Goodbye To US Coal Plants?

And in a truly ironic twist, and a testament to our stupidity...

https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5615-US-cities-suffer-impact-of-downwind-Chinese-air-pollution

I can understand shutting down older plants, but billions have already been spent on scrubbers.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2012/02/12/lights-out-for-some-coal-plants/2/

Natural gas is abundent, but it has to be fracked, and we aren't fracking enough to replace all of the coal plants.

Nuclear plants are being shut down.

California is shutting down hydroelectric plants, rather than building fish ladders.

Can somebody tell me what will run the US?

"Can somebody tell me what will run the US?"

North Dakota will!

Fracking works here plus our state government is still ran by actual common people and business types which means they know the how and why of what makes our state work.

If you need more electricity we will happily make more power plants. If you need oil we will drill more wells, frack more ground, and build more refineries.

If you need more food we will take more land out of CRP and the like and plant more fields.

We got you covered. (But it might cost you though.)

Who you kidding?

You won't have any water left to grow crops or cool generators after you frack it all away.

Not likely. Unlike the rest of the US we have put a fortune into rural water systems which are interconnected with every small and large towns systems as well which makes it very hard for anyone or any industrial user anywhere to run out of water here.

If anything fracking is helping us temporarily solve our excess surface water issues along with cost justifying the further development, upscaling, and interconnecting of our rural water systems making it possible to move even more water further for less cost.

I live in rural nowhere and I have a rural water main less than 1/2 a mile from my place.

To be honest my family has already talked about putting in a well system and water station for tanker truck loading on our property when the oil industry moves closer to our place.

If so it would likely be tied in with the rural system to work as another source when immediate local truck loading demands are less than what the well system can provide making our water available to people who need it in other places.

I have to wonder how the diminishing Great Plains Aquifer will impact your state's water needs in the future?

I have suspicions that that may be why so much work is being put into our state having a large capacity region wide system in place.

Although one area or city may have a local supply shortage the overall region will always have large volumes of shallow groundwater and surface water to use so if we have a system in place being able to transfer excess water from further and more spread out sources the overall demands are less problematic.

I am just speculating here being that local talk about the how and why of there being such a large push for us to have a region wide system tend to vary from time to time.

Personally I see no immediate issues with water shortages here. State wide we have had numerous record breaking annual rainfalls in the last decade or so.

If we are truly going to become a fracking nation, (which it looks like we will have to, as nuclear and coal plants are shut down and not being replaced), we may want to consider a network of pipes to carry seawater to the fracking sites, (or close), with natural gas and crude oil lines piggybacked along with them.

Hell, while we're at it, we might as well run our electrical grids underground too.

Actually given that the volume of water needed for a single well is only used once or twice in it's lifetime it works out to being a waste of effort running permanent lines to a well site.

At 3 - 4 million gallons that is easily done now with temporary overland lines that tap into the permanent rural systems or in many places I have been seeing they are setting up portable trailer mounted filter systems that simply take water out of the nearest pond,lake, stream or river and filter it to the requirements of the fracking jobs.

3 - 4 million gallons by normal household consumption rates sound huge but when factored against the 10's to 100's of billions of gallons an average country pond may contain its a trivial volume to use and nature will put it back during the next rainfall.

To be honest there is some pretty amazing alternative water harvesting and transporting tech being used around here that is allowing fracking to be done on a large scale with zero water demand being placed on the primary public water systems in many places.

.

I saw an article this morning, on the diminishing aquafer, and the entire piece laid the blame on farmers and irrigation for crops. Not that it's the farmer's fault, but they probably use vast more quantities of water than the fracking people.

It's still going to be a problem, even if it is just the farmers. We don't want to see another dust bowl.

Then again, if we were to use our food crops for food instead of ethanol...

Oh sure toss common sense and rational at who is using the most water where.

Yea I hear you on the irrigation use of water. I went on a canoe trip from Garrison dam down to Bismarck ND some years ago and while floating along I was surprised at how many and how large most of the irrigation pumps were just drawing water from the Missouri river.

12" intakes with 100+ Hp electric pumps on many and a few 24" systems with huge diesel pumps as well pushing water who knows how far from the river.

If my references are anywhere close to being right a single large center pivot irrigation system uses more water in a day than any fracking job ever uses start to finish and many of those irrigation systems will run at least once a week if not more all summer long!

The difference is the fracking removes the water from the climate cycle where the irrigation returns it to the environment.

There is a problem with draining underground aquifers with out caution, but most of the irrigated water either evaporates or runs to groundwater.

Drew K

Not entirely true.

Irrigation water loss by evaporation is not insignificant and that water is carried a good distance from the source.

Yes, but my point is that it stays in the climate as opposed to being buried.

You do realize that most of the fracking water comes back out of the well don't you? The gas producers sure don't want water in their gas, or for that matter, since it is used in producing oil wells, oil companies also don't want water. The water expands and fractures the reservoir rock and then since it is under high pressure, a good portion of it comes back out and is trucked to a treatment plant (hopefully). When Triana did a well 2 miles from my house the tanker truck traffic on my favorite bike riding lease road was tremendous, before and after fracking. That's a big issue in this area now - the treatment of these waters and how well are we doing it before it is released to a stream.

So where are we losing the water? To the river system that feeds the Gulf or in eastern Pa, the Bay.

What do you do with all the contaminated water that comes out? I know a powerplant and a copper refinery that inject waste water into wells that are in a briny aquifer underground.

I wonder how many years till they are pumping that brine out to clean it up for use?

