Who’s ready for some “fuck you, come and take it”-action? — regardless of the happy, “historic” pro-environment spin being put on this by, for instance, USA Today:
Taking a historic step to fight climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency today proposed a plan that aims to slash carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants 30% by 2030 and could accelerate the nation’s shift away from coal.
“By leveraging cleaner energy sources and cutting energy waste, this plan will clean the air we breathe while helping slow climate change so we can leave a safe and healthy future for our kids,” said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, adding it will spur innovation and create jobs. She said the plan will give states flexibility to lower power plant emissions, setting goals tailored to their circumstances.
– Either that, or it will cause the price of electricity to “necessarily skyrocket,” as Obama long-ago promised, while simultaneously providing subsidies for environmental cronies, so we can have combustible electric cars, rolling brown outs, and solar farms that fry our birds for us with the alacrity of Colonel Sanders. Potato/potahto.
Yet the controversial proposal, a major part of President Obama’s climate initiative, will set a national target of lowering these heat-trapping CO² emissions — from 2005 levels — of 30% by 2030. The EPA says that reduction amount is equal to the emissions from powering more than half of U.S. homes for one year.
Thwarted by Congress’ inability to pass a bill to lower carbon emissions, Obama is pushing his own approach. Last June, he asked the EPA to use its authority under the Clean Air Act to limit power plant emissions, which account for the largest share — nearly 40% — of total U.S. emissions. Coal-fired facilities will be hardest hit, because they emit more carbon than other power plants.
The rule, expected to trigger legal challenges, will not take effect for at least two more years. Obama has asked the EPA to finalize it in June 2015, after which the states will have at least a year to craft their plans. If states balk at submitting them, the EPA could step in with its own version.
Because under the Constitution, if Congress refuses to act, and then the states refuse to act, an unelected set of bureaucrats given dubious authority over the emission of human exhalation can step in and put paid to the charade of a federalist country built around representative republicanism. A-yup!
Opponents are already lining up against the proposal. Today, Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D- W.V., said he will work with his state’s GOP colleague, Rep. David McKinley, to introduce legislation to stop both the new rule for existing power plants as well as one proposed last year for future plants.
“This new regulation threatens our economy and does so with an apparent disregard for the livelihoods of our coal miners and thousands of families throughout West Virginia,” Rahall said.
[…]
McCarthy said critics have “time after time … cried wolf to protect their own agenda.” She said their dire predictions about the economic costs of reducing urban smog in the 1960s and acid rain in the 1990s have been proven wrong.
“We can innovate our way to a better future,” McCarthy said. “From the light bulb to the locomotive; from photovoltaic cells to cellphones, America has always turned small steps into giant leaps.”
Obama said Saturday that the proposal will reduce air pollution, improve health and spur a clean energy economy that can be “an engine of growth.” He spoke from the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., after visiting with kids being treated for asthma and other breathing problems that he said are aggravated by dirty air.
The administration says its proposal will save more than $90 billion in climate and health benefits and will avoid up to 100,000 asthma attacks and 2,100 heart attacks annually.
The EPA says it expects coal, which now provides 37% of the nation’s electricity — down from 52% in 2000 — will still provide 30% of U.S. power by 2030. It says the increasing retirements of coal-fired plants, which now average 42 years, are because of economics such as the plunging price of natural gas — not its proposal.
Coal-fired power plants have already been closing. DOE data indicate the number has fallen from 633 in 2002 to 557 in 2012 and it expects 60 gigawatts of coal-fired power — one-fifth of total U.S. coal capacity in 2012 — will retire by 2020.
In contrast, natural gas has seen its share of U.S. electricity generation nearly double, from 16% in 2000 to 30% in 2012. McCarthy said U.S. wind energy has tripled and solar has grown ten-fold since 2009 — two sources that she says can help states meet carbon emissions cuts.
“This rule would accelerate that shift” away from coal, says Kyle Aarons, a senior fellow at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a non-profit group.
Which explains why the Obama Administration, through the State Department, has been so very keen on building the Keystone pipeline!
This is part of a de-growth, densification effort — a new road to serfdom and a road to the return to the natural order envisioned by “progressives”: they rule, you obey.
