The City of Tallahassee agreed last summer to evaluate clean energy alternatives to coal before committing to the purchase a 150-megawatt share of the Taylor Energy Center (TEC) coal plant. The expert analysis is almost completed, and the City Commission will make the critical decision in September—whether to use coal or clean energy in Tallahassee’s energy future.

We now know that clean energy without coal reduces our reliance on natural gas more than the TEC coal plant. We can replace a chunk of natural gas with a clean energy portfolio that includes 162 megawatts of efficiency savings and at least 30 megawatts from clean biomass—192 megawatts in all. That’s 42 megawatts more diversity than we’d get from TEC.

We also know that a clean energy plan with 75 megawatts of biomass and no coal is the lowest cost option, and that clean energy can save much more than coal. The City now estimates that if we added coal to our energy mix as originally proposed, without clean energy, it would cut total costs by $55 million over 30 years (net present value), a fraction of the amount publicized last fall. The clean energy portfolio would cut costs by at least $342 million, over six times as much as the projected savings from coal.

The City now advocates adding both clean energy and coal to our energy mix, but if we add clean energy to all plans, the benefit of coal becomes negligible. Moreover, if we add still more clean energy (45 more megawatts from biomass), adding coal actually costs $60 million more than not adding it.

The city sidesteps the inconvenient truth that clean energy is an alternative that saves more than coal. They say they will add clean energy to all the proposed coal plans. However, they are still using analyses of plans without clean energy, and assumptions that clean energy will fail, to bolster their case that coal is the most cost-effective option.

The city used cost figures for plans that minimize or remove clean energy to support their claim that "TEC is the least cost plan in all scenarios except one." Here are the four out of five "scenarios" that favor coal:

What is the fifth scenario where coal costs more? The scenario with efficiency and 75 megawatts of biomass, which is also the lowest cost scenario.

After failing to show that coal would add appreciable savings, the city is now using risk analysis to claim that maybe it could save money (or maybe it could cost more). They haven’t yet completed the risk analysis for the lowest cost scenario, but they are already declaring that the risk analysis shows that TEC is the best option.

This decision, more than any other the Commission will make, will determine our impact on global warming. If the City invests now in the Taylor Energy Center, our carbon dioxide emissions will rise by a half-million tons a year—28 million tons over the plant’s lifetime. But if the City diversifies its existing clean natural-gas generation with the clean energy portfolio, we will join other leading cities in taking major steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

These state and local actions may be our best hope of averting the worst impacts of global warming. Tallahassee can lead the Southeast in this effort by adopting the clean energy plan, without coal. In the face of this enormous threat, how can we do otherwise, when this plan will save money, diversify our energy resources, avoid pollution, and bring our community together?

Complete Report (pdf)