WBEZ | energy

Does Illinois have a nuclear future?

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:00:00 -0500

President Barack Obama was in town Friday visiting Argonne National Laboratory in the Western suburbs. The president talked about his “all of the above” energy policy, which includes alternative fuels and better batteries, but one area didn't get quite as much air time from the president: nuclear power.

Illinois continues to be the largest producer of nuclear power in the country.

And scientists at Argonne, and nearby Fermilab, want to keep it that way – by making nuclear part of our sustainable energy future.

But the future of nuclear here and across the country is shaky. After a long hiatus, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is licensing new reactors again, but most of those are in the Southeast, and none are in Illinois.

Reduce, reuse, recycle...

The first rule of Argonne National Laboratories: Don’t touch anything. When nuclear engineer Roger Blomquist took me on a tour, he was sure to show me the Geiger counter the employees use to check their hands and feet on the way in and out of the lab where Argonne builds specialized parts for research reactors.

I learned the second rule of Argonne pretty fast, too: Don’t say nuclear waste.

“The idea that it is waste is somebody’s interpretation,” Blomquist said. At Argonne, the radioactive stuff most of us know as nuclear waste is called spent nuclear fuel.

Part of the reason for the linguistic shift, says Blomquist, is that we could be recycling the materials in nuclear waste.

“With enough recycling you can use 100 percent of the energy that’s in the uranium ore you dig out of the ground,” he said. Today’s technology uses up just one percent of the power we could be getting out of uranium through nuclear fission. The rest comes back out of the reactors, mixed with a slush of more volatile, radioactive elements.

But recycling nuclear fuel is well within reach. Blomquist is working on the development of fast reactors, a type of nuclear reactor that can run on reprocessed fuel and that he says would be smaller, more contained and safer than the reactors we currently use.

Just down the road at Fermilab, Argonne’s sister laboratory, researcher and associate lab director Stuart Henderson agreed that the technology in use these days is way behind the times.

“A lot of what we do with spent nuclear fuel is sort of what Homer Simpson would do,” Henderson said. “It’s not very sophisticated.”

Reprocessing or pyroprocessing nuclear waste would allow us to take the pellets of radioactive fuel out of reactors, separate out the elements with the longest half-lives, and reuse them as fuel for reactors. The only thing left over would be the most radioactive parts of the waste, which decay in just a few hundred years.

Right now spent fuel has to be stored in pools or casks for hundreds of thousands of years.

Henderson’s working on another type of nuclear reactor that would deal with both waste and safety issues, a reactor powered by a particle accelerator.

Right now, what happens in a nuclear reactor is a controlled chain reaction: in short, particles crash into one another and cause other particles to crash into one another, generating an enormous amount of heat.

But once it starts, nuclear fission in a reactor can be hard to slow down.

In the new model, called a sub-critical reactor, there would be no chain reaction. A particle accelerator would shoot particles into the reactor to keep the reaction going.

So if you want to stop it, you just hit a switch and turn off the accelerator.

“That means that the reactor is never capable of having a Chernobyl-type explosion,” Henderson said. He’s in touch with Belgian scientists who are building one of these reactors, called a sub-critical reactor; his job is to help build the high-powered accelerator that’s capable of doing the job.

If you build it

So, what’s the hangup? Where are these reactors of the future?

Both Blomquist and Henderson say having the technology is simply not enough to usher in a nuclear renaissance. We’d need to start building these reactors of the future now if we wanted to be getting power from them in less than 15 years, and in the U.S., that’s just not happening.

They both say the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a part of that equation – it’s expensive and complex to license a reactor design, so much so that companies don’t see an incentive to get involved with the grandiose designs of the future, no matter how much safer they might be. Here in Illinois, Exelon is looking to make its current reactors more efficient, but there are no plans for new reactors in the state.

“Nobody’s gonna build any new ones, anytime soon,” said Mark Cooper, a researcher at the University of Vermont who studies the safety and economics of nuclear power.

