The EPA has decided to take control of the nation's electricity supply, putting the U.S. at risk of a catastrophic failure of the nation's energy grid. They are essentially banning existing coal and natural gas-fired power plants, which currently supply 60% of U.S. electricity, by 2030. These plants can only stay open by utilizing the unproven and infantile technology of carbon capture, making electricity instantly unaffordable for the majority of the U.S. population (if the power plant can even figure out how to make it work). How about spending some federal dollars on a demonstration power plant first? Instead of tying our future to something that's basically a theory at this point. Pure arrogance. Could the EPA break America's power grid? Yikes.
How about building some nuclear plants to produce electricity? There is no CO2 problem there and the waste can be safely stored.
I know nothing about the subject and, for all I know, that column could be 100 percent correct. Or not. But it should be noted that that is an opinion piece written by someone who has long supported fossil fuels and opposed the EPA the clean power plan. https://www.mediamatters.org/legacy...sil-fuels-and-prolific-author-anti-epa-op-eds
Forgive me, not a area I am versed on, but isnt the gist that the EPA clean air standards will require fossil fuel burning plants to update to meet the standards? That, in effect, is the energy disaster the pollution supporters want to spin. Whoa. Sounds.. well, sounds like a good idea.
It will be interesting to se if the USSC de facto reverses itself on the issue of the EPA’s authority for this regulation.
It does seem like an overreach by a federal agency. If it is the right thing to do, Congress should pass a law requiring the changes.
While China and the non-Western world are increasing their use of coal and other dirty fuels we are committed to economic suicide by putting in these regulations that handicap us - and, just like the Paris accords - always get pushed back as the goal nears. Who can plan for the infrastructure when an unelected bureaucrat can wave his or her hand and say “that’s not going to fly”? Answer: no one can and plans for infrastructure die as well as the energy that will be needed for….things like electric cars.
Oh yes we should all heed the opinion and advice of a Missouri lawyer who represents fossil fuel and mining interests. Give us a break.
This is one of the areas I wish someone would go back 20-25 years ago to dig up the purchased agitprop from those like Heartland essentially calling James Hansen an alarmist, downplaying the threat of climate change if not dismissing it, and saying that government subsidized alternative energy research was a wasteful boondoggle. Hansen’s forecasts, the most aggressive at the time, have been proven wrong, but in the opposite direction. Megan McArdle was the one that always tried to sound reasonable on it. She also predicted so many times that the ACA would never be popular and that Obama officials were delusional in suggesting it would. Also want to see someone go back and pull up all the Op-Eds saying that societal violence, esp. mass shooting, were due to the devaluation of life from Roe v. Wade and would go away once it was repealed. And that legal gay marriage would destroy society. At least they finally gave up on dynamic scoring, though there are echoes of this charlatanism in McCarthy’ recent rhetoric. Like almost all conservative “thought”, it never withstands the test of observed empiricism and is basically FOS. But they never admit error or that they are just hacks
This reminds me of the old days when you had smoking and non smoking seating at restaurants. You’d go in and be seated at a non smoking table that sat next to a smoking table. Lol Unless the other big boy countries get on board this is all BS. Let’s go nuke and other renewables at a reasonable pace so we can get off oil and tell OPEC and other exporters of oil to KMA. Let them set prices and play with output on their own dollar.
I dont know. A fully non-oil based energy grid is inevitable. Just a matter of time. For everyone. Even China. Oil scarcity will increase year over year through 2050 when it gets really scare for the world. 25 years is the blink of an eye for infrastructure. Problem with the partisanship is there is no long term plan on how we get their cuz everything is budget by budget yelling about stuff that doesnt matter. This transition does matter for our sustainability.
I wouldn't have repeated it if I didn't think he had a valid argument. I'm a chemical engineer, and while power generation is not my area of specialty, I can understand enough of the basics of the problem to agree with what the guy is saying. If you disagree with what he is saying, why don't you explain why?
Dude... all his short opinion article said was stricter rules are more expensive to oil based energy and the sky will fall because of that.
The Right keeps trying to frame this as a Culture War or Big Government. And the politics are interesting - citizens don’t want higher costs or lifestyle restrictions, and will usually vote against them. But ultimately it doesn’t matter. Higher costs and lifestyle restrictions will happen due to sheer reality. Economically, government regulation may not move as fast as the market does, especially the property insurance market. Our current lifestyle is rapidly becoming economically unsustainable without massive public subsidies into the insurance market. And all the Op-Eds against big government can’t stop that, because they cannot bribe the physics of nature.
Agree. And it’s difficult to do it alone at a tremendous cost when you know your neighbor is going to ignore it. I’m for getting off oil in a reasonable time frame. Have a clause in every agreement that says all rules or guidelines are off if certain countries don’t follow them.
