[dohboi]

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/06 ... 2-cpp.html

Thanks to Graeme for pointing this out on another thread. It is big enough news that I deemed it worthy of its own thread (though mods may differ, as is their right).

EPA proposes rule for nationwide 30% cut in GHG from existing power plants by 2030 relative to 2005

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the already widely-discussed (albeit without much detail) “Clean Power Plan” proposal, which mandates a national average 30% cut in greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants from 2005 levels by 2030. Power plants accounted for 32% (2,064 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent) of all domestic greenhouse gas emissions in the United States in 2012, according to the EPA.

Specifically, the EPA is proposing state-specific rate-based goals for carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector, as well as emission guidelines for states to use in developing plans to attain the state-specific goals...

I would love to hear what others think about this major initiative. Will it survive legal challenges? Will it be implemented? What will be the costs, benefits...? Is this the beginning of other and even bolder initiatives, or is this it? Will there be strong enough push back from industry and Repugs to make it a political liability?

[Longtimber]

We must stupid, but hay, someone voted these fudging crooks into power, Significant reductions already since 2005 due to NG switch, demand destruction and conversation and DGPV is near an inflection point. Have they shown us the numbers they've cooked up? Gov stats are not know to reflect reality. Every business I know fudges numbers on those gov commerce reporting forms. They can't tax behind the meter PV ... yet, but they will try.. ha !

[Timo]

This action may get India and China and other major greenhouse gas emmiters to admit they now have no excuse but to step up and follow suit. The world looks to America for leadership, and now we've provided it. The reductions plan is largely left up to the states to implement, giving each and every state the flexibility to design their own system according to what works best for them. There is also national support for this action, EVEN IF IT RESULTS IN HIGHER ELECTICITY RATES. Most Americans, though certainly not all, take climate change very seriously, and are frustrated that there is no national attention being paid to the threats posed by this life-altering scenario. America is finally doing something to stem the tide. It may not work as planned, but continuing with the status quo would definately be worse. The US Chamber of Commerce complained that even the emmisions reductions we've already achieved would result in job losses. Well, those job losses didn't happen. Those are just scare tactics to frighten people into supporting coal, and continuing the destruction of the planet because JOBS! Our recent history in reducing greenhouse gas emmisions prove otherwise. Alter the subsidies for energy production to renewables and we'll reduce emmissions AND produce millions of jobs in the new industries. If you think money is the reason not to do anything, RIP in the hell you create with your selfish ignorance.

[basil_hayden]

Administrations come and go....

[Longtimber]

Clearly transporting / burning rocks around the planet is a path to Hell. I lived in Germany in the 80's and witnessed acid rain eat the forest and buildings. but it sure looks like they are trying to confuse matters or take credit for events on the 2005 starting point. 30% from 2005-2030 equals -what- from 2014-2030? Where are we going? Might we blow past the 30% by 2030 at current reduction rates so they/we are actually not improving from current rate of decarbonization ?? Hoping someone would show some graphs. How about a 2% reduction in Coal tonnage annually ?

[Timo]

Administrations come and go....

Administrations - yes. Habitable planets - Nope! This is the only one we've got. Let's stop destroying it before it's too late.

[dohboi]

Good questions, Lt. This is a couple years old and from NRDC, so take it for what it's worth, but it may help:



http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dlash ... n_fal.html

Eyeballing it, it looks like CO2 emissions from coal plants went from about 2.2 billion metric tons to about 1.7 between 2005 and 2012, so about a 23% decrease. (Someone check my maths, please!)

Yeah, that certainly doesn't make a goal of a 30% decrease from 2005 levels by 2030 look very...ambitious!

Am I missing something?

ETA:

This confirms my "about 23% decrease" from 2005 to 2012 estimate:



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... t-in-2013/

But it also shows a slight uptick in the last couple years, so maybe about 20% cumulative reduction from 2005 till now. At that rate, we should be able to get to 40% reduction by 2025! Or if you take the earlier rate, to about 50% by about 2020!

Comedy? Farce? Tragedy? Tragi-come-farc-edy?

Even if you take the dashed black line of all ff plants, the reduction has been 10% over about the last 9 years, so the great goal is to just continuing the about the level of reductions we have been getting without any great goal setting. (~12% reduction in 7 years if you stop at 2012, which would give you 36% reduction by 2026.)

Of course, if Baby Bush were in, he'd doubtless be aiming for 30% increase!

But then again, at the same time we are continuing to export great gobs of coal to China. Anyone have the latest figures on that? ROCKMAN, where are you?

[Longtimber]

Above % Graph is for US... WP posters credited it to shale gas. Conventional gas just get's no respect
The latest uptick must be even larger globally. Shall we not forget Japan's 63 Offline Fission Reactors and soon all in Germany. That's an additional demand for all energy sources/steams/markets with carbon molecules attached.

[KaiserJeep]

First of all, I think the EPA lacks the authority to mandate a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Yes I am aware of the Supreme Court ruling, but this topic was addressed and rejected by Congress, who denied the EPA the power to mandate carbon dioxide levels. I fear that (whatever your opinion of this EPA regulation) that the process of imposing it has damaged our process of government.

