Government Study: EPA regulations on power plants may cost economy 1.4 trillion by 2040

The coal industry will be hardest hit...

Via Daily Caller:

If you’re unsure of what impacts pending EPA regulations will have on the U.S. coal industry, look no further than a new government study showing huge declines in coal production and use as power plant fuel.
More importantly, government forecasters predict the U.S. economy could take a $1.4 trillion hit by 2040 because of the EPA’s pending power plant regulations.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecasts the EPA’s “Clean Power Plan” will more than double projected coal-fired power plant retirements in the next five years, from 40 gigawatts to 90 gigawatts, and coal production could collapse more than 30 percent in the next decade.
“All major coal-producing regions (West, Interior, and Appalachia) experience negative production impacts in 2020,” EIA predicts in its report on the impacts of the EPA’s global warming rule. EIA also warns that electricity prices will increase faster due to EPA rules.
The EPA will soon finalize rules to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants. Agency rules governing existing power plants, the so-called “Clean Power Plan” (CPP) have garnered the most criticism.
CPP aims to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. Coal state lawmakers and the industry have heavily opposed the rule, saying it will cause massive amounts of job losses and cause energy prices to rise. EIA’s new report confirms at least some of these worries.
Keep on reading…

Obama's promise to bankrupt the coal industry is nearly complete...

Ironically, many of the coal mining areas in Appalachia are very pro-union and often vote democrat. I hope this teaches them the error of their ways, but many will likely believe Hillary's lies in 2016. 

Via Fox News:

Far below the Appalachian Mountains, in a space barely big enough to stand up straight, Bobby Combs works a job his father and his grandfather worked.
Coal-mining is the highest-paying job available to him in eastern Kentucky. As he skillfully maneuvers a massive machine and rips into a seam of coal, though, Combs wonders if the family tradition ends with him.
"It's not looking good," he says, dirt smudging his face.
Coal has come under the crosshairs of the Obama administration in the push to transition to renewable energy sources. Coal mines are burdened with a never-ending stream of federal regulations.
The owner of the mine where Combs works said the cost of getting coal out of the ground has tripled. For him, that means job insecurity.
"It seems like everything on the coal industry is under siege, everything is under attack," he said.
Many miners, particularly in Appalachia, have labeled the administration's policies the War on Coal. "I just believe the Obama administration has taken a huge impact on the coal industry and Appalachia. Anymore, you just never know from day to day if you are going to have a job or not," said miner Phillip Conley. Read it all...

Flashback: Obama promised to bankrupt the coal industry...

Today, Team Obama announced the plan for the destruction of the coal industry:

Under the rules, which will take a year to finalize, the EPA will impose limits on carbon emissions from all future coal and natural-gas plants. This is just an initial step that only covers plants not yet built: Later on, the EPA will separately tackle emissions from the thousands of existing power plants that are already operating.
The limits on future coal plants are stringent enough that utilities will likely only be able to new coal-fired facilities if the plants can capture their carbon emissions and bury them underground, a technology that's still unproven.*
In theory, this could mean a moratorium on all new coal plants for decades to come...

Obama's plan to bankrupt coal power plants is succeeding; 2600 jobs lost...

Barack Obama is using regulations to literally bankrupt the coal power industry. We shouldn't be surprised. He pledged to do just that by severe regulations...

Via Washington Examiner:

Chase Power, the parent company behind the $3 billion Las Brisas coal power plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, announced yesterday that it was cancelling the project.

“Chase Power … has opted to suspend efforts to further permit the facility and is seeking alternative investors as part of a plan of dissolution for the parent company,” Chase CEO Dave Freysinger told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Freysinger made it very clear who was responsible for the projects death. “The (Las Brisas Energy Center) is a victim of EPA’s concerted effort to stifle solid-fuel energy facilities in the U.S., including EPA’s carbon-permitting requirements and EPA’s New Source Performance Standards for new power plants,” he said.

