The mayor of Beulah - the largest town in Coal Country - said he was slightly more worried going into a summit on carbon dioxide than going out.

The Public Service Commission convened Friday's summit in Bismarck to clarify what effect a proposed cap and trade program to limit CO2 emitted into the atmosphere will have on the energy industry in the state.

Beulah and other Coal Country communities enjoy the state's highest average incomes and have for decades had stable economies because of King Coal.

While the summit didn't presage a doomsday for lignite, to a man, industry spokesmen said the cost of doing business with CO2 emissions will clearly rock King Coal's world and put the squeeze on everyday North Dakotans.

It's the future Mayor Darrell Bjerke found himself more worried about. "This pretty much limits growth," he said.

Coal-fired plants emit 40 percent of all CO2 in the country. They're being targeted as a means to prevent more buildup of a greenhouse gas scientists say is warming the planet.

The primary speaker was Andrew Keeler, a professor at Ohio State University who served on climate change policy teams under both presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

The short answer to the burning question of what carbon capping and trading means, or even what it will look like: It's too soon to know.

Coincidentally, the summit was held at the same time the federal Environmental Protection Agency declared that CO2 and five other greenhouse gases endanger public health. That amounted to a first step toward regulation through federal clean air laws.

Congress seems more bent toward capping the amount of CO2 that can be emitted and allowing CO2 allowances to be traded, or possibly auctioned.

While the devil will be in the details, Keeler said capping carbon will force a reduction and lead to innovation and research.

Coal-fired power plants could be much more expensive to operate if plant operators have to pay somewhere from $20 to $100 per ton emitted for their carbon "allowance."

In Basin Electric Power Cooperative's case, that would amount to nearly $500 million a year at the low end, said its top executive Ron Harper.

"That's huge," Harper said. In North Dakota alone, that would amount to nearly $100 million.

Montana-Dakota Utilities spokesman Dave Goodin said his company projects homeowners' electrical bills would increase 40 percent, or $350 a year, even under the most modest $20 per ton proposal.

Keeler said how much consumers get crunched depends on how the allowance dollars get spent.

"If it goes to ratepayers (in a rebate form), that makes a dramatic difference," he said.

If there was a single message from industry is was to slow down.

Dave Loer, top executive for Minnkota Power Cooperative, said it makes more sense to impose a modest $1 per ton tax on carbon and invest the revenue in research and development. "We have no technology," he said.

Harper agreed. "Let's put the money toward a solution," he said, even as Basin is planning to invest more than $400 million in the first commercial-scale project to remove CO2 from power plant flue gases and sequester it through injection into oil fields.

PSC commissioner Tony Clark said the federal approach to restricting CO2 for now is different from sulfur dioxide regulations, which tacked on enough time to allow technology to catch up with deadlines.

"Here there's no technology. There's no choice to make, to install, or get allowances," Clark said.

Brad Crabtree, representing the Great Plains Institute, which is working to develop a grassroots energy consensus, including on climate change, said the industry needs to be honest about what's commercially viable.

"History shows it costs less to innovate than industry says it will," Crabtree said. He said gasifying coal, a process that sequesters CO2, is a viable alternative.

Keeler said he thinks high-level talk of setting 2050 as a goal for reducing current CO2 emissions by 80 percent is too far out there.

"If we want to make progress over the next 20 to 25 years, it's important to start now," he said. "It has to be global or we're all wasting time."

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 701-748-5511 or lauren@;westriv.com.)