Get ready for more energy shortages. The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) power plant rule was finalized last week, and it is bad news for America’s energy supply.
Under the new rule, all coal plants that plan to stay open beyond 2039 and any new natural gas plant would have to cut or capture 90% of their carbon dioxide emissions by 2032.
Plants that expect to retire by 2039 face less stringent standards but still would have to capture some emissions. And while current natural gas plants are safe for the time being, any new plant will have to adhere to these regulations.
Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is the idea that CO2 can be captured, transported and then stored in underground wells. But despite decades of research and development, CCS remains extremely expensive and largely unsuccessful. Only a handful of functioning CCS facilities operate worldwide, and they only capture a small fraction of what experts had projected.
Bottom line: These projects are nowhere near ready for wide-scale adoption and implementation.
But the lack of progress is not the only impediment.
Less than a month ago, the House Climate Solutions Caucus sent a letter to the head of the EPA expressing deep concerns about the underground CO2 storage permitting delays which “are actively crippling U.S. efforts to deploy vital clean energy and carbon capture infrastructure alike.”
It is vital that the infrastructure is made available in time frames that align with decarbonization goals. Now that the power plant rule is finalized, the permit backlog is only sure to worsen if no action is taken.
The EPA is setting power plants up for failure. But perhaps this is the plan all along?
Read the full article here.
Kristen Walker is a policy analyst for the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. For more information about the Institute, visit www.theamericanconsumer.org or follow us on Twitter @ConsumerPal.