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EPA Rules Target Mercury Pollution, Toxics from Power Plants
The Environmental Protection Agency released far-reaching air pollution regulations Wednesday, 21 years after they were first mandated by Congress and six days after they were signed by the agency.
Dominion Chesterfield (Va.) Power Station, has a system designed to remove sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions from some units. File photo. (USA TODAY) The rules require coal- and oil-fired power plants to lower emissions of 84 different toxic chemicals to levels no higher than those emitted by the cleanest 12% of plants. Companies have three years to achieve the standards, and EPA has made clear a fourth year and perhaps even more time are also available to them.
"We're delighted," says Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association. "After waiting 21 years, it looks like we may actually have a rule that will help to save 11,000 lives a year and reduce exposure all across the country to a bunch of really toxic substances."
"It's hard to overstate the significance of this rule," says John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "This is a generational achievement, that mark's America cleaning up dirty power plants once and for all."
The EPA rules govern multiple toxics, including mercury, arsenic, nickel, selenium and cyanide.
Power plants are responsible for half of the mercury and more than 75% of the acid gas emissions in the United States, the EPA says. The EPA estimates that about half the nation's power plants already have pollution control technologies in place. This rule will "level the playing field" in the agency's words, by ensuring that the rest, about 40% of all coal-fired plants, take similar steps.
By EPA estimates, the rules will prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year, as well as preventing 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms.
Coal-fired burners are the main concern of the regulation, as oil-fired burners are less popular given high oil prices. There are about 1,100 coal-fired burners being used at 600 power plants nationwide, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told USA TODAY. Currently, 12% of the nation's coal-fired power plants already meet the standards, by definition. Another 48% have some if not all of the necessary technologies in place to meet the standards.
The remaining 40% "have done nothing, they have no controls, they emit unlimited amounts of pollutants, they have no technology in place," Jackson says. These plants are the focus of the regulations.
But the industry argues the cost of meeting these rules could bring economic hardship.
American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity President and CEO Steve Miller said Wednesday. "The EPA is out of touch with the hard reality facing American families and businesses. This latest rule will destroy jobs, raise the cost of energy and could even make electricity less reliable."
The coalition plans to study the new rule but says it may risk jobs and access to affordable electricity. If so, it will ask Congress to "step in," Miller says. "People's jobs, their family budgets and their access to affordable electricity are at stake."
There was a furious eleventh-hour push by some utility groups in the past two weeks "to try to kill this, but in the end too many pieces of the power industry were saying, 'We can do this,' " says Jim Pew of Earthjustice, a public interest law group.
Advertisements suggesting that the United States will experience power blackouts because of the new rules "are greatly overblown," EPA's Jackson says. Modeling done by EPA, Congress and the Department of Energy all suggest there's no danger of that.
"This is just a scare tactic," she says. Utilities are crassly "asking Americans to choose between mercury in their and their children's bodies, and power." That's not what's happening, Jackson says.
There's nothing in the rule requiring these plants to be shut down, only that they need to be cleaned up, she says. Analysis has shown that these plants are, on average, 50 years old.
"It's just like your car. You have to make a determination of how much you want to put into a clunker when it starts to see the end of its useful life. Companies will have to make business decisions," Jackson says.
19 Comments so far
Show AllGE run plants have exemptions from these standards. Didn't see that mentioned. Get ready for huge price increases and rolling brown outs.
Could you provide a link or two regarding GE exemptions? I would appreciate it.
GE is exempt from everything except contributions to the DNC
Now come the hammer as these companies double their rates.
Be grateful for small victories. EPA: Isn't that one of the guvmnt agancies that Rick Perry has trouble remembering that he wants to shut down?
Look for enlightened members of Congress to overturn these rules. Cleaning and modernizing coal plants might have made sense 20 years ago. Further investment in these grossly polluting technologies is insane today. A coal plant is a death factory.
There's the same old mantra from the masters of medre. Regulations will cost jobs. As if these plant owners gave a damn about jobs - they'd tear your lungs out for a buck. When one hears the corporate filth spewing forth their threats of job loss, he's gotta duck to avoid the blast of right wing crap that's not far behind.
