solving the global warming problem will require massive investments in nuclear power, renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and technology to capture carbon dioxide and store it. All this will take money and time.

BY THE NUMBERS

Carbon dioxide emissions change between 1990 and 2007 (millions of metric tons released)

1990 amount — 2007 amount — Percent increase

TOTAL: — 61.4 — 89.3 — 45%

By sector:
Commercial — 1.3 — 1.5 — 15%
Industrial — 14.1 — 13.4 — -5%
Residential — 2.1 — 1.9 — -11%
Transportation — 22.0 — 31.9 — 45%
Electric power — 21.9 — 40.7 — 86%

— U.S. Energy Information Administration

Reach Tony Bartelme at 937-5554 or tbartelme@postandcourier.com.