Accumulation of fraudulent EPA regulations impacts energy, economy, jobs, families and health
Guest essay by Paul Driessen
Call it the Gruberization of America’s energy and environmental policies.
Former White House medical consultant Jonathan Gruber pocketed millions of taxpayer dollars before infamously explaining how ObamaCare was enacted. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” he said. “It was really, really critical to getting the bill passed.” At least one key provision was a “very clever basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter.”
The Barack Obama/Gina McCarthy Environmental Protection Agency is likewise exploiting its lack of transparency and most Americans’ lack of scientific understanding. EPA bureaucrats and their hired scientists, pressure groups and PR flacks are getting rich and powerful by implementing costly, punitive, dictatorial regulations “for our own good,” and pretending to be honest and publicly spirited.
EPA’s latest regulatory onslaught is its “Clean Power Plan.” The agency claims the CPP will control or prevent “dangerous manmade climate change,” by reducing carbon dioxide and “encouraging” greater use of renewable energy. In reality, as even EPA acknowledges, no commercial-scale technology exists that can remove CO2 from power plant emission streams. The real goal is forcing coal-fired power plants to reduce their operations significantly or (better still) shut down entirely.
The agency justifies this by deceitfully claiming major health benefits will result from eliminating coal in electricity generation – and deceptively ignoring the harmful effects that its regulations are having on people’s livelihoods, living standards, health and well-being. Its assertion that reducing the USA’s coal-related carbon dioxide emissions will make an iota of difference is just as disingenuous. China, India and other fast-developing nations must keep burning coal to generate electricity and lift people out of poverty, and CO2 plays only a tiny (if any) role in climate change and destructive weather events.
The new CPP amplifies Obama Administration diktats targeting coal use. Companion regulations cover mercury, particulates (soot), ozone, “cross-state” air pollution, sulfur and nitrogen oxides that contribute to haze in some areas, and water quality. Their real benefits are minimal to illusory … or fabricated.
American’s air is clean, thanks to scrubbers and other emission control systems that remove the vast majority of pollutants. Remaining pollutants pose few real health problems. To get the results it needs, EPA cherry picks often questionable research that supports its agenda and ignores all other studies. It low-balls costs, pays advisors and outside pressure groups millions of dollars to support its decisions, and ignores the cumulative effects of its regulations on energy costs and thus on businesses, jobs and families.
Now, for the first time, someone has tallied those costs. The results are sobering.
An exhaustive study by Energy Ventures Analysis, Inc. tallies the overall effects of EPA regulations on the electric power industry and provides state-by-state summaries of the rules’ impacts on residential, industrial and overall energy users. The study found that EPA rules and energy markets will inflict $284 billion per year in extra electricity and natural gas costs in 2020, compared to its 2012 baseline year.
The typical household’s annual electricity and natural gas bills will rise 35% or $680 by 2020, compared to 2012, and will climb every year after that, as EPA regulations get more and more stringent. Median family incomes are already $2,000 lower since President Obama took office, and electricity prices have soared 14-33% in states with the most wind power – so these extra costs will exact a heavy additional toll.
Manufacturing and other businesses will be hit even harder, the study concluded. Their electricity and natural gas costs will almost double between 2012 and 2020, increasing by nearly $200 billion annually over this short period. Energy-intensive industries like aluminum, steel and chemical manufacturing will find it increasingly hard to compete in global markets, but all businesses (and their employees) will suffer.
The EVA analysis calculates that industrial electricity rates will soar by 34% in West Virginia, 59% in Maryland and New York, and a whopping 74% in Ohio. Just imagine running a factory, school district or hospital – and having to factor skyrocketing costs like that into your budget. Where do you find that extra money? How many workers or teachers do you lay off, or patients do you turn away? Can you stay open?
The CPP will also force utility companies to spend billions building new generators (mostly gas-fired, plus wind turbines), and new transmission lines, gas lines and other infrastructure. But EPA does not factor those costs into its calculations; nor does it consider the many years it will take to design, permit, engineer, finance and build those systems – and battle Big Green lawsuits over them.
How “science-based” are EPA’s regulations, really? Its mercury rule is based on computer-generated risks to hypothetical American women who eat 296 pounds of fish a year that they catch themselves, a claim that its rule will prevent a theoretical reduction in IQ test scores by an undetectable “0.00209 points,” and similar absurdities. Its PM2.5 soot standard is equivalent to having one ounce of super-fine dust spread equally in a volume of air one-half mile long, one-half mile wide and one story tall.
No wonder EPA has paid its “independent” Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee $181 million and the American Lung Association $25 million since 2000 to rubberstamp its secretive, phony “science.”
Rural America will really be walloped by the total weight of EPA’s anti-coal regulations. Nonprofit electricity cooperatives serve 42 million people in 47 states, across three-fourths of the nation’s land area. They own and maintain 42% of America’s electric distribution lines and depend heavily on coal. They have already invested countless billions retrofitting coal-fired generators with state-of-the-art emission control systems, and thus emit very few actual pollutants. (CO2 fertilizes plants; it is not a pollutant.)
EPA’s air and water rules will force these coal units to slash their electricity generation or close down long before their productive lives are over – and before replacement units and transmission lines can be built. Electricity rates in these rural areas are already higher than in urban areas, but will go much higher. Experts warn that these premature shutdowns will slash electricity “reserve margins” to almost zero in some areas, make large sections of the power grid unstable, and create high risks of rolling blackouts and cascading power outages, especially in the Texas panhandle, western Kansas and northern Arkansas.
The rules will thus put the cooperatives in violation of the Rural Electrification Act and 16 other laws that require reliable, affordable electricity for these far-flung communities. EPA’s actions are also putting rural hospitals in greater jeopardy, as they try to cope with “Affordable Care Act” rules and other burdens that have already caused numerous closings. As USA Today reported, the shuttered hospitals mean some of the nation’s poorest and sickest patients will be denied accessible, affordable care – and people suffering strokes, heart attacks and accidents will not be able to reach emergency care during their “golden hour,” meaning many of them will die or be severely and permanently disabled.
