SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Requirements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for states to reduce power plant emissions have been put on hold by the Supreme Court:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Obama administration's effort to combat climate change by regulating emissions from coal-fired power plants. The brief order was not the last word on the case, which is most likely to return to the Supreme Court after an appeals court considers an expedited challenge from 29 states and dozens of corporations and industry groups.
But the Supreme Court's willingness to issue a stay while the case proceeds was an early hint that the program could face a skeptical reception from the justices. The vote was 5 to 4.
The challenged regulation, which was issued last summer by the Environmental Protection Agency, requires states to make major cuts to greenhouse gas pollution created by electric power plants, the nation's largest source of such emissions. The plan could transform the nation's electricity system, cutting emissions from existing power plants by a third by 2030, from a 2005 baseline, by closing hundreds of heavily polluting coal-fired plants and increasing production of wind and solar power. [...] The regulation calls for states to submit plans to comply with the regulation by September, though they may seek a two-year extension. The first deadline for power plants to reduce their emissions is in 2022, with full compliance not required until 2030.
Also at NPR, Nature, Bloomberg, BBC.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:28PM
There have been three coal mining fatalities [msha.gov] so far this year alone! And that's just in the US
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday February 10 2016, @04:45PM
See that's the problem with fatalities world wide, the Chinese don't have the very white people concern for OSHA or EPA that we do, its just not in them, not in their DNA or culture or whatever. There is no Chinese John Muir, at least not that anyone over there cares about. Without making a value judgment, its just an observation of fact that you have to live with no matter how uncomfortable. With making a value judgment, WTF is wrong with those people, don't they realize it makes them look like ignorant savages?
Anyway my point is you stop them from killing 20 kilominers per year in coal mines, they'll just find a reckless and irresponsible way to kill 20K windmill assembly line workers or WTF. They just don't care.
If its a proven fact that someone doesn't care about killing 20K people in one field, the problem isn't that field, and the solution isn't moving them into another field where they'll just kill 20K people in that other field also without blinking or caring.
In that way coal mining is pretty safe. Its hardly logging or deep sea fishing. Its not even cop or soldier level danger.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:34PM
Are you purposefully ignoring the hundreds of thousands of cancers from the ash and radioactive particles spewed by "excessively regulated" US coal plants?
While the smog doesn't look like Beijing (or what LA used to look like) anymore, tens of millions live downwind from some unnecessary emissions which we should address, because you and I pay real hard cash for their consequences, regardless of where we live.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Wednesday February 10 2016, @06:25PM
Yes, yes I am. As a disclaimer I am an investor on my local power company and have a lot of money tied up in it and I'm one of those weirdos who read the annual reports and financial statements quite closely.
First you have to remember that coal has been burned for electricity for a century but its not 1950 anymore. My power company used to blow tons of money on capture and land filling of coal ash, but for the last twenty years (yeah I've been investor awhile) they built a cool $20M plant that turns ash into concrete aggregate. Its pretty cool idea. It doesn't seem to hurt the roads I drive on, and its a new profit center for the company, well maybe not so much profit as less disposal expense. So the fly ash you claim to be breathing hasn't been in the air since 1970 and since 1990 has been embedded underneath the concrete roads you drive on rather than dumped in landfills. I seem to remember some foolishness about not being spec'd for beams so its not in the bridges and buildings, just surface roads, and I suppose pads.
I'd assume your local plants are making and selling aggregate instead of paying to haul away fly ash, or if they aren't, the accountants should be asking why. Our power company is making money, why isn't yours?
Yeah yeah industrial accidents and leaks and what ever. Yeah I'd worry about mines destroying the countryside, or acidic mine runoff, or a bunch of other things, but I'd prioritize fly ash exposure in 2016 pretty low.
The radiation issue is also interesting. Fly ash concentrates to 5x to 10x the radiation level of raw coal, its where most of the bad stuff is. There's some weirdness where minor fields have higher readings (I've seen as much as 12x reported from illinois fields) but powder river basin coal is unusually clean, which is good because there's a lot of it being burned.