So once again the question becomes, do you surrender or do you not? Because wind farms of the kind the Kennedy clan doesn’t like mucking up their water views and that the Brits have discovered are useless eyesores — along with solar farms that are allowed to kill desert tortoises and all sort of birds where cattlemen fear to tread — aren’t going to cut it, and everyone who is serious about clean energy points to nuclear and clean coal. So this is not about the environment.
It’s about de-growth, densification, and control.
A convention of the states could produce Constitutional amendments that block this kind of overreach by telling both the federal government and the courts to sod off — albeit in elegant legalese. Short of that, I think it’s time citizens of those states who will be most adversely impacted demanded their state governments refuse to consent, and that people who will be forced to pay higher utilities and see their standard of living diminish, regardless of the state they live in — that would be the middle class, by the way, whose potential for upward mobility has always pissed off the elites, and are the target of progressives — get ready to resist their unnecessary subjugation.
Either way, the left gets what it wants. Killing off 30% of the population will do the trick of killing of 30% of the CO2 emissions, too — and I’m beginning to get the feeling that this could be a fallback plan for the environmental extremists and their totalitarian cohort in government.
What they shouldn’t bank on, though, is which 30% goes the way of the German Jew.
I work in power generation. There’s no possible way that these goals can be met, except for the unstated (and obvious) goal of shuttering most coal-powered plants.
I actually support solar and wind power, for supplemental spot power. There’s no way in hell that they can now -or ever- power the grid in this country, unless there’s a technological breakthrough within the next few years. Or, and this is probably more desirable for the progs, if 80%-90% of the population simply dies off. The progs will celebrate the eradication of those peasants. At least until they realize that no one is making food, maintaining road, or building things anymore. It’ll be utopia, if by “utopia” you mean hell on earth.
. There’s no way in hell that they can now -or ever- power the grid in this country, unless there’s a technological breakthrough within the next few years.
Such as an adjustment to the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Given that solar radiation is fairly dilute, you can’t “boost” it without input from another power source.
This is historic in the same way Neville Chamberlain made history. U-topia, dys-topia. Whatever.
I find myself half-amazed that the IWonPenPhoners aren’t bellowing in unison “Tokomak to the rescue!” and thereby ensuring themselves another endless slush fund whereby to defraud the country. Surely they’ll get a roundtoit any day now.
And I’m surprised that this is being done via the EPA – I always figured he’d use an Executive Order, citing some obscure provision in the various Federal railroad laws to have coal declared a “climate hazardous substance” and prohibit its transport by railcar.
Or does that come later?
And I’m surprised that this is being done via the EPA – I always figured he’d use an Executive Order
“By any means necessary.”
Can’t rule out anything, from any direction.
Because, as we both know, this has nothing to do with finding power replacements, as it does with establishing a “powerdown” culture:
It would be easiest, if coal is to be done away with, to increase natural gas. Nukes are lawfared out of contention. Hydo is already using the best places and would also be a legal nightmare to increase much. There is no way the other minor players can be ramped up both to replace any more that a miniscule share of coal’s output either economically or physically.
coal can be converted to synthetic natural gas
this is what enterprising countries like China do
If I heard/read correctly, he is using an obscure provision having to do with health concerns regarding coal. Asthma I believe.
asthma comes from cockroaches
which you get a lot of when your fascist EPA bans effective pesticides
especially in nasty section 8 housing
If coal is not used for power generation, I think it should still be mined as a strategic reserve.
In a serious war or if we ever get hit by something big like a meteor/comet, we’ll be happy to have a big pile of coal sitting around (assuming it does not go up in smoke).
I was thinking about the coal miners the other day. Not being particularly well educated, usually following in the footsteps of their daddies and granddaddies, working in the mine is all they know. If this ridiculous regulation is allowed to stand (and it will, because our Congress is full of whores); they will lose their livelihoods, such as they are.
Taking the dignity of work from a poor but proud people is a dangerous thing to do. They have next to nothing and will have nothing to lose by going Medieval on the mine bosses for starters.
Squid, you may want to advertise in the coal regions.
The Navajo Generating Station in Arizona is going to take a hit. Racists!
In the meantime, leftists have zero clue about how their electronic gadgets are powered.
A smart opposition party would use this goal to bulldoze over the regulatory obstructions that keep us from building nuclear power plants.
Instead what we’ll get is a proposal to run transmission lines under the pacific so we can buy our electricity from China.
