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clean power plan

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by austingreen, Aug 3, 2015.

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  1. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Here it is hot of the white house presses
    Fact Sheet: President Obama to Announce Historic Carbon Pollution Standards for Power Plants | whitehouse.gov
    I would have liked to see a coal tax and other things instead, but that was not doable in the US congress. This appears to be a good plan. My only objection is it may be too harsh on eastern and mid western states who might band with some that oppose it simply because they take money from the corporations that are hurt by it. My biggest objection for texas had been the speed of implementation, which was too fast for some of our power plants, but that was corrected in the new plan.
     
    #1 austingreen, Aug 3, 2015
  2. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Should we assume it will face court challenge(s)?
     
    #2 tochatihu, Aug 3, 2015
  3. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    They won't have to challenge this in court.
    The next President will have a pen too, and the current occupant of the WH only has a year left.
     
    #3 ETC(SS), Aug 3, 2015
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  4. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    It will have court challenges for sure, but I expect that it will pass those mainly in tact.

    Congress can act to restrict some of the epa's power by passing some of their own bills against this. EPA is using the Clean air act to enforce this, and court decisions about how it was written. That is the biggest hurdle, but if congress had acted to put in some descent plan then the EPA would not have been needed to do this. This appears to be much better than the pelosi cap and trade plan that passed the house but did not even get brought up in harry reid's senate.

    A bigger problem is if the next president supports the eastern states, say a trump or a paul, they can ask their new EPA to roll back some of the reforms. Still I almost think rand paul might leave it and hunt other problems, like corporate tax reform, and removing non-violent offenders from prison time.

    I hope this stays pretty much in tact, but there can be problems. The mercury rule got reversed by the supreme court, but that was pretty much because the EPA did not do its work properely. Still industry had complied with 70% before the court reversed it. I would expect at least 20 states to act on their plans even if this gets reversed later on. This has big corporate support, so there should be plenty of funds to block the coal industries push against it.
    Why Corporate America is Supporting EPA's Clean Power Plan - Forbes
     
    #4 austingreen, Aug 3, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2015
  5. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Oops.
    Belay my last.
    I thought that this was an EO, but it's regulatory.....so yeah.
    There's going to be court fights for sure.
     
    #5 ETC(SS), Aug 3, 2015
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  6. frodoz737

    frodoz737 Top Wrench

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    ...and pay offs, and exceptions, and pork, and on and on and on. This is industry and government we are talking about.
     
    #6 frodoz737, Aug 3, 2015
  7. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I'm confused. There is a lot less pork in this plan than the cap and trade plan, or the 1978 coal bills that helped create all the coal pollution.
    Utilities are not guided by the invisible hand, and certainly the Federal government has encouraged utilities to polute in the past.

    Certainly there is some giveaways like any government program, is there a specific one you object to here.
     
    #7 austingreen, Aug 3, 2015
  8. frodoz737

    frodoz737 Top Wrench

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    Have not read the "proposed" plan yet...but my comments will apply to the final if/when it happens.
     
    #8 frodoz737, Aug 3, 2015
  9. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Nice to see you have an open mind;)

    Anyway these are the rules, but they will face lawsuits. Each state will propose its own plans following these rules. I really wanted to talk about the content not the politics, which will be drastically lower coal and much higher renewables, and see whether people thought it was too much or not enough of a change for 15 years from now.
     
    #9 austingreen, Aug 3, 2015
  10. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    Virginia dodged a bullet: we were initially given a mandated 40% reduction from 2012. The final plan out today gave Virginia relief we have an easier target now. Too early to say if it is reasonable.

    My issue with this plan, is in part, misleading communication. EPA and many enviro. groups keep saying this is an extremely modest small step 30% reduction from 2005 when a lot has already been completed. But when you add in population growth 2005 to 2030, it's more like 50% reduction in CO2, so it's a massive reduction, a massive command and control regulation, the likes of which we have really never seen. But to sugar-coat it, they say it is a very reasonable tiny step. They should just go ahead and say it's a huge change, that way the public will understand why it is being contested.
     
    #10 wjtracy, Aug 3, 2015
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  11. frodoz737

    frodoz737 Top Wrench

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    Out of respect to you then...I will bow out. So much is possible to improve everything in life, unfortunately my thoughts "as they will apply here" are based on history. Apologies.
     
    #11 frodoz737, Aug 3, 2015
  12. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Well I agree that the history is quite bad, and this is not in any way a perfect plan. Please come back and comment even if its what you don't like about it, after you have had a chance to analyze it.
     
    #12 austingreen, Aug 3, 2015
  13. frodoz737

    frodoz737 Top Wrench

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    ;)
     
    #13 frodoz737, Aug 3, 2015
  14. FL_Prius_Driver

    FL_Prius_Driver Senior Member

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    One step in the right direction is reading it before passing it.

    My biggest problem so far is stating this is needed for climate change. It actually is needed to reduce pollution.
     
    #14 FL_Prius_Driver, Aug 3, 2015
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  15. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    FL_P_D, see the EPA fact sheet on this thing. it only addresses health effects.
     
    #15 tochatihu, Aug 3, 2015
  16. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    If it survives in the current form it will greatly reduce unhealthy pollution as well as around a 10% reduction in ghg from the country as well as reduce the link between fossil fuel cost and energy cost (lower fossil use per kwh).

    The biggest complaint I've heard so far is it will be expensive but only reduce ghg levels a tiny bit. If china and india keep going as they have the us reduction won't matter much.

    The jobs claim is highly suspect IMHO. I expect job losses instaed, but I agree this is a step in the right direction.
     
    #16 austingreen, Aug 4, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2015
  17. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    There is a political thread on this in the "proper" forum.
     
    #17 Trollbait, Aug 4, 2015
  18. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    This AP article had me worried Sunday nite (before the announcement):

    Climate change: Obama orders steeper cuts from power plants - Yahoo News

    The plan does not require replacing coal without using more natural gas, right? If so its hard to imagine as I would think many nat gas plants are planned. Guess we need to look at the planned final fuel mix (orig vs. revised vs. current). But the whole idea is to give states choice, so they are not specifying final fuel mix.
     
    #18 wjtracy, Aug 4, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2015
  19. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    #19 wjtracy, Aug 4, 2015
  20. mojo

    mojo Senior Member

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    "Another key change to the initial proposal marks a major shift for Obama on natural gas, which the president has championed as a "bridge fuel" whose growing use can help the U.S. wean itself off dirtier coal power while ramping up renewable energy capacity. The final version aims to keep the share of natural gas in the nation's power mix at current levels."

    Then nukes are the winner as renewables can never replace coal .Natural gas would have been the sensible alternative.
    But theres nothing sensible about this fiasco.
    The mandate will have next to no effect on world CO2 levels .It will have next to no effect on world climate .
    My concern is that Obama is unaware of how prices react to power outages ,blackouts ,brownouts.Power cost doesnt jump 20% when there are shortages.Prices skyrocket as happened in California in the 90s.Prices jumped 20 TIMES normal.
    Germany today has electricity 25% higher than its neighbors .How the hell do you maintain a manufacturing economy with higher labor and energy costs?
    The germans are building coal plants as the solution.
     
    #20 mojo, Aug 4, 2015
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