The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants as early as Tuesday, according to several people briefed on the proposal. The move could end the construction of conventional coal-fired facilities in the United States.

The proposed rule — years in the making and approved by the White House after months of review — will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO2 per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

 These power plants help tell a complex story of what happens when regulations written in Washington ripple through the real economy. Some jobs are lost. Others are created.

Costly controls

Industry officials and environmentalists said in interviews that the rule, which comes on the heels of tough new requirements that the Obama administration imposed on mercury emissions and cross-state pollution from utilities within the past year, dooms any proposal to build a coal-fired plant that does not have costly carbon controls.

“This standard effectively bans new coal plants,” said Joseph Stanko, who heads government relations at the law firm Hunton and Williams and represents several utility companies. “So I don’t see how that is an ‘all of the above’ energy policy.”

The rule provides an exception for coal plants that are already permitted and beginning construction within a year. There are about 20 coal plants now pursuing permits; two of them are federally subsidized and would meet the new standard with advanced pollution controls.

An administration official who asked not to be identified because the rule hasn’t been announced wrote in an e-mail Monday night: “This standard provides a clear and certain path forward for industry and the important domestic energy sources they rely on” for electricity generation.

President Obama does not mention coal as a key component of the nation’s energy supply in speeches about his commitment to exploiting oil and gas reserves and renewable sources.

The proposal does not cover existing plants, although utility companies have announced that they plan to shut down more than 300 boilers, representing more than 42 gigawatts of electricity generation — nearly 13 percent of the nation’s coal-fired electricity — rather than upgrade them with pollution-control technology.

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said the new rule “captures the end of an era” during which coal provided most of the nation’s electricity. It currently generates about 40 percent of U.S. electricity.

The power sector accounts for 40 percent of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, and Brune said it is “the only place where we’re making significant progress” in curbing greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change, adding that “at the same time, it’s not sufficient.”

Cheap natural gas is also contributing to the closure of aging coal-fired plants, as many utilities switch over to gas plants, which produce about half the carbon emissions.

“Gas is contributing to the closure of these plants,” Dominion Resources chief executive Thomas F. Farrell II said in an interview last week. Farrell, who also chairs the Edison Electric Institute, the utility trade association, added: “It’s not all EPA. It’s a combination of low gas prices and EPA working at the same time.”

National Mining Association spokesman Luke Popovich said the proposal shows that Obama is following through on his pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through means other than legislation.

Bypassing Congress

“After Congress refused to pass carbon caps, the administration insisted there were other ways to skin the cat, and this is another way — by setting a standard deliberately calculated to drive affordable coal out of the electricity market,” Popovich said.

Conrad Schneider, advocacy director for the Clean Air Task Force, said the proposed rule will ensure a cut in the nation’s carbon output even if gas prices spike. He cited four planned coal plants that would capture part of their carbon emissions and store them, largely by injecting them into depleted wells to enhance oil recovery. “We need regulatory signals and economic incentives” to make these projects economical, Schneider said.

The proposal will provide some flexibility, allowing super-efficient coal plants an exemption for the first decade of operation before requiring them to reduce their carbon emissions by more than 50 percent.

The EPA rule, called the New Source Performance Standard, will be subject to public comment for at least a month before being finalized, but its backers said they were confident that the White House will usher it into law before Obama’s term ends.

“The Obama administration is committed to moving forward with this,” said Nathan Willcox, federal global warming program director for the advocacy group Environment America. “They’re committed to doing it this, and we’re committed to helping them do it.”

broodstar wrote:Anyone notice how there is more pollution in communist countries. lol

China didn't look like that during the Olympics. I think they made everyone breathe in all the pollution and hold it in until the world left.

sebster wrote:I stumbled onto this article today, on the history of leaded petrol.

http://grist.org/pollution/get-the-lead-out-have-we-already-forgotten-this-lesson/

"Public-health advocates and greens pushed and pushed for decades, often futilely, to get the government to take action. When EPA finally cranked up efforts to do something about it, the agency was viciously attacked. Industry shills said it was an agenda to control Americans’ lives, driven by scientists who wanted research money and a cabal of extreme environmentalists. They said there were no viable alternatives to lead and the regulations would raise gas prices and destroy the economy. They paid their own scientists to produce counter-evidence. They flooded politicians with money. Over time, EPA weathered the assault and put standards into place — a “phasedown” program in 1973, followed by stronger standards in 1982, 1985, and 1995.

