Representatives from about 30 companies learned industry’s role in helping the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) create a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions by more than half, while on an extremely tight deadline.
“This is not your regular plan. This goes beyond what we’ve seen before,” said Myra Reece, chief of the SCDHEC Bureau of Air Quality, who will draft a state plan in response to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements.
The business leaders attended an event at the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR), hosted by the South Carolina Clean Energy Business Alliance (SCCEBA), a proponent of fostering a clean energy platform in the state. Representatives came from companies including Baldour, CBRE Commercial Real Estate, Domtar, Lockhart Power, Michelin, Pacolet Milliken and Trane.
The complex plan will touch on energy policy, responsibility and expertise of public service commissions, and input from industry and even the environmental justice community.
Reece said the EPA’s proposed Clean Power Plan (CPP) “is not a plan without controversy.” S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson joined a lawsuit suing the EPA over the draft of the plan. Reece described the timeline as “aggressive.”
Reece told company leaders this plan deals with only one pollutant, carbon dioxide, and more regulations are expected to come down to the line to deal with other pollutants.
South Carolina has the third-highest requirements for emissions reductions under the CPP, behind Washington and Arizona. States can meet the standards using any mix of technology and policy they want as long as they can demonstrate that the actions directly result in less energy usage from coal-fired power plants.
South Carolina is also unlike most other states in that legislative approval is required before any plan can be implemented. Reece said the state’s strategy for dealing with the plan with heavy industry input is also unique, and that the recent passage of a solar energy bill with diverse support was a promising sign for a CPP plan.
Robert Keough, vice president of communications for Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), also addressed the crowd. He pointed out that while technology has revolutionized nearly every other aspect of life, power generation has changed little in the past century.
Attendees had questions and offered suggestions about various “green” and energy-efficiency measures, but few decisive answers on whether those actions would count for the CPP. Pine tree plantations that remove carbon from the air would not count, the DHEC representatives said, but steam capture at power plant sites might, if it could offset coal-fired energy production.
They were also concerned about the law’s effects on rates, which have tended to be low and made the state attractive to energy-intensive companies.