The page eCurmudgeon linked sure sounds like the soothing purr of a genocidist. “I’m humanely reducing human population, starting with you — to make the world more livable for me.”
We can balance the trade deficit by selling inhalers for Chinese children.
sounds like the soothing purr of a genocidist
#YesAllCats because purring doesn’t equal consent.
Racist; Bush’s fault.
If genocide is the goal, they really should leave us all alone, let us drive powerful dangerous cars that pollute the air and kill asthma suffering children. Stop inspecting meat and let salmonella work its magic.
Without all the governments regulations we should all be dead in no time. Win Win.
Hell Di, they don’t know where the raw material to even make their toys comes from, or how energy is needed to turn those raw materials into conspicuously consumed status gizmos.
Or where their food comes from, for that matter.
It’s all straw being spun into gold, like in the fairy tale.
it looks like this *is* good news for synthesis gas companies
but either it’s already priced in for GE or the market doesn’t see failmerica’s New Energy Regime as an opportunity the obamawhore fascists at GE are positioned to exploit
this is a little puzzling – maybe the market’s just distracted by the Alstom thing
Given that solar radiation is fairly dilute, you can’t “boost” it without input from another power source.
Not to be contentious, but you can boost any power generation by increasing its efficiency. We do that with our existing plants all of the time by reducing losses, increasing insulation, etc. If there was a way to create solar panels that magically (advanced, currently unknown science) that were around 30% efficient, that would be a big boost. I will admit to knowing a lot about metals manufacturing (previous career), but somewhat less about solar panels and thin films, so I could be more full of shit than usual. Solar radiation is, of course, dilute. Back of the envelope calc a decade or so back took the best averages of solar irradiance, cloud cover, etc, and estimated that if you covered the entire state of Ohio, you could, on the best possible days, power the then current grid. Ohio residents might complain, but since they voted for Barry (twice), I’m certain that they understand the whole greater good, eggs/omelettes solution.
Nukes are lawfared out of contention.
Actually, that isn’t entirely correct. There are actually nuke plants that have been approved for construction (there was a change to the law back in the 1990s that eliminates most of the previous lawfare problems) and there are a bunch more in the pipeline. But not the Keystone pipeline, because that would be wrong. Ahem. In any event, the company that I work for is going through the approval process right now. They may not build it due to the really low cost of natural gas, but the decision to NOT build it will be a purely economic one, not a political one. Today, that is. No idea what crap will rain down from DC tomorrow.
As will the Comanche Generating Station in Colorado.
And after all we’ve done for Obama, too…
Not to be contentious, but you can boost any power generation by increasing its efficiency.
I was ruling out improvements in efficiency, which has an upper limit that Mother Nature sets and beyond which we cannot go without pixie dust.
Petroleum and coal are effing magic — they literally saved the whales — but the New Puritans can be guilted into
giving upmaking you give up nearly anything that is said to Hurt The Earth.Which, the earth deserves to be smacked down hard given its propensity for killing huge swaths of people and critterage for no good reason.
#StopPlateTectonics
you can collect the sun ray beams in space and then shoot them down as microwaves
it was in popular science back when they were a science magazine
I’ve always wanted an Orbital Death Ray…
Space debris rules! Just ask the Chinese.
well we’d can’t ask the failmericans they don’t even have a space program unless you count Dick Branson
My goodness happy, what do you have against birds. If you can’t whack them with windmills, or blind them with solar panels, you want to zap them with microwaves.
That’s not true, actually. DoD still puts their nifty toys up. Communications don’t work without ’em.
hmmm
Sammy was telling me that’s not the case brb
oh.Sammy said…
so yeah the states can do it for now cause they stocked up on russian parts is what he’s saying
DoD had been using a fleet of “retired” nuke ballistic missiles for a time. I dunno if they’ve run out of those quite yet.
But in any case, operating the stuff that’s already in orbit, to say nothing of designing new stuff would still count as a space program.
yes i guess so but it’s about as sexy as watching the lunch lady screech about potatoes
It’s a new age, built of hoary old Marxist maxims, alright.
Of course. To be a space program it has to be sexy.
Yes.
It was sexy when JFK was in charge, very sexy on account of all the strange JFK was getting. Everybody wanted a piece of his action, and besides, gasoline was plentiful plus only .25¢ a gal.
