? Affordable Clean Energy Rule?
September 1st, 2018
tRump’s “Affordable Clean Energy Rule” would be quite the legacy (though he leaves so many, how to choose).
Here are the fact sheets from that page:
Fact Sheets (these are links below!):
- Overview of the proposed ACE rule
- CO2 emissions trends
- Costs and benefits
- Legal overview
- Permitting improvements under New Source Review program
- Side-by-side comparison of ACE and CPP
And the proposed rule as published in the Federal Register yesterday:
Affordable Clean Energy Rule-Federal Register-8-31-2018-18755
It’s 68 pages long, and intense.
Comments due October 30 — how to comment? From their site:
Online: Go to https://www.regulations.gov and follow the instructions for submitting comments to EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355.
Email: Comments may be sent to a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov. Include Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355 in the subject line of the message.
Mail: Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center (EPA/DC), Mail Code 28221T, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20460.
Fax: Fax your comments to: (202) 566-9744. Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355.
Hand/Courier Delivery: EPA Docket Center, Room 3334, EPA WJC West Building, 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0355. Such deliveries are only accepted during the Docket’s normal hours of operation, and special arrangements should be made for deliveries of boxed information.
Failure of “clean coal” in The Guardian
March 2nd, 2018
Yes, we know it doesn’t work. Learned that in stopping the Mesaba Project:
There were IGCC – coal gasification – plants proposed all over the country, and they fell, one by one. Some not fast enough, the Kemper project, in today’s Guardian, is an example of protracted misrepresentations to keep that money coming in to fund the scam:
The best thing that came from the failed Mesaba Project was the information about the technology that hadn’t been disclosed before. We were able to use this information all over the country to stop these plants, and stop this one before Minnesotans were utterly and hopelessly screwed as they were in Mississippi with Southern’s Kemper and Indiana with Duke’s Edwardsport. Read the rest of this entry »
Drumpf’s “Questionnaire” to Dept. of Energy
December 9th, 2016
Trump’s energy agenda, vague as it is, has been essentially to promote “clean coal,” nuclear and to deny climate change and dismantle federal climate change and “renewable” energy programs, of course with no move to eliminate subsidies for coal and nuclear. The “transition team” sent a big laundry list of questions to the Department of Energy, and it’s pretty broad. It’s also something that would be both telling and intimidating to receive. Looking at this, there’s no doubt where they’re headed.
Here’s the document — read it and see what you think… and note how many of these questions are “Can you provide…” which are easily answered with just a “Yes” or “No” and that’s the end of it!
But wait… there’s another version (similar, but different order, etc.):
I think Trump needs somebody to write his questions for him, somebody new that is. He obviously didn’t come up with this, but his staff person who did, well, if they worked for me, “YOU’RE FIRED!”
Trump and ‘clean coal’ — just say NO!
November 13th, 2016
After this election, there are so many things to be concerned about, so many reasons to be utterly horrified… a Muslim database, Trump’s fraud trial to begin November 28th, promise of mass deportations, sharp increase in hate crimes, assaults and threats on the street and in the schools (and online, oh my!). Trump’s “100 Days” plan was out in October, and has many points, full of words to decode, including a ‘clean coal’ reference, showing he’s clueless, just clueless:
Trump’s Contract with the American voter — the First 100 Days
In the 2nd and 3rd debate, Trump used those two words that have deep meaning to me, “clean coal,” because of Excelsior Energy’s Mesaba Project here in Minnesota, and because of the NRG proposed IGCC plant in Delaware, both of which were defeated after a long protracted fight. There is no such thing as ‘clean coal.”
Coal gasification is one thing that my coal-plant designing Mechanical Engineer father and I had some bonding moments over, going over EPRI coal gasification reports from the 80s and the Mesaba application… And I had the pleasure of meeting and working alongside my father’s boss’s son, who is also an engineer, formerly with NSP/Xcel, who knew what a bad idea coal gasification is. Oh yeah, we who fought these projects have learned a lot about coal gasification, “carbon capture and storage,” and will not go there again (see Legalectric and CAMP – Citizens Against the Mesaba Project sites for more info). We know it doesn’t work. And experience with the few projects that did go forward, what a mess, cost overruns beyond the wildest SWAG estimate, inability to get the plant running… Trump, don’t even think about it:
IGCC – Pipedreams of Green & Clean
IGCC, coal gasification, is nothing new. And despite its long history, it’s a history of failure, failure to live up to promises, failure to operate as a workable technology, and failure to produce electricity at a marketable cost, failure to produce electricity at all! On top of that, it’s often touted as being available with “CO2 capture and storage” which it is not. That’s a flat out lie. Check this old Legalectric post:
More on Carbon Capture Pipedream
A key to this promotion is massive subsidies from state and federal sources, and selection of locations desperate for economic jump-start, so desperate that they’ll bite on a project this absurd, places like Minnesota’s Iron Range, or southern Indiana, or Mississippi. The financing scam was put together at Harvard, and this blueprint has been used for all of these IGCC projects:
That, coupled with massive payments to “environmental” organizations to promote coal gasification, and they were off to the races.
Joyce Foundation PROMOTES coal gasification
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation & IGCC – WHY???
VP-elect Mike Pence should know all about coal gasification, he’s from Indiana. Indiana is coal generation central, and has had a couple of IGCC projects planned, construction started, and built. Indiana’s Wabash Valley plant is a perfect example, a small IGCC plant that was built, and after it was “completed,” took 22 on-site engineers to keep it running, now and then, at a greatly reduced capacity.
Wabash River Final Technical Report (it was “routinely” in violation of its water permit for selenium, cyanide and arsenic)
When they tried to sell the Wabash Valley plant recently, of course no one wanted it:
Wabash Valley coal gasification plant closing!
And another Indiana plant, with huge cost overruns that never started operating:
Rockport coal gasification plant dies – Indianapolis Star
Coal News: $2.8B coal gasification plant in Indiana canceled
And then there’s Edwardsport IGCC plant, also in Indiana, what a disaster:
Edwardsport plant not at promised capacity
Settlement won’t be the last word on controversial Indiana coal plant
Duke Energy Edwardsport Plant Settlement Expanded
The original settlement in September was a response to the plant’s rising operating costs while failing to meet performance expectations.
In the new agreement, Duke Energy agrees not to charge customers for $87.5 million of the operating costs of the Edwardsport plant, $2.5 million more than the original agreement.
And note that problems with Edwardsport tie in to similar problems with the Kemper IGCC plant in Mississippi:
Indiana ‘cease fire’ could provide a model for Mississippi regulators
Yes, in Mississippi, the Kemper IGCC plant is proving to be a problem, and yes, folks, note the Obama promotion of IGCC — after all, Obama is from Illinois, a coal state, and had lots of support from coal lobbyists. Check this detailed NY Times article:
Piles of Dirty Secrets Behind a Model “Clean Coal’ project: Mississippi project, a centerpiece of President Obama’s climate plan, has been plagued by problems that managers tried to conceal, and by cost overruns and questions of who will pay.
The sense of hope is fading fast, however. The Kemper coal plant is more than two years behind schedule and more than $4 billion over its initial budget, $2.4 billion, and it is still not operational.
The plant and its owner, Southern Company, are the focus of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, and ratepayers, alleging fraud, are suing the company. Members of Congress have described the project as more boondoggle than boon. The mismanagement is particularly egregious, they say, given the urgent need to rein in the largest source of dangerous emissions around the world: coal plants.
Trump, just don’t.