Cooper says other options available like solar, wind, natural gas and coal remain far more economically viable than nuclear, and he suggests we should be investing more in other high tech energy innovations.

Plus, he says even the most advanced nuclear reactors still come with risks – and someone has to pay for insurance on those, too.

“As you operate them, you learn that you haven’t done enough,” he said. “Mother nature throws you a curve, human beings don’t behave properly, equipment breaks down.”

Just two years after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan, those possibilities loom large, especially for people with nuclear power in their own backyards.

Living with nuclear power

Braidwood, Ill. is only 50 miles from the high tech labs, but in a lot of ways, it’s a different world. The fear of nuclear power is real here.

Exelon operates a nuclear plant at the edge of the small town, and in the 1990s the water was contaminated with radioactive tritium from the Braidwood plant. According to the Chicago Tribune, Exelon didn’t admit the mistake until years later.

The people in Braidwood have developed a sort of gallows humor about living near a reactor.

“You’re gonna be the first one to go if you live by one,” said resident Mike Franklin put it. In other words, you won’t live to suffer through the devastating effects of radiation – and that’s a good thing. Franklin, like a lot of people I talked to, grew up in Braidwood, and said he generally doesn’t think much about the plant.

In a grocery store parking lot at Braidwood’s main intersection, just up the road from the reactor, I caught an older man named Charles Crick unloading his grocery cart. He worked at the Braidwood plant.

“I started in a nuke in 1971, and I worked in ‘em until I retired,” he said. “Do I glow in the dark? No.”

The Stumble Inn is a bar just a mile down the road the other way, in the 600-person town of Godley. The morning crowd at the Stumble Inn was small but enthusiastic - and none of them like living near the plant.

“I’m not for nuclear power,” said Arthur Wallace, who goes by Slick here. Slick’s son-in-law worked at the Braidwood reactor, and died of leukemia at age 44; some research suggests links between leukemia and radiation. His daughter worked in security at the plant.

“They sent her home every once in awhile with her badge gettin’ too much rads. Too much radiation,” he said. “She quit after 11 years.”

The bartender, Ronda Bally, was a school bus driver for a long time, and recalled getting trainings from Exelon on how to pick up children and the elderly during a nuclear emergency.

“My life is half over,” she said. “My kids and my grandkids still have a lot of years left ahead of them, and if something as basic as a water supply could cause them serious health issues or even possible death, I have a problem with that.”

A lot of people here say they’d support safer nuclear power in a heartbeat. But Bally, like Slick, isn’t sure she wants a nuclear future at all.

“I’m kinda more interested in the whole wind farm thing that they’re doing now”, she said. “Nuclear anything is very scary.”

The nuclear future

“Nuclear power is the worst investment in the current environment,” said Mark Cooper. “You have gone through a series of these pursuits of a technological holy grail. And they have failed.”

His point: scientists have known about safer nuclear for decades – and companies just aren’t willing to spend the money to make it happen.

But Roger Blomquist at Argonne thinks it’s only a matter of time before climate change eclipses the barriers to nuclear innovation.

“Then getting rid of burning fossil fuels will become a national emergency,” he said. “And when that happens, that’s when this technology will be blindingly obvious to most people.”

At that point, he says, maybe living in the nuclear future won’t seem so bad.

Follow Lewis Wallace on Twitter.

Energy suppliers challenge the lawfulness of a 'clean coal' subsidy

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:39:00 -0600

A group of energy companies is challenging a likely increase in the price of electricity. They say energy from FutureGen, a proposed coal plant project in central Illinois, would cost more for consumers.

FutureGen is developing an ambitious coal plant and storage facility in Morgan County that would remove almost all of the carbon dioxide from emissions and transport it to a storage facility that would push the gas deep underground. The project’s proponents include Gov. Pat Quinn and Illinois U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that has been linked to climate change.

In December, the Illinois Commerce Commission approved a plan that would require energy suppliers to buy part of their power from FutureGen over a 20-year period. The estimated price increase to consumers would be less than 1.5 percent, below the 2 percent cap state law places on new costs for clean energy projects.

