Kate's going to have a longer story about this soon, but just to get the word out quickly: the Sierra Club just won a huge victory before the EPA Environmental Appeals Board. Basically it will require all new coal plants to use Best Available Control Technology (BACT) for CO2.
As I said, Kate will get into the details later, but the top line is: nobody's going to invest a red dime in new coal for probably the next ten years, at least.
See also: Brad Johnson, Adam Siegel, Jerome a Paris, and Jesse Jenkins.
UPDATE: Here's the AP story.
Another coal plant bites the dust
Blowing up our clean energy future
Comments
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Tasermons Partner Posted 10:41 am
13 Nov 2008
Is there any way that the bushy can block or overturn this decision before he leaves office?
Any power or priveledge he can use to make the appeal mute?
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GreenMom Posted 11:21 am
13 Nov 2008
Ideally the uncertainty surrounding how such a permit would play out would be enough of a disincentive to the utility to building a new coal plant -- but maybe not.
I assume the reason EPA was issuing this permit is that it's on tribal land where the tribe doesn't have its own permitting authority -- otherwise states issue the permits.
Some state could issue a permit defining BACT in a relatively minimal way -- of course it'd get challenged legally...
The mind reels at all the legal permutations. We'll just have to see.
Nevertheless, this is really good news.
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Billhook Posted 11:23 am
13 Nov 2008
the consequences would remain unclear.
The rust-out of old coal-fired plants means either : that reduced supply will be available -
or that massively costly CCS must be developed in extreme haste for all new plants,
or that still greater reliance must be invested in exorbitant new nuclear plants,
or that unprecedented govt. funds must be printed for a crash program of non-fossil energy deployments.
Sadly none of the above seems electorally benign.
Personally I doubt that the US fixation on Wind & Solar would be as helpful globally
as other simpler technologies.
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:49 am
13 Nov 2008
Well, we need electric power for USA, India, and China.
All three countries have large deserts.
Solar Thermal Baseload, sounds like it could do the trick. That or EGS Geothermal.
And for Transportation, all three countries seem to have their eyes on Electric transportation.
_
All you got left after that is basically Deforestation and Agriculture.
-David Ahlport
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josullivan58 Posted 12:14 pm
13 Nov 2008
The Bush administration doesn't really have the time to do anything about this ruling, even delay is not option because the decision was handed down so close to the end. Those opposed to the decision can appeal it in federal court but this again will just delay it.
If the EPA says CO2 is a pollutant the states have to follow because the EPA has the ultimate authority on air pollution permits, even when the EPA has granted a state authority to do the permitting themselves.
The wildcard is the BACT. Best Available Control Technology has a list of sub-categories and it gets deep into legal and engineering details. I think the most to be expected right now is increased efficiency. Carbon capture techniques might be mandated in the future.
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Sam Wells Posted 12:49 pm
13 Nov 2008
Onward through the fog
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amazingdrx Posted 1:15 pm
13 Nov 2008
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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Bob Wallace Posted 4:30 pm
13 Nov 2008
Increased prices will make it more attractive to spend money on conservation and will bring more renewable power to market.
I can see that working for the environment....
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Billhook Posted 6:02 pm
13 Nov 2008
Solar thermal baseload - is an oxymoron, as you well know.
Utterly vast energy storage capacity would be required for it to get near supplying conventional amounts of power while the sun is too low to be effective.
That storage capacity raises costs yet further.
Geothermal is an entirely different prospect, and shows far better relevance worldwide.
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vakibs Posted 8:59 pm
13 Nov 2008
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
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2wheeler Posted 3:43 am
14 Nov 2008
This is a good day for making progress toward sustainability for climate CO2 control using existing (Clean Air Act and BACT), and forthcoming (cap and trade, Carbon tax and rebate) legal mechanisms.
Here's another wonder: this AP story was totally overlooked by today's (11/14/08) Columbus (OH) Dispatch. Another sign that my local newspaper (old media) has become irrelevant in their control by the coal fired power ideologies. The Dogpatch remains out to lunch-- as if their endorsement of McCain/Palin (without mentioning Palin) wasn't enough evidence. My subscription to the daily paper here was cancelled, and I'm now even more committed to GRIST as a source of my relevant current news.
Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.
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timr Posted 4:41 am
14 Nov 2008
Or else we could have 2 out of 3 people report to the disintegration chambers to lower demand. If we could tax the emission carbon dioxide, in order to fund renewable, clean energy, then we could make real gains.
It is nice that everyone is concerned about the global climate. However, these older coal fired plants cause problems with the meso-scale climate in their vicinity that are not necessarily caused by carbon dioxide. They can be terrible contributors to acid rain, particulates and other pollutants that destroy people's health and damage the environment locally.
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Billhook Posted 11:31 am
14 Nov 2008
sorry to have posted so as to lead you to read me as a "naysayer" --- I ain't one of those.
There are of course options, and lab hypotheses, for energy storage of intermittent power supplies,
but the costs of applying them on the scale needed erodes the whole package's affordability for developing countries, without whose co-operation we're finished.
Therefore we need to focus first on the PoD options (Power on Demand) such as coppice forestry, geothermal, etc;
then on the schedule intermittents, such as tidal currents;
and only then on minimal intermittents, such as wave energy, solar thermal, etc.
Highly intermittent sources, such as Onshore Wind, should have minimum priority.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 12:28 pm
14 Nov 2008
This story was overlooked by almost everyone so far.
I've seen only a few of the major papers are carryin' it, and I've yet to see it on either the Yahoo, Google, or AOL news pages. It's not even in the top headlines under the Sciences and Environment News section.
Ya almost haveta keyword search just to find it.
Either few media realize the just far this ruling could reach in scale, or they're all waitin' on more concrete consensus of possible results before they make too much fuss 'bout it.
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