Now having said that, if we reduce our power plant emissions further from the existing 23% reduction all the way to 30%, it is my understanding that this change alone might have as much as 0.01 F degree cooling effect on the planet. That figure is arrived at by apportioning the reduced carbon dioxide against the worldwide total of man-made emissions, and by assuming that a GHG climate model that I actually disbelieve in is correct.

I also have to point out that the potential 0.01 F degree temperature reduction assumes that the coal remains in the ground un-burned. If instead of burning said coal in (relatively clean) US power plants, we export it to other countries where it gets burned in their (relatively dirty) power plants, then this action will result in something more than 0.01 F degree of warming. I mention this possibility because that is the actual track record of US environmental legislation, when we shut down an industry in the US that is not clean enough for our tastes, the jobs and the industry itself are exported along with the pollution, and net harm is done to the planet and to the US economy. NOT ONCE has any example set by American environmental legislation translated into cleaner industry in the country that produces the same goods to export to us. (If you can find an example, let me know, I can't find any, and admit that does not prove that such examples do not exist.)

Estimates about the eventual impact to the cost of electricity at the retail level range widely but seem to center somewhere around +30%. This is calculated by assuming that the least costly power generation (coal) is replaced by more costly renewable energy sources such as solar PV and wind.

You can also assume price increases for all US goods and services that depend upon electricity for manufacturing or delivery. For example you might use an extra $0.50 worth of electricity getting an MRI test, which is a minor impact that probably won't change the consumer price. However, most of the cost in making aluminum from ore is electricity, and virgin aluminum is likely to increase in cost by 25% or more. Food processing and packaging depend heavily on electricity and might cause the price of groceries to do a +10%. These are estimates based on casual readings on the web, feel free to dispute them. My bottom line is that this will have a negative impact on our lives that we will feel as reduced disposable income for those of us still working, and an increase in poverty and misery for those on fixed incomes or entitlements.

I am not a fan of coal burning, and I never have been. The estimates that I believe say that coal power kills 13,000 Americans annually, and up to 3 million worldwide. I figure this change, by forcing the retirement of the dirtiest US power plants, may save as many as 3,000 lives annually in the USA. However if we export the coal and it is burned elsewhere, there will be a net increase in lives lost.

The last impact of this regulation that comes to mind is that coal burning is Big Business in the USA. The numbers of jobs lost in coal mining, railroad transport of coal, and in existing coal power plants, less a modest increase in employment in the solar PV and wind power fields to replace the lost power, amount to an estimated -250,000 jobs, mostly taken from union member Democrats. There will be some political backlash against the Democratic party, and whether or not the political benefits of this action outweigh that serious cost, I could not begin to guess.

Overall, my assessment is that this is a mixed bag of both benefits and pain. But the matter of 3000 American lives saved every year causes me to give this proposal the benefit of any doubt.

[Graeme]

D, Thanks for acknowledging my post. I could have posted this story in the other thread but I'll put it here.

6 Coal State Lawmakers Who Are In Favor Of The EPA’s New Rule On Carbon Emissions

The argument that the Obama administration is waging a “War on Coal” has gained new momentum with Monday’s release of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new rule on CO2 emissions from power plants. The rule attracted outrage from lawmakers, particularly those in the states most reliant on coal. But not all coal state politicians — or even all coal-heavy utilities — view the rule as an attack on their interests.

In fact, lawmakers in coal-heavy states across the country have gone so far as to laud the rule, which ranks among the most significant actions a president has ever taken on climate change. Here are a few of these lawmakers’ responses:

1. Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT): Montana generates 53 percent of its electricity from coal and has the largest coal reserves in the U.S., producing about 43 million tons of coal each year. But coal wasn’t the Montana resource Sen. Tester highlighted in his response to the EPA rule.

“Agriculture and outdoor recreation power Montana’s economy,” he said. “From floods to fires to beetle-killed trees, we know the consequences of the changing climate. State-based solutions that limit the effects of climate change will keep these industries and our economy strong. This responsible proposal gives states flexibility to balance the needs of today with the demands of tomorrow.”

2. Sen. John Walsh (D-MT) also said he thought reducing CO2 was a good idea, and that he would “be listening to Montanans in the coming months to make sure that any final rule from the EPA is right for Montana’s future and for Montana’s jobs now.”

thinkprogress

[alokin]

It only addresses the coal fired power plants. Doesn't that mean more gas fired power plants = more coal seam gas and more methane emitted?
I don't know the American building codes, but I think the insulation standards are far lower than in Europe, this would create jobs too. Or the public transport, I was told that it is even worse than in Australia.
Before thinking about how we can generate energy with less emissions we should think how we can safe energy.

[Plantagenet]

This is just another Obama wimpout.

It will do little to nothing to stop climate change.


You mean I did't stop the seas from rising?

