On April 15, 1976 Southern California Edison Company and San Diego Gas and Electric Company announced their withdrawal of support for the planned Kaiparowits coal-fired power plant that was to have been located on a desolate plateau in south central Utah. Their ostensible reason was opposition by environmentalists.
While many power projects were postponed or cancelled during 1976, the demise of Kaiparowits received the most public attention. The Kaiparowits story made headlines for two major reasons. The first was the awesome size of the venture; it was to be the largest single power plant on earth, about three times the size of what is conventionally considered a large power plant. It would have burned 30,000 tons of coal a day, or about twelve large railroad cars of coal every hour. The second reason for such media attention was the furor raised by environmentalists. The Environmental Defense Fund fought it vigorously, as did the Sierra Club and several other groups. They were ardently supported by such prominent individuals as Robert Redford.
Evolution of the plan. The project was originally conceived in 1963 as a 6,000-megawatt power plant that would supply electricity for 6 million people. The plant was to be fired with deep-mined coal, of which there is an enormous supply in the Kaiparowits Plateau. Between 1963 and 1976, the plant size was cut back to 3,000 megawatts, which still would have made it the largest single power plant in the world. The predicted environmental impacts were proportionally large. The burning of 30,000 tons of coal per day would produce 52 tons per day of sulfur dioxide, 14 tons per day of particulate matter, and 250 tons per day of nitrogen oxide. Some 1,000 tons per day of limestone would be consumed by the sulfur dioxide discharge reduction equipment.
Despite the reduction in plant size, the projected capital costs grew at a startling rate mostly because of inflation, but partly because of the required environmental control equipment. The 6,000-megawatt plant was expected to cost $750 million in 1963; the 3,000-megawatt plant was expected to cost $3.5 billion in 1976. The estimated cost of the environmental protection equipment was $600 million, or about one-sixth the total investment cost.
Environmentalists attacked the project strongly because of the expected effect of the plant's emissions on visibility in some of the nation's most beautiful parks located near the Kaiparowits Plateau. Included among them are Lake Powell, the Glen Canyon recreation area, and the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Zion national parks.
However, not everyone in southern Utah shared the concerns of the environmentalists. There was substantial local support for the plant, and the citizens of Kanab, Utah, burned Robert Redford in effigy.
Red tape and politics. Although the environmentalists' opposition made the headlines, red tape was probably the proximate cause of the demise of Kaiparowits. After thirteen years of planning, several hearings, and hundreds of pages of environmental impact statement, there still remained 220 permits and authorizations to be obtained through some 42 federal, state, and local agencies. This helps explain why some firms have complained that it has become almost impossible to carry out a large project of this type.
Although it is argued that such delays can be used to protect society from environmentally costly projects such as Kaiparowits, it is also true that such delaying tactics can be used to block other projects as well. The seemingly endless red tape is costly social overhead, and it suggests that society should search for different and simpler protective measures, such as the existing severe regulations on discharges from industrial sites near national park areas. This is the approach implied in the "no significant deterioration" provisions of clean air act bills discussed in both the Senate and the House in 1976. Another solution, dear to some economists, would be the use of judiciously chosen effluent fees.
Although the demise of Kaiparowits was publicly attributed to the environmentalists, other forces may have been at play. Questions have been raised, for example, about the timing of the decision. The project was cancelled in mid-April, shortly before Californians were to vote on a nuclear moratorium proposal. Was the public announcement of the cancellation intended to help the utilities in their quest to persuade people to vote against the antinuclear initiative?
Another possibility has been mentioned: utilities have had severe problems in predicting demand owing to the recession of 1974-1975 and the effects of price rises and public conservation efforts. Because of this uncertainty, utilities either cancelled or indefinitely delayed several electric power projects in the Southwest. Kaiparowits may have been doomed by economic factors but was used as an opportunity to counterattack environmentalists for interfering with the public's need for electricity.
The future of coal. Utah state officials and planners have responded to the cancellation of Kaiparowits with proposals to move the plant away from the spectacular national parks of Utah to a remote desert region in central Utah. This may satisfy some environmentalists, but it probably will not allay all concerns about coal-fired electric power generation. Even with the advanced environmental controls planned for the Kaiparowits plant, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulates would still have been emitted in enormous quantities. These emissions would inevitably result in higher ambient sulfate concentrations and perhaps even more acidic rainfall in some areas.
In addition, other reasons are now causing increasing concern about coal-fired power plants. These include the emissions of sometimes harmful trace metallic compounds and the emission of polycyclic organic compounds, some of which are carcinogenic. Moreover, when coal is burned to produce electricity, some 65-70 percent of the energy produced is dissipated as waste heat, and vast amounts of carbon dioxide are formed. Concern over the effects of carbon dioxide and heat on weather and climate is not new, but has been accentuated by large prospective increases in coal consumption. The environmental threat from coal burning, though not as well researched, may be no less than that posed by any other energy source.
In the Kaiparowits story, those concerned with energy problems see old and familiar issues lurking in the shadows. Base load power can currently be best produced from either coal or uranium. Both of these have environmental effects and health effects that are uncomfortable to contemplate, even for those who like to think about the unthinkable. The choice between two evils only inspires an urge to turn away from such a no-win game as soon as possible and move toward energy-conserving technology investments, demand-constraining policy (such as marginal cost pricing), and solar power.
A version of this article appeared in print in the January–March 1977 issue of Resources magazine.
