environment

EPRI has been at the forefront of research to determine pathways that may someday lead to achieving dramatically lower carbon emissions that could meet the stated goals of many nations, organizations, and businesses around the world. 

In my time on the board at EPRI, I’ve gotten a behind-the-scenes look at how our industry has been grappling with the many issues and concerns of rapid carbon emission reductions and identifying pathways that would allow us to meet those social and political demands. Among those concerns:

Leaders within and beyond the sector are focused on developing the right mix of resources to enable a low-carbon future. While specific CO2 targets and the resources available to achieve them can vary by region, the early steps of the carbon reduction journey have shown that:

To get a feel for AOA, I tagged along on one of the organization’s many annual educational events open to the public. The field trip attracted some 30 people to Cedar Bog Nature Preserve, a few miles south of Urbana. It’s the oldest nature preserve in the Buckeye State purchased with state funds (in 1942), and is owned, operated, and managed by the Ohio History Connection. 

Our mission to provide you with a reliable, affordable, and environmentally responsible supply of electricity is an ever-evolving job. For example, our investment in environmental control equipment at Cardinal Plant over the years has made our waste streams cleaner than ever. It also has allowed us to beneficially re-use the combustion byproducts from our coal-fired generation facilities in a variety of useful ways.

Since 2005, carbon emissions from U.S. electricity production have been reduced by more than 30%, while other sources of emissions in the U.S. have remained relatively unchanged — and global emissions have continued to increase. That dramatic reduction has been the result of increased use of high-efficiency natural gas power plants and increasing contributions from renewable sources like wind and solar. Electricity production will continue to get cleaner and greener over the next several years.

Each potential generating resource — coal plants, solar panels, hydropower facilities, etc. — produces power at a different level of reliability, environmental impact, and cost, so the trick is to balance each factor in the generation mix to produce electricity in the safest, cleanest, most economical, and most reliable way possible. 

That’s already a complicated task, because some of those factors tend to be at odds with one another. In recent times, another factor has added another twist to those generation decisions: consumer attitudes. 

In 2017, Ohio’s electric cooperative network launched the OurSolar statewide initiative that developed 23 community solar projects across the state. In total, the arrays can provide up to 2 megawatts of renewable energy, under ideal conditions. Consumer-member response to the new community-based solar farms and solar power subscription opportunities was clearly supportive. Panels available for subscription at many participating co-ops sold out almost immediately. 

Located along the Ohio River in Brilliant, Ohio, Cardinal is Buckeye Power’s baseload source for power generation, meaning it supplies Ohio’s 25 electric cooperatives with electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s also a main economic driver in the region, providing more than 300 jobs. The coal-fired plant consists of three units: one owned by AEP and two owned by Buckeye Power. All are managed by Buckeye Power. 

We’ve all heard some form of the notion that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set in motion a chain of events that causes a hurricane in China. It’s a way to express how complex systems like our weather or the environment are tied together by complex relationships that are difficult to recognize or understand.

Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives was gratified to see the Environmental Protection Agency finalize its work on the Affordable Clean Energy rule to further reduce carbon dioxide emissions, replacing earlier proposals with more sensible regulations.

Electric cooperatives have long been not only willing, but eager, to be good stewards of the environment. Our seventh cooperative principle, “Concern for Community,” certainly extends to the land we work, our water supply, and the air we breathe.