EPA never bothered to consider any of these factors. Nor has it addressed the habitat, bird, bat and other environmental impacts that tens of thousands more wind turbines will have; the “human health hazards” that wind turbines have been shown to inflict on people living near them; or the high electricity costs, notorious unreliability, and increased power grid instability associated with the wind and solar installations that EPA seems to think can quickly and magically replace the coal-based electricity it is eliminating.
Congress, state legislators and attorneys general, governors and courts need to stop these secretive, duplicitous, dictatorial Executive Branch actions. Here’s one thought. Heartland Institute Science Director Jay Lehr helped organize the panel that called for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency. In a persuasive analysis, he says it’s time now to systematically dismantle the federal EPA and replace it with a “committee of the whole” of the 50 state environmental protection agencies.
The new organization would do a far better job of protecting our air and water quality, livelihoods, living standards, health and welfare. It will listen better to We the People – and less to eco-pressure groups.
______________
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: To save the world from the save-the-Earth money machine.
Gruberization = Big Lie. Just saying.
Hey, let’s talk about Ball and Betz some more.
Ah, you mean Lt Gruber, Guy Siner’s character in the classic BBC sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo.
Seriously though, if we’re trolling then (as a Brit) may I say “the lack of economic understanding of the American voter” is a real thing.
The British voter, too.
Osborne is a hero (apparently), yet the UK Government is running a £110,000 million deficit -about 4% larger than 2013-2014.
and more cuts must come -and the spend and waste and tax Socialists are still just ahead in the polls.
And they need about 35% of the vote for a majority, yet, because the – self-anointed – fairness czars of the Lib-Dems voted against a Boundary Commission review, so the Tories, perhaps to the right of centre, mostly, will need about 41-42% to get a majority of the House of Commons.
So – economic literacy is a part, but systemic failure is another part.
Do the Dim-Lebs hate Britain that much?
Might do . . . .
Auto
Gruber might end up being a hero of mine. He’s made this obfuscation and stupidity PUBLIC and that could help.
“EPA’s latest regulatory onslaught is its “Clean Power Plan.”
Nice Clean Petrol – it has to be better:
(early 70’s Australian ad featuring hippies and flowers – and nice clean petrol)
Amoco sold only “white gas”. It had no lead since they refused to pay the exhorbitant cost of GM’s tetra ethyl lead patent. Spark plugs lasted 2 or 3 times longer with Amoco gas. Lawn mowers and chain saws really benefitted. And, of course, no lead pollution in the air. What galled me circa 1972 was the congessional hearings for eliminating lead from all gasoline. The CEOs from Ford, GM and Chrysler all testified that their cars could nor be run with unleaded gas, and thus a 10 year phase in would be needed. (Although the CEO of Honda testified that all of their vehicles were ready for lead-free gas.) The real story was that none of the other oil companies were willing to pay Amoco for using their patented lead-free secrets.
The big distributor of TEL was the Ethyl Corporation. Had double-ought nothing to do with GM.
Amoco had TEL in its regular grade gas. ‘Amoco sold only “white gas”’ is patently false.
Amoco “Premium” was unleaded “white” gas, everything else had lead in it. It looked different, as in clear, compared to Amoco “Regular” which was an off-brown color, probably due to the lead additive. There was no “mid-grade” then. I know, having worked in an Amoco service station while in College in the 60-70’s. We got a LOT of high end cars, Corvettes, Porches, Ferrais, etc. There was/is an issue with valve seats and leaded gas, but most high end cars in that age could already handle unleaded gas. As eVince stated, everything in the combustion/exhaust chain lasted much longer. This was before the lead human health issue was brought to the fore.
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
The real agenda for which CO2 reduction is the means is depopulation as is shown in this clip of Bill “Microsoft” Gates.
This is only a short clip of a hour long plus talk that he gave back in 2010. This depopulation is a direct result of UN Agenda 21 and it is being implemented right now. I have been to planning meetings and the stated goal is to complete the process by 2040.
The old co2=psec argument. Bogus is as bogus does.
Gates, having made a dizzying fortune for himself, wants most of us to die, and the rest of us to scratch out a subsistence living with sticks from barren soil in the day, and huddle in caves around dung fires at night. I guess, since the market for most of his (2nd rate, at best) products is vanishing (anybody have a “Zune”?), he has nothing to lose from that particular outcome.
It’s rather chilling to see what the ‘elites’ have planned for us, treating us like an infestation of rats. It’s a bit mind boggling to try to imagine whence they think came their wealth, which is really all they have, and why it qualifies them to tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
I don’t think it’s going to end up how they think and hope it’s going to end up, though — as I travel around the country, I detect an air of restlessness; of weariness with being told to “take our medicine”; of disgust at the “let them eat cake” attitude of bankers, billionaires and politicians; of anger with our hard-earned property being confiscated and devalued; of contempt for the sad abuse of the term ‘science’ when it is used to justify tyranny; of revulsion at the wholesale, naked and shameless corruption evident in our institutions of learning, justice and government. A period of readjustment seems at hand.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the socialist governments were to nationalize the businesses and wealth of the likes of Gates, et al ? Common place in Africa, I’m told, unless you’re the dictator in power.
Hand in hand with the process is a legal system that denies justice through delays and high cost. So long as the rich and powerful can prevail by throwing money at the legal system, freedom remains an illusion in the “land of the free”.
Alternate spellings for Gruber: Grubber, as in grubbering for public funds, and Groober, as in ‘he groobered all over himself.’
What about Grabber?
Grabber. Head boy of the School, “captane of everything” (especially “foopball”) and “winer of the mrs joyful prize for rafia work”. His parents are extremely rich and Molesworth cynically opines that Grabber “could win a brownies knitting badge for the ushual amount”.
Nigel S (or should that be M?)
There are lots of Grubers.
I think it best to keep the spelling the same: He was Grubering the American people; Grubering for public funds; he Grubered all over himself. Prof. Gruber represents his boss perfectly. People really need to understand the implications of this.
It’s open season on The Grueber. Call it the way you see it.
Gruber the grubby grabber of glittering greenbacks.
Notice how he wags his finger at the audience. Arrogant and condescending, just like his boss.
