{"id":290,"date":"2013-02-11T11:15:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-11T16:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/?p=290"},"modified":"2013-02-11T11:15:52","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T16:15:52","slug":"big-coals-big-problems-rolling-stone-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/?p=290","title":{"rendered":"Big Coals Big Problems (Rolling Stone Magazine)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Editor’s Note: While cheap natural gas prices and more stringent regulation of coal emissions has made new coal plants virtually impossible to pencil in the US, existing coal plants are still the main point-source of CO2 pollution domestically. \u00a0Further, we are now exporting more coal than ever before to Europe where power prices are much higher than in the US. \u00a0We’re not going to see real reductions in global CO2 until we not just stop growing the coal industry, but actually dramatically shrink it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Big Coal’s Big Problems<\/a>\u00a0(Rolling Stone Magazine)<\/p>\n

You wouldn’t have guessed it from all the theatrics of the 2012 election \u2013 like when Mitt Romney, who once stood in front of a coal-fired power plant and announced, “That plant kills people,” turned around and campaigned on a promise to revive the coal industry \u2013 but the days of Big Coal’s power have been numbered for a while now. And the prognosis may be about to get worse.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule limiting how much carbon dioxide a new power plant can emit per megawatt of electricity it produces. Plants powered by the sun, wind, nuclear and natural gas are capable of operating under the new limit \u2013 but not those powered by coal.<\/p>\n

The rule was heralded as marking the end of new coal power in the U.S., though in fact cheap natural gas, the rising cost of producing coal, the availability of ever-cheaper renewable power, strong opposition to coal and the possibility of a carbon price had already kept utilities from planning new coal plants (or prompted them to cancel them) even before the rule was issued.<\/p>\n

But no new coal plants isn’t the same as no coal plants.\u00a0NEW EPA DATA OUT THIS WEEK<\/a>\u00a0shows that, though power plant emissions are dropping, coal-fired plants are still the largest single source of carbon emissions in the U.S. If President Obama is to follow up on his inaugural promise \u2013 “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations” \u2013 that has to mean addressing those existing plants.<\/p>\n

Indeed,\u00a0THE WALL STREET JOURNAL RECENTLY REPORTED<\/a>\u00a0that the president will announce his plans to tackle the emissions of existing power plants in his upcoming State of the Union address. It’s not clear yet what form those plans will take, though\u00a0LOBBYISTS FOR COAL-BURNING UTILITIES ARE ALREADY CLAMORING<\/a>\u00a0for a say in what new rules will look like. But they won’t be the only new stresses on the\u00a0ALREADY FRAGILE ECONOMICS OF COAL POWER<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The EPA is also\u00a0EXPECTED TO ISSUE A NEW RULE LATER THIS YEAR<\/a>\u00a0setting standards for how utilities deal with coal ash, a toxic byproduct of burning coal that is often stored in giant, uncovered and unlined ponds. The rule has been expected since 2008, when the earthen wall restraining a 40-acre coal ash slurry pond in eastern Tennessee failed, inundating two rivers and a nearby town with a billion gallons of slurry. According to a 2010 EPA study, the cost of compliance with new standards could exceed $20 billion.<\/p>\n

These are the sorts of shocks that the already struggling coal industry isn’t ready to handle. Opponents have called such regulation a “war on coal,” but the simple truth is that the environmental realities of burning coal are finally catching up to the industry. U.S. coal just doesn’t make economic sense.<\/p>\n

Coal’s decline does bring some negative side effects. Coal is too often replaced not with renewable power but with natural gas, which has its own serious problems, including the water pollution associated with the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the fact that it’s a major greenhouse gas emitter in its own right. And, as domestic demand dwindles, coal companies are increasingly looking to export coal to markets in Asia, where demand is still high.<\/p>\n

Those upcoming fights notwithstanding, the urgency of the climate crisis means that bad news for coal is good news for the rest of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: While cheap natural gas prices and more stringent regulation of coal emissions has made new coal plants virtually impossible to pencil in the US, existing coal plants are still the main point-source of CO2 pollution domestically. \u00a0Further, we are now exporting more coal than ever before to Europe where power prices are much higher than in the US. \u00a0We’re not going to see real reductions in global CO2 until we not just stop growing the coal industry, but actually dramatically shrink it. Big Coal’s Big Problems\u00a0(Rolling Stone Magazine) You wouldn’t have guessed it from all the theatrics of \u2026 Continue reading this post → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-environment","category-energy_policy_economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":291,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290\/revisions\/291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.themodestproposal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}