sci.energy

"Bill Ghrist" wrote in message
news:$@trnddc08...
> Bob Eld wrote:
>> "bill" wrote in message
>> news:a8835811-0a6a-4a49-ab15-8d7039de785e@...
>> On Feb 29, 5:39 pm, "Blattus Slafaly £ ¥ 0/00 :)"
>> wrote:
>>> Bill Ghrist wrote:
>>>> /cgi-bin/?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/stor...
>>>> NRDC: 32 Coal-Fired Power Plants in 13 States Now Up in the Air After
>>>> Major Court Ruling on Mercury
>>>> MI, WY, IL, NV, OH, PA, TX, IA, KY, LA, GA, NM and NC Are States
>> With
>>>> Largest Number of At-Risk Dirty Power Plants; At Stake: Health of
>> Hundreds
>>>> of Thousands of . Children.
>>>> WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The prospects for 32
>>>> coal-fired power plants in 13 states have been shaken up in the wake of
>> a
>>>> February 8, 2008 federal appeals court ruling that requires each new
>>>> coal-fired power plant in the . to adopt stringent toxic air
>> pollution
>>>> control measures meeting the most rigorous standards under the Clean
>>>> Air
>>>> Act, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRD).
>>>> The states identified with the most coal-fired power plants now up
>> in
>>>> the air are: Michigan (four), Wyoming (four), Illinois (three), Nevada
>>>> (three), Ohio (three), Pennsylvania (three), Texas (three), Iowa (two),
>>>> Kentucky (two), Louisiana (two), Georgia (one), New Mexico (one) and
>> North
>>>> Carolina (one).
>>>> The ruling will impact various aspects of three dozen or more
>>>> coal-fired power plants, including some now already under construction.
>>>> Major coal-fired power plants impacted by the ruling include: LS
>> Power
>>>> White Pine (1500 MW - permit pending in Nevada); Sierra Ely (1500 MW -
>>>> permit pending in Nevada); Toquop (850 MW - permit pending in Nevada)
>>>> Desert Rock (Sithe Global's 1500 MW in New Mexico); Longleaf ( LS
>> Power's
>>>> 1200 MW Plant in Georgia); Cliffside (Duke Energy's 800 MW Plant in
>> North
>>>> Carolina); Alliant Marshalltown (600 MW - permit pending in Iowa); LS
>> Power
>>>> Waterloo (750 MW - permit pending in Iowa); AMP (1000 MW - permit
>>>> challenged in Ohio); LS Power/Dynegy (750 MW in Michigan). For a
>> complete
>>>> list of all 32 plants, go to.
>>>> Natural Resources Defense Council Clean Air Director/Senior
>>>> Attorney
>>>> John Walke said: "The February 8th court ruling will have far-reaching
>>>> consequences for coal-fired power plant construction, permitting and
>>>> pollution controls. This important new legal tool will increase the
>>>> pollution control obligations for new coal-fired power plants, raise
>>>> the
>>>> already considerable expense of these projects, and add to the weight
>>>> of
>>>> arguments that the public deploys to oppose conventional coal-fired
>>>> plants."
>>>> Dr. Jennifer Sass, senior scientist, NRDC Public Health Program,
>> said:
>>>> "We need to remind that this is not just some fight in a court room. It
>>>> also goes to the heart of a major public health crisis. Failing to
>>>> clean
>> up
>>>> mercury pollution sentences our children to a life of lost
>> opportunities.
>>>> Mt. Sinai researchers have used data from the . Centers for Disease
>>>> Control and Prevention and studies that link elevated mercury levels
>> with
>>>> IQ loss to estimate that 300,000-600,000 children each year are born
>> with
>>>> mercury in their blood at levels associated with a loss of IQ. The Mt.
>>>> Sinai study limited its calculations to the costs associated with loss
>> of
>>>> intelligence only. There also are data from Europe suggesting that
>> mercury
>>>> poisoning is associated with increases in deaths from heart disease,
>> which
>>>> is the top killer in the United States."
>>>> In New Jersey v. . EPA, No. 05-1162, the . Court of Appeals
>> for
>>>> the . Circuit vacated (overturned) two EPA mercury rules covering
>> coal-
>>>> and oil-fired power plants. Under the court ruling, power plants will
>> need
>>>> to install pollution control equipment to control not just mercury
>>>> emissions but arsenic, lead, chromium and all other air toxics emitted
>> from
>>>> coal-burning. This legal tool will require a new and additional
>> evaluation
>>>> of pollution limits and control technologies covering all air toxics
>>>> emitted by power plants, and will increase the pollution control
>>>> obligations for new coal-fired power plants.
>>>> In 2005, EPA issued two highly controversial regulations covering
>> just
>>>> mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants: (1) a rule that removed
>>>> such power plants from the list of industries requiring the Clean Air
>> Act's
>>>> rigorous "Maximum Achievable Control Technology" (MACT) standards for
>> each
>>>> electric generation unit in the country to sharply reduce its toxic air
>>>> pollution; and (2) a regulation that substituted a mercury pollution
>>>> trading regime, which greatly weakened required mercury cuts from power
>>>> plants, dispensed with the need to reduce mercury from each electric
>>>> generation unit in the country, and walked away from regulating all
>> other
>>>> forms of toxic air pollution from power plants. EPA's mercury pollution
>>>> trading rule also stretched out full compliance with the trading scheme
>>>> until the mid-2020's, rather than requiring full compliance with more
>>>> protective MACT standards by no later than 2008.
>>>> Before EPA illegally removed power plants from the regulatory list
>>>> requiring adoption of MACT standards, each new coal-fired power plants
>>>> proposed for construction starting in 2001 was required to be
>>>> controlled
>> to
>>>> levels no less stringent than MACT, established by permitting
>> authorities
>>>> in the plant's preconstruction permit. Several states issued
>>>> preconstruction permits for new coal-fired power plants between 2001
>>>> and
>>>> 2005 containing mercury emissions limitations that were far more
>> stringent
>>>> than the weak mercury limits that EPA's 2005 mercury rule applied to
>>>> new
>>>> coal-fired power plants: EPA's trading rule allowed anywhere from 4 to
>> 20
>>>> times more mercury from new coal-fired power plants than these state
>> permit
>>>> mercury limits. The court's ruling makes clear that power plants remain
>> on
>>>> the regulatory list requiring adoption of stringent MACT standards and
>>>> pollution controls for all new coal-fired power plants.
>>> People need to suffer some black outs with frozen broken water pipes in
>>> their schools, homes, factories and businesses. Floods, Ice and broken
>>> systems and catastrophic food shortages and disease and death before
>>> they wake the fuck up and leave things alone.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Blattus Slafaly ? 3 :) 7/8
>>
>> We're in the category of "what CAN be built?". . it seems, may
>> be insurmountable.
>>
>> Nuclear, the only large scale central station power source that can be
>> non
>> polluting and CO2 free.
>>
>>
> Nuclear plants, of course, have always covered the costs of keeping their
> dangerous waste products out of the environment (including paying for
> their eventual long term sequestration). Coal plants have traditionally
> been more economical in large part because they have been allowed to dump
> a large portion of their pollutants into the atmosphere. Coal plants CAN
> be built under these new rules, which require that they incorporate
> "Maximum Achievable Control Technology" (achievable means "can be done").
> But they might /not/ be built because they will no longer be allowed to do
> it on the cheap, trading increased deaths and neurological damage for
> cheaper electricity.
>
> Bill G

Yep exactly