Carbon allowances should be limited to coal units: US Senate aide

Carbon allowances should be limited to coal units: US Senate aide

Washington (Platts)--10May2005


The Republican counsel for the US Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee Tuesday said freely allocated emissions rights that can be bought
and sold should be restricted to coal-fired power plants. Speaking at an
Alliance to Save Energy meeting in Washington, John Shanahan said giving
emissions allowances to nuclear power plants and renewable energy sources,
which are inherently emissions free, would be like "giving radioactive waste
storage permits to coal plants." 

Shanahan's position differs from that of Michael Wilson, a vice president for
Florida Power & Light, who said at the meeting that utilities that have made
investments in nuclear energy and solar and wind energy should be rewarded
with allowances. Shanahan's position also clashes with that of Senate Energy
and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (Republican-New
Mexico), a long-time supporter of giving nuclear power plants emissions
allowances.

While Shanahan argued that a carbon trading program would be too costly for
industry, Lee Lane, executive director of the Climate Change Center, said he
favors a carbon-trading plan that would direct proceeds toward new r&d.
"Existing ideas have no real impact," Lane said of the Kyoto Protocol and
other policy measures under consideration. "What will have a significant
impact is the development of radically new technologies."

This story was originally published in Platts Electricity Alert
http://www.electricityalert.platts.com

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