Drew K

As I stated above - sewer plants treat it and it goes into a stream - at least in NW Pa that's what they are doing with it. No well injection here.

You ought to see what goes into the ground - I logged injection wells in Michigan for a time - all at chemical plants. Hooker of Love Canal fame was one of them. I had one client - name remains anonymous who did not like the fact my well log showed that the limestone formation was pretty much gone for 3' around the borehole, because they were telling Mich. DEC they neutralized all injections. The company man over seeing my logging asked me to draw in a well contour to show the limestone intact. Did not do it, but my company later sent them one as requested.

You wouldn't want to pipe seawater that far because the organisms that live in it would play havoc with the entire system. Desalination would need to be done at the shore, or something to render the water inert.

Drew K

That seems to be a very short sighted approach and a rather not so smart move. Interconnected water systems? Hm! So the reality is that one well gets poisoned, they all get poisoned. So what do you do then? Fracking is not so wonderful as we all know. It simply allows water to flow elsewhere below the crust through new fissures we create by fracking.

Of course they will tell you they have 'full control, it is cheaper, cleaner etc' That because they are making a fortune from doing it. The folks in the 'know' state that there will be a shortage of water in the future! That is possibly because it has all been poisoned by fracking companies. Then how will you grow crops? I refer to the farms in Queensland Australia gas fields where millions of liters of water are pumped out and processed and sent back to farms for use. Not much grows and not much fertility is in the soil for crop growing.

And as for global warming, where is it? The fools who predicted it have had to run tail and state recently (March 2013), that they made a big mistake, it did not actually happen over the course of the years. What happened to global cooling? It is happening. What happened to the holes in the ozone layer. Oh yes, they moved, all 7 of them.

What gives a company or government the right to use YOUR God given resource for their own and for you to obtain poisoned water, river courses, lakes and dams? No hunting, no fishing, no water plants, no ecological systems along rivers. No Coke or beer.

Look at lakes in Sweden, Falun, Dalarna area, all lakes are polluted with copper residue from hundred of years of copper mining. It is NOT an over night clean up. Every boat on a lake has a lovely orange/copper water line on the hull. And when the sun shines, the water is a beautiful copper colour. Not much life in the water, but heck, I don't drink it nor fish nor swim in it.

Learn from history and learn from other countries. It has been pioneered before, elsewhere!

I'm concerned about widespread fracking also, although I think it can be done safely.

I think we are going to see that the unintended cosequences of these measures, is going to lead to a national energy crisis, in which massive fracking will be our only way out...that's when mistakes are made.

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/152733-mass-nuclear-plant-retirement-will-push-us-towards-total-fossil-fuel-dependency

We can't simply eliminate all of our existing power sources, and hope that some giant leap in solar/wind technology will come along.

It will be interesting to see if Americans are willing to deal with electricity that is both expensive, and rationed to X amount of units per day/ per household. I'm ready for it, but my conservation is self imposed.

Hope is our strategy.

I hope I don't hear a bunch of screaming and yelling, when the rolling brownouts start.

We'll need a new agency that takes control of the meters on our houses, and we'll get an allotment of electricity that we can use.

Sounds good.

Looks like fracking is gonna get the green light, all over.

http://www.propublica.org/article/epas-abandoned-wyoming-fracking-study-one-retreat-of-many

Just goes to show that bribes still trump human health.

Makes me sick to think the rich politicians sleep well at night.

Too bad they can't be forced to drink the polluted water.

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I suggested to the combatants that here in New Brunswick, when the government finally caves-in to the fracking movement, the first fracking should happen under our legislature. It is already in the high-risk zone anyhow below a failing hydro-electric dam.

These guys really live on the edge! So give them a bonus risk. WTH?

The new provisional government (located on some hilltop) might be in a good position to fix EVERYTHING if the dam fails AND the legislature gets gassed-out simultaneously

Chinese.

All the "hot air" generated in Washington?

Seriously; If we lose coal, we lose our economy.

I see no reason why we cannot have clean burning coal plants that are cost efficient and have low cost operation.

We have the technology, we just need to apply it at a reasonable cost.

What's not to understand. Politicians want to make more money. Removal of coal power will increase the cost of electricity. As 40+ percent of our electricity is generated by coal. Increase in cost generates more revenue in taxes as it a percent of sales. They also just can't turn off these power plants until other sources of power can be built. So they will operate paying fines(taxes).

Also you can be sure that all the politicians have complemented their stock portfolio with companies that will make out the best in the EPA new regulations.

Yeah. I understand it, I'm just in denial.

Somebody needs to be asking these questions to our elected officials:

Why are we shutting down our plants and exporting record amounts of coal overseas?

How will natural gas replace coal, when fracking is only happening on private property?

How is the US going to compete in a global economy, when we are shutting down our means of energy production, and making what's left, cost prohibitive?

That's the part I can't understand...

How can they look themselves in the mirror, when they know full well that these moves have zero impact on global warming, and only serve to cripple the US economy?

17 short tons is less the 2 percent of the coal that was taken out of the ground.

The eia piece, is talking about millions of short tons.

Coal exports from the United States in March 2013 totaled 13.6 million short tons, nearly 0.9 million short tons above the previous monthly export peak in June 2012. EIA is projecting a third straight year of more than 100 million short tons of coal exports in 2013, following annual exports in 2011 of 107.3 million short tons and record annual exports in 2012 of 125.7 million short tons.

