Local elec. coop lobbies against EPA rulings.
Our electricity providers, a rural coop, recently sent emails to it's customers asking us to tell our representatives to work against the latest EPA rulings concerning coal and gas electricity production and warning that adhering to those rulings would cause our electricity rates to rise.
I answered the email saying that I was more concerned about the survival of our way of life and the planet caused by high CO2 in atmosphere causing massive climate change than higher electric rates.
I got an immediate response:
Your cooperative supports a comprehensive energy and environmental policy that maximizes energy efficiency, embraces all domestic fuels -- nuclear, natural gas, renewable, and coal, and emphasizes the development of technologies that reduce CO2 and other emissions. EPA's proposal to limit new fossil plants to a CO2 emissions rate of 1000 pounds per megawatt-hour does not differentiate between natural gas and coal, ignoring regional differences in their availability as well as assuming that they are interchangeable fuels to power electric generation. This proposal will reduce our future fuel diversity and sharply limiting incentives for coal technology development. Since this proposed standard is about half the emissions from a typical new coal plant, new coal plants would have to install technology to capture 50 percent of the CO2 emissions and store the CO2 underground. Given that carbon capture is not commercially viable, prohibitively expensive, and saddled with unresolved legal, technical, and regulatory issues concerning CO2 storage, this proposed standard has the practical effect of eliminating coal as a fuel source for the next generation of power plants. While the Cooperative supports reducing emissions, we do not feel the technology is ready for carbon capture.
Those of you who have excellent knowledge of the actual EPA rules as well as the viability of carbon capture and it's cost please tell me if the above is true, and where the source of information might be. Thanks.
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