“Not all power plants are Big Business. Many are owed by small companies and those are the ones going bankrupt from excessive regulations because they can’t complete with the large corporations.
But who loses as well are the consumers. More regulations = higher costs passed on to us.”
EXAMPLE:
Richmond Power and Light of Richmond, Indiana.
Two small coal burners, and CHEAP electric rates, in a town crushed in the seventies, early 80’s when all of the small plants started heading for Mexico and Asia.
These regs forced the City to shut down the Utility that had kept electric rates LOW, because they decided that not only would updating to the new, illegal standard be too expensive for the town, but it would NEVER pay for itself, due to the higher rates they would have to charge.
Result.
Good-paying jobs destroyed at the power plant. Jobs destroyed at the Utility-owned Railroad that brought them coal. An empty eyesore sitting idol south of the town.
And doubled electricity rates as the town switched to buying power directly from the Grid, instead of producing it on their own.
Good example.
My power plant my husband worked at just laid off 1/4 of their workforce. They have an old plant (but the biggest non-nuclear plant in CA) and the carbon credits are taking away any profit they may have had. The plan is to forestall paying the credits, hoping the energy market will change before the payment is due. If not....bankruptcy. These plants owned by small companies have no choice.
And imagine when that plant - the biggest non-nuclear plant in the state - and many others shut down. Costs will ‘necessarily skyrocket’. It’s not even a coal plant but a ‘clean’ gas turbine plant.