But a group of private suppliers is fighting the ICC decision through the Illinois Appellate Court. Commonwealth Edison also has filed a separate challenge to the order.

“Why should consumers be subsidizing power that is above today’s market price for electricity?” said Kevin Wright, president of the Illinois Competitive Energy Association. He represents a consortium of companies who provide electricity. He said requiring his clients to participate in what he called a "subsidy" for so-called clean coal is unlawful and works to undermine a competitive electricity market. He also argued Illinois does not need any new power sources.

Advocates say FutureGen will turn Meredosia power plant into a cutting-edge clean coal facility. But the project has run into many roadblocks since its inception in 2006, including a struggle to find a location in 2008, political drama in 2009 over misestimating the cost of the plant, and a loss of key funders that same year.

In 2011, FutureGen was declared to be underway again, this time as FutureGen 2.0, and a $1 billion grant from the federal government gave the project new viability. A 2011 fact sheet from FutureGen puts the project cost at $1.3 billion, and says the plant will create 2,000 jobs.

On Wednesday Sen. Durbin released a statement putting ComEd’s parent company Exelon on the hot seat for withdrawing from the FutureGen Alliance and then mounting a court challenge to the funding plan. Last month Exelon announced it would pull out of the group of companies lending support to the plan, although Crain's reported Exelon said it was never officially a member of the Alliance.

“Exelon sent its smiling representatives to press conferences lauding the value of FutureGen,” said Durbin. “Then last month, Exelon abruptly resigned from the FutureGen Alliance without explanation and today we learned Exelon has filed an appeal challenging the ICC ruling which is critical part of our FutureGen strategy. This heavy-handed corporate betrayal has few parallels in Illinois history.”

Representatives of the FutureGen Alliance were not available to comment Wednesday, but a spokesperson said in an email that “appeals are a normal part of the process and will be resolve (sic) in due time. In parallel, FutureGen 2.0’s development activities will continue without disruption.”

A spokesperson for the ICC declined to comment until she’s seen the court filing, but said the commission stands by its December order.

Follow Lewis Wallace on Twitter.

Do conservatives have the answer to climate change?

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:00:00 -0600

To hear former Republican Congressman Bob Inglis tell it, the Right Wing aversion to climate change policy may as well be a medical condition.

“When you mention ‘carbon,’ conservatives break out in hives,” he jokes, “and when you say ‘tax,’ they go into anaphylactic shock.”

He says this not mockingly, but by way of explanation. Despite losing his seat in South Carolina’s deeply conservative 4^th Congressional District in 2010, Inglis has continued his crusade to rally conservatives around “free-market” solutions to climate change. His Energy and Enterprise Initiative at George Mason University promoted the message during a presidential campaign in which even the Democratic Party candidate tiptoed around the issue.

“Conservatives have been running from this issue and failing the country,” he said Tuesday at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. “But Republicans and conservatives have the answer to this.”

His solution, first crystallized as the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act of 2009, is to wipe away all federal energy subsidies and hold energy companies accountable for all the hidden costs of their product. That means fossil fuel companies would pay for their carbon emissions, and coal plants would pay for the detrimental health effects of their pollution. Imported goods would pay a carbon tax equivalent to their American counterparts, unless the importing country could prove its carbon footprint was low.

What makes that politically palatable under Inglis' plan is that the new revenue it generated by essentially taxing carbon would not go to pad deficits in other governmental programs. Instead the plan would cut taxes elsewhere — social security contributions, income taxes, or corporate tax rates, for example — in a revenue-neutral swap called a Pigouvian tax.

That’s what Inglis calls “a muscular free enterprise solution,” as opposed to the “fickle tax incentives” that typically pass for market-based policies. His idea has the support of former Reagan economic advisor Art Laffer.