The 2011 total place exports at 10% of the total.

http://www.nma.org/pdf/coal_export_report.pdf

Maybe so, but there sure does seem to be a correlation between the shutting down of our plants, and our coal exports.

http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/03/report-epa-rules-to-shut-down-more-than-280-coal-fired-units/

I would imagine that by 2016, we will be exporting huge amounts of coal...which is a plan that makes sense... if you're a politician.

They will keep all of the coal mining states in business, by increasing exports, and also be able to convince the uninformed masses, that they are combating global warming. Nobody will notice a few thousand power plant workers losing their jobs.

Okay burning coal produces higher levels of CO2 then the other fuels. The idea is to lower CO2 emissions in our atmosphere. So we sell it to other countries. Didn't know that CO2 observed international boundaries.

With the shut down of these coal burning power plants. We prepared for the 100 thousand or more workers from the coal mines to the power plants in our unemployment lines. Can the economy endure it.

Now that we have all this coal. If in order to keep some of the workers employed. We mine it at the same rate. Price on the market will drop. More developing counties will take advantage of this. Burning more coal with less government regulations. Just putting more CO2 in the atmosphere.

Allowing them to make goods at a lower cost then in the US.

Real good plan!

Who we send the Glass Belly Button Award to?

That's exactly how I see it.

It seems to me, that with all of the scrubbing technology we have invested in, we would actually be doing the planet a bigger favor by burning it here, rather than exporting it to countries that still burn it dirty.

The unspoken truth about HYDRAULIC FRACTURING is that each well consumes, or pollutes an average of 5,000,000 gallons of water. Some more, some less. That's water that can't be used for farming, drinking or anything else, for that matter.

That really sucks.

Then there's the earthquakes...................................................

Sooner or later, we will have advanced ourselves into oblivion.

I already posted this, but it goes unnoticed apparently. Yes it consumes a lot of water to fracture the reservoir rock, but most of it sure doesn't stay down there. Gas producers sure don't want a lot of water in their product. The water is under great pressure and after fracking comes back out and is trucked to a treatment facility and then released to a stream or river. I wish all you ignorants ranters and ravers would just watch a Haliburton frack sometime - you can see the frack occur when the pressure drops noticeably. But there is stil pressure there and quite a bit of the water comes back out. And, no, it doesn't go on the ground. It goes to a lined pit and is trucked from there. What doesn't come out immediately comes out with the product and is separated and stored in tanks for trucking to treatment facilities. Treatment plants around here are making a bundle of cash off this. TAgain - the water is treated and released to a stream or river. It is back in the natural evaporation cycle. So where is the problem???

Note - I did the preparatory stage for fracking for 11 years. I speak from knowledge not ignorant hysteria.

Part of my next door neighbor's job is to find "safe" geology for wells in which to pump that waste water because all of it cannot be treated to a condition that is safe to return to the environment.

It seems to me that asserting certain knowledge of everything that happens underground is making huge assumptions. Sure the rock is fractured and lots of water returns to the well head for retrieval and treatment, but does all of it? and is the fracture limited to fissures that do not reach aquifers? Is all the water that returns only from the injection or is some co-mingled with natural groundwater? I say it is impossible to know for sure. The safety of fracking is based on sound science, but still has to be taken on faith that the science did not miss something that cannot be directly observed.

Do you have any idea what is between the rock we're fracking and the natural aquifers? I do - I've seen samples of these formations and ran density/porosity logs (in the NY/Pa/Oh/WVa area) and it isn't going through some of those formations - not when there is nice permeable shale - this is the another one of those path of least resistance subjects. Also, the term "caprock" applies nicely here and is a literal translation, as well as distance - we're talking in terms of thousands of feet to potable aquifers. This assumes the well is properly cased and cemented so the frack can't back track up the borehole. I also ran logs to ascertain cement bond before fracking. It is almost a standard requirement. With the big dollar outfits doing the shale wells - it most certainly is.

Maybe it is by design.

I'm not much of a conspiracy advocate but considering all of the unintelligent decisions currently being made that are not in any way based upon scientific facts, there doesn't seem to be any other logical conclusion.

I too see the transfer of taxation from easily seen payroll tax deductions over to everything that people must have in order to survive. (Health care/medical benefits, utilities, fuel, and in many states, water.)

I just cannot logically see that when the current government dependent 48% populace reaches or exceeds the 50% barrier how our nation's economy and way of life can survive.

You know that history does not repeat itself, historians just repeat each other.

The oil and gas industry is the big competitor and they want it all. Factor in the fact that they just realized they could get more natural gas than they ever thought possible by using the fracking process to release the gas. Now, natural gas is very cheap compared to other sources of energy.

The cost per BTU alone is not enough to drive change. After all, the equipment necessary to handle the combustion of coal was not free. And changing to another type of fuel is not a simple matter. So, throw in a few oil & gas lobbyists and some fear factor and you can eliminate your competitor, at least for a little while.

This is the same sort of thing that happened a couple of decades ago. What will happen, as it always does, is for the oil and gas industry to gain more market share. Once they feel secure, they will raise prices until coal looks attractive again.

In the mean time, not everyone believes the hype. And other countries that are now working hard to get "up to speed" are producing record amounts of energy. They are buying the coal. They would use oil or gas if it was less expensive, but that simply is not the case. I'm not at all surprised that other countries continue to buy our coal because it is still a viable energy source to them.

The real problem is that the EPA is ineffective in promoting any serious effort to wean us off gas and oil. We keep on cranking out greenhouse gasses from the combustion of hydrocarbons (gas and oil) as if that is a solution. At best, it will only delay the nightmares ahead. I am hoping I won't live long enough to see that.

