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EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

nytimes.com

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Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#21

Post by bcheung »

> The move largely gives states the authority to decide how far to scale back emissions, or not to do it all, and significantly reduces the federal government’s role in setting standards.

> immediately drew a flurry of challenges, with attorneys general in California, Oregon, Washington State, Iowa, Colorado and New York saying they intended to sue to block the measure.

I'm a bit confused here by these 2 statements. Why would states sue, or even have the authority to, when the Federal government is delegating control to the states?

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#22

Post by dexterdog »

panopticon wrote: post #19
dexterdog wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then those are not environmental organization. They are political ones.

I don't understand the distinction you are trying to make. An effective environmental organization is going to engage in politics; that doesn't make it a non-environmental organization.

An environmental org is concerned about the environment. If they are anti-nuke that is almost always for political reasons and not environmental ones.

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#23

Post by ethbro »

bcheung wrote: post #21

> The move largely gives states the authority to decide how far to scale back emissions, or not to do it all, and significantly reduces the federal government’s role in setting standards. > immediately drew a flurry of challenges, with attorneys general in California, Oregon, Washington State, Iowa, Colorado and New York saying they intended to sue to block the measure. I'm a bit confused here by these 2 statements.…

There are multiple grounds.

A popular approach so far has been to argue the proper process for rule changes hasn't been followed. I'm not sure that applies here, but in many cases there are legal steps to changing regulation. You can't just wake up Tuesday and say "I think stop signs are going to be green."

Separately and more applicable in this case, states can argue they're being harmed by this particular set of federal rules. This can further be tied to already-existing law, essentially arguing that a new regulation is incompatible with a law passed by Congress. As an example, the EPA can't simply approve dumping industrial waste chemicals into waterways, because the Clean Water Act says otherwise.

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#24

Post by panopticon »

dexterdog wrote: post #22
panopticon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the distinction you are trying to make. An effective environmental organization is going to engage in politics; that doesn't make it a non-environmental organization.

An environmental org is concerned about the environment. If they are anti-nuke that is almost always for political reasons and not environmental ones.

Nuclear energy does pose environmental risks though--specifically with respect to mining, spent fuel storage, failure scenarios and decommissioning. Now you can make the case that the benefits outweigh the environmental impacts (I personally think this is the case), but to imply there aren't valid environmental reasons to be against nuclear energy is ignorant at best.

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#25

Post by mariushn »

slg wrote: post #4

>The new rule, which is expected to come into effect within 30 days, assumes that the forces of the market will guide the country to a future of cleaner energy by naturally phasing out coal over time. It imposes only modest requirements on coal plants. If you want to argue for small government, fine, I can't really argue against that, just own that as your position. However framing the policy this way is just dishone…

Besides this, state influences though "forces of the market" through subsidies, according to it's own interests: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fossil-f...

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#26

Post by dexterdog »

panopticon wrote: post #24
dexterdog wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An environmental org is concerned about the environment. If they are anti-nuke that is almost always for political reasons and not environmental ones.

Nuclear energy does pose environmental risks though--specifically with respect to mining, spent fuel storage, failure scenarios and decommissioning. Now you can make the case that the benefits outweigh the environmental impacts (I personally think this is the case), but to imply there aren't valid environmental reasons to be against nuclear energy is ignorant at best.

Every 'green' energy out there also poses environmental risks as well, but those are played down while the risks of nuclear are exaggerated.

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#27

Post by acdha »

dexterdog wrote: post #26
panopticon wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear energy does pose environmental risks though--specifically with respect to mining, spent fuel storage, failure scenarios and decommissioning. Now you can make the case that the benefits outweigh the environmental impacts (I personally think this is the case), but to imply there aren't valid environmental reasons to be against nuclear energy is ignorant at best.

Every 'green' energy out there also poses environmental risks as well, but those are played down while the risks of nuclear are exaggerated.

That’s a very blithe dismissal of a real problem, especially lacking any sort of supporting evidence and analysis. For example, the current U. S. spent fuel storage crisis would seem worth addressing since that’s a long-term problem if it goes wrong.