You don’t suppose the two of them are related, do you?
Naah! O’Bama is obviously Irish and Gruber sounds like it is Germainc in derivation.
(With sincer apologies to all the Irish and German people)
🙂
You don’t understand the organizational structure. The POTUS isn’t the boss. It’s like this:
The expertocracy >> Acting POTUS Jarrett >> Titular POTUS Obama.
TPOTUS is in charge.
The TelePrompter Of The United States.
Bingo. We have a winner.
According to Obama the evil gas is CO2. A prudent course of action would be to ban all air travel by the government. Including the military. Downward ho!
Actually, the culprit is O. Without combustion there would be no CO2. Ban O now. (I mean oxygen, not Obama, though perhaps the effect would be the same)
You could try denying him the oxygen of publicity.
Pretty much everything in government and media these days has been Gruberized for Your Deception. You can’t trust any official anymore because the abuse of the truth has been so flagrant and massive. Even the relatively honest ones must be scrutinized carefully.
Little ditty:
“For your deception
and your delight
we Gruber you
on the news tonight!”
Sadly, this is where we are at. Government decides what it wants to do, for whatever reasons, then pursues ways to convince the People to accept it. Anything government says should be considered propaganda. The government is no longer “for the People.”
“Just wait for the war on Argon. American voters are too stupid to realize that Argon is a noble gas and not a warlike alien planet that the military has been studying in Area 51. When people realize that welding is effectively banned we will have completed our transition back to the Stone Age, and ahead of schedule. That’s Progressivism in action”. – Jonathon Gruber
“Some folks are gonna starve” – POTUS
The real question is whether the Republicans will do anything about this beginning this January. Cut funding for the EPA? If the whitehouse can be won, will a Republican president get rid of the bureaucrats who are responsible for this mess? The last ime they were in charge they did not do any real house cleaning. Wimps? And I do not mean “weakly interacting massive particles”. They really need to grow some cojones.
“… Cut funding for the EPA…”
Exactly my thoughts too.
Better, perhaps, to decentralize the EPA, and distribute its parts to individual state control. Every state that wants one can have its own EPA.
I suspect this would be a better sale for reforming and re-structuring the EPA, than outright abolition.
I have little doubt but that with 50 systems competing for business, the devolution to regulating only real pollution and letting everything else go will happen quickly. Comparison among regulatory standards and the ensuing debate will clarify what controls are important and which are ideologically driven.
States, especially adjoining ones, could negotiate regional standards, with the studied absence of language involving interstate commerce. No sense including the Supreme Court. (I’d love to see state Supreme Courts recognizing that they’re not subservient to the US Supreme Court, and the former telling the latter to butt out of their business.)
People want prosperity, but they also want clean air and water. An honest push-pull should establish a pragmatic equilibrium.
You have hit the nail on the head. The USA is “the United States”. What has happened is that the federal government has grown out of proportion to the state and local governments, so that it no longer represents the interests of “The People”. Instead the federal government has become a parasite feeding on the Nation.
OT but the voting for Climate Prat of the Year has begun. Have your say.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2014/11/29/there-can-only-be-one/
Pointman
So many choices, so little time.
Paul Driessen has done a great service by assembling the financial facts that result from the EPA’s anti fossil fuel policies. Let’s all use these facts in comments we post on news websites, in any talks we get to give, in letters in the editor, in personal debates and discussions. Talking among ourselves here on WUWT and other skeptical websites is fun, but contributes little in the battle to correct the bad science. Please help. Here are my excerpted fact lines:
>The actions of the EPA will increase electricity and natural gas costs by $284 billion per year by 2020,
>The typical household’s annual electricity and natural gas bills will rise 35% or $680 by 2020,
>Industrial electricity rates will soar by 34% in West Virginia, 59% in Maryland and New York, and a whopping 74% in Ohio.
The impact of all of this on the lives of the average family will be huge. Money that might be used for health care or education or food will be going to pay for electricity and gasoline. Our kids lives will be damaged as a result.
We need to fight with facts and emotional appeal to win this battle in public opinion. Lets all try to email these facts to the newspapers and television stations in our communities.
And lets be sure we also email these facts to our Congress people and Senators.
These aren’t “financial facts”…They are financial fantasies produced by a consulting firm working for Peabody Energy (as is clearly stated on page 2 of the study). And, the history of such predictions of costs of environmental regulations by industry is that they wildly overestimate the costs. (The history shows that the EPA itself also tends to overestimate the costs, but less wildly.)
And, the main reason for these wild overestimates is that those who regale us with tales of the virtues of free markets produce cost estimates that somehow imagine that markets become impotent in the face of any regulation and hence do not find cost-effective solutions. This selective belief in markets would kind of amusing…if it were not so ideologically convenient and produce so much pernicious nonsense for people like John Coleman to spread.
Here’s are a few leads into the literature about the overestimates of the cost of environmental regulation:
http://prospect.org/article/behind-numbers-polluted-data
http://www.wri.org/blog/2010/11/epa-regulations-cost-predictions-are-overstated
“The history shows that the EPA itself also tends to overestimate the costs, but less wildly”
=====================================================================================
Can’t let that remark pass unchallenged. In my experience of 30 years of working with mobile source EPA regulations, the EPA always grossly underestimates the cost of complying with their regulations, and grossly overestimates the benefits (financial and otherwise) of the regulation.
I’ll give you financial facts. I lived in Ohio, specifically south of Cleveland. When we moved there 5 years ago, our electric rate was $60 a month. No air conditioning needed and gas used for heat. When we left 3 months ago, our electric bill was $160 a month for two people…$50 was actual for actual wattage, the rest were fees, transportation fees, transmission lines fees, carrier fees, electric pollution fees, import fees from Canada and our rate per watts was triple what it was when we moved there.
After closing down 19 plants, our electric is brought in from Canada.
So YOU TELL ME WHAT THE F choice , in YOUR WORDS, cost-effective solutions? HMMM? could it possibly be the STUPIDITY of spending $93 million in putting wind generators on Lake Erie lol and watch them freeze up.