As a systems engineer, I believe we are racing toward disaster faster than we could possibly realize. There are no long term plans to replace all of the oxygen that is consumed by burning hydrocarbons. We may be looking for Oxygen instead of coal in the future. But this earth sized system is too big to stop the changes once we get it completely out of balance. It will surly crush humanity into a sad memory.

Our collective consumption of hydrocarbons may very well be the cause for the next mass extinction. Considering how long it must have taken to get our planets oxygen up to 21.5% (the dinosaurs existed when the atmosphere was around 15% oxygen), we will have to evolve to be able to breath comfortably. There will be a lot of suffering before that can happen.

What we need is a war against hydrocarbons. Unfortunately, the hydrocarbon vendors are the very people in charge so any rebellion will result in financial pain. The problem with aggravating the system is that we will likely get a bigger reaction than we ever expected. One day in the future, we will be cursed for the damage we caused. Have a nice day (while you still can)!

I don't buy into the doomsday scenario; I think that technology will be developed that will spare us a mass extinction...primarily, energy storage.

I also think that, if not for finding alternative things to burn, we would have destroyed ourselves long ago. What did we used to use?

Whale blubber for light, and wood to keep warm. Talk about unsustainable.

I do agree with some of what you say...

There is an unholy alliance between government, (and their reliance on tax revenue), and the energy producers; an example of it is happening here in NC. People, (for whatever reason), have been consuming less electricity. This led to a decrease in revenue for the power company, which in turn, led to a decrease to the state tax coffers.

Our reward for conservation?

A rate increase, and they are looking for another increase as we speak.

As far as coal goes, it simply makes no sense for us to be exporting it somewhere else, when we have invested in some of the cleanest burning technology on the planet.

This is not all of it....

Our company generates 15M pounds of charcoal/year as a by-product.

Our largest users of charcoal is Utilities coal fired plants.

The past (2) years most of these plants have been temporary taken off line. The exception of the ones built in the last 5 years.

Even though EPA does play a huge part, (because we deal with them also.) The reason these plants are currently being shut down is it's cheaper to buy the electricity off the grid......... that was generated by NG.

Well first of all this legislation only deals with 'new coal plants'....secondly the coal being exported is mostly for steel production....

Worldwide coal is used for around 40% of all electrical generation and gas about half that...In the US about half our electricity comes from coal and about 20% from gas....Coal is the most polluting, responsible for acid rain, mercury, and deaths from particulate emissions.....anything to clean up coal is good....

There won't likely be any more coal plants built in the US.

It's neat that our tax dollars pay for one agency to shut down coal power, and another to tout the wonderful advances in scrubber technology.

http://www.fossil.energy.gov/education/energylessons/coal/coal_cct2.html

I wasn't aware of the steel production exports.

So...while the US steel industry is dead, we are shipping coal to China, to be made into steel, and then the steel is shipped backed to the US for us to purchase?

Is that correct?

US steel industry is dead?? really? by what measure have you determined this???

"In the week ending September 14, 2013, domestic raw steel production was 1,843,000 net tons while the capability utilization rate was 76.9 percent. Production was 1,751,000 net tons in the week ending September 14, 2012, while the capability utilization then was 70.4 percent. The current week production represents a 5.3 percent increase from the same period in the previous year. Production for the week ending September 14, 2013 is down 1.5 percent from the previous week ending September 7, 2013 when production was 1,872,000 net tons and the rate of capability utilization was 78.1 percent.

Adjusted year-to-date production through September 14, 2013 was 68,424,000 net tons, at a capability utilization rate of 77.2 percent. That is a 3.8 percent decrease from the 71,142,000 net tons during the same period last year, when the capability utilization rate was 77.0 percent.

Broken down by districts, here's production for the week ending September 14, 2013 in thousands of net tons: North East: 210; Great Lakes: 657; Midwest: 239; Southern: 669 and Western: 68, for a total of 1,843."

http://www.steel.org/About%20AISI/Statistics.aspx

..."The U.S. is still the world's third biggest steel producer...."

http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/06/20/american-steel-looks-ahead/

Well that's good news!!!

I didn't know that the US steel industry was roaring back. Things like this, had me thinking otherwise.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/02/14/intelligence-community-fears-u-s-manufacturing-decline/

There's lies, damn lies and statistics.

Just pick a side and you can find all the "iron clad proof" you want to bolster your points.

It's all about the money.

All true.

The best place to look for the reasoning behind these new mandates, is to look for who stands to benefit the most.

I wonder why we never seem to see things like this get implemented?

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/skyonics-twist-on-carbon-capture-turns-co2-into-baking-soda/17059

If the goal really is to combat coal's contribution to green house gasses then perhaps we should open more coal plants in the U.S. where the regulations are more strict. If you just export the coal (because the miners want money too!) other countries will burn it with fewer controls and with less efficient boilers and turbines thus putting more carbon in the air than we would if we kept it domestic.

Oh...right, sorry...I forgot the politicians have no interest in doing what is right, they are only concerned with getting money and elected. Greedy ineffective baxtards! (someday I will tell you how I really feel!)

Drew K

A lot of progress had been made. I kind of feel bad for the people that put so much work and money into clean coal technology, only to have yet another mandate wipe it away.

http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,32869,en.html

From the EPA:

The EPA says the proposal is intended to "combat climate change and improve public health," but we're interested in it more for how it's going to make plug-in vehicles even cleaner.

From this site:

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/09/20/new-epa-clean-coal-plant-rules-would-cut-co2-emissions-in-half/

I wonder which article is lying?