Since then, scientists have discovered that lead is far more harmful than originally suspected. Implementing the standards was cheaper than anyone, even advocates, had projected, and the effects greater and more beneficial. Now lead has been removed from gasoline virtually worldwide."

That's pretty much the history of environmental reform. An issue is studied, and a scientific consensus is formed, leading to a push for regulation. Government moves slowly, concerned about special interests and voter backlash. When they do move, industry attacks government bodies, and people for reasons I will never, ever manage to understand, look past the obvious vested interests of these parties and believe their spurious arguments. Eventually the industry is reformed, and everyone looks back and wonders why it was so hard for the last generation to do something that was so obvious.

In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. This system was the eventual cause of his death when he was accidentally entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55.

Ouze wrote:I don't have a problem with this. You want an environment where energy producers are free to pollute as they wish without limit, feel free to move to China.



I think it's in there, somewhere.

sebster wrote:That's pretty much the history of environmental reform. An issue is studied, and a scientific consensus is formed, leading to a push for regulation. Government moves slowly, concerned about special interests and voter backlash. When they do move, industry attacks government bodies, and people for reasons I will never, ever manage to understand, look past the obvious vested interests of these parties and believe their spurious arguments. Eventually the industry is reformed, and everyone looks back and wonders why it was so hard for the last generation to do something that was so obvious.

reds8n wrote: One of my occasional drinking friends is the great ( or perhaps great great) grandson/similar of one Thomas Midgley jr, the chemist who solved the "plinking" problem in engines by adding lead.

His other pioneering work was to discover and use the first CFCs in fridges.

Even later

In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. This system was the eventual cause of his death when he was accidentally entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.

Easy E wrote:Yup. That's why more people should be required to learn some history. It is amazingly eye-opening.

sebster wrote:The first thing you learn from history is that no-one learns from history.

Frazzled wrote:

Ouze wrote:I don't have a problem with this. You want an environment where energy producers are free to pollute as they wish without limit, feel free to move to China.



I think it's in there, somewhere.

You'll have aproblem when there's rolling brownouts because not enough plants are generating power...

GalacticDefender wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Ouze wrote:I don't have a problem with this. You want an environment where energy producers are free to pollute as they wish without limit, feel free to move to China.



I think it's in there, somewhere.

You'll have aproblem when there's rolling brownouts because not enough plants are generating power...

Seriously? It is a bad thing that factories are now supposed to make their emmissions cleaner, and have less sh*t going into the atmosphere? This bill does not mean that the factorys will have to shut down, it just means they have to "clean up their act" a bit. If we have cleaner air, and a healthier ecosystem, then I think this is a good thing. And I highly doubt we will notice any negative effects. Other than the plants which will still be in operation (nearly all of them), there are other sources of power as well, such as nuclear. There will be no "rolling brownouts".

Frazzled wrote:You'll have aproblem when there's rolling brownouts because not enough plants are generating power...

Ouze wrote:

Frazzled wrote:You'll have aproblem when there's rolling brownouts because not enough plants are generating power...

While I would agree that situation would be a big problem, it also would be a nearly unprecedented one. The brownouts in recently memory had a lot less to do with "not enough plants generating power" and a lot more to do with "artificial manipulation of the energy market" by companies like Enron.

Frazzled wrote:Thats wrong, but don't let facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

Frazzled wrote:Thats price manipulation. That didn't impact the fact that California had brownouts becvause they haven't built a power plant in decades.

Ouze wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Thats price manipulation. That didn't impact the fact that California had brownouts becvause they haven't built a power plant in decades.

It wasn't tree huggers, Obama, or the EPA that colluded to shut down plants in California during peak hours to drive up the costs of electricity.