It’s not clear what effect his plan would have on the renewable energy industries. The markets for solar and wind power have exploded in recent years, fueled in part by the production and investment tax credits which have subsidized them since the early 1990s. The fight to renew these lifelines flares up periodically, eliciting sighs of relief when they are extended time and again. The impact of axing these subsidies, as Inglis' plan calls for, might be offset by the comparative advantage clean technologies would enjoy over polluting fossil fuels. It depends on how the carbon price would be calculated. Electricity from renewable sources is cheaper than it has ever been, with wind nearly as cheap as natural gas in some markets.

Despite some high-profile endorsements, no one in Congress has picked up Inglis' bill. Proponents of a tax on carbon emissions saw a window for action after President Barack Obama's second inaugural address, but the White House ruled out that option. Murmurs of a shift on the issue within the Republican party may give his plan some hope, but Inglis' political career is a testament to the partisan nature of the issue.

After a six-year stint in Congress during the 1990s, Inglis went to the private sector before launching a failed bid for Senate. He returned to Congress in 2005 with a focus on energy, seeing economic opportunities for his district, which counts Michelin, Boeing and General Electric among its major employers.

Voters in Inglis' conservative Greenville-Spartanburg area stuck with him through 2006 and even 2008 — South Carolina’s primaries occurred before the financial collapse — but in 2010 he was trounced by Trey Gowdy, who accused him of betraying his conservative roots.

Inglis had broken with conservative orthodoxy in a few instances — he voted for the bailout and against the troop surge in Iraq — but urging action on climate change was “the real heresy,” he said. “I crossed the tribal boundary, and that treachery was unforgivable.”

Tea Party voters tossed him out of office, despite his near-perfect ratings from conservative voting groups like the American Conservative Union, the Christian Coalition of America, and the National Rifle Association.

Inglis contends, however, that tackling climate change is ultimately about preserving opportunities for future generations — a basic conservative tenet.

“Orthodoxies seem like they never change, but they really do,” he says. "They’re fluid.”

Nuclear power: The ultimate near shore threat to the Great Lakes?

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 15:25:00 -0600

“I hope you rethink your really scary plan to bury radioactive waste located only half a mile from Lake Huron…”

That’s a concerned citizen responding to a Canadian nuclear power company’s proposal to store radioactive waste underground near Lake Huron for 100,000 years.

The best-known near shore threats to the Great Lakes are raw sewage and algae blooms. Both receive considerable attention from government agencies and accounts about them are regularly reported in the popular media.

The threat posed by the nuclear power plants that dot the region could easily trump both. It may be the ultimate near shore threat.

There are 33 nuclear reactors in the Great Lakes region, many of them near the water’s edge such as Palisades in Michigan.

After a seeming dormant period of public concern about nuclear power risks, awareness increased this past year. The Fukushima Japan meltdown is likely the reason. That incident played out in the news over weeks and impacted not only nearby residents and workers but food and water supplies. Remnant amounts of radioactivity eventually hit this nation’s west coast.

Closer to home, there has been increasing activity in Canada. In addition to the 100,000-year underground waste storage proposal, Bruce Power has sought permits to transport contaminated equipment on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River to Sweden for decontamination.

That’s an issue for activist John Jackson.

He’s concerned about transporting nuclear waste on lakes and rivers because “most accidents happen near harbors” which means near population centers. Jackson is executive director of Great Lakes United, a bi-national group that focuses on Great Lakes issues.

His group, and others want the U.S. and Canada to assess ”the risks, threats and unknowns“ of nuclear power plants.

They have asked the International Joint Commission to request the U.S. and Canada to reinstate a task force for the assessment. The commission, which advises the countries on trans-border water issues, has declined.

“Traditionally, such references (requests) either come with funding to conduct the examination or direction as to how such a study would be funded,” said John Nevin a spokesperson for the commission.

“Short of such action by the governments, the commission continues to monitor this important issue and remains acutely aware of the concerns raised by the public on both sides of border.”

Jackson disagrees and says the commission “sets up task forces all the time.”

Illinois Senator concerned

The Zion Nuclear Station is equally 50 miles north of Chicago and south of Milwaukee on the shores of Lake Michigan.