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/why-us-electric-vehicle-sales-are-booming/24770

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/12/us-autos-ev-future-idUSBRE95B17T20130612

37% of the nation's electricity comes from coal.

Now, if you do away with a portion of that (to save the Earth), where is all the extra electricity going to come from to power all these hope for EVs?

Additionally, coal is one of the cheapest forms of electricity. As you see from the map, the bulk of the plants serve the east coast and north east.

Forcing the industry to comply to tougher standards will help clean the air, but it comes at a cost and those hit with that cost are the ones who also rely on electricity as a form of heat in the winter. Sucks to live in the north east.

So, electric rates will have to go up and the little guy foots the bill. The good news is most of those states are "Blue" states and they voted for this "change". Happy days are here again. :)

I really couldn't believe the audacity of the statement from the EPA, saying that new coal mandates will make plug in cars cleaner.

It indicates a complete disconnect from reality...like forcing tougher coal standards will get more people to buy electric cars. Not only is it insanity, but the very people that will be the most affected, will not ever be buying electric cars; the freezing cold has a lot of it's own implications, as far as electric cars go.

Oh well. No need to worry about it...coal plants will be seen only in the history books.

Nobody is going to attempt to build new plants that have to compete with natural gas on CO2 output. Ain't gonna happen.

I hope they are prepared to start issuing fracking permits. The people that think that electricity is made in the walls of their homes, are gonna get pretty mad when their electric cars aren't charged, because of rolling blackouts.

FYI:

It is interesting that despite the focus on coal fired generating plants and the "new" tighter pollution controls mandate, there is an "under-the-table" profit generating procedure that most coal fired plants built in the last 30 years take advantage of regularly that deals directly with selling pollution credits in a "closed" market.

One of the coal fired generating plants that I comissioned back in the early 1980's is equipped with dual scrubbers and they regularly sold/sell their pollution credits to the highest bidder.

That plant never operated more than one scrubber at a time and had a standing demand for their "credits".

I know from stack testing during acceptance comissioning that the plant was/is very capable of lower their emissions by at least 50% of they would run the other scrubbers per plant design.

That plant produced electrical power to the point-of-use consumer for $0.026 per kilowatt or $26.00 per megawatt and sold it to the residential customer for $0.128 per kilowatt or $128.00 per megawatt. (Quite an excessive profit margin don't you think?)

Currently the price that an industrial power consumer pays for electrical power is marginally above the wholesale cost of production and the residential consumers make up the difference in profit for the producer.

As far as I am concerned I wholeheartedly beleive that every industrial plant built needs to minimize the negative impact on the environment and we the consumers will have to foot-the-bill if we want to have a healthy environment for people to exist in.

Getting there however, will be no doubt be a painfull process.

Pa already ahead of the curve. Most of these regulations have been in place since 2004. Plants there have been making profits for years.

Over the weekend there was an article describing how our "experts" are trying to argue in favor of "Global Warming" in their upcoming report on Global Warming when there are now a good number of arguments refuting overall Global Warming. Some are in favor od describing it as only temporary in that the heat is sinking down in the oceans and warming them up. Now we also have many sources stating that "Global Cooling" will be significant for the next 200 years.

As you said which article is lying. See: http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/06/15/forget-the-temperature-plateau-earth-undergoing-global-cooling-since-2002-climate-scientist-dr-judith-curry-attention-in-the-public-debate-seems-to-be-moving-away-from/

Friends,

1. I understand the fears of many regarding government regulations being too much & too big. However, unregulated industry has proven to be equally bad.

2. Many of the regulations for energy efficiency or pollution abatement were loudly criticized when first proposed, but have been recognized afterward as incentives for changes that have been cost-effective and even profitable to the companies over the long-term.

3. Who wants to go back to the days when your house could change its exterior color from white to grey or black in a single day because of a cloud of air pollution from a nearby power plant? Who wants to go back to the days of the proverbial and notorious London fogs with all the illness and dirt they contained?

4. Per capita energy consumption in the USA is far greater than the sustainable future will permit when many of the developing countries increase their energy use to even a quarter of the per capita consumption we currently consider "normal". This disparity and future problem was published as long ago as 2001 (in a UN committee paper).

Perhaps it is time for many of us in the USA to quit growling and posturing like wounded tigers and see the world with its incredible beauty and diversity; not see it as a private fief to be consumed and destroyed because of our gluttonous greed and hubris--that we always know best and that we can always solve the problems we have created.

--JMM

Thank you, jmueller, for a humane, rational and widely philosophical overview. I get so tired of everyone just banging their little tin drum (h/t Gunter Grass)

It figures the coal companies knew this was coming for at least 10 years and now they're crying. Just look at AZ they're at least 15 years behind most other states in the country and have three of the dirtiest plants in the country now they are complaining anyone in the business saw this coming for a long time. I don't feel for them I feel for us because we are the one going to feel the pinch because of their lazyness.

They saw it coming...they just didn't care beyond the next quarters profits. It is the lack of foresight that is the problem for places like that, not laziness.

Drew K

No I'd say laziness. They knew it was coming for over ten years and did nothing to improve there systems except charge us more and line there pockets.

That almost sounds like the funds to do this fall off trees.

Keep in mind that if those same companies began that conversion process 10 years ago you would likely be pining about the high cost of electricity in Arizona today.

If you think your coal plants are swimming in money, check their earnings statements. They are publicly traded companies and that data is freely available. You will find that their profits are pretty thin when compared to other forms of businesses.

