A report issued last week by a coalition of New England environmental and public policy groups named Public Service of New Hampshire as one of the region’s top carbon dioxide polluters.

Compiled by the National Association of State Public Interest Research Groups, the Frontier Group and a number of environmental groups, the report titled “More Heat Than Light” identified the most polluting power plants in the region and the companies responsible for them, in the region. According to the report, two of PSNH’s coal-burning power plants, Merrimack Station in Bow and Newington Station in Newington, ranked 15th and 23rd respectively on the list based on total tons of carbon dioxide pollution emitted.

According to the report, “The 50 dirtiest power plants in the region emitted 80 percent of the sector’s global warming pollution while only producing 45 percent of the region’s energy.”

“Companies such as PSNH, who are so dependent on fossil fuels like coal and oil for their generation mix, make a disproportionate contribution to global warming pollution,” said Melissa Bernardin of Clean Water Action, one of the report’s local sponsors.

The company was also named as the sixth “most polluting” power company in the region. According to the report, 10 of the 72 power companies operating in New England were responsible for 60 percent of all global warming-related pollution in the region in 2004, producing more than 70 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution.

Ian Wilson, a spokesman for PSNH, said the company follows all state and federal pollution regulations.
“The company … and our power plants are in full compliance with all federal and state environmental regulations. We are proactive about these regulations, and we work hard to make sure our plants stay in line,” he said.

Wilson did not comment on the numbers presented in the report but said state and federal authorities do not currently regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

“They haven’t set emission limits or standards by which to shoot for,” he said. “We’re aware of it, but it’s not yet regulated, and one of the challenges we have with CO2 is that there’s no available technology at this point to reliably control CO2 emissions from our power plants,” he said.

Because there are no regulations, power companies like PSNH are not required to report carbon dioxide emission levels. The report’s authors used fuel consumption and electricity generation data for power plants in region; those numbers were then calculated to determine emission amounts using equations set by the federal Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.

Bernardin hopes the report will also draw attention to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a plan by lawmakers in the region to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by using a “cap and trade” program. Under such a plan, there would be a regional limit on the amount of carbon dioxide produced by power plants. Facilities would be given “credits” for the amount of pollution they produce; power plants that generate less carbon dioxide would be able to sell their credits to plants that create more pollution.

“The carbon cap should be set at an ambitious level so that it would drive changes in electric generating and consumption in the region,” Bernardin said. “The trading program … shouldn’t give away credits … but require companies to buy credits to pollute.”

Wilson said PSNH is taking steps to reduce emissions. He cited the elimination of a coal boiler and the addition of a woodchip burner at the Schiller Station power plant in Portsmouth as part of the company’s progress to renewable energy sources.

Wood is considered “carbon neutral,” according to Wilson, and will eliminate “tens of thousands of tons” of carbon dioxide emissions when the burner comes online next summer. The company is also planning on building a wind farm in Lempster.

The report is available online at www.newenglandclimate.org.