This is irrelevant to the main point that the Chinese don't care and just dump it in the air and they are or were building another plant every week on average. And that in the USA people actually care about the environment and sign up to buy non-coal electricity all the time and its gradually killing the industry from the demand side. So all this big government supply side regulation stuff is just redundant and waste of time and inappropriate.
I'm not entirely sure what your point is. There is some truth to the statement that it simply doesn't matter what USA plants do if 99% of pollution blows over the ocean from China. The USA supreme court has very little say in China, so again it doesn't matter. On the other hand there's also truth to the statement that our not using the air as a sewer does help at least a little, locally, so it remains a great idea to not use the air as a sewer.
It is weirdly ironic that technology and economics have improved to the point that coal is no longer totally filthy and now only moderately gross, right about the time data processing and alternative energy have improved such that "we" as a group are killing it off on the demand side anyway.
Observation shows the situation is politically weird, both the mega corps and their pet politicians seem confused about what they're supporting this week as opposed to last week, its pretty crazy. My power company buys a guy and he shits all over wind power at the same time as my company is putting up a bazillion MW of wind capacity, hey didn't you get the memo that we're a wind company now and don't forget we own you, what is that idiot doing? Adding to the "fun" a BAU solar project a decade ago was like 30 KW but BAU solar today is like 3 MW so the megacorps are absolutely freaking out about the difference between integrated generation and distribution vs just being a mere distributor in the future. Its a culture clash because they're used to it taking a decade from start to finish to upgrade a distribution line, for example, and now people are putting up distributed generation so fast they don't need the upgraded lines they planned ten years ago, whoops. My point being that electrical power in the USA is likely to get a lot weirder before it begins getting less weird. If you think its weird now, oh just wait another 5-10 years. Its going to be like the conversion from landline to cellular from two decades ago, or from physical media and music stores to online a decade ago, except more chaotic.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday February 10 2016, @06:47PM
While I agree with most of your post, I'd like to know which utility you use, since so many are spending their time fighting air regulations, after doing math that says it's more profitable to keep things as they are. I'm all for post-processing, but clearly some people have decided that extending the life of an existing asset, and investing as little as possible on major transformations which may not yield enough extra operating margin before their turn as CEO is over, is the best way to "maximize shareholder value".
One statement I respectfully disagree with, though:
in the USA people actually care about the environment and sign up to buy non-coal electricity all the time and its gradually killing the industry from the demand side. So all this big government supply side regulation stuff is just redundant and waste of time and inappropriate.
You may need to check average income, or poverty numbers. A lot of people pay (or the state does for them) for the cheapest electricity they can get, because it's all they can afford or, in many cases, get (they would sign anything reducing the bill, regardless of actual source). Choosing a more expensive "green" supplier is a feel-good luxury that is not going to kill coal any time soon. Cheap gas, cheap renewables, and pollution rules are hurting coal, not a tiny minority with enough disposable income to still afford making a statement after they get Iphone n+1. (caricatural, hope you get the point)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 11 2016, @10:36PM
Speaking for myself: when leaded fuel was still available and I had a car that could run on it, I often bought the stuff rather than "unleaded", I'm ashamed to say.
(Score: 1) by nethead on Thursday February 11 2016, @12:52AM
I guess that I'm lucky that my PUD doesn't have a single coal plant. They are into some interesting stuff:
http://www.snopud.com/PowerSupply/landfill.ashx?p=1159 [snopud.com] Landfill Gas
http://www.snopud.com/PowerSupply/biogas.ashx?p=2479 [snopud.com] Biogas
http://www.snopud.com/PowerSupply/Biomass.ashx?p=1157 [snopud.com] Biomass
http://www.snopud.com/PowerSupply/hydro.ashx?p=1154 [snopud.com] Hydro (80%)
SnoPUD also were the ones to pay 100k to transcribe the Enron tapes and bust open the profanity-laced recordings of Enron workers gleefully conspiring to steal money from "those poor grandmothers" in California during the energy crunch of 2000-01. http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jun/21/business/fi-enron21 [latimes.com]
I love my PUD! I'm paying $0.098/kWh.
How did my SN UID end up over 3 times my /. UID?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 10 2016, @05:50PM
There's a billion plus of them. They don't miss a few tens of thousands. They'll just make more.