“More Power”

Love him or hate him, S.C. Sen. Mick Mulvaney knows how to boil things down to their essence.

“I care about the environment,” he told us once. “I also care that the lights turn on when my kids flip the switch.”

Such is the dilemma faced by the state of South Carolina, which is rapidly moving towards a debilitating energy shortage – one that could cost our state thousands of jobs at a time when we can least afford to give ground on the employment front.

Already saddled with a burdensome tax code, excessive regulatory climate, anti-competitive legal system and the worst government schools in America, the last thing we need is to add the possibility of rolling brownouts and even blackouts to our industrial recruitment “pitch.”

And so, like Captain Kirk on the deck of the Enterprise screaming for Scotty to give him “more power,” state leaders are looking for a solution that will keep the lights on.

“If we can’t guarantee something as basic as power, how are we supposed to be competitive in marketing our state to emerging high-tech manufacturers? To say nothing of providing for our people and protecting the businesses we have?” S.C. Manufacturers’ Alliance President Lewis Gossett said in a recent Made In SC magazine article.

That’s a good question – two good ones, actually.

The short-term answer to both is a new coal-fired plant scheduled to be built in Kingsburg, S.C., which would bridge the “power gap” until 2020, when two new nuclear reactors are scheduled to come online in Jenkinsville, S.C.

And when we say “short-term answer,” we meant to say the “only answer.”

Well, unless you’ve got some other way to come up with the 525 additional megawatts our state will need by 2013, or the 835 additional megawatts it will need by 2015.

By our state-owner utility’s count, without the new coal plant they’ll be running short of capacity by 370 megawatts in 2012. Which would mean our state would have to pay money it doesn’t have to buy power from other states, assuming they have any to spare.

And while we’re not going to insult your intelligence by spitting out the industry talking points about “clean coal,” we have previously endorsed this plant’s construction for the simple reason that there is no other option available that will produce the power we need in the time we need it produced.

Unless, of course, we can find away to harness our founding editor’s sex appeal.

Interestingly enough, though, over $300 million of the Kingsburg facility’s price tag was devoted to environmental protection technology, which will remove 98% of its sulfur dioxide, 90% of nitrous oxide emissions and 92% of mercury.

That means the plant will emit no more than 69 pounds of mercury a year, which is substantially below the EPA standard of 115 pounds per year.

So there is such a thing as “clean coal?”

Who knows – but even if the Kingsburg plant was a Chinese-style “belcher of filth into the sky,” what else are we going to do to bridge the gap?

According to the Greenies – whose kooky opposition to the plant is being spearheaded by Democrat Zen Master Bud Ferrillo – we should do nothing.

Well, “conserve.”

And don’t get us wrong – conservation is vitally important.

In fact, there’s no excuse whatsoever for state government not to offer families and businesses the same sort of environmentally-friendly incentives that have proven so successful in other states, like the bill on tax credits for energy-efficient appliances introduced last year by Sen. Glenn McConnell.

There’s also no excuse for people not buying the right light bulbs, using tank-less water-heaters or boosting their insulation factor.

But as R.E.M. once sang, you “can’t get there from here” – at least not if you’re South Carolina, and certainly not using conservation alone, anyway.

Nor will solar, wind, biodiesel or any other alternative fuels be ready by the time we need them.

Our state’s population has grown by 15% over the last decade, folks, and this influx of new people has coincided with the societal influx of dozens of new electronic gadgets and household electric devices – meaning energy demand is spiking at record levels.

That phenomenon, combined with crappy homebuilding and (surprise!) poor state planning has put us in the box we’re in.

How soon could we see brownouts? As soon as 2015, according to some estimates.

And yet the Greenies – led by the ethically-challenged Ann Timberlake – are bragging about the millions of “out-of-state” dollars they plan on spending to defeat both the Kingsburg coal plant and the Jenkinsville reactors.

Should they make good on those threats, watch out.

Look, we respect where the Greenies (all but Timberlake, anyway) are coming from and we wholeheartedly endorse South Carolina’s efforts to wean itself off of coal, but the fact is we’re playing a zero sum game.

Either we build the plant, or people need to start buying candles.

Also, we go back to the fundamental word of the day, which is J-O-B-S.

In addition to helping keep the power running so that we can retain and recruit jobs, simply building the plant itself will help the state’s economy, creating 200 new full-time positions and 9,000 construction jobs.

Comments