I don't think it is so much a case of laziness on the coal plant's behalf, but a public's unwillingness to foot the bill for cleaner coal burning.

Well I'm paying 1.25x more here in AZ then in PA. Costs for equipment including SCRs chemicals and replacement parts are much more expensive in PA. Then to top it off PPL in 2010 made billions in profit.If APS and SRP which could have bought the same type of equipment in 2004 price instead of being lazy the public woulding being footing as big of a bill. The same company just installed 4 solar farms not against their profit but on our tax money. These upgrades aren't going to affect them at all its going to affect us because of there decision to wait so long.

That's true. There are still some fairly dirty plants running, and all of them have been slated to be phased out; but your post isn't entirely accurate...

1) Our current president ran on a platform of energy independence, with clean coal being part of the mix.

2) The definition of clean coal, (at the time), was the use of scrubber technology to remove particulates and other pollutants.

3) The power companies spent a lot of time and money on bringing the technology up to speed, so that they could build new plants to replace the old ones.

4) The EPA just changed the rules, so building new plants is no longer feasible.

5) The net result of this wonderful mandate, will be to make US coal real cheap, due to the elimination of domestic demand.

6) The worst part? I give it 5 years, and the US will be at the top of the list of coal "exporting" countries. It will be sent to all corners of the globe, to be burned in old, filthy power plants.

If this is truly about global warming, we have a global responsibility to cease all coal exports.

Your EPA is the enemy of the people. We have the same problem in Australia.

Exporting coal does not seem to be a problem go figure?

Hopefully our new government will be able to correct some of the idiotic ideas of the previous government, pity you are stuck with yours you voted the same one back in again for more of the same medicine.

Well, unfortunately, it is, what it is, at this point.

It's possible that we may witness a miracle from the private sector. On the other hand, I think the people that build and run coal plants may be too terrified to even attempt it, given that the rules can be changed at any given moment in time.

It's amazing that the EPA was a cute little agency that was created by Nixon, to placate the environmentalists, and it has grown into a bureaucracy that wields more power than any of the three branches of our government.

Here's an update on the carbon capture company that I mentioned earlier:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/skyonic-brings-in-128-million-to-commercialize-its-novel-carbon-capture-tec

You're right clean air and water is bad. I mean who wants a healthy environment for them and there kids.

Please list the names of the people in industry that want to poison the air and water.

I will help you go after them and have them removed from their positions.

Trying to be sacarastic for some reason it doesn't seem to work from my IPhone. But I'm sure I can come up with a list of people the feel profit is more important including my last three employers. As a environmental manager in the construction and mining field I'm the necessary evil of the company. In the last 10 years I've applied for hundreds of air permits from mobile equipment in CA to power plants in PA NM and CA. The organizations I belong to have seen these regs coming for a long time and certain industries in certain parts of the state are acting in disbief and are crying now to the public.

I wasn't being sarcastic at all.

I honestly believe that people and corporations that knowingly pollute water supplies, or knowingly belch poison chemicals into the air, (not CO2), that pose an immediate risk to human populations, should be punished. I don't think you'll get any disagreement around here.

This thread was started, because CO2 has been labeled as the #1 poison on the planet, and everything that creates it as a byproduct, must be eliminated. That, and the EPA now writes and implements laws, without any oversight whatsoever. They must be placed back in their cage, before they start causing {more} serious damage to this country. They have become a threat to our national security and our entire economy.

Have you read the actual regulations? All of the clean air act then compare it to local laws? Have you every been part of the decision process. I have as part of my job. EPA is a passing cat. They don't do anything unless forced. This regulations are forced by lawsuits our acts of congress. In this case the later. I'm a member of AGC national environmental committee. Like I said before these regulations have been on the table for years and the power companies as usual have been acting like they don't have to due anything to reduce NOx SOx COx PM2.5 PM10 and over 80 over HAPs that are know to not only effect the environmental but our health and economy. If you have read the actual regulation you would know that there are economic clauses in the regulation to help companies to meet it usually delays in enforcement by years. So like I said before I feel no pitty for them because coal isn't going away. By the way we received in the last year four contracts to built state of the art coal burns two in CA and two in NM. No issues with meeting the new regulations.

At the rate the comments are coming in we could actually have a petition running to turn things around here. We just need a backer with some money behind us. Does anyone know such a person?

Alternate, we all get together and start a new power company. I have 2m shares up for sale at $1.00 a pop. Happy to offer a discount for bulk buying!!!!

The new regs just came out last week, and you already know that there will be no issues? Amazing!!!

Lawsuits and acts of congress? Nonsense.

Show me the specific lawsuit or congressional act that led to this latest round of proposed mandates.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/aug/31/epa-regulations-violate-constitutional-rights/

PS- There's pressure coming from somewhere. The first link in my OP, from energybiz, has been eliminated from the inernet.

Of course there are going be issues. The power plants and other lobbies are involved plus politicians. They'll delay it and push it of some more. What I'm saying its taken years to get to this point. Its the government for gods sake you actual think this happen over night. Lawsuits caused the clean air and water act in the first place. Congress enacted them and made the EPA. Maybe it had some erroneous information.

Nixon started the EPA, because he wanted to be liked. It was a political decision.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency

California government is comprised of hypocrites. They pass "feel good" legislation, and are forced to import electricity to fill the gap.

The reason that this one plant is being allowed, is that the "other states" that have been supplying Kalifornia's energy needs, are stretched to the max. Even Moonbeam understands, that if people flip the light switch, and nothing happens, there will be a revolt.