“The Zion facility holds roughly 1,100 tons of nuclear waste just yards away from Lake Michigan,” says Nicole Barrett, a spokesperson for Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk.

“It’s critical the nation protects its water resources from nuclear contamination,” Barrett said. “We must find a safe, permanent storage facility for the country’s nuclear waste.”

Kirk has a keen interest in near shore Great Lakes issues including the dumping of billions of gallons of sewage into the lakes.

He is in a position to spotlight near shore threats as he co-chairs the senate Great Lakes Task Force with Michigan Sen. Carl Levin. The task force prioritizes and emphasizes Great Lakes issues in Congress.

A precautionary tool

A new addition to the recent update to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between the U.S. and Canada requires caution: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”

This precautionary approach seems tailor-made for nuclear issues like underground storage of waste. Who can say with certainty that it’s safe to store waste for 1,000 years let alone 100,000?

The test as always with the agreement is will the U.S. and Canada comply with the document of their own creation?

Understanding the advantages, risks and threats of nuclear energy is daunting. That may be why we don’t hear much about it until there is a problem. Then all hell breaks loose as with the Fukushima disaster.

Those of a certain age may remember Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island near disaster. A huge concern then was that we didn’t know what we didn’t know. And it’s inherent in us to fear the unknown, with justification, when it comes to nuclear power because of the potential for a loss of drinking water, evacuations and long-term threat of disease.

The Great Lakes region has a long history of neglecting or ignoring its environmental problems.

Palisades Nuclear Power Plant on Lake Michigan. Image: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The many legacy toxic hotspots that dot our shores were ignored for decades and it will be decades more before they’re cleaned up. That assumes we have the will to keep funding the effort.

Every year we continue to dump billions of gallons of sewage into our rivers and lakes because we won’t invest in infrastructure. That shows no signs of changing and those problems aren’t insurmountable, if we want to tackle them.

However they pale compared to the consequences of neglecting the nuclear waste storage and transport issues. The least the U.S. and Canada can do is assess those threats and unknowns.

Senators Kirk and Levin could easily use the gravitas of their offices to spotlight this issue and they should if their concern for the Great Lakes is more than perfunctory.

To neglect the nuclear threats that are literally on our shores…… that’s “really scary.”

Great Lakes Echo is a project of the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism at Michigan State University.

ICC says ComEd can delay rollout of smart meters

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:54:00 -0600

The Illinois Commerce Commission has agreed to let Commonwealth Edison delay the rollout of so-called "smart" meters.

The digital devices record electricity consumption in greater detail than older meters. They will be installed on homes in ComEd's service area as part of a program to modernize the electrical grid to prevent outages and help consumers save money.

The ICC voted Wednesday to grant the company's request to postpone.

But the commission said it did not think ComEd's claim of insufficient funding for the project was valid.

"The rates that were approved by the commission allow them to recover all of their expenses associated with this project as well as to earn a return on their investment in it," said Beth Bosch, spokesperson for the commission.

ComEd disagrees with the ICC on 12 technical issues in the commission's proposed rate formula. The company said the ICC's formulas will decrease its revenues by at least $100 million per year and make the smart meter project unsustainable.

"We are not going to be able to embark on a billion-dollar investment program without assurance of having adequate funding," said Judy Rader of ComEd.

ComEd wants to delay installation until 2015; the ICC said it will revisit the issue in April.

U of I trustees approve $15.5 million solar farm

Fri, 09 Nov 2012 09:03:00 -0600

Trustees at the University of Illinois have approved a $15.5 million project to build a 20.5-acre solar farm to help power the Urbana-Champaign campus.

The Champaign News-Gazette reports that the solar-power facility will be built on land now used by the College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

The university says the solar farm is slated to begin producing power by next fall. It's eventually expected to supply about 2 percent of the electricity used on campus.

For the first 10 years, the university will buy power from Phoenix Solar Inc., which will build and operate the facility. After that, the university will own the solar farm.