The Las Brisas power plant had been part of a larger Las Brisas Energy Center project planned for Corpus Christi’s Inner Harbor.Economists had projected that in the first 5 years of construction and operation the project would create as 1,300 direct and 2,600 indirect jobs. Now none of those jobs will exist.

Obama regulations kill Kentucky power plant...

What's 120 jobs to the job-killing Obama administration...

Via NYT's:

American Electric Power, or A.E.P., the nation’s biggest consumer of coal, announced that it would shut its coal-burning boilers at the Big Sandy electric power plant near Louisa, Ky., a 1,100-megawatt facility that since the early 1960s has been burning coal that was mined locally. 

Big Sandy this year became a symbol of the plight of the coal industry nationwide. Strict new environmental regulations are forcing large utilities to spend billions of dollars to retrofit old coal-burning plants or shut them down, replacing them in most cases with equipment that uses cleaner-burning natural gas. 

A.E.P., which is based in Ohio, has repeatedly changed its mind over what to do with Big Sandy, a big employer in eastern Kentucky, both at the 120-employee plant itself and in the Appalachian-area coal mines that feed it 2.5 million tons of coal each year.

Post Election Surprise: Obama's EPA Plans To Ban New Coal Plants

Why am I not shocked?

Via The Examiner: 

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has devoted an unprecedented number of bureaucrats to finalizing new anti-coal regulations that are set to be released at the end of November, according to a source inside the EPA.

More than 50 EPA staff are now crashing to finish greenhouse gas emission standards that would essentially ban all construction of new coal-fired power plants. Never before have so many EPA resources been devoted to a single regulation. The independent and non-partisan Manhattan Institute estimates that the EPA’s greenhouse gas coal regulation will cost the U.S. economy $700 billion.

The rush is a major sign of panic by environmentalists inside the Obama administration. If Obama wins, the EPA would have another four full years to implement their anti-fossil fuel agenda. But if Romney wins, regulators will have a very narrow window to enact a select few costly regulations that would then be very hard for a President Romney to undo. Read it all...

57 coal fired generators will shut down in 2012

President Obama seen nodding in approval...

Via The Daily Caller:

Facing declining demand for electricity and stiff federal environmental regulations, coal plant operators are planning to retire 175 coal-fired generators, or 8.5 percent of the total coal-fired capacity in the United States, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

A record-high 57 generators will shut down in 2012, representing 9 gigawatts of electrical capacity, according to EIA. In 2015, nearly 10 gigawatts of capacity from 61 coal-fired generators will be retired.

While many of those coal plants are old and relatively inefficient, the scope of this new planned shutdown is unprecedented.

2007 Flashback Video: Obama's Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, "Coal is my worst nightmare"

This explains why Obama chose Stephen Chu as Energy secretary. They both hate the coal industry and want higher energy prices. President Obama wanted a partner in his plan to destroy the coal industry.

Transcript here:

Let me go to the supply side of the energy problem. Now, we have lots of fossil fuel. That’s really both good and bad news. We won’t run out of energy, but there’s enough carbon in the ground to really cook us.

Coal is my worst nightmare. Carbon emission in the next thirty years is predicted in the current forecast to - we’ll be adding three times the amount of carbon dioxide in the previous history of all humanity if we continue on our present course.

It has begun: Obama EPA moves to destroy the coal industry

President Obama promised to destroy the coal industry with new regulations and taxes. he has been incrementally advancing that plan by adding more stringent regulations.In a big step towards his goal of higher energy prices, Obama's EPA is moving to stop new coal powered plants. Pay attention voters in Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and other coal producing/using states.

The Washington Post reported:

The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants as early as Tuesday, according to several people briefed on the proposal. The move could end the construction of conventional coal-fired facilities in the United States.

The proposed rule — years in the making and approved by the White House after months of review — will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO₂ per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

Industry officials and environmentalists said in interviews that the rule, which comes on the heels of tough new requirements that the Obama administration imposed on mercury emissions and cross-state pollution from utilities within the past year, dooms any proposal to build a coal-fired plant that does not have costly carbon controls.

