By H. Sterling Burnett
Washington Examiner
One of the main reasons President Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement is the treaty is a “bad deal for America.” Among many other problems, it would cost a significant number of jobs. In support of his claim, Mr. Trump cited a study by NERA Economic Consulting that estimates if the United States were to meet its carbon-dioxide emissions reduction obligations under the Paris climate agreement, it would cost the economy nearly $3 trillion and the United States would lose 6.5 million industrial jobs by 2040, including 3.1 million in the manufacturing sector.
By Annalee Armstrong and Taylor Kuykendall
SNL
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency appears set to replace the broadly scoped Clean Power Plan with a narrower rule requiring generators to make plant-specific thermal efficiency improvements to coal-fired facilities, according to a former transition team member for President Donald Trump and two industry sources familiar with the agency’s plans.
By William F. Shughart II
Washington Examiner
The Kemper County, Miss., power plant, once heralded as the future of clean coal, has become the poster child for its struggles.
Over-budget and mired in technical problems, the Southern Company, Kemper’s builder, recently announced that it’s giving up on the plant’s advanced coal-gasification systems. Instead, the plant will be powered solely by natural gas.
Renewable energy advocates and climate hawks had been expecting the announcement for months and reacted with predictable derision and high-fiving. But their gloating is foolish.
By Dan Byers
US Chamber of Commerce
The War on Coal is well and truly over, but a peculiar debate over its impact lingers on. Revisionist history is central to this debate, with some folks now suggesting that the coal industry was never in a two-front struggle against both a regulatory onslaught and cheap natural gas. Instead, they argue, it was a one-front war against natural gas all along. President Obama may have marshalled his regulatory agencies for battle, but who knew they were firing blanks?
KING GEORGE, VA. (COAL AGE) —GE Power (NYSE: GE) today announced plans to convert its 242 MW coal-fired Birchwood Power facility in King George, Virginia, US into a Steam Plant Services Innovation Center.
The center, which provides sufficient electricity to power more than 240,000 homes, is to become a showcase for how the latest GE technologies can greatly increase the efficiency and flexibility of coal-fired steam power plants, while also reducing emissions.
By JOHN SICILIANO
Washington Examiner (2/21/17)
President Trump is planning to issue executive orders this week to begin rolling back the centerpiece of President Obama‘s climate change agenda with several other regulations.
Trump is expected to soon issue the orders targeting regulations put into place by the Environmental Protection Agency, including the Clean Power Plan, which directs states to cut greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants.
The EPA climate plan was halted a year ago by the Supreme Court until the courts can rule on litigation by 28 state attorneys general, the coal industry and hundreds of individual companies and industry groups.
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL, NEW YORK — (Feb. 17, 2017)
Republican presidents tend to nominate one of two types of administrator to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. The first is the centrist—think Christie Todd Whitman (2001-03)—who might be equally at home in a Democratic administration. The other is the fierce conservative—think Anne Gorsuch (1981-83)—who views the agency in a hostile light.
Scott Pruitt, whom the Senate confirmed Friday, 52-46, doesn’t fit either mold. His focus is neither expanding nor reducing regulation. “There is no reason why EPA’s role should ebb or flow based on a particular administration, or a particular administrator,” he says. “Agencies exist to administer the law. Congress passes statutes, and those statutes are very clear on the job EPA has to do. We’re going to do that job.” You might call him an EPA originalist.
By JUDY HISLOP
WASHINGTON, DC (February 14, 2017) – The mix of fuels used to generate electricity in the United States has changed in response to differences in the expected cost of fuels and electricity-generating technology costs and their deployment, according to the US Energy Information Administration.
These factors, together with policies affecting emissions from power generation, will determine the generation fuel mix of the future.
Multiple cases in EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2017 (AEO2017) show how projected electricity generation is affected by fuel prices, especially natural gas prices, and the Clean Power Plan, a final Environmental Protection Agency rule issued in 2015 whose enforcement was stayed by the US Supreme Court in Feb. 2016 pending the resolution of legal challenges.
What the Media Says —
“Coal-fired power plants do not use clean coal technology.”
The Reality –
There are 16 clean coal technologies being used today by the U.S. coal fleet. These include wet and dry scrubbers to reduce SO2 emissions, selective and non-selective catalytic reduction to reduce NOx emissions, and electrostatic precipitators and fabric filter technology to reduce PM. Every coal-fired power plant in the U.S. uses one or more clean coal technologies. Source: American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.
