Comments On The Insanity Of EPA's New Power Plant Rule
August 11, 2023/ Francis Menton
On May 23, EPA put out its long-expected proposed Rule designed to eliminate, or nearly so, all so-called “greenhouse gas” emissions from the electricity-generation sector of the economy. The proposal came with the very long title: “New Source Performance Standards for GHG Emissions from New and Reconstructed EGUs; Emission Guidelines for GHG Emissions from Existing EGUs; and Repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.” The full document is 672 pages long.
Various not-very-far-off deadlines are set, ranging from as early as 2030 for some changes to coal plants, to at the latest 2038 for the last changes to natural gas plants. But how exactly is this emissions elimination thing to be accomplished? Today a substantial majority of U.S. electricity (about 60%) comes from one or the other of those fuels; and it is inherent in the burning of hydrocarbons that you get CO2 as a product. In all those 672 pages, EPA has only two ideas for how to eliminate the carbon emissions from combustion power plants: carbon capture and storage (CCS), and “green” hydrogen. Either you must implement one of those two ideas to meet EPA’s standards by the deadline, or you must close your power plant. But here’s the problem: both of those ideas are, frankly, absurd.
The deadline for commenting on the proposed Rule was August 8, although comments have continued to pile in after that date. Many hundreds of them have been received. If you have nothing else to do for the next month or two, you can review the comments at this link.
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-8-11-q46sty6ag7s42khtoh65ifs48t17tz