So what is your alternative that is currently available? Unicorn dust? I’m only saying cause we both lost our jobs to stupidity. lost our healthcare, lost our homes, retirement, healthcare, savings. So how healthy do YOU think we are going to be NOW?
DO YOU THINK THEY ADDED MY costs to their estimates? I doubt it. And I doubt EPA even considered it in their cost assessment they were SUPPOSED to do.
Here an email I just sent.
Dear Union Tribute science and environmental reporters,
EPA’s latest regulatory plan is the “Clean Power Plan.” It will limit the emission of carbon dioxide to the extent it will eventual shutdown all coal fired power plants in the United States. There is no scientific evidence that this will have any meaningful impact on global warming or climate change. However it will have a huge impact in our lives:
>The actions of the EPA will increase electricity and natural gas costs by $284 billion per year by 2020,
>The typical household’s annual electricity and natural gas bills will rise 35% or $680 by 2020,
>Industrial electricity rates will soar by 34% in West Virginia, 59% in Maryland and New York, and a whopping 74% in Ohio.
The impact of all of this on the lives of the average family will be huge. Money that might be used for health care or education or food will be going to pay for electricity and gasoline. Our youngsters lives will be seriously damaged as a result.
John Coleman
I have sent one as well.
Do not underestimate the hubris, incompetence and waste a bureaucrat is capable of if given authority.
Too true, Alx.
Unchecked, a bureaucrat serves the bureaucracy, not the democracy.
There is a very simple way to bring the bureaucracy in line with the needs of the nation. Tie the funding of the bureaucracy directly to an independent measure of GDP and the bureaucracy will have no option but to make sure that the nation prospers.
The single most important tool in controlling a bureaucrat is funding. Congress, not the president controls the purse stings. If Congress sets funding of the federal government to say 20% of GDP (it is currently 40%!), the bureaucrats can either grow the economy, and thereby provide provide jobs and prosperity for the nation, or they can lose their jobs and position. The choice becomes their responsibility.
Exactly. Except some tard decided that the printing of the dollar could be tied to future GDP earnings and growth. So they printed day and night to erase debt spending and handouts to best friends in high places.
It has to be tied to current GDP.
One of the great ironies of history. Environmentalists demanding CO2 be prevented from being added to Earth’s atmosphere.
CO2 is far more than mere “fertilizer”
All life on Earth is dependent on photosynthesis for food.
Solar energy + water + CO2 = life
Only a politician would declare CO2 to be pollution
Only a crooked politician would resort to pseudoscientific diversion, use of argument from authority and post hoc, ergo propter hoc argument, and refuse to encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
I’d wager others can add to the list of red flags ‘The Baloney Detector’ spews.
Thank you for pointing to this summary. I knew it was bad, but not this bad.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
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EPA, the most dangerous thing on earth.
Don’t forget that we live in the cleanest environment in over a century, even according to EPA’s own data. We are not fouling our nest. At this point, we are just harming the poorest among us. Stop the EPA.
In 2013, during a Google Plus “Fireside” Hangout, President Obama said, “This is the most transparent administration in history.” About that same time, Gruber was privately admitting, “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage.” Certainly, there’s a disconnect between what this administration says publicly and what they say and do privately. That seems to be the case in everything he does, from Obamacare and the IRS to the EPA.
It is telling that the President’s 2009 memo on “Transparency and Open Government,” where Obama committed to an “unprecedented” level of openness, ended with a legal disclaimer. The disclaimer said, “This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.”
Obviously, the President did not want to be bound to his commitment of transparency in any way. It was all just for public consumption. What does it say when a president tells us publicly, “Openness will strengthen our democracy,” but privately does everything he can to work against transparency and hide information for his own political advantage? Isn’t he saying that he couldn’t care less about strengthening our democracy? Isn’t he saying that deceiving the public to pass an agenda is more important than the people’s right to know? Obama began his presidency with the promise that “Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.” Sadly, it is now clear that the very opposite of “transparency and the rule of law” will become his legacy.
But don’t you know – it is for the common good – just ask Jonny Goober.
Unprecedented “bread & circuses”!
So many people have told me that the climate issue is of no interest to them. The media is maliciously silent on the aspects of economic hardship in a green society.
The media is maliciously silent because they’ve taken sides with the greens. They’re all in. And they know that a “lack of transparency” on the aspects of economic hardship is a huge political advantage for advancing the green agenda. They’re convinced that economic hardship is worth it. But they also know that the majority would not agree with them if they knew the details, so they remain silent on those aspects.
The media takes sides with whatever the owners of the media think, and that is highly influenced by monetary relationships.
Federal Enviro-Whakko-ism works hand-in-glove with their comrade true-believers and partners in crime the Enviro-Whakko Groups – the EWG is actively solicited to sue the EPA or other Fed Regulatory Agency and then the case is settled out of court on the terms mutually beloved by both
This works especially well when the Federal bureaucrat’s Enviro-Whakko-ism is aided and abetted by fellow travelers in the media and even in the corporate world all of whom may have graduated from the same university teaching the Neo-Malthusian Catechism of Paul Ehrlich1 and his disciples such as Presidential Science Advisor, John Holdren2.
Case in point — 2 large, aging, but some of the most economical and efficient producers of electricity in Massachusetts: the Salem Harbor and Brayton Point coal fired power plants
Players in the game:
1) EPA — filled with Paul Ehrlich Neo-Malthusians
2) Conservation Law Foundation3 — New England’s premier Enviro-Whakko Group originally founded in 1966 to oppose a ski resort on a mountain top — now dedicated to the complete destruction of modern industrial society
3) Power Plant operators such as Brayton Point LLC
4) Footprint Power4 — Potential Builder of new natural gas plant at site of Salem Harbor
State Regulators
Local Town bureaucrats
Independent System Operator New England — responsible for keeping the lights on
Everyone Else dependent on a reliable electrical grid
Here’s an excerpt from “Owner reaffirms 2017 closing of Brayton Point plant:
Loss of coal-fired facility, one of state’s dirtiest generators, may raise prices”
Published by the Boston Globe in January 2014 – not exactly one to criticize the EPA, etc.