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#28

Post by southern_cross »

SEJeff wrote: post #5

This isn't going to get around the simple economics of coal being more expensive. Natural gas is what is killing coal, but the cost of wind and solar continues to decrease. The Tennessee Valley Authority is closing 2 coal plants: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-tva/tva-votes-to... And is looking to go solar: https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/st... Also an interesting read: https://…

Those two coal plants are only being run sporadically now, which probably means that they're being run as "peaking" plants, which is a very expensive mode of operation. A year or so ago TVA closed our local coal plant after replacing it with a natural gas one, and while they were at it they also built a one megawatt solar plant nearby. Which is all well and good, but that solar plant, even under ideal conditions, can only produce 1/1000th of the power that the natural gas plant can!

And just a couple of months ago TVA opened a 53-megawatt solar plant in my area, and they are promising that it will produce enough power to run thousands of homes plus some industrial-scale stuff. I haven't yet been able to find output stats for the two newest installations which I've already mentioned, but I have been monitoring a third local solar installation of basically identical design. And even under "ideal" conditions it's only producing 60% of its promised one megawatt output, and on average only a small fraction of it. (I don't know if it's always been that way or if the situation has deteriorated in the five years it's been in operation.) If TVA keeps building out solar plants which on average only produce a small fraction of their promised output, then before long they're going to be in trouble.

This is a general problem with wind and solar; they only produce a fraction (on average) of their "nameplate" (full capacity under ideal conditions) output, yet "nameplate" is what gets quoted in press releases and such. But actual average capacity may be only 25% of that (to use a ballpark number), meaning that you have to divide the quoted capacity by four to get a far more realistic capacity. Meaning that the 1/1000th number that I quoted above is probably actually more like 1/4000th!

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#29

Post by dexterdog »

acdha wrote: post #27
dexterdog wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every 'green' energy out there also poses environmental risks as well, but those are played down while the risks of nuclear are exaggerated.

That’s a very blithe dismissal of a real problem, especially lacking any sort of supporting evidence and analysis. For example, the current U. S. spent fuel storage crisis would seem worth addressing since that’s a long-term problem if it goes wrong.

Calling it a crisis is just the kind of exaggeration I'm talking about. Sure, it's an issue and politically there are myriad interests that keep the problem from being solved. Some of those interests have a motive to keep nuclear looking worse than it is by manufacturing crises around it like this.

Re: EPA Finalizes Its Plan to Replace Obama-Era Climate Rules

#30

Post by SEJeff »

southern_cross wrote: post #28
SEJeff wrote: post #5

This isn't going to get around the simple economics of coal being more expensive. Natural gas is what is killing coal, but the cost of wind and solar continues to decrease. The Tennessee Valley Authority is closing 2 coal plants: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-coal-tva/tva-votes-to... And is looking to go solar: https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/st... Also an interesting read: https://…

Those two coal plants are only being run sporadically now, which probably means that they're being run as "peaking" plants, which is a very expensive mode of operation. A year or so ago TVA closed our local coal plant after replacing it with a natural gas one, and while they were at it they also built a one megawatt solar plant nearby. Which is all well and good, but that solar plant, even under ideal conditions, can…

Thanks for the comment, I think it massively depends on the specific panels and their makeup. You also add a lot of excellent context to the stories I found. There is a ton of cutting edge research going into solar panels and there are many different ways to achieve higher efficiency and/or longer lifespans.

My comment wasn't intended to say solar/wind is killing Coal because it isn't. Natural Gas is what is killing coal. I'm from Kentucky originally and the economy is feeling the squeeze from coal just not being really economically viable for some use cases compared to natgas. As the tech improves and mass production makes it cheaper, solar / wind will continue to make more economic sense. The currently "top of the line" most efficient solar panels as of 2019 come from SunPower and only are a paltry 22.2% efficient so there is a lot of room for improvement. Regarding renewables being a fraction of their "nameplate" capacity it really just depends on too many factors to generalize.

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