A emissions rule on power plants requires a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and threatens to block any new coal-fired energy facilities because they cannot hope to meet the new standards without using unproven and cost-prohibitive technology.
Drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the rule is currently in the public comment phase, but free-market energy advocates see the coal industry clearly within the Obama administration’s cross hairs.
“They set an emission rate and that rate is so low that no coal-fired power plants can actually meet that goal unless they include this technology called Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS), which is incredibly expensive and doesn’t exist on any power plant in the world today. Essentially what this new rule is is a ban on new coal-fired power plants,” said Daniel Simmons, vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research and the author of the group’s response to the proposed rule.
Simmons says the new rule slashes emissions standards in half from existing levels and he believes future coal plants are not the only targets here.
“If they are able to do this and if they get away with it, they will then go after existing coal-fired power plants,” said Simmons.
According to Simmons, coal provides about 40 percent of the nation’s power supply and it is not at all clear how that would be replaced.
“That’s a heck of a lot of electricity that would have to be made up somewhere. We’re talking about dramatically increasing the cost of electricity all to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. I think that is the real goal,” said Simmons, who has not officially crunched the numbers but firmly believes if the EPA proceeds with the rule it will have disastrous effects on our pocketbooks and the economy at large.
“It could get awfully expensive. Some people might see their electricity rates double. If there’s no backup power plants, that means electricity is going to get awfully expensive when you have shortages around the country,” said Simmons. “If we want to build manufacturing in this country again, the cost of electricity is critical. Otherwise, companies are going to go places where electricity is reliable and inexpensive, and the EPA is trying to make it so that the electricity in the United States is neither reliable nor inexpensive.”
So what is CCS all about? Simmons says it’s about an unreasonable desire to clamp down on carbon dioxide.
“What EPA has tried to do is limit all of the pollution, so that it really only emits water vapor or carbon dioxide because those things don’t harm people. You don’t get sick from breathing carbon dioxide, you breathe that out. So the problem is the plants have gotten cleaner and now they’re regulating the last thing there is to regulate, which us carbon dioxide emissions,” said Simmons.
The EPA says CCS is proven effective by the fact that a plant is being built in the U.S. that intends to use the technology and another is underway in Canada. Three additional facilities are also being planned, but Simmons says the government is leaving out some very inconvenient facts.
“Every single one of these power plants are all heavily subsidized by the government,” said Simmons, who says both of the plants currently under construction have received $300 million in taxpayer subsidies. “The technology is awfully expensive because it hasn’t been tried anywhere and that’s to try to capture the carbon dioxide as it comes out after they burn the coal.”
Simmons says the power plant that will feature CCS that is being built in the U.S. started with a cost estimate of $2.4 billion but has already ballooned to $4.3 billion.
He is also agitated that the EPA is required to provide real-world examples of the technology working but only offers up future facilities as evidence.
“That’s kind of a crummy argument. Nothing says it’s going to work in the real world or even be close to being cost-effective,” said Simmons, who also takes aim at EPA’s other defense that energy companies will all choose natural gas facilities over coal-fired plants because of the cheap price of gas. The government reasons the rise of natural gas makes the future of coal plants a moot point.
“That, again, is awfully silly because the economics of natural gas can change rather quickly,” said Simmons.
While the immediate outlook seems bleak, Simmons says there are three avenues worth pursuing to stop the rule from taking effect later this year.
“EPA has a comment period on this rule for the next 60 days, where citizens can write EPA and tell them what they think of the rule. Second of all, Congress really has to change the law so it’s obvious that EPA can’t do this. The third thing is, because I believe this is ideologically driven, it will end up in the courts. It will be there for the next couple of years and hopefully the side of affordable, reliable electricity prevails,” said Simmons.