Co-Firing Coal with Wood Pellets in the U.S. Coal Power Stations: A Risky Solution?

Co-firing coal with biomass remains popular in the United States, despite hostility of President Trump towards climate policy. A white paper recently recommends him to implement a policy that promotes co-firing in order to sustain the U.S. coal and forestry industries. Co-firing would have positive effects for American jobs in these industries, and the associated CO2 abatements would only be considered as a by-product that would help the United States to go back to a more ambitious climate policy if needed in the future. Such a co-firing strategy could be considered by President Trump as an unbinding way to manage the climate risk from outside the Paris Agreement, which would insure the vitality of old industries that were at stake during the last presidential campaign. However, this may be risky for the climate in the long run if co-firing steadily displaces investments in carbon-free technologies over time. In this case, the CO2 emissions from electricity would be higher in the long run compared with what they would be under a true energy transition in which true renewables dominate the fleet of power plants. This is something policy makers should remember when considering the opportunity to give specific support to co-firing.