WASHINGTON – New coal-fired power plants would be all but abolished in favor of a big bet on natural gas under a new Environmental Protection Agency rule unveiled Tuesday.
The proposal to limit carbon emissions from power plants drew jeers from the coal industry, along with its political allies. They said itwould harm a fragile economy and imperil a smooth-functioning power grid. Environmental groups and many Democrats cheered the rule as a step toward weaning the nation from dirty coal.
It is the first time the EPA has regulated carbon emissions from power plants, as past actions have cracked down on toxic emissions like mercury. Most scientists say carbon emissions contribute to global warming as heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
Georgia Power has no plans to build traditional coal-fired plants at this time, but two coal plants backed by a conglomerate of Georgia electric co-ops known as POWER4Georgians in Washington and Ben Hill counties will be subject to Tuesday's EPA regulations should they start construction a year or more after the rules are adopted.
The last coal plant Georgia Power built was Plant Scherer, which was completed in 1989 in Juliette, about 65 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta. The plant is the nation’s No. 1 producer of carbon dioxide, according to 2010 EPA data.
“By setting the first-ever standards for the largest source of the carbon pollution that fuels global warming, President Obama and EPA Administrator [Lisa] Jackson are standing up for Georgians — and putting our health above the demands of the polluter lobby,” said Jennette Gayer, of Environment Georgia.
Georgia Power’s parent, Atlanta-based Southern Co. has warned that other EPA regulations to curb mercury and other pollutants will force its utilities to close coal-fired plants, driving up customer bills and putting the grid’s reliability at risk. Southern, which used to get more than 70 percent of its electricity from coal, cut that to 51 percent in early 2011. The company plans to reduce that amount to 40 percent to comply with EPA rules, which it has spent millions of dollars in Washington to fight.
The proposed rule will now go through a public comment period before it is finalized, then likely faces a stiff court challenge. Still, it will have an immediate effect of halting development of new coal plants, said Jeff Holmstead, a former Bush administration EPA official and attorney advising industry clients for Bracewell and Giuliani in Washington.
The rule only applies to new power plants and Jackson said Tuesday the agency has no plans to impose greenhouse gas regulations on plants that are under construction or in use. But it would halt about 15 plants in the permit process across the country, she said.
The limit of 1,000 lbs of carbon per megawatt hour could be met if a new coal plant employs carbon capture and storage to reduce emissions, but the emerging technology is nowhere near commercially ready.
Southern is building two coal-fired plants with emission-reducing technology, including Plant Kemper in Mississippi, a plant that is supposed to capture 65 percent of carbon dioxide from pulverized coal.
It’s too early to tell whether Georgia Power or any of its sister utilities will build coal plants using these technologies.
Coal remains the largest source of U.S. power generation, but its share dipped below 40 percent at the end of 2011 for the first time in 30 years, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Natural gas plants generally emit less than the 1,000-pound limit, as the fuel burns cleaner than coal. Recent discoveries of massive shale gas reserves have driven natural gas prices down and made it more economical. Jackson said the rule was an acknowledgment of this resource shift.
“We are meeting the market where it is,” Jackson said. “People are moving toward cleaner generation and they are doing that by taking advantage of our country’s abundant amount of natural gas.”
Holmstead said this amounts to a perilous bet on natural gas prices remaining stable.
“Most of the people that I deal with and most of the policy people find it very troubling from kind of an energy security standpoint to put all our eggs in that basket,” he said.
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