Obama Uses EPA to Shut Down More Energy and Jobs

The Environmental Protection Agency’s new Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, announced last month, will affect coal-fired electric plants in at least 27 midwestern and eastern states. Set to take effect next year, the rule could shutter up to a fifth of the nation’s generating capacity. _NYP

New EPA rules define carbon dioxide as a pollutant. This erroneous definition allows the US government agency to adopt drastic and economically damaging new emission rules. The destructive new rules are driven by high-level carbon hysteria -- the fear of carbon dioxide. They are also driven by the antipathy of Mr. Obama and his administration toward coal, and toward large scale energy consumption of US society in general.

Mr. Obama has always intended to bankrupt coal plants and coal mines, forcing them to shut down and fire workers. The short video above is from a campaign appearance in San Francisco, appealing for funding from wealthy backers with faux environmentalist tnedencies.

If these regulations were actually about coal-caused pollution, many of the plants which are due to be shut down could be converted to burning torrefied biomass -- as opposed to conventional biomass -- at minimal or no cost of conversion.

“If you have a 500-MW plant, to retrofit it to also use wood pellets would cost about $300 million,” Morihara says. “If you use torrefied biomass, there is no retrofitting cost. For its Btu content, torrefied biomass may cost 20 percent more, but it has 20 percent more energy so the cost is actually very similar.” _Biomass

A large number of coal plants in Europe are beginning to use torrefied biomass, as well as cofiring conventional biomass with coal. US plants are ramping up experience to do the same. But the impetuous plant closings by the EPA, with the consequent energy shortages, price increases, and economic slowdowns which will result, will make it more difficult to transition to biomass and torrefied biomass. How much easier if the EPA had cooperated with industry to facilitate a smooth transition?

In other words, if the EPA rules and regulations were about cleaning the environment and reducing coal burning, the EPA could have scheduled the rules to allow the biomass and torrefaction industries to scale up to displace coal consumption.