“This standard effectively bans new coal plants,” said Joseph Stanko, who heads government relations at the law firm Hunton and Williams and represents several utility companies. “So I don’t see how that is an ‘all of the above’ energy policy.”

Obama's Plan to destroy the coal industry advances. GenOn to shut 7 U.S. Mid-Atlantic coal power plants.

President Obama wants both higher gas and electric prices. It is part of his 'green' strategy. Obama, Al Gore and their ilk want to force the world into their vision of a green utopia by driving the market through higher prices and increased regulation.

Feb 29 (Reuters) - U.S. power generator GenOn Energy
Inc on Wednesday said it would deactivate 3,140
megawatts of mostly coal-fired generating capacity in
Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey by 2015 due to more stringent
federal environmental regulations.

 Over the past few years, energy companies have announced
the shutdown or planned retirement of more than 30,000
 megawatts (MW) of coal-fired generation due to proposed
more stringent federal environmental regulations, weak power
market conditions and record switching from coal to natural
gas-fired generators as gas prices hold near 10-year lows.

Natural gas is very cheap now. The reason is 'fracking'. This sounds like a new dirty word, but 'fracking' is a process where water and other things are pumped into the ground to fracture underground rock formations. This has unlocked vast amounts of natural gas. Environmentalists want to ban it and some states already have. EPA is considering issuing new regulations. President Obama won't likely allow them to do so before the 2012 election, but after that is over, don't be surprised to see the Obama administration try to regulate the process to extinction. Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel. When you burn natural gas, you get only water, CO2 and energy. Obama and the 'warmists' claim CO2 is a pollutant. You release CO2 every time you exhale. Perhaps, EPA will regulate breathing someday.

 Obama on building coal plants in the United States

Obama's plan to destroy the coal industry advances

FirstEnergy Corp. will close 6 coal power plants. They cite new government regulation as the reason. President Obama promised to destroy the coal industry. This looks like one campaign promis he is keeping.

Akron, Ohio, January 26, 2012 — FirstEnergy Corp. generation subsidiaries will retire six older coal-fired power plants located in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Maryland by September 1, 2012.

The decision to close the power plants is based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, which were recently finalized, and other environmental regulations.

The total capacity of the competitive plants that will be retired is 2,689 MW. Recently, these plants served mostly as peaking or intermediate facilities, generating, on average, about 10 percent of the electricity produced by the company over the past three years.

The following plants will be retired: Bay Shore Plant, Units 2-4, Oregon, Ohio; Eastlake Plant, Eastlake, Ohio; Ashtabula Plant, Ashtabula, Ohio; Lake Shore Plant, Cleveland, Ohio; Armstrong Power Station, Adrian, Pa.; and R. Paul Smith Power Station, Williamsport, Md.

In total, 529 employees will be directly affected. Existing severance benefits will apply to eligible, affected employees. However, the final number of affected employees could be less as some are considered for open positions at other FirstEnergy facilities and work locations, and eligible employees take advantage of a retirement benefit being offered to those 55 years and older.

President Obama 's original plan was to bankrupt the coal industry by charging power plants for CO2 emissions under a Cap-and-Trade bill. That bill failed to get past the Senate. Plan B is to regulate them out of business by ratcheting up other regulations that don't require new laws.

Obama on building coal plants in the United States

Green Fail: Germany to fund new coal plants with climate change fund cash

You just can't make stuff this good up.

(WUWT)- Less than a month after the failed Bonn UN climate confab, Germany has announced a most audacious energy policy:  in order to shutter nuclear plants (but not completely scuttle their economy), the German government will direct climate fund cash to building coal and natural gas plants.  You can’t make this stuff up.

Germany plans to dump nuclear power by 2022 but clearly needs to meet burgeoning electricity demand especially for a still powerful manufacturing economy dependent upon exports.  Solar panels at their latitude and windmills are not going to suffice, so the solution is more coal.  The environmental movement must be apoplectic with so many politically correct wires crossing at once. Keep on reading.