Every day we pump more and more carbon into our atmosphere. The effects are already self-evident and likely to become catastrophic. In response to this, the EPA is changing the regulations for for new coal fired and gas fired utility plants. I support these changes, but they do not go far enough.
Following up on President Obama’s pledge in June to address climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency plans next week to propose the first-ever limits on greenhouse gas emissions from newly built power plants.
But even before the proposal becomes public, experts on both sides of the issue say it faces a lobbying donnybrook and an all-but-certain court challenge. For a vast and politically powerful swath of the utility industry — operators of coal-fired plants, and the coal fields that supply them — there are fears that the rules would effectively doom construction of new coal plants far into the future.
While details of the E.P.A.’s proposal remain confidential, experts predict that it will include separate standards for carbon dioxide emissions from plants fired by natural gas and by coal. Plants using comparatively clean gas would be permitted to emit perhaps 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour, a ceiling within easy reach using modern technologies.
Coal-fired plants, meanwhile, may be allowed to emit as many as 1,400 pounds per megawatt-hour. But coal is so heavily laden with carbon that meeting even that higher limit would require operators to scrub carbon dioxide from their emissions before they reach the smokestack, and then pump it into permanent storage underground… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <NY Times>
When corporations externalize costs, they are effectively making someone who is not involved in a transaction pay for part of the costs of that transaction. In this case, those costs include the severe weather damages, increased health care costs, environmental degradation, etc. for 1,000 and 1,400 pounds per megawatt hour, respectively. Further, the regulations do not cover emissions from existing plants.
The solution is to internalize not only all carbon costs, but all pollution costs of any kind. That is, every polluter, from the driver of the most fuel efficient hybrid to the filthiest Koch Brother, must pay 100% of the costs for every ounce of their pollution. Unless consumers pay what it really costs to produce and use fossil fuel products, green energy is at an unfair disadvantage, and the free market cannot function as it should. Of course, that may drive utility costs higher than some can afford, but that human misery is also a cost of our national addiction to fossil fuel, so the fossil fuel industries must also subsidize utility service for the victims of their past abuses.
Our current fossil fuel industries operate under vulture capitalism, not free enterprise.
How about a flatulence tax on the 1%? 😉
10 Responses to “EPA: A Good Idea, but Not Far Enough”
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Don't forget to add a Stupidity Tax besides the Flatulence Tax. They might be able to circumvent the Flat.Ttax by buying up the wolrd's supply of Bean-O.
The 1% are not suupid. The sheeple who vote for the poliricuans they have bought are.
This seems only fair as their profits are at societies expense. 💡
Bingo, Richard!
A coal fired electric plant about 30 miles from my home is being shut down because the electric com won't make the investment to make it cleaner. Our electric bills are going up, again, but the twist is that it is all being blamed on Obama and the EPA, not the producers of electricity who were unwilling to invest in cleaner air.
And the only reason your utility bills are going up is that your Republican (and DINO) politicians are granting them unneeded rate hikes.
TC, I believe you are right!
Thanks Edie. There are just too many other power suppliers around for the loss of as couple old inefficient plants to matter.
Perhaps what governments should do is tie subsidy levels to clean emissions.
The oil, gas and coal industries get big federal subsidies. By tying those subsidies to actual actionable emissions goals, the companies might become better stewards, more innovative, more efficient and more profitable. Isn't that the hallmark of American entrepreneurship?
I have no problem with that. The purpose of subsidies is to encourage behavior a society wants. When Fossil fuels got their subsidies in thew 19th and earky 2oth centuries, because society needed energy and wanted it developed. Once it was there was no reason to continue, except a bought Congress.