Earth Day 2023
MAGA rubes love to bitch about electric cars actually being powered by coal - it's one their favorite things in the whole wide world. So I'm wondering if they'll stick with it, or move on to something else as we try to keep things from getting completely outa hand.
I think most of us have finally begun to grok the part about how they don't give a fuck about reality - they just try to bull their way through, and truth be damned.
My guess is that they'll go after the obvious point that it's likely to make the power companies mad because they have to do stuff they're not used to doing (ie: making their emissions less deadly), while not doing some of the shitty things they've always been able to get away with (ie: externalizing the costs by leaving their mess for communities and local governments have to clean it all up and take care of the people harmed by their shitty behavior).
We'll see.
A long-awaited climate rule, which is sure to face legal challenges, would push plants that burn fossil fuels to use carbon-capture technology or hydrogen
The Biden administration soon will unveil a proposal to require power plants to nearly eliminate their greenhouse-gas emissions by 2040, a second try to regulate one of the country’s biggest contributors to climate change after the Supreme Court struck down the last attempt, according to three people familiar with the plans.
If implemented, fossil-fuel-burning power plants probably would have to use technology to capture their carbon dioxide emissions from their smokestacks or switch to other fuels to meet the limits set in the rules, according to the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a plan that is not yet public. The proposal is still under final analysis at the White House and could change before the Environmental Protection Agency completes and announces it.
The agency has been planning an announcement for the coming days, but final details are in flux, and a formal proposal could be more than a week away, according to several people familiar with the planning. Turning that proposal into a final rule package would be likely to take months more, and, according to two of the people familiar with the details, many of the proposal’s most stringent standards would not take effect until the 2030s, giving industry years to come into compliance gradually.
Although its greenhouse-gas emissions have been declining, the electric-power sector remains the country’s second-largest contributor to climate change, being responsible for a quarter of such emissions nationwide in 2021, according to EPA data. That has long made power plants a top target for climate regulations, and President Biden has previously promised to eliminate their emissions by 2035.
The Supreme Court has loomed over the effort, ruling last year that the EPA during the Obama administration had exceeded its authority by building the first attempt at such regulations around a new system to push power companies to switch fuels across their fleets, and replace coal with cleaner options. The updated rules that Biden has promised have been held up for months in part because the agency has been trying to craft them in accordance with that decision so they might survive a conservative-majority court.
The administration’s plan is to stick with rules that apply within a plant’s fence line, with limits on the amount of what each plant can emit, according to four people familiar with the effort. They will be applied through rules for new gas- and coal-fired plants, and existing coal-fired plants, those people said.
The policy would not mandate any type of technology or fuel, according to the two people familiar with the latest details. But they said the limits it sets would be so stringent that to meet them, fossil-fuel-burning plants most likely would need to use carbon-capture technology or be capable of switching to use hydrogen, which burns without greenhouse-gas emissions.
Some of these details were previously reported by the New York Times.
“EPA cannot comment because the proposals are currently under interagency review,” agency spokeswoman Maria Michalos said in an emailed statement. “But we have been clear from the start that we will use all of our legally-upheld tools, grounded in decades-old bipartisan laws, to address dangerous air pollution and protect the air our children breathe today and for generations to come.”
The Biden administration soon will unveil a proposal to require power plants to nearly eliminate their greenhouse-gas emissions by 2040, a second try to regulate one of the country’s biggest contributors to climate change after the Supreme Court struck down the last attempt, according to three people familiar with the plans.
If implemented, fossil-fuel-burning power plants probably would have to use technology to capture their carbon dioxide emissions from their smokestacks or switch to other fuels to meet the limits set in the rules, according to the three people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a plan that is not yet public. The proposal is still under final analysis at the White House and could change before the Environmental Protection Agency completes and announces it.
The agency has been planning an announcement for the coming days, but final details are in flux, and a formal proposal could be more than a week away, according to several people familiar with the planning. Turning that proposal into a final rule package would be likely to take months more, and, according to two of the people familiar with the details, many of the proposal’s most stringent standards would not take effect until the 2030s, giving industry years to come into compliance gradually.
Although its greenhouse-gas emissions have been declining, the electric-power sector remains the country’s second-largest contributor to climate change, being responsible for a quarter of such emissions nationwide in 2021, according to EPA data. That has long made power plants a top target for climate regulations, and President Biden has previously promised to eliminate their emissions by 2035.
The Supreme Court has loomed over the effort, ruling last year that the EPA during the Obama administration had exceeded its authority by building the first attempt at such regulations around a new system to push power companies to switch fuels across their fleets, and replace coal with cleaner options. The updated rules that Biden has promised have been held up for months in part because the agency has been trying to craft them in accordance with that decision so they might survive a conservative-majority court.
The administration’s plan is to stick with rules that apply within a plant’s fence line, with limits on the amount of what each plant can emit, according to four people familiar with the effort. They will be applied through rules for new gas- and coal-fired plants, and existing coal-fired plants, those people said.
The policy would not mandate any type of technology or fuel, according to the two people familiar with the latest details. But they said the limits it sets would be so stringent that to meet them, fossil-fuel-burning plants most likely would need to use carbon-capture technology or be capable of switching to use hydrogen, which burns without greenhouse-gas emissions.
Some of these details were previously reported by the New York Times.
“EPA cannot comment because the proposals are currently under interagency review,” agency spokeswoman Maria Michalos said in an emailed statement. “But we have been clear from the start that we will use all of our legally-upheld tools, grounded in decades-old bipartisan laws, to address dangerous air pollution and protect the air our children breathe today and for generations to come.”
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