Smelling Blood in the Political Water

The great white environmentalist sharks smell blood in the water. It’s gushing from mortally wounded US coal companies that the Obama EPA has gutted as sacrifices on the altar of “dangerous manmade climate change” prevention and other spurious health, ecological and planetary scares.
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Oregon Governor Signs Law That Will Wipe Out Coal-Generated Energy in Phases Through 2030

With the stroke of Gov. Kate Brown's signature Friday, Oregon became the first state to eradicate coal from its power supply through legislation and now boasts some of the most stringent demands for renewable energy among its state peers. The new law will wipe out coal-generated energy in phases through 2030 and requires utilities to provide half of customers' power with renewable sources by 2040, doubling the state's previous standard.
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China expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in coal, steel sectors

China said on Monday it expects to lay off 1.8 million workers in the coal and steel industries, or about 15 percent of the workforce, as part of efforts to reduce industrial overcapacity, but no timeframe was given. It was the first time China has given figures that underline the magnitude of its task in dealing with slowing growth and bloated state enterprises.
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America's Power Plant Problem

More than 200 out of the 523 coal-fired power plants that were in operation five years ago are now closed or slated for closure. What should we do with them? The English Station coal-fired power plant sits on eight acres of land on Ball Island, a large chunk of property that nearly stretches from riverbank to riverbank in the middle of the Mill River in New Haven, Connecticut.
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Coal industry could leave U.S. taxpayers with major bill -Jewell

U.S. taxpayers could be left with multibillion-dollar liabilities if large coal companies are pushed to bankruptcy, the Interior Department Secretary said on Wednesday.

At issue is a practice known as self-bonding, allowed under a decades-old mining program, in which some of the country's biggest coal companies forego insurance on a portion of future mine cleanup costs.

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California’s Hidden Coal Use

California’s politicians would like you to believe that their electricity comes from non-coal sources. However, while there are very few coal plants in California, making up only 0.4 percent of the state’s generation in 2014[i], California imports electricity from neighboring states and as much as half of Southern California’s electric generation comes from coal-fired generating plants in Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.[ii] Although California is pushing electric vehicles, wanting 1.5 million on the road by 2025,[iii] the greenhouse gas savings from their use will be minuscule if electricity continues to be generated mainly from imports of coal-fired generation and natural gas that supplies the state with 60 percent of its electricity.


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EPA Plan to Ban Coal Hits Major Roadblock

The EPA proposal to impose a de facto ban on new coal-fired power plants received more than two million comments from the public - but it looks like it was just one five-page comment from the Energy and Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) that sent EPA scrambling back to the drawing board.


The draft rule mandated the use of so-called carbon capture and storage, a technology that would inject carbon dioxide underground but which has so far proved to be little more than a white elephant experiment. To mandate this technology, the law required the EPA to prove it was "adequately demonstrated" and "commercially available." Thanks to E&E Legal, they failed.


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Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Rules on Mercury From Power Plants

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to hear a major challenge to the limits set by the Obama administration on emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.

 

It is the latest effort by industry groups to roll back regulations that would reduce emissions like mercury, soot, sulfur, smog and carbon dioxide.

 

Read more at the New York Times

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‘Twilight for Coal in the United States’: EPA Announces New Regs on ‘War on Poverty’ Anniversary

The Environmental Protection Agency moved forward with a proposed rule to require coal-fired power plants to install a technology aimed at reducing greenhouse gases that the Government Accountability Office found won’t be commercially viable for several years.  The EPA first proposed new caps on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel fired electricity generating units in April 2012 and received more than 2.5 million public comments on the rules. In the proposed rule filed with the Federal Register on Wednesday, the EPA said it is withdrawing the 2012 proposal and moving forward with new substitute rules.

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GOP lawmakers accuse EPA of muzzling scientists on climate regulations

Republican leaders on the House Science Committee are accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of disregarding science in its push to impose carbon dioxide limits on power plants. ✧ Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and 20 other Republican lawmakers sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on Thursday, claiming the agency has "muzzled" members of its independent science advisory board.

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Obama Administration's war on coal, jobs at risk

March 6, 2012

Press Release: More than 270,000 Jobs Potentially at Risk from Mining Rule Says ENVIRON

ENVIRON International Corporation (ENVIRON) today completed an analysis on behalf of the National Mining Association (NMA) of the anticipated economic impacts associated with the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s (OSM) proposed rewrite of the Stream Buffer Zone Rule (the Stream Protection Rule) and other provisions of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). The key findings of the analysis are as follows: Read more at NMA...

(Hat tip: Linda Weimer) Read More......

Heartland: EPA Finds New Way to Skin the Cat

HEARTLAND.ORG, 6/16/2011 by James M. Taylor - American Electric Power has announced new EPA regulations will force it to close five coal-fired power plants, pay for expensive retrofits for at least a dozen more, eliminate 600 jobs, and substantially increase the price it charges for electricity. ∴ AEP’s announcement came on the heels of a National Economic Research Associates Inc. report finding EPA’s new regulations will cause an 11.5 percent increase in U.S. electricity prices above baseline projections and will kill 144,000 jobs by the year 2020. AEP relied entirely on government data for most of its assumptions.

Coal Plants Closing Prematurely... Read more at Heartland.org Read More......