Dramatic sea level rise... extreme weather... famine... drought. Those are just a few of the dire consequences scientists predict if we continue pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at current rates.
Power plants are among the largest emitters. On June 2, the Obama administration is scheduled to release new rules regulating carbon emissions from power plants. Utilities and trade groups are warning those rules will have some dire consequences of their own. Inside Energy reporter Stephanie Joyce has the story.
Climate change predictions are scary. But people might find the scenario laid out in this ad from National Mining Association even scarier.
Speaker 2: ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
Speaker 3: ‘Unbelievable.’
Speaker 1: That’s the sound of people opening their electric bills to discover they’ve nearly doubled.
Speaker 2: ‘We can’t afford this.’
Speaker 1: An 80 percent cost hike. It’s something we better get used to if extreme new Obama administration power plant regulations take effect.”
Scary… But false. The Washington Post’s FactChecker blog gave it four Pinocchios for the claim that electricity bills will double, saying that’s -- quote -- “wholly unsupported.” But industry concerns about the proposed regs are real. Dan Byers is with the US Chamber of Commerce.
“This will probably be the largest rule in EPA history in terms of cost. It’s probably going to be unprecedented also in terms of compliance.”
And it will have the biggest impact on the nation’s coal-fired power plants. Already, 20 percent of those plants are scheduled for retirement in the next five years because they can’t meet other, earlier emissions regulations.
“With the greenhouse gas rule on top of that, if it leads to further shutdowns, we’re actually genuinely concerned about blackouts.”
That’s because coal is an extremely dependable fuel for electricity generation -- it’s easily stockpiled and provides a continuous source of power, unlike wind or solar, which can’t be stored, or gas, supplies of which are limited by pipelines. But Byers says even if it doesn’t come to that, the effects will be felt.
“Any major industrial energy user, the reason they come to the United States, is not because we have a labor advantage or some other advantage. Affordable electricity is huge.”
In many places, rates will go up, but exactly how much is a big unknown. Early reports suggest each state will have to cut overall carbon emissions by up to 25 percent… but they’ll get to choose how they do it. Options might include trading carbon credits, which are given out like brownie points for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Or states could increase use of renewable fuels, or invest in carbon capture technology at existing facilities.
For some states, reducing emissions by 25 percent won’t be too difficult or expensive. Colorado, for example, started actively working to cut its emissions back in 2005. Joshua Epel (EE-pell) is chairman of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. He says if the regulations give credit for those past reductions, Colorado ratepayers won’t feel any impact.
“We’ve had a very thoughtful strategy for reducing these emissions, so I think we’re in very good shape.”
Epel says that’s partly because Colorado isn’t heavily reliant on any one source of energy for power. It’s a different story in Wyoming, the nation’s largest coal producer, and a large coal consumer.
“Setting a target for the whole state and cinching the whole state down, that would be a problem for us.”
That’s Al Minier (MIN-eer), chair of the Wyoming Public Service Commission. Wyoming exports two-thirds of the power it generates… Minier says that means while the energy is consumed elsewhere, Wyoming would be on the hook for the costs associated with cutting emissions.
“Unless you can figure out some way to enforce other states sharing in our reductions because we’re selling it to them, we’ve got a problem.”
It’s not as simple as just raising the price. Minier doesn’t think it’s likely that other states will agree to hike their electricity prices to pay for emissions reductions at Wyoming power plants, especially if it’s cheaper to get power from elsewhere or build new plants in their own states. Minier says if the timeline for reducing emissions is short - that could spell a grim future for Wyoming’s coal-fired power plants.
The state is already party to half a dozen lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency, and Governor Matt Mead hasn’t ruled out suing over these regulations too. Whatever the potential legal battle, the threat of a new rule may be already pushing the energy conversation in a new direction. Even Mead, a self-professed climate change skeptic, and critic of any rules regulating carbon, says it’s time to start looking at carbon management -- capturing and storing or using carbon -- as an opportunity.
“So that when you look at the end of the coal-fired plant and the smokestack…. if we can change what’s viewed as a liability into an asset, that provides a lot of solutions.”
In that sense, the rule might already be working.