“It’s a new age, built of hoary old Marxist maxims, alright.”
Great Leap Forwards Mk. II
– Something is going to happen because they aren’t smart enough to stop, or political inertia can’t stop for whatever reason. There will come a tipping point and it will all come tumbling down, and the Prog fucks will take as many as they can with them because that’s who they really are and that’s what they really do., and that’s what you become when you try to act as your own moral authority.
– Religion may be really the suck for Progshits but the alternative is hell on wheels. It seems to be a lesson that some people have a bitch of a time learning, even after so many h0locasts.
Amen, BBH. Hubs has been beside himself for the past week. First the sucky West Point speech, then the release of the Taliban leaders for the deserter puke plus the EPA regs.
It’s not been a happy house.
>Something is going to happen because <
the proggtards have been whittling away at the Design Margin
only .25¢ a gal.
One-quarter cent per gallon?
Day-um I got borned too late.
Ha!, good catch – my bad composition.
check out this dippy broad on National Soros Radio
what an unbelievably dumb bitch
I just don’t know what else to say
Could just say she’s a repressed murderer, but maybe that’s a little over the top.
I think that might be the pixie dust di was talking about.
hoochie should just front everybody their cut of the $90 billion up front I think
A lot people dying in the summer and winter will have some health savings alright.
This carbon tax is like if the US woke up one day and thought “I’ve got way to much blood” and open a few little veins. “This is going to be great! Go me!” thought the USA. “Sure, it hurts, and I’m a bit dizzy but once all that unwanted blood is gone, I’m sure that I’ll be glad I did this!”
Hmmm. Maybe we need a horrible gory “children’s book” format to express our political criticisms.
more fascist logics from our friends at National Soros Radio
what does dizzy NPR propaganda bitch Yuki Fucksticki think happens to the average after you hike the rates on all the people paying less than average?
I’m honestly curious
Just saw a brief segment of the new Cosmos series. Tyson was saying that knowing the facts (in this case, those proving [sic] that man-made climate change is real) and acting upon them was a demonstration of human intelligence. At this point, the images on the screen were of Einstein and Gandhi. He then noted that there are those who dispute the facts. The accompanying visuals were of Hitler and Mussolini.
It seems clear to me that what Burtraw is saying is that those energy consumers drawing power from coal-fired plants aren’t paying their fair share.
If you hit yourself in the head with a hammer, slice your wrists with a sickle, and then put a red scarf in front of your face before reading, that is.
If we’re lucky, it’ll only be higher energy bills. Far more likely that the days of reliable, 24/7 electrical service in the United States are going to come to an abrupt end.
Meanwhile, in China..
Horseshit. Pure, adulterated horseshit. Delta IV: made in America. What the fuck do you think we’re using to put up GPS satellites?
Jesus, doesn’t anybody fucking Google anymore? Between happyfeet and the antivaxers that I have the pleasure to have in my FB friends list (not even going into the people who think fluoride is just a tad less deadly than Sarin), I am going to be forced to set up a Let Me Fucking Google That Shit For You autobot.
And while I am Fucking Googleing That Shit for you, you might want to consider Falcon 9, which is (by appearances) going to make Elon Musk an even richer man.
Falcon 9 is admittedly in its infancy, but it’s looking very good and has put 3-ton payloads into GTO. Falcon Heavy will make the Soviet engine shortage issue irrelevant.
you know what they still make in america is A&W Ten
it’s a very tasty diet root beer
i bookmarkered about the Delta 4 i will ask Mr. Sammy why that doesn’t count
“Climate adviser John Podesta” ???
Really?
Climate adviser?
That’s a job title?
For him?
The John who worked on the McGovern campaign in 1972, was in the Carter DOJ, then Clinton Chief of staff, founder and now chairman of the far progressive left “Center for American Progress” and now “climate adviser” to Obama. Nice resume, dude.
From the PW archives of jolly goodness, or 7 weeks ago if you like, is this memory.
EPA, “Data?”
“We don’t need no stinkin’ data.”
“We have all of Lysenko-science on our side, dude.”
Speaking of data…
We’re just guessing, but go ahead and fix the climate, stat, for da polar bears.
Environmental “science” has never been about data. It’s always been about FUD.