Describing recently implemented or approved regulations – including the Greenhouse Gas New Source Performance Standard, the Utility MACT standards, and the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule – and their deep impacts on the coal industry, a report from the Heritage Foundation calls on Congress “to create a framework that restricts overregulation, empowers the states, balances economic growth and environmental well-being, and creates a timely permitting process for all aspects of coal production.” The report finds no issue with the free market changing coal’s share of our energy mix, but argues against artificially reducing that share through disincentives and regulation.
The report states that many of these new regulations have reached “a point of diminishing returns at which further tightening will impose exceedingly high costs on American energy consumers for unnoticeable environmental benefits.” The report argues that the regulations are largely based on shaky scientific rationale, and provide little or no benefit at great cost.
Among the report’s recommendations to Congress: Shift power on these issues away from federal agencies towards State governments; Freeze new federal environmental regulations; Repeal New Source Review; Prohibit the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions; Require congressional approval of major new regulations promulgated by agencies; Restructure and withdraw proposed Mine Safety and Health Administration worker safety rules; Eliminate subsidies for clean coal technologies.
Do the economic and energy security benefits of coal outweigh its environmental costs? What is your take on Heritage’s argument and recommendations? Would these recommendations, if implemented, save coal?
There is, in practical terms, no “deep impact” on the coal industry from the regulations that the Heritage Foundation is challenging. Existing power plants are exempt, and nobody was going… Read more »
While I’ll never categorically deny the potential for new technology, CCS is a tough nut to crack. In particular, since its feedstock will be gathered from exhaust streams at near-gauge… Read more »
I agree that CCS is a “tough nut to crack”. The baseline technology is post-combustion amine-based flue gas scrubbing. By IPCC estimates from several years back, it would boost the… Read more »
Agreed, Joel: “The issue no one seems to be closing with is that burning coal is a bad idea, has always been a bad idea and likely will continue to… Read more »
The recommendations to congress seem a bit questionable to me, some of them anyway… “Shift power on these issues away from federal agencies towards State governments” – that’s more or… Read more »
The report misses a major element that others here have mentioned – economics as a reason for coal unit retirements. While the EPA regs discussed in the report are a… Read more »
Dawn makes a good point: The boom in natural gas and resulting fall in price has been the major factor undermining the domestic coal industry. Related to that though has… Read more »
Bacteria that that are able to consume coal and produce methane do exist; I believe they’re the primary source of coal bed methane. Talk about biological coal-to-methane centers on developing… Read more »
Lewis, good point about a useful byproduct from CCS. Some flue gas desulfurization systems (forced oxidation) produce synthetic gypsum, used to manufacture 30% of the wallboard in the U.S. There… Read more »
The small merchant market for CO2 (dry ice, food storage, and a few other applications) would be totally overwhelmed by the flood of CO2 from any CCS program large enough… Read more »
Roger, re microorganisms, you raise a fair question. However, in situ extraction of coal by biotechnology at least potentially could significantly reduce its environmental, energy and other costs. Coal mines… Read more »
Actually Lewis, synthetic gypsum is not made from CO2 extraction, it is made from the calcium sulfate produced by passing SO2-laden gas through limestone and subjecting it to forced oxidation.… Read more »
Lewis, thanks for the link to Humaxx. It looks like my automatic orientation toward non-biological chemistry and my limited knowledge of biochem tripped me up. I failed to recon with… Read more »
Thanks for correcting me, Dawn. However, I’ve read some other things about using captured CO2 to create solid/liquid products. Here’s one I just stumbled across: http://www.oakbio.com/?tag=co2-capture This approach makes more… Read more »
Regarding the CCS topic and the creation of solid/liquid products, a colleague in another discussion group just pointed out this UK report:
http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/policy_library/data/01612/_res/id=sa_File1/CCU.pdf
Lewis, thanks for the links. Very interesting. I agree that the focus should be on utilization, rather than sequestering and waiting for potential problems to happen. It would seem that… Read more »
Thank you for all your comments. Let me first start by saying that I have no problem with switching from coal to natural gas as a result of cost. This… Read more »
Nick, thanks for the clarifications. One thing I think gets overlooked with regard to EPA regs is that timelines greatly affect compliance costs and technical feasibility. As several regulations are… Read more »