Month: June 2014

In the shadow of Paradise Fossil Plant’s aging smokestacks, where white steam and carbon dioxide rises into the sky, outdated coal-fired generators are being replaced with one that runs on natural gas. The change in Muhlenberg County, once the nation’s top producer of coal, is emblematic of what’s been happening across the U.S. as natural gas becomes cheaper and electric utilities try to meet stiffer carbon emissions rules the Obama administration announced this week. When the $1 billion natural gas facility is finished in 2017, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest public utility, will shut down two coal-burning units at Paradise that date to the 1960s. The Environmental Protection Agency says natural gas generators produce about half the carbon dioxide of coal-fired units, and a fraction of other harmful pollutants. "It’s a fraction of what it is on a coal plant," said Billy Sabin, […]

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Georgia’s Plant Scherer is the country’s largest emitter of CO2. Associated Press Are the new federal limits on greenhouse-gas emissions going to cost a lot, as critics say, or a little, as the Environmental Protection Agency asserts? That depends on whether you think Americans are going to use more electricity in coming years or cut way back. The EPA assumes electricity consumption will drop sharply. That plays a significant role in the agency’s calculation of the cost of complying with new rules to slash the carbon emissions from the utility industry. The industry accounts for about a third of all U.S. emissions, most of it from burning coal. The agency forecasts that the effort to cut those emissions by 30% from their 2005 level will cost utilities and their customers $8.8 billion a year in 2030. That is less than the cost of other recent EPA rules, such as […]

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Georgia’s Plant Scherer is the country’s largest emitter of CO2. Associated Press Are the new federal limits on greenhouse-gas emissions going to cost a lot, as critics say, or a little, as the Environmental Protection Agency asserts? That depends on whether you think Americans are going to use more electricity in coming years or cut way back. The EPA assumes electricity consumption will drop sharply. That plays a significant role in the agency’s calculation of the cost of complying with new rules to slash the carbon emissions from the utility industry. The industry accounts for about a third of all U.S. emissions, most of it from burning coal. The agency forecasts that the effort to cut those emissions by 30% from their 2005 level will cost utilities and their customers $8.8 billion a year in 2030. That is less than the cost of other recent EPA rules, such as […]

Click here to view full article at online.wsj.com

Republicans pounced on President Barack Obama ‘s plan to reduce carbon emissions by 30% by 2030 as a job-killing sop to his environmental donors, while Democrats ran the gamut from embracing the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to quickly backing away from it. The split between the unified GOP and split Democratic Party exemplifies the differences in the two parties in 2014. Republicans are rock solid in opposition to green regulations that may slow the economy—and more broadly to most anything Mr. Obama proposes. But Democrats find themselves choosing from Mr. Obama’s policies like an a la carte menu—embracing the ones that work back home while criticizing the ones that don’t. On the Republican side Monday, House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said "the president’s plan is nuts," while Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) called the proposed rule "a dagger in the heart of the American middle class, […]

Click here to view full article at online.wsj.com