Municipal electricity aggregation explained

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 05:52:00 -0500

Chicago voters next week won't just be choosing who takes the reins in the White House. They’ll decide whether to give City Hall the power to negotiate for cheaper power bills.

The question on the ballot is as follows:

"Shall the City of Chicago have the authority to arrange for the supply of electricity for its residential and small commercial retail customers who have not opted out of such program."

In short, we’re talking about municipal electricity aggregation. Here’s how it works: City Hall bundles all the residential and small business electricity customers together, and then they negotiate with smaller suppliers to see who can give them the best rate. It’s kind of like a Costco approach--buying in bulk means cheaper prices.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is all for it.

"I’ve looked at other cities, buying in bulk can save homeowners and residents money. And so therefore I’ll support putting it on the ballot and I will advocate for it," Emanuel told reporters last summer, when the referendum was first introduced.

If Chicago switched to this plan, it wouldn’t be alone: 248 other municipalities in Illinois have already started up their own aggregation programs, and some residents say it’s been working pretty well.

Take Wilmette homeowner Stephen Schwartz, for example. Schwartz says he's always trying to save energy, as his mid-1930s colonial has all the problems of an older house: windows that aren't well-insulated, uninsulated brick exterior, etc. He was glad the Village of Wilmette was able to cut his electricity rate in half through their aggregation program.

"All the lights are still on, I can still use my computer, charge the electric mower, that kind of thing, so no, no problems," Schwartz said.

David Kolata, Executive Director of the Citizens Utility Board, said those savings could be available for Chicago, if voters say yes. According to Kolata, the current price from Commonwealth Edison is 8.32 cents a kilowatt hour, while smaller suppliers could offer an average rate of 4.83 cents a kilowatt hour.

If the referenda passes, Kolata says some things will still be the same. ComEd is still responsible for taking care of electrical poles and wires, but the actual electricity will come from the new supplier.

Still, Kolata warns the cheap rates of a municipal aggregation program might not last forever.

"Just because you’re saving now, this isn’t a magic bullet, and it may not always work," Kolata said.

Kolata said ComEd’s higher prices are set to expire next June, and they’re expected to drop after that. Which means ComEd could eventually have the lowest rate.

As for ComEd, the company says it supports shopping around. In a statement, the company says it "encourages customers to shop for electricity," and "customers should explore any opportunities to save money on their bills, whether that's through shopping or energy efficiency."

Voters looking for information about the city's potential bidding process can head over to the city's website:

Group pushes for soil tests around power plant

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 18:31:00 -0500

A company that is decommissioning Chicago’s last two coal-fired power plants insists there are no hazards on either site, but a neighborhood group is pressing for soil tests and for disclosure of the results.

Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of California-based Edison International, shut down its Fisk and Crawford stations in August. The company says it is talking with about two dozen potential buyers of the sites.

A task force set up by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office reported last month that the sites could now be used for light manufacturing and could offer public access to the nearby Chicago River.

But a report coming out Saturday says residents of the city’s Pilsen neighborhood, where Fisk stands, want something done first.

“Their number-one concern was, 'How is that site going to get cleaned up, how do we know it’s not going to be a danger in the future, and how do we know what’s there right now in terms of pollution and contamination?' ” said Jerry Mead-Lucero, organizer of the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, which held neighborhood forums and surveyed residents.

Midwest Generation President Douglas McFarlan said the public has nothing to fear about coal, ash and liquid fuel that his company and its predecessors stored near the plants. “There’s nothing inherently dangerous at the sites,” he said.

McFarlan said Midwest Generation would comply with environmental regulations and said any cleanup would depend on the interests of the buyers.

Fisk was built in 1903. Crawford, which stands in the Little Village neighborhood, began operating in 1924.

The closings resulted from falling energy prices and federal clean-air enforcement that required retrofitting the plants. Activists had campaigned for more than a decade to close the generators or curb their harmful emissions, which included soot and carbon dioxide, a contributor to global warming.