Politicians love to talk about corporate greed, and a lot of it would not be possible without the politicians themselves, and the decisions they make.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/enron-caused-california-blackouts-traders-say

I didn't realize that CA passed this legislation in 2006, and that it just now had been nationalized.

Here's how CA fills in the gap with the energy shortages that they mandate.

http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2011/10/19/californias-dirty-secret-the-five-coal-plants-supplying-our-electricity/

Good luck with your CA plants. I hope you have lots of lawyers and money, because the Sierra Club is very busy trying to make sure that they don't happen.

A list of successfully defeated plants.

http://content.sierraclub.org/coal/environmentallaw/plant-map

I'd prefer to see NG plants, which the market is already moving towards; but we can't move to NG, and also say "no fracking".

From what I have heard, including at a fire fighter's meeting last evening, there are so many safety actions that water contamination from fracking is almost impossible (that seems to be what many people worry about); he guessed that 99 out of 100, or more, there will be no problem. Any water contamination will probably be from screw-ups on the surface, not at the fracking depth.

Anyway, as I see it, NG can be only a stop gap, and it also produces CO2. We will eventually, or sooner, have to use nuclear power generation, not the presently used thermal nuclear, but fast nuclear which is much, much better.

I tend to agree.

I haven't found any tangible evidence of major catastrophes from fracking; on the other hand, if we assume that humans are going to still be around 200-300 years from now, (or a couple thousand), I think we have a responsibility to think about what's going to become of those fracking chemicals. Will they stay put? Nobody knows.

There are no easy answers, but one thing we should keep in mind...

Humans made it without electricity or cars for a long time. We should stop taking this abundant energy for granted, just because it's there. We have the technology, (right now), to live comfortable lives, on a fraction of what we're using.

Many state regulations are tougher than the Feds. Like I said repeadily the Feds are pussy cats. Not sure when CA did their but they have been in place at least since 2006. In order for anyone in CA you write up a permit you need to take a two week training class have 5 yrs experience and pass a 12 hr exam which covers all their air regulations. Less then 5% of the individuals taking it pass at a score of 70 or higher. I got lucky with a 78 second highest of 100 participants. Already in the final stages of building should be powering up in the next couple months. No issues because we met all the requirements. Most of southern CA power gap comes from AZ where the follow the bear minimum EPA regulations.

Be reasonable no body here is promoting pollution is the way to go. But there has to be a more thoughtful way of doing things rather than driving us back to horse & cart and hand to mouth existence.

There are excesses of consumption in products and profits which drive the carbon production higher, a good government would look to reducing these before beating the average worker over the head with dearer power prices. Lead by example would be a good way to go.

I'm not saying we need to go backwards either. EPA just doesn't they are usual sued then forced by the federal court system. The process takes a long time to go through. I volunteer at several construction and mining organizations we have lobbyest that see these regulations coming for years. States see them also the more proactive states make the regulation ahead of time so the industries in there state are ready.

Here is a report on the closures that are coming as a result of the 2012 mandate. This new mandate insures that no replacements will be built.

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/June-12-EPA-powerplant-shutdown-update.pdf

Part of the point that is being missed in these Posts is that there are egregious regulations and stupendous fines being levied for minor infractions of these dubious regulations. Many of these regulations are being instituted on the basis of the faulty idea of man-made "global warming, cooling, climate change".

When the wrong premise that mankind is causing these issues is used nothing that follows will be correct either.

We can't read the mind of the current administration so we don't know what bho's motivation is for trying to kill energy industries. We just know that his actions are very much against America's energy independence. We have in this great country of ours, at least for the moment, have enormous amounts of natural resources to be utilized if only the EPA and numerous other govenment agencies would quit getting in the way.

You're never worked for one of these companies before have you without any of these laws this country would look as barren as the moon. All these companies are in business to make money they can careless if the mountains can't support life anymore example Palmerston PA from the NJ Zinc company. The mountain lakes in Adirondacks in up state NY from acid rain contributed by power plants in the midwest. The spill regulations in place because the Ohio river was so polluted it caught on fire. The air in AZ was so bad that it had the highest rate of lung disorders in the nation. Yep all the regulations now that are preventing these falsehoods should be taken away and industry should be aloud to do what the want. I do so like a moon landscape.

Nobody here has stated that we should have no environmental laws. Why are you arguing against things that haven't been stated?

Of course we have to protect the environment; again, nobody's going to argue with that.

The problem is...

We have passed the point of diminishing returns from the laws that come out of these agencies, and decisions are being made by people that are still clinging to global warming. These are not scientists...they are people that make emotive decisions that are based on a utopian viewpoint of how they think things should be. They are dangerous.

I'm not advocating no guidelines for business to operate in because I know that many times human nature is to do the least for the greatest amount of payback. That is Bastiat's Law. Because the nature of man is such there needs to be regulatory oversight. They just should have some common sense attached to them.

It's just that government has run amok and exceeded it's boundries by implementation of all kinds of egregious regulations.

It is interesting that just one volcano of which we have absolutely no control over the discharge, introduces more pollutants and ash into the atmosphere at any one period of time than all of the coal fired generating facilities added together.

And; unless I am mistaken volcanic activity has been steadily increasing in parallel with the alarmist report on Global warming.

Ummm.. could they be related?

I think that may be a myth. At least for CO2.

Volcanos spew out about 200 million tons of CO2 every year. Human activity emits more like 30 billon tons each year.

I don't know about ash and other gasses, so if you have a link for those I would be interested.

