President Obama and the EPA have just taken their biggest and boldest pace ever to fight mood change . TheClean Power Plan , unveiled by the EPA today , is far more of import than the Keystone XL word of mouth — if also far less sexy to slap on a poster . But these carbon - cut regulations have the electric potential to transubstantiate energy in the U.S. and goad blank energy .
The gist of the Clean Power Plan can be summed up in a unmarried sentence : cut carbon emission from U.S. top executive plants by 30 percentage from 2005 levels by 2030 . The draft marriage offer squarely hire aim at the country ’s 600 or so coal - fired plants , which are the dirty way we generate power . Toput it into perspective , ember - fired plants are creditworthy for 38 percent of all carbon emanation in the U.S. , which add up to 1.45 billion metric ton , or more than the entire carbon emissions of Central and South America .
Moving away from ember , which generates over one - third of our energy , means potentially Brobdingnagian variety to our electrical energy base . But these changes are not meant to be drastic or draconian ( though the energy industry will certainly argue otherwise ) . The EPA ’s draft proposal is by pattern flexible , allowing individual states to prefer from a menu of pick . The EPA does n’t want ember - fuel plants to shut down right aside , as rolling memory loss would only intend backlash .
Here ’s how land can bring down carbon emission , and what it entail for the future of energy . All this is detail , of course , on the order of payment proposal , which is now out for 120 sidereal day of public comment , in reality move forth . The energy industriousness is certain to fight it . But unlike Obama’sfailed big clime change legislation in 2010,he at least wo n’t have to wrestle with Congress .
The Flexible, Four-Part Plan
The EPA ’s factsheet identifies four “ building blocks ” for state to make their own plan to contract carbon copy emission .
Make ember - fire plants more efficient by shorten the get-up-and-go turn a loss through heat .
Use natural gas instead of coal , which is clean not really unobjectionable . It ’s also fabulously cheap thanks to our fracking microphone boom . ( More on this later ! )
More white free energy resource such as solar , wind , nuclear , wave , etc .
learn consumer to use less electricity .
The EPA elsewhere also offer a 5th selection , cap and trade , which essentially allow state grease one’s palms and trade permits to contaminate above a sure set “ jacket crown . ”
What will actually encounter ? By aim , the flexibility in the organization means that we really do n’t have intercourse , because it depend on each body politic ’s plans to be worked with the EPA . The energy premix of DoS change drastically , and each state baffle its own goal ( sketch inpage 29of the 376 - page full plan ) . The Great Plains , for example , are especially reliant on coal .
Edison Electric InstituteviaVox
We can , however , guess at the energy style that may emerge . fresh energy company , for one , welcomed the plan . EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy suggest at the possibility in her speech : “ Our design pulls private investiture off the shelf and into our clean energy revolution , and air it in every direction , not just one or two . The opportunities are frightful . ” A unobjectionable energy investortold GigaOmthat the architectural plan “ signals that sordid energy is yesterday ’s business model and that blank innovation is tomorrow ’s . ”
But then there is the spectre of natural petrol . The U.S. ’s C emanation have actually already been fall since 2005 , the program ’s baseline twelvemonth , thanks to tinny instinctive accelerator from the fracking boom . rude gas emits about one-half as much carbon dioxide as coal when sunburn for electricity , butnatural gas extraction also release methane , an even more potent greenhouse flatulence than carbon dioxide .
accelerator pedal is cleaner alternative but it ’s not neat , and it could turn into a crutch . Whether the EPA can actually push state toward ( expensive ) uncontaminating energy options like solar and wind instead of ( tatty ) gas remains to be go out .
What About “Clean Coal”?
If you ’ve been paying attention to energy news over the preceding few years , you ’ve probably run across a idiomatic expression that sound like an oxymoron : “ fair coal . ” The applied science has never been try out on a large scale , but “ C capture ” schemes are presuppose to prevent discharge from ever reach the atmosphere . That ordinarily mean then shoot enamor carbon paper dioxide accelerator into the dry land , where it should after hundred or thousands of eld react with the rock and turn strong . Let ’s just say it ’s never been commercially prove before .
Today ’s proposal targeting existing ember plants is a accompaniment to an EPA ’s regulationlast fallthat required unexampled coal works to capture atomic number 6 . With carbon - capture technology so unproven and the alternative — change over to raw gas — so meretricious , the ruling basically incentives free energy company against building any new ember plant .
But there are ember baron plant being built and carbon - seizure technology being developed — in China . The commonwealth ’s ember - fuel saving ca n’t open to allow go of crummy and as yet still - rich fogey fuels .
When we zoom out like that , we see that these power plant regulating — as unprecedented and sweeping as they are for the U.S.—are a bantam part of what ’s going on in greater world . But they are still a symbolic step , a sign for other countries to scrutinize their mood policy . Climate change does n’t care for outside borders . [ EPA ’s Clean Power Plan ]
Top image : A coal - fire powerplant in Georgia . AP Photo / John Amis
clime changeEnergyInfrastructure
Daily Newsletter
Get the good technical school , scientific discipline , and polish news in your inbox day by day .
News from the time to come , delivered to your present .
Please select your desired newssheet and submit your email to promote your inbox .
You May Also Like