Illinois environmentalists complain Midwestern Generation coal plants pollute groundwater

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 15:56:00 -0500

Environmentalists have filed a legal complaint against four Illinois coal plants.

The Illinois EPA said it has also sent violation notices about contaminated groundwater to the plants owned by Midwest Generation in Joliet, Pekin, Will County and Waukegan.

Whitney Ferrell is a lawyer for the Environmental Integrity Project, which filed the complaint.

"We found pretty pervasive groundwater contamination at all four sites and are hoping that through bringing this claim we can ensure the cleanup of the groundwater in those areas and the protection of nearby communities," Ferrell said.

Ferrell said the complaint uses data from Midwest Generation to make its case.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Act requires coal plants to monitor and report on water quality near their facilities.

Midwest Generation said in a statement it is prepared to defend its operations.

"We have not been served with the complaint, but from what we have seen, it raises nothing new," Midwest Generation said in a statement on Friday. "We will be prepared to defend our operations vigorously against parties who have long sought any avenue to try to close down coal-fired power plants."

The Environmental Integrity Project and the Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC filed the complaint and are joined by the Prairie Rivers Network and Citizens Against Ruining the Environment.

Traci Barkley is a water resources scientist with the Prairie Rivers Network.

She said the contaminants found in the groundwater could damage aquatic ecosystems.

"That's a significant concern for us to the extent that contaminated groundwater is migrating into adjacent surface water bodies," Barkley said. "Some of the things we are most concerned about are the pollutants including selenium and mercury."

The complaint will be heard by the Illinois Pollution Control Board.

'Net-zero' energy design changing how we build, consume and live

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 09:56:00 -0500

Editor’s Note: The U.S. Army has a goal of "net-zero" energy consumption by 2030. Hewlett-Packard just unveiled designs for a data center that requires no net energy from traditional power grids. Here, Worldview contributor Robert Price shares his predictions of what net-zero design may mean for how we build, consume and live.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) has a goal of "net-zero" energy use in all commercial buildings by 2030. The goal currently is voluntary, but if enacted, the look and utility of our future buildings will change forever. Master planners, architects and interior designers will look at their field in ways they haven't in generations.

Net-zero is a popular term that means that an installation or building produces as much energy as it consumes and has zero carbon emissions annually. The zero-energy design principle is more practical to adopt than ever, due to increased costs of traditional fossil fuels and their negative impact on the planet's climate and ecological balance.

A net-zero building can be independent from the energy supply. Energy is harvested on-site using a combination of solar and wind technology, while reducing the overall use of energy with extremely efficient heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) and lighting technologies. Energy can also be supplemented by long-term contracts with a green energy source.

Master-planners will think about building sites, how surrounding buildings affect new construction and how to maximize solar technologies. Existing buildings will need an upgrade for fear of losing the best tenants. European Union directives will set a rating system for all buildings. They may impact how they are insured and taxed. In China, inefficient buildings and those with high energy consumption will receive an extra carbon tax.

The skyline of U.S. cities will look different. Buildings in the Northern Hemisphere will be oriented south to take advantage of sunlight. Southern Hemisphere buildings will be oriented north. This is how it’s done in China and South America.

The tops of buildings will look different. High-rises will take maximum advantage of roof space, solar devices and greenscape. Northern or southern exposures will integrate visible or invisible solar technologies. Glassy structures will be less sexy.

Real estate developers must think long-term about costs. Building owners must now understand the efficiency performance of their buildings as part of their criteria when trying to rent or sell to tenants. Designers will utilize a whole new and varied set of tools to access building design. They, along with contractors, will be held accountable for how buildings perform two, five and maybe ten years after completion. Lifecycle costs will be more real.

This all means my fellow architects will have to leave their egos at the door…It’s a new day.

Robert L. Price is an architect and interior designer based in Shanghai, China. He is Worldview's arts and architecture contributor and the show's global cities co-contributor. Price also serves as Senior Associate and Technical Director for Asia at Gensler, a global design firm.