This is interesting. It's amazing that one eruption lowered the earth's temperature by .5 C, for a period of 2 years.

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/book/export/html/151

CO2 would be the least of our worries in the event a big eruption occurs. See: http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/06/0621laki-iceland-volcano-ash-chokes-europe/?utm_source=Contextly&utm_medium=RelatedLinks&utm_campaign=Previous

When this happened one of its siblings was also erupting and that's the same one that disrupted all those European flights back in 2011. From Wikipedia " During 22 May the ash plume fell to around 10 km altitude, rising occasionally to 15 km.^[17] On 23 May, the eruption was releasing about 2000 tons of ash per second, totalling 120 million tons in the first 48 hours.^[18] The 2011 eruption of Grímsvötn thus qualified as at least 4 (VEI4) on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), releasing more ash in the first 24 hours than Eyjafjallajökull released during its entire 2010 eruption."

As one can see it's not the CO2 but the SO2 and the hydrofluoric acid that's going really mess us up. I wonder what effect the sulfurous acid that will form and especially the hydrofluoric acid will have on Solar Panels and Windmills during the fallout. I don't think that the powers that be are intelligent enough to be concerned about the "what if" scenario when it comes to things that Nature can throw at us. Most volcanic activity is cyclical and there are several "super-volcanoes" around the world whose cycle can bring disaster. But, they may be thinking that such a disaster combined with insufficient electrical generation facilities would for once and for all (well maybe just the next 100 years even) solve the overpopulation and its resulting "Global Warming".

Just to the north of you is Yellowstone, home of one of the largest super-volcanoes in the word. The scary part is when you look at her schedule for blowing her top:

"Yellowstone Supervolcano. The caldera is located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, in which the vast majority of the park is contained. The major features of the caldera measure about 34 by 45 miles (55 by 72 km).^[3] The caldera formed during the last of three supereruptions over the past 2.1 million years. First came the Huckleberry Ridge eruption 2.1 million years ago, which created the Island Park Caldera and the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff. Next came the Mesa Falls eruption 1.3 million years ago, which created the Henry's Fork Caldera and the Mesa Falls Tuff. Finally came the Lava Creek eruption 640,000 years ago, which created the Yellowstone Caldera and the Lava Creek Tuff."

Scary in that 640,000 is just a little less than half of 1.3 million and a little less than 1/3 of 2.1 million years. But I doubt that she can be held to an exact schedule after by calling it a "she" we know that "she" will probably be late in arriving but also being a "she" means "she" can be very unpredictable. As far as our experts go they tell us "The upward movement of the Yellowstone caldera floor between 2004 and 2008 - almost 3 inches (7.6 cm) each year - was more than three times greater than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923.^[26] From mid-summer 2004 through mid-summer 2008, the land surface within the caldera moved upward as much as 8 inches (20 cm) at the White Lake GPS station.^[27][28] By the end of 2009, the uplift had slowed significantly and appeared to have stopped.^[29] In January 2010, the USGS stated that "uplift of the Yellowstone Caldera has slowed significantly"^[30] and that uplift continues but at a slower pace.^[31] The U.S. Geological Survey, University of Utah and National Park Service scientists with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory maintain that they "see no evidence that another such cataclysmic eruption will occur at Yellowstone in the foreseeable future. Recurrence intervals of these events are neither regular nor predictable."^{[15] .}

interesting point about the volcanoes.

Our current president ran on a platform of energy independence, with clean coal being part of the mix.

I think Obamacare was the only promise he kept.

I do not expect anything with a lick of sense to come out of our governing bodies. We are being governed by con-artists and rabid fanatics. I see the elimination of power plants as foolish. I think we should be building more nuclear plants and keep some of the coal plants operating. It is safer to not rely on one source of energy. Due to greenhouse gas build up I am in favor of nuculear plants built safely in safe remote areas. The biggest problems with solar is the predicted output is not even close to the generated output. The lumens used to predict output in Seattle was captured circa 1980 by measuring sun light intensity for at least a year in several places. These places were all on ether equator or close to it in places like the Sahara Desert, the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, some place in the Andes etc. The calculations assume the units will never get dirty. You may be lucky to get 20-30% of the rates power in a location such as Seattle. As bad as solar is I suspect it is superior to wind. Old timers, do you remember all the windmills farms used to pump water from their wells? They were quickly replaced with solar and have never come back. Spain's wind energy is far more expensive than it was supposed to be and is considered a failed experiment.

Our green movement is probably behind the destruction of cheap energy. They hope if energy is more expensive we will use less. I expect that to have a minimal effect.

Retrofittling 30 year old houses to current technology is very expensive. Driving up the cost of energy may not induce persons to insulate their houses. I added about 120% to my attic insulation. That was effective and paid for itself the first year. My neighbors paid many thousands of dollars so they could save a bundle on their heating bill. None are sure they are seeing a big difference. I am sure the savings calculation is as highly flawed as the solar savings. Cold ceilings sap much more heat from your house than windows twice as cold if you draw the drapes at night. The drapes ruin the air flow while the hot air rises to heat the ceilings.

A cyber attack, or a solar flare that shuts down our interconnected system will make people wish they'd kept their local system. It won't make any difference what fuels it.

Colorado is wising up...just recalled to elected state officials who bent to political pressure instead of listening to constituents...maybe I won't move to North Dakota.

This current federal administration is printing money to support the stock market and their unwanted agenda's. How long before the 'sh** hits the fan'? I'm glad I left silicon valley.

I used to live outside of Santa Cruz. I liked it there, but had to leave.