Climate Rules: Why Natural Gas Will Be the Big Winner in New Greenhouse Gas Regulations

[Dead_Parrot]

Ever since comprehensive climate legislation died of neglect in the U.S. Senate in 2010, environmentalists have looked to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to step in and save the day. According to the Supreme Court, the agency has the power—and the responsibility—to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act if the EPA decided climate change posed a threat to public health, which it did under the Obama Administration. Direct greenhouse gas regulations were always considered a second-best route to curb climate change, and one the White House was loathe to pursue given the political ramifications among conservatives, but once cap-and-trade legislation died, it was just a matter of time.

Now that time has come. Juliet Elperin of the Washington Post broke the news last night that the Obama Administration is set to unveil the first federal standards to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from electric power plants, the biggest source of climate pollution. “This is an important common sense step to tackling the very real threat of climate change,” said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in a conference call with reporters that officially announced the rules. “These are smart regulations that build on what the industry is doing.”

But the rules will only apply to new power plants, which means all existing plants—including hundreds of coal-fired power stations that release significant amounts of carbon dioxide—will be exempt from the new rules. And while the regulations could sound the death knell for new coal power in the U.S.—already under pressure from tougher EPA regulations on traditional air pollutants—the winner from the rules might be another fossil fuel: natural gas.

The regulations will force new power plants to emit no more than 1,000 lbs of CO2 per megawatt-hour (lb CO2/MWh gross). That level isn’t accidental—recent natural gas plants emit a little less than 1,000 lbs of CO2/MWh gross, while coal plants can produce as much as 1,800 lbs. Essentially the regulations will ban any new coal plant that isn’t being built with advanced carbon capture technology—which is to say, nearly all coal plants—while allowing utilities to take advantage of low natural gas prices by replacing coal with cleaner natural gas. “This is the first ever nationwide standard that imposes carbon limits on new power plants in the U.S.,” says Megan Ceronsky, an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). “It is incredibly important.”

More: http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/03/27/climate-rules-why-natural-gas-will-be-the-big-winner-in-new-greenhouse-gas-regulations/

[joshcryer]

1. Yeah they effectively exempted natural gas.

Fucking bullshit.

[GliderGuider]

2. They pretty much had to, didn't they?

Renewables are barely appearing over the horizon, and they have to try and keep the lights on - unless they want to watch their own tarring and feathering by torchlight.