Posted on 07/03/2012 4:53:42 PM PDT by joeclarke
"As utility companies face new deadlines for coal-fired power plants to comply with tight new EPA clean air regulations, many energy suppliers have plans to shutter plants that employ thousands of IBEW members rather than invest in costly upgrades.
If thousands of megawatts are suddenly taken off-line, this could trigger massive electricity shortages, just as demand is expected to increase, according to a regional transmission organization report.
A report from PJM, a regional transmission organization covering 13 states and the District of Columbia, estimates that 18,000 megawatts of electricity will be lost to the power grid due to expected coal plant shutdowns. That's the loss of enough power to light and heat 18 million homes."
'The Cross-State Air Pollution Rule has received nothing but negative feedback from the affected energy industry, which argues the stricter federal emission law will result in higher costs for electricity and massive loss of U.S. jobs. The plan will also require billions of dollars to retrofit power plants with clean coal technologies.
According to a study prepared by the National Economic Research Associates (NERA), the legislation is among the most expensive EPA rules ever imposed on coal-fueled power plants that will cause electric rates to skyrocket by as much as 23 percent and lead to nationwide employment losses totaling 1.4 million job-years by 2020.
Power-plant closures are expected to increase in the coming months, as utilities complete their cost analyses of complying with the Cross-State rule, according to Industrial Info Resources. The EPA rule has already forced coal facilities in Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia, and Texas to retire old units, rather than bare the expense of installing pollution-control equipment.
The coal industry maintains that the EPA doesn't seem to care about the economic damage new regulations will cause."
As conservatives, our currency is supposed to be truth. The recent power outages from Illinois to DC were directly caused by bad weather. That is the truth and clearly documented. Trying to attribute them to something else is bad analysis and is a misplaced attack on bad liberal EPA policy.
Don’t see a single RAT on the list. Could it be they want us to die without electricity?
There is a difference between “cause” and “exacerbate,” wouldn’t you agree?
I’m not picking a fight, but I’m trying to understand the phenomena here. I’ve seen bad weather in unexpected places cause all kinds of trouble.
It was a big honkin’ “unexpected” derecho. Central planning fail.
Believe it was Valerie Jarrett who said “We’ll take it any way we can get it”!. Liberals never seem to care about whether their statements are rational or true. Turn about is fair play.
I’m sure the environmentalists and EPA have made sure the grid was maintained, upgraded, supplemented, added redundancy, and trees were properly trimmed over the last forty years, based on predicted population and economic growth, and have never obstructed any of the preparations for the surety of such a natural disaster.
In this case, no.
I have provided links on this thread for you to read up on this weather event.
I am not sure how EPA-mandated cutbacks on coal power plants would impact someone whose power line to his house is lying on his front yard from a tree falling on it. Maybe you would be kind enough to elaborate on your theory in that regard.
Sadly there is no "if".
Except that is not the premise of this post.
Gawd, are you such a juvenile that you cannot face the basic fact that this was a major severe, sudden and unexpected weather event and that alone is sufficient to explain the outages?
Glad to see a “truth detector” on here.
There’s plenty of reasons to trash the Baraqqis.
The power outages due to this storm aren’t one of them.
How was this a central planning fail?
Do you even know what a derecho is? Have you even bothered to inform yourself what happened last week in the affected regions? Conservatives are supposed to craft informed opinions. Attributing this event to anything other than nature is not informed.
Oh, and BTW, I an a leading critic on FR of anti-fracking and anti-coal propaganda. And of DC bureaucrats. But I also believe in attacking liberal agendas where it is relevant. This is not such a case.
Thanks. Conservatives should take a minute to gather the facts. I am sure we will see regional brownouts and blackouts from Obama’s EPA anti-coal policies. But a blackout due to downed power lines from severe weather has nothing to do with EPA anti-coal policies.
I'm not in the business of controlling the information and language so that Marxist Rats and bureauRats can "explain" why they're not at fault.
That be the MSM arm of the Demorat party.
You should be in the business of making sure your opinions fit the basic facts on the ground. Otherwise, you are no better than the rats who twist the facts to suit their agenda.
I’m often reluctant to send friends/acquaintances to FR because so many factual errors go unquestioned.
Do you know what the “grid” is? It’s basically power lines going to peoples’ houses. Specifically, it’s the part between the power stations and the neighborhood substations.
I already said I don’t think EPA cracking down on power plants caused or even exacerbated this mess. I don’t give a rat’s patootie about that here, it’s a discussion for another thread. But, if the EPA has been causing problems in maintenance of the *grid* (The lines eventually leading to peoples’ homes), then I blame them NOT for causing this (God did that), but for *making it worse.*
You can fix the lines laying in the yards all you want, but if the 65KV and 130KV lines are in ruins, they still don’t have any juice. We are seeing *massive* outages, which leads many to believe this is much more serious than power lines laying in yards under trees. You know, you get a lot of those when you get supercells full of tornadoes. Your weather event is not that unique.
Well, if you bother reading up on this event, it is pretty much solely caused by high winds toppling trees and limbs that take out power lines.
People who have pretty trees in their front yards often resist having those trees severely pruned to prevent such damage. And trees are funny critters - they grow in abject disregard to the need for reliable power delivery.
Seriously, you have given no indication that you have bothered to read up on the specifics of this weather event. I expect better from you.
Sorry to raise your hackles, but my intention was to convey that man cannot plan society for every eventuality. To pretend to do so it sheer hubris. And yes, I not only know what a derecho is, I can pronounce it correctly as well.
Do you even have a clue about how massive trees in East Coast suburbs are like a Sword of Damocles over neighborood power lines?
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