By Erin Ailworth GLOBE STAFF JANUARY 27, 2014
The owner of Brayton Point power plant in Somerset said Monday it will retire the coal-fired facility as planned in 2017 — a closure that industry officials said could mean higher electricity prices for consumers and, in the worst cases, power shortages.
Brayton Point is one of three large New England plants shutting down over the next few years, which has raised concerns by the region’s power grid operator, ISO New England, about meeting the demand for electricity. Last month, ISO New England determined that Brayton, one of the largest generators of electricity in New England, is needed to help meet demand and asked its owner to keep the plant running beyond 2017.
…Brayton Point Energy LLC said “It is a very unfortunate and difficult reality that Brayton Point is an aging coal power plant under growing economic pressures,”
Brayton’s shutdown could lead to higher electric bills for households and businesses as the costs of building new plants and transmission facilities to replace the old plant are passed along to customers.
“We are starting to pay for some of the older resources to go away,” said Dan Dolan, president of the New England Power Generators Association, a trade group.
ISO New England officials offered assurances about its ability to keep the lights on without Brayton. “We are already working to develop solutions that can address the reliability concerns,” spokeswoman Marcia Blomberg said in a statement.
ISO is planning for the retirement of several plants in the region, including the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant in Vernon, Vt., and Salem Harbor Power Station, another coal-fired plant. The Salem plant, which will shut down this summer, is scheduled to be replaced by a natural gas-fired plant in 2016.
The region’s biggest utilities, National Grid and Northeast Utilities, are expected to add nearly 75 miles of electric transmission lines in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts by late 2015, which would help meet some of the expected demand for electricity, by improving efficiency and easing energy bottlenecks.
The project has approvals in Connecticut and Rhode Island, but is still awaiting a decision in Massachusetts.
The question is whether these projects can be completed on time. The Salem natural gas project has been challenged in court by environmentalists, while transmission lines frequently spark opposition…..]”5
Finally, since New England is now highly dependent on Natural Gas pipelines for both its electricity and much of the residential and commercial heating — the stress on the pipelines has become critical. Of course, plans by pipeline companies to bring in additional supplies are being challenged by EWG and also plain old NIMBYism.
“The end of the coal era in Massachusetts
By Erin Ailworth GLOBE STAFF JUNE 18, 2014
The shutdown of the Mt. Tom power plant in Holyoke earlier this month signals the end of decades of using coal for generating electricity in Massachusetts.
Mt. Tom, which stopped operating as of June 2, will officially close by October, the last of the state’s three coal plants to schedule a permanent shutdown. Salem Harbor Power Station in Salem closed, as previously planned, onJune 1, while Brayton Point in Somerset is scheduled to stop operating in 2017…..
Today, natural gas generates nearly two-thirds of the state’s electricity, but the growing reliance on gas has become a concern to New England energy officials. Pipelines that transport the gas don’t always have enough capacity to handle the demand for the fuel, leading to temporary shortages and spikes in wholesale prices….
Energy officials worry that the problem will get worse as demand for natural gas grows. Salem Harbor’s owner, for example, plans to replace the coal plant with a natural gas-fired facility.
New or expanded pipelines could ease the problem, but they are controversial in the communities they would cross. Environmentalists also question whether substituting one fossil fuel for another is the best way to attack climate change, which is becoming a greater threat…..
“For the state, for the administration, it’s an opportunity because obviously the [plant] retirements are good for meeting our targets for global warming pollution,” said Claire B.W. Miller, state director for the Toxics Action Center, a regional group advocating for clean air and water.
Brian Kenney, business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 455, which represents most of Mt. Tom’s employees, said anyone advocating for the end of coal is being shortsighted.
The Mt. Tom coal-fired power plant in Holyoke was shut down on June 2.
“I have got to believe that there is a place in the industry for coal,” Kenney said. “By allowing these plants to close, I think they’re really jeopardizing keeping the lights on.””6
SALEM — The new Footprint power plant may open for business later than expected.
By Neil H. Dempsey Salem News Staff Writer | Posted: Wednesday, October 8, 2014 11:15 pm
Footprint is building a natural gas-fired plant on the site [Salem Harbor] and has requested a one-year delay in its obligation to start providing electricity [from June 1, 2016 the original date to June 1, 2017]
……That’s a full year after Footprint originally wanted — and is currently required — to have the natural gas-fired plant online. The company says it needs the extra time because a permit appeal filed by four area residents held up financing for the $1 billion project — and that without the delay, the plant can’t be built……
Although the company also faced a serious legal challenge mounted by the Conservation Law Foundation — that lawsuit was settled early this year — Footprint said in its application that the need for a delay was caused specifically by an “entirely meritless” appeal of a state permit filed in March by residents Linda Haley, Andrea Celestine, William Dearstyne and Jeff Brooks.
….The group behind the appeal made no secret of opposing the incoming plant on the basis that it would run off a fossil fuel and noted that even a gas-fired plant comes with significant pollution and explosion risks.
An appeals board denied their petition, but not until last month, six months after it was filed.
…..The company also alleged that those people behind the appeal had filed it simply to delay the project, knowing that a delay could push Footprint beyond its tight timeline requirements and effectively kill the whole thing.
“It ultimately became clear that these appellants were relying on the very market rules that were intended to ensure that new merchant generation was built in New England to instead reward their delay tactics,” Footprint wrote. “Opponents of new infrastructure have realized that, under these tight deadlines, delay may be the only weapon they need to kill a new project.”
“Any motivated individual can very easily litigate a project to death — needing nothing more than delay to succeed.”
“Of course we did not petition for review of the air permit just to delay the project,” she [Haley] said in an email. “If we have to have a polluting gas plant on Salem Harbor for the next 35 or 40 years, we prefer it be the least dangerous to public health and the environment as possible. We believed, and still do, that the permitting process was flawed.”
,,,,, “I think it’s fair to draw the conclusion that the hope was that delays would kill the project,” Silverstein said.
Both Brooks and Haley have indicated that they are exploring what further legal measures they might take to stop the plant, but they haven’t disclosed any options.
