These Guys Are No Fossil Fools! Markey and Waxman Call for Ban on New Coal Plants

Ed Markey and Henry Waxman are no Fossil Fools!  The two Chairmen and Congressional Climate Champs released a new bill yesterday calling for a moratorium on any new coal plants that do not capture and sequester their greenhouse gas emissions.  

The ban would stay in place until Congress adopts and implements comprehensive global warming regulation and is designed to addresses the largest new source of global warming pollution — new coal-fired power plants that are being built without any controls on their global warming emissions.

Cross-posted from WattHead - Energy News and Commentary...

"Comprehensive economy-wide regulation to address global warming is coming soon. But new uncontrolled coal-fired power plants are being built today," said Rep. Waxman (D-Cal.), chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and author of the most-aggressive Congressional proposal to regulate greenhouse gases.  "My legislation says: "No new plants without emissions controls." The alternative is senseless - locking in decades of additional global warming emissions and requiring greater emissions reductions across the U.S. economy to compensate."

"If we lose control of coal, we will have lost control of the climate," said Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. "This bill will make companies prepare for the future and prevent them from building low-tech coal-fired power plants before a global warming bill is passed that will necessitate the use of the newest, most climate-friendly technology. "

Without emissions controls, a new coal-fired power plant will emit hundreds of millions of tons of global warming pollution over its fifty-year lifetime. Over 100 new plants have been proposed, and if just a portion of these are built, they will make hitting  greenhouse gas reduction targets necessary to halt dangerous climate change next to impossible. A single new uncontrolled coal plant could erase all the emissions reductions that will be achieved through the Northeastern states' Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, for example.

The bill, titled the "Moratorium on Uncontrolled Power Plants Act" would ban either EPA or states from issuing permits to new coal-fired power plants that are not built with state-of-the-art emissions control technology to capture and permanently sequester the plant's carbon dioxide emissions. The moratorium extends until a comprehensive federal regulatory program for global warming pollution is in place.

Looking ahead to future global warming regulations, the bill also bars any new coal-fired power plant built without state-of-the-art control technology from receiving any free or reduced cost emissions allowances under a future cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases.

"Many communities are still paying for failed nuclear power plant investments in the 1980's," said a press release issued by Chairman Markey. "This bill puts investors and power companies on notice that if they invest in new sources of global warming pollution now, taxpayers won't pay for the costs of cleaning up those sources later."

"It’s important for ratepayers and regulators to understand the financial risks if their power company wants to build a new uncontrolled coal-fired power plant," said Rep. Waxman. "Those plants will be a lot more expensive to operate when global warming pollution is regulated. Ratepayers need to make sure they won't be stuck with the bill."

It's time to simply say "No!" to new coal plants!  Like Markey and Waxman, American's are no Fossil Fools.  Americans want Green Jobs Not Coal, and it's time Congress heard that message.

•  Tip Jar

  Tips for Markey and Waxman, climate champs.

  by WattHead on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 11:47:40 AM PDT

  •  good news - and good diary!

    by NetRootsDaily on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 11:49:12 AM PDT

•  It May Not Be Popular...

  to tell Americans that they have to consume less, but the only long term solution is exactly that. Until that becomes the priority, it is important to reduce the environmental impact of any new or existing power plants.

  This is a good step, but not nearly enough.

  by Mr X on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 11:52:44 AM PDT

•  Markey / Waxman's leadership

  stands in contrast to Boxer.  Fighting so hard to get a bad bill through to the House so that Markey/Waxman will have their hands full dealing with its inadequacies.  Great ... just great.

  Forget "Less Dirty Coal", we have other real options before us that we should pursue.  Why sequester CO2 when it is already sequestered for us and we can create a better tomorrow without extracting and burning that sequestered coal?

  by A Siegel on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 11:53:46 AM PDT

  •  This bill is

    interesting, but probably not seriously intended to pass.

    What is does do (as the press release announcing this makes clear) is to put power companies and more importantly banks on notice that it shouldn't be assumed that coal will be able to obtain a privileged position in any carbon trading plan nor should it be assumed that newly constructed coal plants will get the benefit of any giveaways to incumbent producers.

    This is very creative and intelligent.  It is not entirely fair to compare this to what Boxer is doing which is to attempt to move a comprehensive bill forward.

    by Justanothernyer on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 12:05:54 PM PDT

•  Needs doing

  And on a global scale -- we don't want to be in the position of exporting coal to China so that it winds up burned there instead of at home.

  Somehow, we need to change the slope of this graph:
  
  Atmospheric CO2 concentration, going up as it has since we've been measuring

  by silence on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 11:55:00 AM PDT

•  Sequestering CO2 is a hoax...

  and I wish politicians would come out and say it.  How do you sequester a gas underground forever?  Even if it could be done short-term, which I doubt, how do you guarantee that it stays underground?  

  Nonetheless, this is a good bill even with the carbon sequestration clause.  But it is obvious the coal and electric power companies are going to game that clause by coming up with phony technology and claiming it works.

  by ammasdarling on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 12:45:04 PM PDT

  •  Theoretically possible

    Natural gas deposits have effectively sequestered a gas for essentially forever.  There aren't theoretical barriers to pulling off at least some amount of CO2 sequestration.  The barriers are more practical: nobody has done it, and, since doing so is likely to consume most of a coal burning power plant's output, the free market guarantees that nobody will do it.

    by silence on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 01:08:42 PM PDT

    •  You're talking about gigatons CO2/year

      Sequestering that much coal-sourced CO2 will take a lot of energy.  Where is that energy going to come from?

      And what about the chemical effects of CO2 on geological formations?  Acidification is a problem.

      A coal plant that could sequester its CO2 is a facility surrounded by a big chemical plant that would take up to 60% of the energy produced by the burning coal.

      by Plan9 on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 01:46:49 PM PDT

      •  Natural gas deposits

        Natural gas deposits often contain a fair bit of CO2.  Putting more in is probably not a big deal -- though we obviously need to test it first and make sure that it works.

        I agree that the energy consumed in the process is a big deal.  That's why nobody is doing it, and unless forced, nobody will.

        by silence on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 01:53:53 PM PDT

•  What's Markey's plan to meet baseload demand?

  He opposes nuclear plants.  Does he expect his constituents to get used to having less electricity at their disposal?  Tell hospitals and schools that they have to close for half the week?

  Nuclear power happens to be the best way to meet baseload demand without emitting CO2.  The life cycle of nuclear power emits slightly less CO2 equivalent than wind power and much less than solar power.

  We have two choices in the US to meet baseload: fossil fuels (mainly coal) or nuclear.

  Nuclear power in the US today is the environmental equivalent of removing 68 million automobiles from operation.

  Markey is right about customers still paying for nuclear plants from the 1970s, but those were economic mistakes.  Much has been learned since then.  The utilities now managing nuclear plants actually know how to operate them in a financially responsible way.  They are referred to in the energy business as "cash machines" because fuel costs are low.

  Electricity demand is going up and will continue to go up.  We can hope for better conservation and efficiency. But we can't expect renewables to meet baseload demand any time soon.  So it makes sense for existing utilities with good track records to add reactors.

  Yes, let's ban new coal plants until technology can be developed that is proven to sequester CO2 and eliminate the 24,000 deaths a year that occur from fine particulates from coal combustion.  But the baseload power that would have come from those coal plants has to be provided by nuclear plants--there's no other realistic option.

  by Plan9 on Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 01:43:37 PM PDT