[Graeme]

We are the world

Applying a dollar sign to death, disease and catastrophic climate change is a macabre business. Nonetheless, the cold-eyed math of cost-benefit analysis is the biggest contribution economics can bring to the often emotional questions that environmental and other types of regulations raise. In deciding whether a new rule does more good than harm, the Environmental Protection Agency routinely applies a cost-benefit test. Its sweeping propsal to cap greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants appears to pass with flying colours. By the EPA's reckoning, the rule will, by 2030, cost just $7.3 billion to $8.8 billion a year (in 2011 dollars), while producing benefits worth $55 billion to $93 billion per year.

But this calculation rests on a novel calculation of the benefits of reducing greenhouse gases that takes regulatory policy into contentious new territory. As calculated, the costs are borne entirely by Americans, but the benefits accrue to the whole world. Using American benefits only, the benefits of reduced carbon dioxide (CO2) would be far smaller. The remaining benefits would be so-called co-benefits, which are basically good things that happen that weren't the main intent of the rule. Those co-benefits come from reductions in soot that are a by product of sulfur dioxide emissions (SO2) and rest heavily on assumptions as opposed to hard scientific evidence.

economist

[Graeme]

EPA's New Power Sector Climate Rules: A Brewing Political and Legal Storm

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed requiring all fifty states to adopt greenhouse gas controls for their existing power plants. And EPA went further, proposing that, together, states would have to cut U.S. power sector emissions by 30% by 2030. (You can see a chart of how much each state would have to cut here.)

These rules face strong political and legal opposition and will not go into action until 2020 at earliest. Their ultimate fate will depend on whether President Obama’s administration stands behind them, whether the public elects a new President that supports them, and whether the courts agree that EPA has authority to cap state greenhouse gas emissions. Their immediate impact is twofold: 1) it tells other countries that there’s a chance the U.S. could commit to strong greenhouse gas rules at 2015 negotiations in Paris; and 2) it sets the stage for an epic political and legal struggle over energy policy in the United States.

What happened?

theenergycollective

[ChilPhil1986]

My worry with the reductions in coal emissions will actually be the reduction of sulphur dioxide emissions. Geologists who have studied volcanoes know that sulphur dioxide works to reflect heat from the sun back into space, rather than capturing it. Coal fired power plants that don't sequester their sulphur emissions work similarly. One of the theories behind why the average global temperature didn't rise all that much in the first decade of the new millenium while CO2 and methane concentrations have marched steadily upwards was because China emitted so much sulphur that it all cancelled out, in addition to the oceans absorbing the majority of the remaining heat. That's from David Wasdell of the Apollo-Gaia Project.

Obviously, I'm not advocating a return to acid rain over all major cities, but if China does really follow suit in their coal policy, it would be a huge mistake.

No, I don't hate China. No, I don't think they should have to walk outside into a pea soup fog every day. No, I don't invest in coal. I just don't think limiting coal emissions means anything in the long run toward the stated aim of mitigating climate change. If anything, it will be taking the brakes off.

[dohboi]

CP, keep in mind that you don't have to use coal pps to emit sulfur into the atmosphere. I'm not advocating doing it in other ways, but burning dirty coal is a pretty inefficient way to inject aerosols into the system, if that is your goal.

[KaiserJeep]

Like AGW itself, the sulfur cooling is an unproven theory when it comes to actual temperature change.

One thing about sulfur that is not a theory is that acid rain from sulfur emissions defoliates forest, etches stone buildings, and causes widespread pH changes in lakes and oceans. This is why the USA cleaned up stack emissions in the 1970's.

[dohboi]

KJ, please don't turn this thread into a debate about AGW science. Go start your own thread if you want to pursue such idiocy.

[ROCKMAN]

Dohboi - "Yeah, that certainly doesn't make a goal of a 30% decrease from 2005 levels by 2030 look very...ambitious! Am I missing something?"

I'm sure you appreciate a major component of reduced US coal consumption is competition from NG. For the moment let's ignore the fact that there's been a very big increase in GHG production from US coal that's been exported and burned in other countries. Very brave of the gov't to PROPOSE turning further away from coal at a time when the inflation adjusted price of NG today is at the level it was 25 years ago. http://inflationdata.com/articles/infla ... as-prices/

What happens if NG prices increase three fold to the level they reached just 6 years ago? Coal power in the United States accounted for 39% of the country's electricity production in 2013. The US is currently very dependent upon coal to keep the economy running. It might have lost some ground to NG but the US still has to burn coal to function. The US is the second largest coal burning country behind China (which has increased burning US coal by more than 500% in recent years) and burns 3X as much as the this largest consumer India.

Folks can hype all this "US is turning away from coal" BS all they want but it doesn't change the fact that even with record low prices for alternatives like NG the US is one of the largest sources of coal produced GHG. And in the future when NG prices eventually increase the expectation is that the US will turn even further away from coal??? Oh sure...the US has a long history of putting environmental concerns above the economy. LOL.

[Tanada]

Have no fear, all that coal will still be mined and burned, it will just get shipped from the USA to China and India before it gets burned.