ISO-New England, the regional grid operator, was recently successful in petitioning FERC to create the process that would allow companies in situations like Footprint’s — where plans were delayed by “reasons outside of its control” — to delay their obligation to be capable of supplying power to the grid. Footprint is now applying for consideration under that new rule.
FERC is expected to rule on Footprint’s request within 60 days, or by early December.”7
The end result of the conspiracy to delay building the FP replacement in Salem is that ISO New England is now concerned about the grid reliability “the project is considered by ISO to be a necessity for the Boston/North Shore region. ISO projects a shortfall for the region by June 2016, and a shortfall for all of New England as soon as the following year “8
Sometime in the summer of 2016 on a particularly hot day, New England may fall so short of generation that imports of power from Canada and the Middle Atlantic may be insufficient to prevent rolling blackouts. This would be particularly likely if there was an unplanned outage of one of the other power plants.
[img]http://c.o0bg.com/rf/pdf_371w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/06/18/BostonGlobe.com/Business/Graphics/coalpowergrfx.jpg[.img]
1 lecture on overpopulation at the Commonwealth Club was broadcast on the radio in April 1967 and of course Ehrlich, Paul R. (1968). The Population Bomb. Ballantine Books.
2 Paul R. Erlich and John P. Holdren. “Population and Panaceas A Technological Perspective”, Bioscience, Vol 19, pages 1065-1071, 1969; Holdren, John P. (1973). “Population and the American Predicament: The Case Against Complacency”. Daedalus, the No-Growth Society: 31–44. ISBN 978-0-7130-0136-5.
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_Law_Foundation
4 “independent power industry veterans,….concerned citizens, deeply committed to our planet’s future and to doing what we can to reverse our industry’s impact on the global community…..Footprint Power is dedicated to helping owners of older coal- and oil-fired power plants – and the communities that host them – transition these facilities and sites to other productive purposes.” http://www.footprintpower.com/
5 http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/01/27/must-run-coal-plant-shut-down/O7YN3tbgFvxVEdxBgM8siM/story.html
6 http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/06/17/the-end-coal-era-massachusetts/QMqSUxb9wPe8WNL1Ys0goM/story.html
7 http://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/footprint-power-plant-owner-requests-delayed-opening/article_46432923-bf78-5c42-a3d6-fc6919dfe039.html
8 http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mass_roundup/2014/07/grid-overseer-seeks-federal-help-to-keep-plans-for.html?page=all
9 source of image http://c.o0bg.com/rf/pdf_371w/Boston/2011-2020/2014/06/18/BostonGlobe.com/Business/Graphics/coalpowergrfx.jpg
I certainly hope that you submit this information to the EPA as comments to the proposed rule.
Perhaps it would help to get a printed copy of the EPA regulations. Burning the paper might be the only way to stay warm over the winter.
I have a copy of this proposal, as well as the other 4 related ones (NSPS, mod and recon, the NODA, and the supplemental). Plenty of fuel if needed, but my point was to submit comments to the EPA about the proposal. They are supposed to consider all comments, and good reasoned arguments against the proposal may influence the final rule. When all else fails, try working the system.
If you think that coal power is the only power producing sector under attack from the EPA I will supply you an update. The gas turbine manufacturers have been under attack from the EPA since the late 1980’s. Their push towards gas turbine emissions was NOX reduction in the exhaust. A typical natural gas fired simple cycle high emission rated turbine will produce anywhere from 250 PPM to 350 PPM NOX at full load. Since the 1980’s the turbine manufacturers have used a number of designs and methods to reduce this to around 10 PPM to 15 PPM. The cost of these designs and changes was passed on to the turbine users in the form of higher costs and lower reliability. The difference in cost from a simple cycle machine to a low NOX unit is almost 1/3 more for the low NOX unit. If you look at the rest of the world outside of North America and Europe you do not need to use Low NOX equipment.
The new regulations been forced onto the Turbine manufactures by the EPA in recent years is demanding that these Low NOX units reach between 3 PPM to 5 PPM. That step in reduction is impossible without using auxiliary scrubbing technology IE anhydrous exhaust scrubbers similar to diesel vehicles but on a much bigger scale. The biggest problem with this technology is the spent scrubbing fluid becomes a toxic waste with its own disposal problems. Again the costs of operation increase dramatically for little gain. Other nasty products of combustion start to show themselves at these lower NOX numbers IE Formaldehyde was one of note.
The EPA has shown little or no regard for costs or problems to attain their newest levels. For the EPA there is no lower limit to their rules and just pushing the numbers downward is an easy stroke of the pen.
Common sense says that sometimes 10 PPM should be good enough but not to the EPA where it seems all they know is “How low can we go”.
Reblogged this on Public Secrets and commented:
Shoot, we know they think we’re children who need to be lied to in order to pass the healthcare legislation they (and no one else) wanted, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the same is true with environmentalism, too.
“Animal Farm” A good read at this time.
Paul
1984 also comes to mind.
The lesson that will be learned eventually, is that business has a much faster turnaround than government bureaucracy. Looking ahead in their 5 to 20 year plans, would any business build an energy intensive factory in a place where it is projected that energy costs will double compared to other locations? It doesn’t take much analysis to check fixed costs versus operating costs and suddenly a factory becomes a distribution warehouse. And all that machinery doesn’t even need to be replaced, just load it on trucks/trains/boats and suddenly there is a new factory in a low energy, low capital cost, low labour cost location. In today’s small world, that goes for everything from manufacturing to engineering. The EPA plan amounts to shipping jobs out of the US. I wonder how long it will take for the penny to drop? And with oil at $65 a barrel, imaging how efficiently plastics can be manufactured in low cost locations. Will people even be able to afford to buy products if there is no secondary industry left?
The EPA plan amounts to shipping jobs out of the US.
==================
One only need visit China to see the truth in this. China is booming. Everywhere there is massive construction ongoing. Then visit Detroit. Then ask yourself if the Federal government is truly serving the interests of “The People of the United States”
Coal use is rising rapidly world-wide, such that by 2020 it will overtake oil as the number 1 fuel on the planet. If the US burns less coal in its power plants, that will drop coal prices globally, making it cheaper for China and India to burn US coal in their factories and power plants, while at the same time US energy prices will be forced upwards. This will simply make Chinese and Indian products less expensive, and US products more expensive. The US will lose even more jobs to Chine and India.