American Coalition for... Coal... Presnit and CEO Steve Miller said Wednesday. "The EPA is out of touch with the hard reality facing American families and businesses. This latest rule will destroy jobs, raise the cost of energy and could even make electricity less reliable."--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And he can say this with confidence because, like the fabulous ENRON power company was proven to have done a decade ago, the capitalist/fascist corporate overlords WILL SEE TO IT that that very Scenario is MADE to happen, until they get their way or their extortion money! Isn't it time yet for making all utilities PUBLIC utilities?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So let me get this straight... to retrofit pollution controls costs, egads, money BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO PAY PEOPLE TO BUILD THE EQUIPMENT AND INSTALL AND RUN IT! Well, isn't that JOB CREATION not job destruction? And isn't preventing death and illness JOB PRESERVATION, and as well actually LOWERING, not raising, Costs... of HEALTH CARE? And isn't upgrading the 'old-crapper' plants making electricity MORE reliable not Less? Unless you just demand that you get to run your old smogmobile chugging a black smoke trail behind it because it would cost you some money to fix it, even though your neighbors have fixed theirs. And if the EPA is "out of touch with the hard (bankster-created economic) realities facing American families" (as if this coal-king guy even gives two-shits about the "boo-hoo-hoo" American families he is Exploiting by even mentioning), then isn't this coal-king guy 'Out of Touch' with the Natural and Scientific and Ethical Realities of Mass Pollution of Our Common Sky?-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And just how many corpses does this fucker really want to create before finally admitting he is dead wrong anyway, but is gonna 'catapault the propaganda' for the money anyhow? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But I guess that's how CEOs operate - they threaten your job and your livilhood and your community to get what they want - more money and power for themselves, and less for you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen, if this nation will spend far more than $3 Trillion on wars we did not need to wage, due to the excuse of the criminal deaths of 3,000 people ONE TIME on 9/11, how much money should we then use to PREVENT this pollution and the deaths of 11,000 and 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms PER YEAR - say just for 20 years? Following the 9/11 example per head, I'd say that figure would be around $3 Quadrillion dollars. But tell that to the Rightwing Capitalist Pigs. They only pay that kind of money for killings.
Employment in the US: The Fossil Fuels industry employs 800,000 while Renewable Energy employs 2,700,000.
Nonsense. Please provide source. I live on the Ohio River. There is a coal fired power plant about every 20 miles. I've yet to see a renewable power source. Even so, how much (%) of our power needs do you think renewables could provide? Between each of those coal-fired plants is an aluminum plant or a steel mill. They are there because of the energy cost. Those jobs may not be counted as fossil-fuel industry employees, but I can guarantee you they will be the first to head for Mexico or the Pacific Rim.
As a registered PE, who works in an energy related industry, I can guarantee you that this the Jackson/Obama EPA is going to destroy the entire US economy. That is clearly the agenda of their ilk.
Provide source indeed. You still have not provided the source for your opening post stating GE exemption. I think you lie. The big coal fired plants closest to me have upgraded their facilities. My electric rates are very reasonable. Enjoy your "energy related" work. I'm sure it has nothing to do with your mindless lack of sympathy for the damage to children that is occurring every day. Perhaps you're simply mad as a hatter. Too bad for you that McCain was not elected. He would have gladly let you consume all the mercury your little heart desires.
Interesting comparison. You would be interested to know how the hatters became mad. Their employment required them to perform tasks which resulted in the injesting of heavy metals, which caused them to go mad.
While I agree that attacking the opponent is easier than attacking the problem, you will find that the real attack here is against the free enterprise system, which is the foundation of the free world. The fossil fuel plants in the US contribute far less pollution than those in other socialist (progressive) countries, yet you continue to ask for King Barrack to take control.
Dz2 Not sure which of the Koch Brothers you are, but your agenda is showing.
Sign and symptoms of Mercury poisoning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_poisoning
Whoever said that there's such a thing as clean coal? There isn't.
Exposure limits are set by supposedly informed folks. Everything you eat, drink or blow up your nose has some amount toxic material in it. The EPA is lowering the limits to which we can be exposed for fossil fuel stack emissions.
My family (father, brother, uncles, both grandparents and me) have worked in and around coal for our entire lives. We burned it in our homes until recently for our source of heat. We've carried ashes and spread them around our driveway to fill in the mud puddles. My Dad is now 88 years old and active.
The air around the Ohio River is cleaner than at any time in my 65 year lifetime. As a registered professional engineer, I know that we now remove over 95% of the pollutants from coal stack emissions. We recycle much of the coal by-products and could recycle more if allowed.
Everything you do requires energy and produces wastes. These can only go into three places: the earth, the water or the atmosphere.
Maybe all the marine life in the ocean should go and live in Ohio because they all have significant levels and the people that eat that same marine life are subject to neurological damage that affects future generations. This will reduce to the 30 tons of Mercury that still pollutes the environment if enough people insure there is compliance. Public health should improve with the removal of mercury from vaccines and dental procedures. The national IQ and related diseases should also improve.
Mercury is a neurotoxin and exposure is cumulative. (that means it stays in your body until you have it removed)
"EPA has made clear a fourth year and perhaps even more time are also available to them."
The Clean Air Act was passed in 1963. Both Republicans and Democrats over these five decades have planned enough wiggle-room in the CCA to allow these old polluters to continue.
http://www.1sky.org/blog/2010/10/the-bad-grandfather-lessons-from-the-clean-air-act
The west coast is getting bombarded with mercury from the 100+ new coal power plants brought online each year in communist China. The Olympic mountains had some of the cleanest air in the world in the late 1990's, now the lakes in Olympic National Park are contaminated with mercury.
http://www.1sky.org/blog/2010/10/the-bad-grandfather-lessons-from-the-clean-air-act