The Biden administration released a major climate regulation aimed at virtually eliminating carbon emissions from coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels and a driver of global warming. The Biden administration has effectively moved to end the use of coal to keep the lights on in America. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency released four major regulations designed to slash multiple forms of toxic and planet-warming pollution from coal-fired power plants, the nation’s dirtiest source of electricity. The most consequential of the new rules is aimed at nearly eliminating carbon dioxide emissions from the coal plants. The other three rules would cut the emission of mercury, a neurotoxin linked to developmental damage in children; restrict the seepage of toxic ash from coal plants into water supplies; and reduce the discharge of wastewater from the plants. Once implemented, the rules are widely expected to result in the shuttering of nearly all the nation’s remaining coal plants by 2040. Here’s what to know about President Biden’s new moves to clean up coal power. Are the New Rules a Big Deal? In a word, yes. Electric utilities have already had to comply for decades with other environmental regulations. They have forced operators of coal plants to install technology like “scrubbers” to remove toxins, like mercury, or to invest in safer ways to dispose of coal ash and wastewater from their facilities. But the new standards areby far the most sweeping, and the industry says they are impossible to meet. There is no widely used technology available to substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plant smokestacks. There is one very expensive technique, called carbon capture and sequestration, where emissions are trapped before they reach the atmosphere and are stored underground. But that process has never been deployed in any coal plant in the United States. The cheapest way to comply may be to just... |