EPA Publishes First Rule Limiting Carbon Pollution From New Power Plants

[kristopher]

Source: ThinkProgress

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has, at long last, published its rule to limit carbon emissions from new power plants. The proposed rule appeared Wednesday in the Federal Register, four months after EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy announced it back in September.

The regulation mandates that all future coal plants can emit just 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour. An average U.S. coal plant currently dumps over 1,700 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for every megawatt-hour of energy it produces. The rule also covers new natural-gas fired plants. Natural gas plants, 100 megawatts or larger, will be limited to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, while smaller plants could emit no more than 1,100 pounds.

Modern combined-cycle natural gas plants are essentially already able to meet this standard. The rule, will however, make it very difficult for new coal-fired power plants to be built in the United States. Utilities will only be able to build new coal plants if they are able to capture 20 to 40 percent of the carbon they emit and store it underground. This technology is known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). Many coal advocates in Congress and fossil-fuel industry leaders have argued that the standard is designed to nix new coal plant construction, claiming that the CCS technology needed to meet the standard simply isn’t ready for commercial deployment.

In a statement, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo) said that the EPA’s rule would be damaging to the economy....

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/09/3139921/epa-carbon-rule-power-plants/

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It is about damned time!

[Turbineguy]

1. Given the carbon-hydrogen ratio of coal

That would be difficult to achieve. Perhaps some hybrid dual fuel arrangement. Still, without a push, it's not going ever to happen.

[kristopher]

3. This is the push - it's an incentive for carbon capture.

It's time for them to defecate or remove their arses from the pot.
Quoting the article:

The coal industry has been talking about “clean coal” for decades. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reports that there are 24 large-scale CCS power projects worldwide, seven of which are in the United States and Canada. Southern Company is building a 582-megawatt Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, or IGGC, plant in Kemper County, Mississippi, that will capture 65 percent of its carbon pollution. The plant should go online this year. There’s also Summit Power’s Texas Clean Energy Project, or TCEP—a 400-megawatt IGCC facility, just beginning construction, that will capture 90 percent of its carbon pollution.

And, as the article says, this will form the basis for regulating the 6500 existing plants. With increased competition from wind and solar this could rapidly shut the older plants down. The new calculus for utilities will be the price of new IGGC coal with CCS, retrofitting existing plants to the new standards, or low carbon technologies. Given pricing trends for the WindSolarWater options, the choice is going to be an easy one.

New York Governor Announces $1 Billion For Solar Energy
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/09/3139091/cuomo-big-solar/

Cuomo policy initiative is also pushing the development of micro grids. You've been working in that area (micro grids, not NY), haven't you?

[jtuck004]

2. A good idea...

too much out there.

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/apr/18-made-in-china-our-toxic-imported-air-pollution#.Us_Z4_jyOsQ

[valerief]

4. And if they don't, they'll be fined $50 a day! Cuz that's how America rolls. nt