The recent Chinese “agreement” with the US, that China can continue to emit as much as it wants until 2030, means that the Chinese now have a green light to grow their emissions without any limits, regardless of what happens at the 2015 CO2 conference. While at the same time, the Chinese are now free to insist that the US and EU provide hundreds of billions in climate reparations to the developing world.
The Chinese have outsmarted the US, and bought themselves at least 15 more years of unchecked growth by which time they will bury the US economically. The World Bank will soon be competing with the Chinese version, limiting US political influence via economics. When Africa or India needs a new coal plant the Chinese will provide the financing, where the world Bank will only finance wind-mills and solar power. And China will gain the financial benefits, the better returns from coal versus wind and solar.
Anyone that thinks the Chinese will suddenly limit their emissions in 2030 because of any agreement made today are naive. The Chinese in 2030 will do what is in their best interest in 2030. Agreements made in 2014 will simply be ignored. Who will “make” the Chinese to do otherwise?
Increased exports of US coal to India and China due to reduced prices due to lower domestic consumption means that switching US power to production to NG will have no impact on total CO2 production world-wide.
You cannot limit CO2 globally but shutting down coal use in the US. China and the rest of the world will simply take advantage of the lower US prices for coal to boost their own coal use.
Since China has now gained a “get out of jail free” card from the US, such that they can grow their emissions unchecked until at least 2030, the Chinese will simply import more low cost US coal to continue to expand their economy and global strength.
The rest of the developed world need not curb their emissions before 2030, now that the US has agreed that China need not curb its emissions before 2030.
How can the US or EU argue that countries less developed than China meet more aggressive targets than China? Unless of course the US and EU pour in billions of dollars – money they can promise – but money they do not have – and thus will be nothing more than hollow promises.
Don’t forget Lisa Jackson (aka Richard Winsor)
She ran the EPA and gave the Secret Agent free reign.
John Beale was sent to jail but all of the lies stand as laws, rules and regulations.
What laws, rules and regulations did Beale and Jackson falsify to hide their true agenda?
Everything Jackson and Beale touched should be stopped until an independent investigation.
Same with all IRS rules and Lois Learner lies.
They all lie, cheat and steal.
Just ask Al Gore or Peter Gleick, for examples.
“Let no crisis go to waste” Rahm Emanuel- corollary to this theorem is; “if there is no crisis create one”. All of the shuttering of coal fired electrical power generation is purposely intended to create an “energy crisis”. Add the closure of Yucca Mountain-no new nuclear power and the only viable substitute for electrical generation will be natural gas, whose economic viability is a minimum of around $8/mmbtu. There has been no significant drilling in “shale gas” in several years and the deliverability of these wells declines dramatically, so the probability exists that the supply may not be available. This offers a photo-op of frozen grandmas to be paraded followed by senatorial show trials , whose pre-ordained solution will be more government to the repair failure of the free market to secure the “public good”.
The EPA’s ever stringent rules are affecting not just electricity generation capabilities but the things we use in our homes every day.
We recently purchased a new electric range and thought we could use it in much the same way as the old one. In order to comply with strict electrical consumption codes, codes that are compulsory and without exception, the modern range has some bizarre features. When you turn the oven on the temperature level you desire is automatically reduced by 25 degrees F.
I phoned the help desk of the manufacturer to ask if it was possible to override this feature.
After a pregnant pause the woman came back on the line and told me it was designed that way.
So if directions on a pizza box says 400 degrees for 20 minutes I will be required to set the oven at 425 in order to have 400?, I inquired.
Yes sir that is correct.
I told her that a 12 year old must have designed it that way and she agreed with me.
The oven no longer has an automatic pre-heat feature so when you are baking cookies an extra step is required to heat the oven.
It does have an energy saving feature where you can turn off the digital display. Imagine the power saved with that feature.
When directing companies on the way they can design their products, has Big Green become so powerful they think they can re-write the laws of heat transfer?
What other conclusion is possible?
Is there any info out there as to what date the last of the conscientiously credible scientists resigned from the EPA?
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be impolite, but I can’t find anything about this on Google, although the URL below suggests that, in general, the temp control is just not that good on most stoves
Can you provide a ref for this ?
thanks
http://www.thermoworks.com/blog/2014/11/thermal-secrets-oven-calibration/
Reblogged this on SiriusCoffee and commented:
The title should be:”EPA Rolls Back Human Health, Safety, and Prosperity”.
A new but eternal verity:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/peter-gleick-confesses-to-obtaining-heartland-documents-under-false-pretenses/253395/
“After you have convinced people that you fervently believe your cause to be more important than telling the truth, you’ve lost the power to convince them of anything else.”
Sadly but also eternally true: “You can fool all the people some of the time; and you can fool some of the people all of the time…” and the lag time before all of the people become fully aware, all of the time, that they have been so fooled is a critical factor in the civic equation.
Thanks, Paul Driessen. Well said.
slightly O/T but if anyone interested I have lot of the gruber videos self hosted here
http://www.theconservativevoices.com/media/cat/political/gruber/
are you ready to apologize for your EPA shark jump argon post back in october ?
I mean, really, the truth is out their
http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/270917/speedreads-no-the-epa-is-not-banning-argon
and it is totally not what you wrote
As a liberal, I have a question for you conservatives:
Is Gruber the only person in the last 50 years to be an arrogant, well paid jerk in DC ?
Is ACA the only law passed with some sort of sleaze to fool people ?
Havn’t any of you read Mencken ? Or G Myers History of Bigotry in the United States ? (in the late 1800s, the American Protective Association forged what was supposed to be a Papal encylical that urge American Catholics to murder the heretics; this elders of zionish forgery was widely published, and many people acted on it)
Do any of you recall how multiple GOP/bush tax cuts were passed as “temporary” cuts to avoid CBO scoring rules ?
Or we create our own reality/mission accomplished ?
I mean, I give you points for trying to fool the rubes, but surely anyone with an IQ in double digits knows that Gruber is pretty typical ??
CinamonColber asks “As a liberal, I have a question for you conservatives:
Is Gruber the only person in the last 50 years to be an arrogant, well paid jerk in DC ?”
Hi Cin,
As a conservative, I see the problem is only half the arrogant well-paid jerks in D.C. or other western capitols get timely scrutiny. One side takes a pass, the other side must scale the walls under heavy fire. Taking UK as an example somewhat neutral to both you and I and other US political animals, why was Tony Blair (of the Liberal Party there) so closely reviewed for his “sexed-up” intelligence reports? And so belatedly? Our representative and independently paid investigators in the press are failing report –not only the answers, which frankly might be wrong — but are failing to report the QUESTIONS on matters of significant importance to world events. But only if these investigators feel that the matter has been settled in a fashion that suits their biases, and that questions would aid and comfort the remaining and reactionary forces in opposition. Had the intelligence info on Iraq in the early 2000’s been “DE-sexed”, to indicate a lesser problem than the former consensus, the media would have not dug into the matter. Only because the data –as presented– surprised and confounded their presumptions did the media decide to aggressively and skeptically pursue the quants and grunts and wonks in the bureaucracy who had contributed to the reports.
This is true, in my conservative estimation, in every nation with a more or less free press. The press is aggressively skeptical of only one side of a matter. And THAT is problem whether it regards health care, gun control, environmental policy, tariffs, educational funding, voting rights, community policing priorities…
I would expect you, as a liberal, to champion an aggressive “watch dog” press. Am I wrong in that expectation?
you are correct that the press, with all its failings, should investigate all sides equally
There must be something wrong, cause I agree that only half the jerks take fire, but I bet dollars to donuts you and i disagree which half…
I start off with the assumption that the Sturgeon’s rule applys to the press; they aren’t as good as we think.
‘
You cite
“health care, gun control, environmental policy, tariffs, educational funding, voting rights, community policing priorities…”
I could say, well, I dunno, I could find a list of things…
The trouble is, I don’t think there is an objective way to ask, is the press favoring one side or another; certainly, all the historys suggest that the press loved JFK and hated Nixon, but that seems to have been a personality thing – afaik
I think if you look at recent history, starting with Clinton thru Bush II and Obama, both sides have gotten a lot of flak, but , again, I’m not sure how you rate this
For instance, for me, Bushs dragging us into the Iraq war on false pretenses (I don’t know if he lied or was mis informed) is bigger then ACA, by a lot – but, I know a lot of conservatives dis agree.
I don’t know how to settle this, if you have any ideas, I’m all ears.
PS: I’m sorry if my answer is a little incoherent; my apologies
I bet dollars to doughnuts that there are DNC elites that think the same thing about their base (they are stupid) regarding climate change as they do about their base on Obamacare.
@cinnamoncolbert 2:42.
Who are these conservatives you address?
And your point is?
Lying is OK cause thats how it works?
Or Gruber is Ok cause .. George Bush?
my point is, outrage about Gruber is hypocritical without noting that similar things occur on a regular basis; that is, outrage that implies that this is some highly unusual event is hypocritical; outrage tht this is another in a long series of similar events is fine
To put it another way, outrage about duping the public about ACA is fine, so long as there is outrage about WMDS/Iraq war, or selling tax cuts with sunset provisions to avoid cbo scoring (you can of course, have more or less outrage about these events; me presonally, I think WMDs/Iraq 4,000 dead kids, a trillion bucks down the drain is at least equal to gruber, but taste varies)
how many republicans in the US lost their jobs (primaried out) since 2008?
many.
many of us don’t give free passes to anyone.
People around the world are FINALLY starting to wake up to the reality that gigantic leftist government models of central command and control societies don’t work.
“Gruberization” used to be called government propaganda, but tyranny by any other name, still smells like….BS…
Gigantic government bureaucracies have managed to delay complete catastrophe by running up $100’s of trillions of national debt and unfunded liabilities for future generations to bear, but the numbers are no longer tenable.
CAGW is simply a manifestation of leftist ideology of global central command and control, but this too shall pass, as the numbers are no longer tenable for CAGW as well.
It’s no coincidence that CAGW models and Leftist government models are collapsing at the same time, as both constructs are built upon the same failed ideological principles of central command and control, and both have been perpetuated by: huge leftist government bureaucracies, leftist academia, leftist advocacy organizations and a leftist MSM.
Reality will eventually disconfirm both the CAGW hypothesis and Leftist government ideologies. The only question is whether the denouement will occur through catastrophic economic and societal collapse or through a less traumatic structured transition. Either way, people will eventually work to restore a system of very limited government with it’s sole purpose being the protection of an individual’s rights to life, liberty and property.
Where do you go when truth becomes the enemy? /
Cinnamoncolbert
This is what my manual says downloaded from Whirlpool Corp.
NOTE: The oven door must be closed for convection broiling.
TimeSavor™ Plus Convection
When convection baking, broiling or roasting enter your normal
baking temperature. The control will automatically reduce the set
oven temperature by 25°F (15°C).
So the EPA is not involved ?
this is a whirlpool thing having to do with the calibration of cooking times in this particular oven ?
That is, for some reason this oven is “better” so a temp of , say 300 in a normal oven is equal to 275 in this oven ?
I mean, I work industry, and i can easily see this scenario, boneheaded as it seems…
In any event, my thanks for the polite response
‘300 in a normal oven is equal to 275 in this oven’
No. Heat transfer calculations will show you that is not possible. The engineers at Whirlpool likely told the designers the truth but ‘green’ trumps math. That was my point.
Is to possible
many reasons
say, where do they measure the temp ? I guess oven hotter at top; if whirlpool moved the thermostat sensor down in the oven chamber, it would be colder then std, etc
Maybe it warms up faster, and in the real world people put cold stuff in a cold oven, so for a one hour use, that 10 or 15 minutes of warmup is actually significant
Maybe the peak to valley in the controller is lower
etc
Heat transfer is more efficient with moving than still air. Cooling or heating.